Elvis Montero

Solace

I’ve been unable to sit down and write anything remotely thoughtful or coherent for a while now. The reason? I’ve been working (er, thinking is a better term I guess) on my MS final project. The overall experience has been frustrating at varying levels, but unequivocally frustrating nonetheless. Putting things in perspective during this brief respite, I think I know the reason why: novelty.

See, what I’m working on is fairly novel. There are unknown unknowns everywhere. All I know right now is that I’ll build something (software) that will do something cool. No joke. Other than the domain (i.e. energy/power consumption), that’s all I know thus far! I’ve read more than 20 papers on energy consumption, sustainable printing and other tree-hugging material in hopes of characterizing the tool I’ll end up developing. I’ve had several meetings with my committee/advisers in which we’ve tried to list the requirements and role of said tool. What’s the application’s goal? Who are the users? How will they use the application? What is the application supposed to do for crying out loud?! More importantly, how can we do that? Can we even do it? In essence, we’ve been discussing what the requirements for my still-fictitious application are. Oh, have I mentioned I’ve been doing this for the past 4 months now? No? Well, now you know.

This situation has taken its toll. The cheerful me, the jovial Elvis most people love to love (yes, most people love me!), has gradually diluted in a sea of consternation. I rarely smile. I’m moodier than a hungry, pregnant woman. Everything is dark and gloomy now. I’ve started feeling as if I don’t have time to work on the more awesome things out there (e.g. a startup). I’ve even been told my recently-acquired monotone voice is a clear indicator of my tumultuous inner state. Yesterday, I had to read my own apropos post on failure just to  remind myself that this is just another transitional stage in life.

Picture this cute face a hundred thousand times sadder, and a billion times less adorable. That’s me right about now.

Source: douglasspics via Flckr

I think anyone who’s ever worked on anything remotely unconventional/original must have felt the same way once or twice. Incredibly, despite my struggles, I find myself wanting to read more about the subject. I’ve found myself thinking on the application’s UI, the likely users, the use cases, the data structures I’ll need once I start coding, the algorithms I’d use, the most apt language, and a lot of other stuff, more than a few times. Yes, you could argue I’m a masochist (gulp!). But, in spite of the ongoing frustrations, I still want to work on this stuff!

That alone is driving me forward. That desire, that passion if you will, is making me feverishly push for my next proposal (5th one so far!). The thrill of doing something cool and significant is the only thing keeping me busy lately. Interestingly, that’s all the solace I need.