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getting it all done
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November 06, 2002
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Finally, it's all overwith -- the GRE, and the damnable scavenger hunt. And I feel great. It's like the entire world is moving in slow motion now. Everything is low-effort. All problems are non-problems. Each day feels like two.
The last few days of planning for the hunt were a frenzy of activity. We worked for seven hours Thursday night after work. We took the day off on Friday and worked nearly twenty hours on it, and then worked in the morning Saturday right up until we had to meet the organizers to help set things up. And we were finding problems up until the last minute.
So I was really worried going into it. And things didn't start off well. After the starting gun, I got several phone calls immediately. I'd phrased one question wrong, leading everyone to get the wrong answer to a relatively simple question. Another team had gotten lost from the get-go due to poorly worded directions. A third team didn't have a critical item in their starting pack.
But after rectifying those initial problems, amazingly, everything seemed to work out. The flood of phone calls abated. There were, in fact, only two more; one of them a simple problem to resolve, and the other, user error.
And in the end, as everyone trickled in, they told us they'd had a great time. That our game was among the best they'd ever played. And the organizers (who played our game -- despite having invented this particular format, they'd never played it themselves) said that it was a high point in their careers.
I'm already starting to nostalgize the horrible workload. Every day after work and every weekend we slaved over that damn game...right until the last minute we were still finding problems...but it all came together in the end! Everyone loved it! And I took my GRE and I did great!
No matter. Yes, I'm glad we did it. But I'm never doing it again.
Time to refocus. Here's what I need to get done now:
Writing my personal statement.
Getting the rest of my applications together. In particular, getting my transcripts sent and my letters of recommendation written.
Selling my car. I've been ignoring this. If I'm going to do this, I need to pick up the pace while it can still make some financial difference.
Plan the Post-Thanksgiving dinner.
I don't think I have any other real priorities right now. It's great to have so little to do -- by comparison, anyway.
I can't wait until school applications are done. I have a couple of projects I'm eager to start.
November 6, 2002 in old_site | Permalink
