Because this phase of intense self-absorbed navel-contemplation passing off as thoughtful meditation just isn’t about to end now…
the Good
- Last week’s blitz-vacations in London were everything I needed (quite possibly a few things I didn’t need too). I unfortunately didn’t have time to travel to the countryside and say hi to the family (hi auntie, sorry I didn’t make it), but I got to catch up with many longtime-not-seen friends, met a few cool new people etc.
- This week, funding was approved on a research internship I had a applied for, back in February. As a result, I will be spending the Summer in Tokyo, perfecting world domination plans and my army of killer robots at the NII. That is, if I don’t decide to drop out and retreat to a Zen monastery instead. And it is far from excluded at this point.
- I’m “brilliant”. More to the point: I am no longer the only person in the world to publicly hold that unflinching opinion of myself (see below).
the Bad
- Being “brilliant”, I am therefore “way too smart to be wasting time on such trivial matters as those affecting my mood and the quality of my work these days”. Sayeth a certain advisor of mine.
- “Fuck you”, or a somewhat equally disparaging and hardly more articulate variation on the term, may have been my reply to said advisor and coincidentally depositary of a good share of my academic future.
- Despite today being the first day of final exams week (more like the French equivalent of post-grad quals, actually), I have yet to open a single revision book or prepare for any of it. The cause may lie in aforementioned trivial matters of the heart or, more likely, in the sudden realization that I might be heading the way of that very advisor’s somewhat pathetic, if highly regarded in academic circles, life and career.
the Ugly
- In fact, for reasons I can’t fully fathom (although there sure are a couple leads to follow), I seem to have caught the academic-self-doubt bug at the most unbecoming time. I honestly don’t think I will act on it, but the fact I can’t bring myself to even find interest, let alone try and revise for those rather important exams, seems a pretty efficient passive-aggressive way to get there nonetheless.
- Irony of ironies, I think I may have done pretty well today in spite of my utter lack of preparation, which still leaves the question open for the remaining 4 exams I am to take (not to mention, yearly lab project, due next week).
I suppose I still have ten hours (sleep notwithstanding) to acquire a motivation, snort 10g of crushed Red Bull powder and catch up on two weeks worth of revisions.
Will I ? Fuck if I know. Suspense is killing me.
Congrats on your NII internship! Good luck on your exams. Keep us posted with your hyper-caffeinated when you need a break from higher-level math and logic.
Cmon! Build that AI this evening and get it to do all your work for you while you do the social butterfly thing on the weekends in Tokyo and the Zen thing on the weekdays up in the mountains.
thanks felix: nah, didn’t really opt for the hyper-caffeinated option this time around. We’ll see how that worked.
j-ster: didn’t have much luck building that AI yet. might to the zen thing anyway and leave it to somebody else to ensure worldwide destruction by a new breed of super-intelligent killer droids. Even world-domination gets me bored these days.
Yeah, I got the “Too smart to do…” line from my adviser. Then I dropped out of school a semester away from four degrees to become an artist. No, I hadn’t actually taken an art class up until then. But it’s not actually compulsory as it turns out. Most of it is on-the-job training anyway.
Anyway, best decision ever (I wish I’d done that *prior* to incurring the 35k in school debt though). Although, only myself and my partner hold that opinion. Everyone else is all “throwing away your potential” and “why don’t you keep going and graduate to working 20 hour days right through your midlife crisis like the rest of us.” The way I see it, I was efficient and booked my midlife crisis early, so I could enjoy it with all of my faculties intact.
Good luck with the killer robots – A future with killer robots is a colorful one. Mainly red.