2002-09-12 - 8:27 a.m.

Dear Diary,

Hummm.. head full of noise this morning. I haven't listenend to heavy metal music or techno in a long time. I don't know when next I'll get the taste for that kind of thing.

Last night I had some interesting dreams. I had a recurring dream that I was back in school, but this time the dream was significantly different. These dreams all have the same theme, I walk down a hallway at school and into a classroom. There is always a recurring architectural theme to the layouts of the classes, because the university I went to had very strange architects. Once inside the classroom, I am always late and there is always a class in progress. Furthermore, I never know what point we are at in the curriculum, and I don't normally have any books, paper or pens with me.

Last night was no different in any of these respects, but I definitely *felt* different. All the other times I've had this dream, and it's been a while, at least a year or more, I've sat through interminable minutes of these classes feeling like I didn't belong but was trying to. I felt like I was a failure. I felt like everyone must feel sorry for someone who obviously didn't have it together and wasn't going anywhere meaningful with their life. I felt all these things because they were true.

Last night, I felt like I had just started the class. I walked in late, and there was a girl doing a recital at a piano in the front of the room. She played very well. I can play the piano somewhat, although I can't read sheet music for piano yet (I tried a bit to learn Chopin's Raindrop prelude). So considering my novice abilities, it felt like I was far behind in a class of accomplished musicians. Never mind, I got to my seat and sat down with the least possible noise and attempted just to fit in with the class. I again had no books or papers, but I was here to learn. I even remember telling someone "this is my first day". I knew I was far behind and that I had a long road ahead of me, but I felt determined inside to make it, and feeling that, I knew I was now a part of the group around me. We were all there, regardless of ability or experience, to "make it", to learn, to achieve what we could in the class.

I see now that before I always considered myself as already having achieved everything and just needed to go through some hoops to get everyone's recognition. In a lot of ways, I can blame that on my youth and upbringing, not because it was anyone's fault (least of all my own because I was a child) but because of the system and circumstance I happened to be born into. I was so far above my peers in ability that it wasn't until the very end of high school that studying for marks even became a consideration in my mind. I'm not bragging when I say this, it's more like an admission of a weakness now. I just had no idea *how* to study dilligently when I got to university. Up until then I had paid the least possible attention in school since it was such a gigantic waste of time. Whenever I had been stopped cold by my teachers and expected to perform, perform and I did and to such a degree as they were forced to leave me alone because I was obviously capable of what they required for their class. That was not a good education. It turned out to be very misleading in the long run, and left me needed to learn valuable lessons in humility and dedication. Of course by the time I needed these lessons, I had either alienated or exhausted my resources so I had to learn from inside, and in many ways I'm a slow learner.

Anyway, getting back to the dream, I considered myself a part of this class and the next thought I remember is that I was bored, and this class was hard. The thought that followed this was that I knew before I got into it that school was hard, and I knew it was going to be a lot of work, so - imagine that - here was the work! Now it was time to stop saying and start doing. So I shut myself up and kept my focus.

The next dream sketch started as I walked down the sidewalk towards a church nearby. I had been there earlier in the night in another dream, but I don't remember any but the foggiest details of that one and I don't consider it particularly useful to remember. Anyhow, I remembered there was a piano there in this church, and it would be a perfect place to practise because I remembered the church being empty. When I got to the door, there was a sign clearly marked saying "music 905" with an arrow pointing in. Apparenty the church was reserved for students practising for my class! As I entered, I had the best feeling of just doing the right thing, that I was on the road to accomplishing my goals and that everything was going to work out. As soon as I started out on the hard road and got past the first few obstacles, I found that not only were people not trying to slow me down, they were actively trying to help me, as long as I was helping myself first.

Inside I found a lineup of people waiting at the piano and the dream degenerated into a rambling one without moral plot or meaning. The only other details I remember are a feeling that my old friend Rosemary was in line, and that at some point later we had to evacuate the church because a storm was coming in. Weird.

I have to call this insurance place now that it is 8am. Be right back.

Hmm.. I'm not very satisfied with their customer service. I got my answer quickly: I have to mail the cheque back to them and they will reissue a new one, so that is the good news. The bad news is that I first contacted the company on tuesday last week, so they should have been able to inform me of this sooner. I really could use the money right about now... And again, it's that situation where if I hadn't made a mistake in the first place (forgetting to cash the cheque) then there wouldn't be a problem, so I can have no expectation of better service. In an ironic twist, if I had actually *not* made the mistake, then I wouldn't have this money when I need it badly ;o)

I should think about ending this entry now. I don't want to, but I laid in bed for some time, almost falling back asleep. I cannot afford to let myself do this and I don't know why I did it this morning. Yesterday I slept in because I talked on MSN until midnight the night before, but last night I had a bath at 9pm and was in bed reading at 9:30 and turned out the light right at 9:55 like a good boy. Not only that but I consciously steered my mind away from thoughts which would have hurt me and kept me awake, and I was able to fall asleep thinking of mundane things.

Oh well, I still want to write a bit longer.

But then, is this desire something I should fight against, just like I should have fought against staying in bed this morning? I guess I just need to give it some serious thought instead of forging ahead with a decision.

Thinking...

Ok, that feels much better. I already packed my lunch (while the computer was booting! ha!) and I have 45 minutes left before I need to be at the office, with the only tasks at hand being to finish this entry and eat breakfast. I need 20 minutes to bike to work, so that means I can write a little, but not more than 10 minutes. Phew. In a way I hate regimenting myself too severely, but in another way, I have had such a bad track record in the last few years that I know it would serve me well to be overly strict with myself now until being responsible is second nature.

Oh yeah. One of the things I want to write about is a status update regarding my last entry. I had written at 1pm yesterday that I had almost no work done and that I could just achieve my goal of working at 1/2 potential if I worked conscientiously through the rest of the day.

I did not.

I did set out on that road, and I spent some time carefully considering all the things I needed to do to get the work done. I got to the point where I realized that some of the decisions to be made were based on other decisions for a component of the program that doesn't exist yet. I wrote a detailed email to my coworker Jamie explaining what I was thinking and how we needed to get together to discuss the stuff. Then I stopped working completely and surfed and played games for the rest of the afternoon.

I think I remember at some point thinking that I could at least tackle some sub-projects in advance of having the other component done. I could easily have filled my day with that, instead I was checking the clock while playing warlords 2. So now of course I'm thinking that today I will work on those sub-components.

That's not to say I didn't do any work yesterday. I tracked down some memory leaks in my code and fixed them, and I finished off all the tasks I had to do to update my application to act the way my boss wanted it to. If I had to guess at a figure, I would say I worked at 2/3 potential yesterday. I really want to be working fully by next week. At the risk of sounding like a textbook math question, at what rate does Carl need to increase his "fractional potential" goal every day so that by Monday he will be at full potential? :o) So far, the week has gone

Monday: 0

Tuesday: 1/2

Wednesday: 2/3

Thursday: ?

Friday: ?

and the final goal is:

Monday: 1

Soooo.. maybe I should aim for 3/4 today. That would imply wasting 1/4 of my day. Of course, the best way to do that would be to work the morning straight through and then half the afternoon, at which point I could stop completely. But assuming I got that far, I might as well just continue. Far more often, I slack off at first and eventually get around to work, but then I get at it and don't stop until suddenly 5pm rolls around and I have to force myself to stop working. (well, it isn't too hard cause I get to go home and do nothing). So.... man.. what a lot of blabbing about something that doesn't need to be blabbed about. I know I need to work, I know I am weak at making myself work, if anything, I should be thinking of suggestions for how to work more dilligently.

Bleah.

It's time for breakfast. At least I admitted that I didn't do my goal yesterday. I don't want to hide behind my mom's skirts any more when I fail at things. It's sad enough not to do what I set out to do, but it's far worse to try to pretend I didn't actually fail.

Well, I know what my goal is today: full potential. Tomorrow the goal is the same. By monday I should be capable of actually reaching it.

Bye diary, wish me luck.

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