I had an odd start to my day today. It began with the alarm setting on my phone making an unprecedented decision to be uncooperative—that is, to not operate at all. Everything was set right: I had the same two alarms on that I have every other morning, one for 5:59 and the other 6:00, both ante meridian. I can’t explain it, so I won’t try to. I woke up at about 8:00 and sighed deeply when I saw the sun so high in the sky. I had missed the bus to summer school by over an hour. There was no way to get there now. It would have been my last day of work there. I sighed a few more times as I went to the kitchen to pour out my raisin bran cereal. While munching I, with much strain, resolved not to be angry. I called Ashton, told her that I missed the bus and would not be at work, called Ben, told him that I was coming to the School of Education instead of summer school, and took a shower. Afterward, I said my morning prayers, thanked the Lord, ended with, “Your will be done,” and walked to work.
Work at the SoE was alright. I spent some time editing a Wiki site formerly used by the MTC that has since fallen into disrepair. My current mission is the methodical removal of digital vandalism. I deleted more than 800 pages in the course of the day (which included a 3 hour break for lunch at Ben’s favorite, soon-t0-be-out-of-business restaurant in Oxford). This kind of work on the Wiki is somewhat enjoyable for me. Somewhat. It’s algorithmic: click here, click there, click there, Delete, Enter, … , click here, click there, click there, Delete, Enter. Of course, the downside is the boring effect of repeated tedium, but that was overwhelmed by my joy at my own sense of efficiency. When I’m “beating the system,” then I always feel some satisfaction; I, like my friend Eric, whose mastery of Rubik’s Cubes still leaves me stunned, was able to turn my work into a kind of game. I became so fast that I could actually do my work on one computer and browse Amazon.com simultaneously on the other without sacrificing anything. (Despite the warnings that we’re approaching the Singularity, the human mind in some ways is yet faster than the standard Windows machine.) The only unfortunate side effect, not including the browsing of books, is that such pattern-based mental and motor processes have the same after-effect as playing video games for long periods of time: I have a slight headache on the top of my brain and an intensified desire, like being thirsty while running a long distance, to write creatively instead of working on my project.
Blah, blah. Work is over now. This blog is done, and now I’m going to surf Amazon.com and write a poem or something. I plan to post more on my reading exploits tomorrow; I promise is might be interesting….
Work at the SoE was alright. I spent some time editing a Wiki site formerly used by the MTC that has since fallen into disrepair. My current mission is the methodical removal of digital vandalism. I deleted more than 800 pages in the course of the day (which included a 3 hour break for lunch at Ben’s favorite, soon-t0-be-out-of-business restaurant in Oxford). This kind of work on the Wiki is somewhat enjoyable for me. Somewhat. It’s algorithmic: click here, click there, click there, Delete, Enter, … , click here, click there, click there, Delete, Enter. Of course, the downside is the boring effect of repeated tedium, but that was overwhelmed by my joy at my own sense of efficiency. When I’m “beating the system,” then I always feel some satisfaction; I, like my friend Eric, whose mastery of Rubik’s Cubes still leaves me stunned, was able to turn my work into a kind of game. I became so fast that I could actually do my work on one computer and browse Amazon.com simultaneously on the other without sacrificing anything. (Despite the warnings that we’re approaching the Singularity, the human mind in some ways is yet faster than the standard Windows machine.) The only unfortunate side effect, not including the browsing of books, is that such pattern-based mental and motor processes have the same after-effect as playing video games for long periods of time: I have a slight headache on the top of my brain and an intensified desire, like being thirsty while running a long distance, to write creatively instead of working on my project.
Blah, blah. Work is over now. This blog is done, and now I’m going to surf Amazon.com and write a poem or something. I plan to post more on my reading exploits tomorrow; I promise is might be interesting….
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