Day[35] Gears

I’m hoping to have found a second gear. Or maybe a third or fourth. I don’t know.

I wasn’t totally thrilled with my performance at the end of last week. I bailed out on a tech talk that I had been planning on attending and on Friday I cut out at 3:30 when I still had work to do. In my defense, I had a bit of a cold. My throat was sore and I was a little more tired than usual. But I think it was mostly burnout that sent me home. It was less that I was tired and more that I just didn’t want to wring my brain any more.

Regardless of how I got there, I didn’t like the feeling Saturday morning. I decided that after seven weeks, I need a refocus. In the first month I approached my assignments like learning their lessons was the only thing that was going to keep me alive when I was lost in the wilderness. I had to exhaust myself on every single last detail of the assignments. Somewhere along the way, I made an ever-so-slight slip and I vowed on Saturday morning that I was going to retake that lost ground.

On Sunday I sat down and worked through the homework that I still had due from Thursday. I spent over four hours on Sunday making sure I got the MVC assignments just right. I was proud of my work, because there was a point where I hit a wall, pushed harder, and persevered.

I hit Monday morning with a head of steam. And I needed it. We delved further into the strange world of MVC, passing information back and forth from our computers to the near-omniscient web servers. Tom gave us both pair exercises and individuals. I was paired with David and we worked tirelessly from 1:00, till just before 5. It was intense, but we finished.

I took a short break and sat down for the individuals at around 5:20. At this point, I had been in the TE space for over ten hours. I worked for the next two hours as person after person sighed, closed their laptop, and fished their winter coat from the rack. At 7:15, I wasn’t the last man standing, but I was close. Bleary-eyed and sore-necked, I drove home to get some sleep before it all starts again.

I’m ready to go. I’ve found a new gear.