i prefer pi

Numbers

Let’s do some calculations, shall we? I haven’t done this yet because I’ve been afraid of what would turn up. All of the “nights” are figurative, of course, and should really be ascribed to the mornings of the following day.

That’s a total of 26 hours in six nights, or four hours and twenty minutes per night on average.

On a typical day, I wake up at 8 AM or a bit before and go running. I come back to the dorm, shower, have breakfast (several bowls of raisin bran, typically, and tea or juice), read the Word, and start working on the day’s class material around 10:30 AM. I’m typically full, so I’m not hungry at noon. On MWF, my first class is at 3, so I might get lunch around 2:00; on TR, I have office hours from 1 PM to 2:30 PM, and I don’t take the time to eat beforehand. If I’m not too busy with reading for class, I’ll go and get lunch around 3 PM; if I am, I’ll have some soup in my office. On TR, class runs until 7 PM; on MWF, blissfully, I’m usually out by 4:20 (the class is scheduled to end at 3:50). Go back to the room or the evening’s activities. Depending on what and when I ate, I may get supper at any point between 6 and 10. When I’m finished with other committments, it’s time to get to coding, or grading papers, or reading. Take a break for tea around 10 or 11 or midnight. If it looks like a light night, I’ll have Earl Grey, which is relatively uncaffeinated; if it looks like every other night this week, it’s a stout glass of chai or some other spiced black tea. Hopefully get to bed by 2 AM so that I make my 8 AM running goal.

There are one hundred twenty (total) hours in a work week. I only have class for nine of those, and as we saw earlier, I’m only sleeping thirty (on a good week), leaving roughly eighty hours. I’d say that I’m working on class or being a TA for at least fifty of those hours, and on weeks like this one, that number is probably closer to sixty-five. The great irony of this situation is that even when it was crunch-time at Microsoft, I put in no more than fifty-five hours a week, I had my evenings and weekends free, and when I went home, work was over.

It’s rewarding. I love helping and teaching people, I’m forming fruitful relationships with guys in the dorm, and I’m blessed by an excellent murder of roommates. Physically, however, grad school is killing me.

BTW, I’m sitting here at the outset of a four-day weekend. Compiler design, my only class, was cancelled today and Monday. I’m going to heed his dire warnings and proclamations of doom, however, and start working on the project now, even though it isn’t due for another ten days.

Well, push another one onto the engagement stack (and no, it’s not mine!).

Oh, sure, now it rains.

Here’s a sentence that I’ve wanted to use for a while:

From my cousin Becky’s blog:

Insanity

“RealFeel” daytime high and overnight low temperatures for the coming week in degrees Fahrenheit:

Summer was over last week — why do I put up with this?

To my sister, Sarah-Jean:
I love you.

To my brother, Joel:
I love you.

In which I give Douglas Adams his propers:

Fiddlesticks

I’ve been tagged (by Amber, who was tagged by Annie, who was tagged by…)

THE RULES: List five songs that you are currently loving. It doesn’t matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the songs in your blog, then “tag” five other bloggers/friends to see what they’re listening to.

1. “What is This Feeling? (Loathing)” from Wicked, sung by Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth
2. “Santa Fe” from Rent, sung (mostly) by Taye Diggs
3. “Space Oddity” by David Bowie
4. “Something There” from Beauty and the Beast
5. “Misty” by Stan Getz

I tag:

1. Sarah-Jean
2. Joel
3. Evey
4. Dimitri
5. Ryan