Mental vs Physical

Last night at school for a month and a half.

I plan on spending it studying, eating chinese food, and spending a little time with the friends who have the same final as I do tomorrow. I still have to do some packing and cleaning tomorrow, but mentally I'm ready to go home I think. I'm not tired of learning, after all I need to and want to learn about Drupal and some other stuff for an internship I have next semester. I'm a little tired of lectures though.

This has been the first semester where I consistently spent most of my time in a few classes trying not to sleep. It's not that I didn't find the subject interesting. I think I was just trying to do too much. And I suppose next semester is going to be even more of that. I have not one, but two internships running concurrently for the next semester. Plus four high level computer science classes. I don't know if I'll be able to do it, but I'm going to try my damnedest. On another level, I'll have the stress of 'go find a job' boiled into my head by teacher after teacher. Or at least from most of them that will happen I bet. My teacher for a senior software development course told me that I had a lot of potential and that I should consider graduate school. It's a big compliment in my eyes, trying not to let it go to my head, but wow. The professor is stupidly smart, went to Caltech and the whole shebang. I feel good about getting a nice compliment from him like that.

Anyway. Studying is going alright, but I'm so done with it. I don't really want to be studying anymore. I want to be coding, working on projects and solving fun applied problems. Coming up with new algorithms to defeat difficult issues, maybe doing analysis on them to determine if they're better or not. Hell, why not try to prove NP = P or not. That'd be a nice cool million bucks :p (Doubtful that I could do it, but I can pretend).

I don't know if I miss home or not. My hometown has a lot of places that have good memories, and a lot that have bad memories. I wouldn't mind just uprooting my life there and leaving most of it behind. I love my friends and wouldn't want to lose them. But the town itself, I could live without. There's more painful memories there than good ones, and it's too easy to get distracted by it all. But if I were to get up and move away, where would I go? It's a difficult question. And not one I feel I'm ready to handle quite yet. I'll hopefully come up with more ideas of what to do over the winter break. It's scary. Graduating from college means I won't see all these people who I consider my peers and who I enjoy talking to about intellectual things.

For me, talking about interesting and intelligent topics has become a bit of a drug I suppose.  Being intellectually stimulated is way better than being physically aroused. They're two sides of the coin I guess. Physical release is an amazing thing because for a few fleeting I don't have to think. There are no words, no thoughts, only feelings and the amazing pleasure and relaxation of both mind and body. Mental stimulation gets me worked up, it haunts my thoughts prying open new doors and breaking boxes and boundaries in my mind, helping me to attain new levels of progress. It keeps me up at night rather than putting me to sleep, it stresses rather than relaxes, it's the build up to the moment that is the pleasure, every ounce of problem solving poured in is palpable. And then, you solve it. You write about it, you explain it to everyone you can, indulging in your own superfluous degree of arrogance of being able to do something you find so monumental. Then, over time, it fades away until it was just another blip on your crusade to knowledge. Physical stimulation is so fleeting, it's the moment that matters. The release that takes your breath away. Mental stimulation is a building, slow wave of intoxication that fills you up with immense frustration and joy at the same time.  Both go away in the end. But one lasts longer.

What a fun tangent.