I’m totally a fool.

15/06/20

Everything I do is foolish. And I am useless. Ok, so now the hackathon is over, after 48 hours. 48 hours of me not doing anything and being a useless burden. And, having piqued my friends’ expectations by getting good grades in my exams but being a complete fool when it comes to real world programming. Heck, even a fucking dude in NS who hasn’t taken any formal lessons is able to code better than me. FML.

And now it is time for the next project. CP2106. I’m supposed to be working on it now. instead, the fear of not knowing what to do, has caused such intense analysis paralysis that I chose to commit verbal diarrhea over here instead.

At the start of last month, May 2020, having just finished my second semester in NUS CS splendidly (I mean, in terms of the grades I thought I would be getting, at least for CS2040), I was hopeful for the next three months. I expected that I would be able to make good use of it and complete a lot of projects. The first objective was orbital. But as it turns out, there’s more to come.

At one point I was being a burden in a grand total of 5 different projects. Orbital CP2106, the SCDFxIBM hackathon, the three-month long IBM Call for Code, and 2 SOGP projects. I got myself embroiled in two groups. But currently, I am not even sure if I have one group. Because I cut ties with one, and I have been not replying for the other. Quite bad, but I have absolutely no motivation to do anything right now. The first SOGP group I joined sometime back in 2019 during a meet event for some 2 or 3 hours, and we tentatively decided to work on the topic of mental health, which later changed to education. The second SOGP group I met them sometime back in January this year, at another meetup. And we were had previously decided on Environment but changed to (ironically) Mental Wellness. I left the first group.

And thus, now I have 3 projects remaining. Three groups of people who still have to tolerate looking at my name and tolerate having to have me see their messages and not reply. And I am in guilt overdrive currently. Lol.

 

Another reason for my stupidity is as such. Yesterday, midway through the hackathon. I kind of decided that I have no freakin clue as to what to do, and I just decided to give up and wipe my hands. Tbh, can I really be at blame? We are 5 girls who have no idea how to make anything.

And sometime in the evening, my parents left to visit the grandparents. And me and my siblings were at home because of the stupid ass rule which states that only 2 people can visit at any one time. Thus, I decided, that since my parents weren’t home, it was a good time to take a walk outside. I’m awkward like that. I don’t really dare to ask my parents for permission to go out, y’know. I’m afraid. Ever since the incidents in February where my parents threatened to call the cops on me for not going home. And I no longer feel like I can trust them to be predictable and not make me cry again.

I went for a walk at the park. It was some 6+ pm. Wearing a mask and a cap and a long ass jacket, and carrying gloves and a knife in my bag, for no fucking reason. Perhaps I was scared of being attacked. Lol. nothing makes sense. Anyway, I made my way to the park. Oh, and I was wearing sandals, rather than shoes. This is important. Because it had just rained earlier in the day. And the floor was wet and had puddles of water. And when I walked the water went into my shoes and stuff. Pretty gross.

This also meant that I had to scrunch up my toes. Which caused my leg to hurt after a while. I ran to chase the sunset. Which is a bad idea if you are not wearing shoes. And my bag was of significant weight, with a 1-liter water bottle.

These, all combines with the fact that I had not walked such long distances since probably this March, which is like, 3 months, made me ache all over. I think a tendon in my outer right knee is inflamed. Ugh. And it hurts whenever I walk. And the front of my ankles hurt too. The tendon where the shin attaches to the foot for flexion. So basically, now I am tired and hurting. And also, I have just missed 3 days of my plank “challenge” / routine thing. Today is day 57 which is the last day on the calendar-ish thing that I drew. I am up to 3 times of 2 min 20 sec plank holds. Which is really tough. I think I am going to reduce it from now on, perhaps to a daily 3 x 2min or a 1 x 5min or something. That sounds sustainable…also, I will need to find a set timing to wake up and do the planks, else I’m really going to forget about it soon. And fall off the wagon. And it will be bad. Lol.

It’s going to be a few days before I can contemplate going out for a run. To be honest, I have been planning to go for a run since like, more than two months ago. In fact, since the beginning of lockdown. But I never got around to doing it because I always woke up too late. Or because I stubbed my toe at the beginning of April. Or because I did squats the previous night and my legs are sore. All sorts of excuses.

Thus, in conclusion I am an irresponsible, useless, burden, who is unable to accomplish anything regardless of whether I am in a group or as an individual.

 

Something else I need to do is to plan my career and shit. Because applications for internships run soon. And I gotta do an internship at the end of year 2, if I am gonna complete anything. Arghhh. And not only do I gotta stop being a burden, I also need to start on some individual projects. Perhaps my trading bot? Also, I realize I am completely not prepared to do CS2103 Software Engineering. Because I don’t know jackshit about version control, or setting up software for coding, or any of that shit. I am only barely ok with writing algorithms. So perhaps it would be wiser to take CS3230 instead of CS2103 as my main core mod next semester. Which means I should probably try to take CS3243 AI and CS2100 Computer Organization as my other mods. Which is troubling, because one is in Java, another Python, and another C. whereas CS2103 is likely to be done in Java, or secondarily C++, both of which I have actually used.

I saw a meme somewhere about the differences between backend and front end. It is said that a for a backend developer, their world begins with query and ends with response. I am…gone. My world begins at cin and ends at cout.

I should try to learn some web development. Perhaps the React or Ruby thing that I was supposed to learn last winter which I never got around to doing. I think it was some website with input and databases and shit. So that might be useful to complete before doing CS2103.