叫んでも聞こえないこの声

Hearts in my watch

Looking back on me four years ago, I was a pretty stupid kid. I expect that, looking back four years from now, I will see the current me as a pretty stupid kid. And I suppose that's how it'll go, every so often looking back and thinking "Wow, I was a pretty stupid kid." Except I'm not (as much of) a kid anymore. I can't write it off being stupid to being a kid, saying "it's okay kids are supposed to do stupid things."

But everything looks silly in 20/20 hindsight.

So just let it go, man. Just let it go. It's like a reminder of what that bum said to me a year or so ago: "Just keep getting your game on. Speak no ill, and just game on." Keep dancing, keep moving to the rhythm of life, just gotta keep on dancing. When a friend of mine first told me to read Dance Dance Dance, saying that it changed his life, I didn't really understand what he meant. After reading it, I still didn't really understand what he meant. But having been given time to let it sink in, it really clicks now. And really, it seems like having read that book is changing my life too.

I find that I've been telling myself lately not to close my heart. That no matter what else I may do, don't close the heart. Don't shut out the rest of the world. Don't turn inwards and forget about all that is outside. There's a time for introspection and reflection, but that doesn't mean tuning out everything and everyone who matters to you, and to whom you matter to.

Watching the clock tick. Each moment slipping by. I should be trying to grasp on to every moment that I can, and I find that when I'm doing my work, coding in parameters for the combinatoric logic in my chip designs and writing testbenches to make sure the synthesized versions are working properly my fingers fly to try and make the most of every moment, trying to get work done as quickly as possible.

So why is it that as soon as I'm not working I just don't care?

It's amazing how approximately 20% of my life accounts for 95% of my problems. I wonder what it says about the quality of the good in that 20% to make it worth the trouble of that 95% of my problems (and they're usually the problems that hit me hardest, but that's how it goes).

But enough. I've two weeks to do approximately thirty weeks' worth of work. Time to actually apply myself instead of simply drifting to and fro.

On a sidenote, I've been thinking maybe I should take up 80 hour work weeks or something one day. It seems that's mostly what I've been doing for the past year or two now, up and at em at 8am and home around midnight. I could even drop it to 60 hours/week and then I'd be able to go home at 8pm instead and have some me-time (it's a lot easier to do than you might think, those four hours make a world of difference). I'd make a mad amount of extra money from overtime if the company was willing to pay me for my time, and since I tend to do the same sort of thing I do at work when I go home I might as well be paid for it. I go to lab, I write code and work with hardware...I go home and write some other code. Work is play.

All things considered, I've really got no right to complain about anything in my life. My parents support just about everything I do (or at least, let me do things on my own). My two knucklehead brothers are doing well, hopefully will be getting some good news in a month or two. School's a relatively calm thing, I'll have to rework a few things here or there and hopefully weasel something to work my way. I enjoy my research and what I study and what I work with. Money's not an issue. I can eat well, drink well, and have time to run around outside if it suits my fancy. A couple of people I know well who also know me well and I can trust.

All things considered...I've really nothing to complain about.

Posted by aoshi at February 18, 2004 02:11 AM