42 Piscine Day 20 — (EvalExpr)
Edit: This is part of a series that culminated here, Next post. Previous post.
Edit2: I consolidated all the posts of the piscine daily posts here
Edit3: You can read up about what it’s like as a cadet at 42 here
Today seemed to have a palpable lull to it. Everyone and their grandma (really someone is taking it with their grandma, it’s sweet) was procrastinating more than usual, showed up later than normal or decided to take it easier today. Nobody really discussed that happening, but the mood sort of struck everyone all at once.
I had wrongly assumed that most people didn’t really want to work on the group project, well my group does, so I have something to work on at least. There is the personal project of EvalExpr as well, which is mostly to build a calculator, well a more complex calculator.
I’ve not gotten much done today at all, a bit of studying, a bit of figuring on how to solve the group project, a few hours watching youtube tutorials while I simultaneously looked at paintings on pinterest. Then again while I browsed books on amazon.
Due to people chilling out and/or quitting our peak students in the lab today was around 57, a big contrast to the usual 85–90. When I came in at 8 am there were 4 compared to the usual 13.
A lot of us are talking about going into town to watch a movie, it will be a nice break, nice to do things like normal people instead of just solid work in front of a screen as we have been.
I’ve had a few people approach me about my blogging today, some to complain to a sympathetic ear, others just to discuss my thoughts on how the program works. Others to pass along sympathy for my failure yesterday, others still to laugh about how they relate to what I wrote. It was an interesting position to be in as my main point of doing the blogging was to provide a gist of what the piscine is like, as I struggled to find much info on it before coming, you know marking the trail for those who follow. I guess some of my old boy scout attitudes never truly go away. “leave things better than you found them,” and equally the entrepreneurial mindset “if something doesn’t exist that you wished existed, create it”. So here we are. Ironically it’s ended up being similar to a small town paper, people reading to see if they were mentioned, reading to relate to the sentiment, to feel less alone.
It’s been a pleasure to be here, a pleasure to learn, to grow and to write as I have. The final is on Friday, it is also the last day, there are only 6 days left, the home stretch. I wish us all luck and that we find the outcome we deserve and hoped for. I may not get in this time, and if I don’t I would understand due to the mistakes I’ve made, no hard feelings on my end, but I’ll be damned if I don’t go down fighting, studying my ass off until the very last day, what other option is there, to quit? unacceptable, it would be acceptable if I didn’t actually want this, if I somehow discovered that I don’t love making things with code, but that’s not what it is, I’ve just been slower on the uptake than I’m comfortable admitting, I still very much want to be here.
Until tomorrow.
