Rich Seymour's stochastic statements.

Sometimes, I get myself in a bind and find myself sinking under more and more anxiety as I put things off further and further until there’s no hope and I just have to confront whatever the issue is and deal with it. Usually, in this world, this revolves around anything that could possibly be labeled a responsibility or a nicety. I think generally either a) I spread myself too thin or b) I simply have little skill at finishing what I start.

Now, that reads like a rather glum statement on life, in that, in point of fact as these very binds drive me to the edges of paralyzing anxiousness and possible nervous mania (my own particular vice, or disease, or dis-ease, or disorder, or whatever) I have a whole bunch of other things flying around that I finish on time (or nearly on time or occasionally early) and generally keep up appearances. This sort of feeling has pretty much been with me since around the 3rd grade or so, which might be the point at which teachers start looking at certain students as ‘good’ in comparison to the others. At which point you can try to live up to whatever this goodness standard is in their eyes or just give up, depending on your view of the teacher.

What is surprising is how important that last bit (keeping up appearances) can be, in fact, I figure any future employer will zoom in on this little statement of my own personal foibles and either think well, he’s just like everybody else only he admitted it online or he totally doesn’t have the ability to float in our sink or swim environ. I would bet that most people interested in my skills at handling things would only be worried about the percentage of things I complete and handle in an orderly manner and the number of things that I handle in a disorderly manner. I think generally, I handle everything in my life at about 80/20 but it’s just that the 20% can really kill depending on where it is, checkbook A, class X, research Y, job Z, extracurricular Ω, relationship Q…

So… where am I going with this… what is the title of this post referring to, what stopped?

Well… speaking of things to live up to… back in the nebulous days of my elementary education (which seemed to consist of learning the same math over and over and over year after year with one new symbol added every other year until you finally get to trig, pre-calc, calc, linear algebra or whathaveyou) I took one of those tests which probably has bizarre effects on whoever takes it. One of those tests where you answer about 50+ questions and then it tells you what career will be the awesomest for you. Mine came up with “Computer Programmer” (perhaps just computer operator, but I think it was programmer), so at from that point, in my usual vow to not ever do exactly what anyone says, I thought to myself: “Self, you aren’t going to be a computer programmer, or at least not study it too much, because you’re clearly predisposed to it. You’re a natural, no need to worry… go look into other things.”

So… ffwd to now, with a Materials Science B.S. and the equivalent of a Materials Science M.S., the only Computer Science course I’d ever taken had been an extremely rudimentary required one in my undergrad that I had gotten a bona fide A+ in, my only A+. This was the sample size = 1 that proved my prior thoughts to myself on computer science.

I worked for a while doing some computer programming in the dot-com heyday, and wasn’t too terrible at it… anyway, like I said, fast forward to now and I decide to take the honors level 570 Analysis of Algorithms course. Analysis of Algorithms is a phrase coined by Donald Knuth, sort of a father of modern comp-sci (not a godfather, in that he’s still alive and emeritus at Stanford). He’s the sort of person who’s public persona comes off so utterly wise and aware of it, that, weaklings like me should shy away in fear, but at least try to learn something from it. Anyway, there was a test on the prerequisites for this course, mind you, I’d never taken undergrad comp-sci basics like lambda calculus, regular algorithms, etc. etc. and I passed it above the class average. Now my sample size was 2 for me being a natural at comp. sci.

Well… now that the class is over (took the final today, hence the title), I have been thoroughly humbled in any sort of belief that I had any preternatural ability in Computer Science (which is definitely big S science or more realistically big M Mathematics at the Analysis of Algorithms level). I will pass the class, wiser and definitely with more respect for the subject.

Hmm… how can I end this post with a humorous bang after such a morose, navel-gazing post… hmm
Well… here’s a link to a car chase/crash that happened near my house (eh, w/in a 10 block radius): here
It’s pretty wild, I was biking to school that morning and saw the news choppers up. That would’ve been heinous to get away from on a bike. No one was seriously hurt, so hence it’s sort of funny… right… right? Well, anyway.