The Foreign Embassy

Getting a degree in engineering is not what you'd call a hell of a lot of fun. At the height of the final year, I was working at it pretty much 'round the clock. That meant getting up at 7 AM for a morning lab, class through 'til lunchtime, lunch, class, nap in the library, class, dinner, T.A. in the structural testing lab, then an evening class. Then I'd start my homework, which meant going up to a room reserved for seniors on the top floor of the engineering building and staying there until 2 or 3 in the morning. Sometimes I'd grab some shut-eye on one of the padded benches outside the Dean's office before getting back to work. Then I'd stagger back down to the house I was living in and collapse in bed for a couple hours of sleep. Then start the whole thing over the next morning. Sometimes, I just wouldn't sleep at all, just work the whole night through.

Time puts a rosy glow on most things. This isn't one of them. This sucked. It was hard, brain-busting work, I was tired all the time, and the only relaxation I got much of the time was from my dreams, which were wild, fantastical events of robbing stagecoaches and rescuing princess on Mars, so vivid and real I would wake up tasting the prarie dust and smelling the alien air, dreams I was convinced were the result of the creative side of my brain attempting to balance all the work the analytical side was doing the rest of the time.

I learned a lot during that last year, and one of the things I learned was that, if there was stuff to do, I would get it done. I would hate it, and I would be a sullen, miserable bastard much of the time, but I would do the work, and plow through with my head down, and not raise it again until I was finished. I would commit myself totally to the job at hand.

It's a good thing to learn. But unfortunately, it's also an easy thing to lose, especially when there's no one riding your ass to get the job done. Which is why, nowadays, I waste a lot of time when I should be writing, and I hit the snooze button when I should be hitting the shower, and I'm generally nowhere near as productive as I know I can be.

Still, I suppose I can take comfort in knowing that the potential is still there, and I can keep working, and work harder, and commit myself more and more to getting done the current job at hand.