Today I decided to learn a piano piece. It’ll probably take a very long time to learn it completely, and by then I’ll be in Europe. And who wants to spend their time indoors playing piano when they’re already in Europe, eh? Maybe I do! In the evenings, when staying inside is as good as it gets.
I was digging through my closet for the power cord (to my electronic keyboard), and in the process, decided to clean it up a bit. I went through all my Berkeley boxes to get rid of papers I don’t think I needed anymore. I thought to myself, “I’ll never find a use for these again, so it’s better to get rid of them and free up some space.”
But as I looked at the papers, all the memories of working hard to finish assignments came back. And I had so many assignments! It’s pretty encouraging to think I was capable of THAT much work. I don’t usually think about schoolwork these days. It felt harder to throw paper away. I ended up saving a bunch of the beginning, but gradually became able to throw away papers.
I had spent 4 years at Berkeley! Why does it seem so many worlds away? So long ago?
Coincidentally, I’ll be visiting Berkeley and some friends this weekend. Berkeley seems like another lifetime for me. I’m too wrapped up in my current state.
On another note, I can’t get my programs working. This is probably the first time that it’s happened in research for me. Usually, things are hard, or I just need to learn it. Now I’m at a roadblock – I have NO clue how to proceed to fix my program. Everything I’ve written makes sense. The part I can’t debug is hidden in a black box.
I feel like the kid who lost his quarters in the vending machine and can’t do anything about it.
But if there’s one thing I learned doing all of this, eventually I’ll get it, and move forward. But for now, it’s kind of irritating since I need to have some good results because there is a talk this Thursday. Maybe I need to try harder. I have been taking it easy. I mean…I was playing the piano today…I’m not supposed to have time for things like this…
I had a really relaxing weekend, first time in a LONG time.