It is a really good thing that I don’t believe in portents, symbols, or signs because the start of this term has been an exercise in difficulties.
It feels a bit early in the semester to even begin talking about anything too technical (I don’t even know what project I’m going to be working on yet), but I can touch on something that I have been thinking about lately: stress, and dealing with it.
I did not have electricity for five days leading up to (and partially including) the first day of the semester. Incredibly, this made it difficult for me to use my computer. The major issue with the (at the time) new status quo was that I go to school on my computer.
This stressed me out.
Luckily for me, I had a trip planned for the weekend before class started. A friend of mine was getting married in Humboldt county, and I had the honor of being one of his groomsmen. All I needed to do was get there! So I rented a big dumb truck to get me and four other attendees all the way up there and back. Naturally there was going to be heavy rain, flooding, and road closures to contend with during the two entire days of driving I was going to do.
This stressed me out.
Between driving, rehearsals, and the actual wedding, I pretty much had no down time. The final injustice the cold, uncaring Universe gave to me was having to work on the first day of school. As with all Monday’s since time immemorial, it was an unpleasant slog of a day. The only good news I received that day was that the power was back on. This allowed me, at 7 pm, to finally log into canvas, skim the course material, and see that I had three things that needed to be done before midnight.
This stressed me out, greatly.
A younger me might have lost it right there. Perhaps he would have dropped the class, and decided to try his luck next semester, or found something unimportant that really needed a deep clean. Thankfully for me, older me (who is also regular me), while exhausted and probably very stinky, was too tenacious to be put off by all the stress. Naturally, once I got to sorting out what needed to be done, and you know, actually reading stuff, I found that there was very little to be particularly worried about.
In the past, stress has caused me to do all kinds of silly things. The most unhelpful one being: procrastinating heavily. I had to remove this part of myself to get through this degree program, and I did. I wouldn’t have gotten this far if I hadn’t. Instead, if I ever felt myself slipping back into old habits, I would make myself work on whatever was in front of me, and worry about the implications and ramifications of the rest later. This generally works out quite nicely, probably because doing something is (shockingly) better than not doing something.
Many things leading up to this term stressed me out. However, after years of overcoming stress, I have begun to welcome it. No electricity? Time to start playing the phone charge rationing game. Bad weather road trip? I’m sure not every road has flooded. Last minute homework? Watch me do a “first day of CS 467” speed-run.
I’m sure whatever project I get assigned will be full of challenges to overcome, and personally, I’m pretty excited to overcome them.
