Brian's World

Present Boredum

Right now I find myself extremely bored. I’ve been sitting at my desk for over 1 hour and 7 minutes (its 10:07pm) doing very little.  Yes, I upgraded my blog software and cleaned some permissions on a server but I haven’t really done anything substantial.  There are many things on my todo list, but none of them seem extra pressing or motivating right now.  If I was to be excited about any one thing right now I would probably be doing it, but nothing comes to mind really.

This weekend was pretty much the same thing.  I convinced myself to be motivated enough to produce a newsfeed for Concerto and some statistics, but I’m feeling like that’s as far as I should go for right now.  I try to put forth the extra effort and all to do things that aren’t easy, but I don’t find myself frequently receiving any direct or indirect benefit or response from them.  Yes, this Concerto thing is cool and all, but I have trouble pinpointing what I can say its done for me, Brian.  Its not everyday I look at a task and evaluate what effects its having on me, but a task that’s taken up more than a year of my life requires such an analysis.  As a Boy Scout, I could see the effects of community service after doing it;  the trail was cleaner or the road less trash covered.

I came to this realization today in Technical Writing when I was preparing a “Professional Webpage,” which is essentially a web version of a resume.  I had written Concerto down as a project and I was trying to think of a phrase or two to describe my involvement.  I certainly cannot call myself the leader, nor would I call myself “lead developer”.  I thought about saying “guy who comes up with the ideas no one likes” but decided that probably wouldn’t make sense on a professional web presence.  I don’t design the user interfaces, nor do I have anything at all to do with the hardware.  I haven’t made any sales pitches to people, my code isn’t directly responsible for displaying content on 12+ screens.  I write the database abstraction layer most of the time, but even then I find myself feeling less and less positive about that.  I’m rarely approached with a positive comment and most of what I do doesn’t merit one.  You wouldn’t tell someone that the 10th time they did something was super.. I mean its the 10th time.. nothing new.  I do get feedback when others think I’m doing something wrong, which makes sense of course.  I should receive that feedback to improve when appropriate, but improving seems to be what I always need to do.  I feel like this chunk will be negative viewed by members of the team who frequent my blog and that’s not my intention.  I hold no sour feelings at the moment, nor am I trying to express them.  If that’s the feeling you got out of this then I encourage you to read it again.

0 other items happened this weekend.  I sat in my room and did nothing.  Its rare I find myself desiring some or any form of social interaction but I do say that I can only amuse myself so long with the resources I currently have at college.  I’m sure I’ve discussed this before, but the people that say that college is the time of their lives are certainly experiencing a different college than I am.  I found high school to be very satisfying and have yet to find anything to come close to it.  I can’t say I enjoy the freedoms college bring that are commonly appreciated by students.  Choosing when to go to bed has never been an issue for me, nor has the notion of choosing what I want to do in a given day.  Having the freedom of knowing that mom won’t knock on my door if I have the lights on at 1:00am is a non-issue; I’m not up at that hour under my own will.  I thought at one point I had discovered a body that might be able to fill the void left by high school, but as time progressed the clusters’ dynamic shifted from an atmosphere that I felt did fill the void to one that I felt simply shifted it around slightly.  I could also be just expressing some frustration with the overuse of certain phrases and words that are quick to build on my nerves.

Of course it hasn’t helped that dearest Katie has been busy as a beaver.  I expected her first few weeks to be time-intense, but not as intense as they have been.  Over the past 4 I don’t think I’ve successfully said more than 25 words on the phone today without her needing to go or expressing some concern on time constraints.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but its not something I was as prepared for as I should have been.  I have a fairly set schedule, when I’m free or not is easy to tell; I look forward to the coming weeks where Katie’s schedule will settle down too.

I guess I will go to bed.  My motivations have risen none, and I guess the sleep can help “recharge” me.  For what I do not know.

Good night moon.