On capability
Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve actually journaled. Unfortunately, I feel bad because I don’t think tonight will be the night that changes. I got some work done on a personal project with friends and made some slides for my presentation soon. I also did catch up on sleep a bit, I was so tired that I took a nap for 3ish hours in the middle of the day.
Yesterday I read an 8-page paper on conditional image generation, something I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with. But I actually understood it! It took me a few hours, but I went through and annotated the entire thing. I actually get it. I’m able to read papers, and understand their material! That’s absolutely incredible to me, because I decided against doing a PhD after intending on doing it my entire life, and this was a big factor. I was really afraid of stuff like research or papers, and because of that, I gimped my own potential.
This quarter I’m taking 2 upper division CS classes, TA’ing another upper division CS class, and two grad classes. For the class I’m TA’ing, I have to do all of the questions every week (instead of just 2/4 of them), host 2 hours of office hours, teach at least 1 section, have a weekly meeting, and have 3 hours of code reviews. And then I’m also in 3 rec-cen classes, 2 of them are martial arts and the other one is hip hop. I also have powerlifting training, and that’s another 2-3 hours a day. Oh and tennis. My day starts at 9 am, and I usually get my first free time at 8:15 pm. I usually have to use that free time to do homework.
I’ve also been reading and meditating every day, which isn’t for too long but I find it’s not exactly ideal when I get busy and leave it for the end of the day right before I sleep. I am pretty damn fatigued, I don’t even have time to eat some days. Let alone spend time with friends. I still try to make time, and it’s pretty hard – but I end up usually sacrificing sleep for it, and I am realizing how much I need that sleep.
I’m not sure if I can handle this, to be honest, but also I want to prove to myself that I really do have that dog in me. I want to show myself I’m capable of these hard things.