Of Mice and Army Men

Here it is Wednesday and I am hoping it is Friday.  Not the most auspicious of beginnings I know.  Trying to get back to what this thing was created for - an outlet so I can vent, talk about my day, talk about my concerns or even just talk about something I have been thinking of and not get judged or drive my wife crazy having to listen to.

My entire lab (well O.K. most of my entire lab) went up to Huntsville today.  Dr. Soni had arranged a tour of the offices of the Army's game design group.  He had originally joked that he did not want us going because he was afraid we would all want to take jobs there and no one would be left at the E.T. Lab.  I guess he decided that was not a threat because there we were, playing on the Army's toys.  They have a set up that is very similar to what we were shooting for at the Lab - they are basically in a really big warehouse, lots of storage room for bigger set pieces and still plenty of room for labs, office space, and storage.  They use the Unreal game engine instead of Unity but really it is not so different from what we do.  Really makes you envious of a place that can afford the kind of space we just dream of.

The day wasn't all giggles though.  I have a homework assignment due tomorrow afternoon for Dr. Johnstone and I have barely scratched the surface of it.  He gave us copies of four really large programs written in C++ and wants us to modify them so they do a couple of extra functions.  It would be so much easier if he had built up to this slowly, but instead he threw us straight to the wolves.  He seems like a very intelligent guy and I like him, but sometimes I wonder about his teaching ability.  He gave out a practice quiz last week - I bombed - and since the majority of the class did poorly on it, his solution was to teach something related to what we were doing, but even harder.  He basically thought if we could figure out THIS, then the stuff we were doing would seem easy.  I don't get it.

Anyway the only good news about the homework is that I am not the only one struggling with it.  I know at least one other guy in the class has not been able to get any farther than I have so I am not alone in my misery.

What am I doing?

No excuses for not publishing more.  I can't even claim to be sick this time - I can't even claim that nothing was happening.  I just haven't had the desire to post.  I have been ... melonc-oly (said in my best Megamind voice) for the past couple of weeks and just can't seem to shake it.  I guess more than anything this is brought on by a sense of being overwhelmed.  Bouts of depression are nothing new for me, I have had them before and I am sure I will have them again...and this isn't the first time I have wondered what I was doing but still having a hard time shaking it.

I tried talking to Paula about it.  For as wonderful as she is on most things, this is just one thing she doesn't get.  I tell her how upset/overwhelmed/worried...hell scared I am and she acts like I just told her we needed to stop at the store on the way home from work and get more milk.  I get it, she thinks I can fight through anything, mainly because I have in the past, but it is not the attitude you want to see.  So hopefully writing all this out will help me.

Part of the problem is the "computer magic" and "Super PhD's" on most television shows.  I am sitting here working (and struggling) to grasp basic concepts I should know, and there is somebody hacking into DoD mainframes in under 2 minutes.  Yeah, I know it is fake.  I know hacking is time intensive and a lot more code-y than the wonderful pictures they show on TV...but you still feel bad when everyone assumes YOU can do that because you are getting your doctorate..and the truth of the matter is you would not even know where to START.

First thing I guess is I made a mistake.  There is absolutely no way I should have taken both of the Computer Science courses at the same time.  Dr. Sloan is actually o.k. .. hell he is downright enjoyable this semester.  I am learning a lot and getting some good stuff out of the class.  Dr. Johnstone is a great guy and I seem to understand his class...as long as he is talking.  As soon as we leave class it transitions into some Greek/Latin/Chinese mush that I can not make heads or tails of.   Once class starts back and he goes over the homework I am like "Oh....yeah that makes perfect sense" but try do to that myself?  No I don't think so.

In addition to this, work decided to switch everything over to a game engine called Unity.  Great system, sorta easy to learn, very powerful...and I am already behind.  We started out making a game as a lab, but I was assigned the "manager" spot on the build, so I did not actually get to do any of the coding.  Then, the rest of the lab went up to Boston for a long weekend of coding at a "Game Jam".  I did not go for a variety of reasons, but it just put me further behind the proverbial 8-ball.

I guess the real thing I can take away from the last couple of weeks is that apparently, somewhere, I lost my coding ability.  Coding used to be simple.  Coding is really just taking a complex task and breaking it down into a lot of really easy tasks, then coding those easy tasks, combining them, and voila, you have solved the hard task.  My problem lately has been, I have not seen how to break up those larger problems.  And even when I can figure out a couple of the smaller tasks, I can't figure out what order to do them in so I get valid results.

I want to finish this program.  I have put in a lot of time, effort, blood, sweat and tears on this thing and I want to get through...but I can't help but wonder if I am smart enough to.