Too efficient

Created 2:19pm, Jun 9, 2006

Filed under School

I’m writing this from Perloff Hall courtyard and in the distance is the sound of Celtic flute music. Strangely relaxing.

To me efficiency means getting the greatest relative return for the least investment of resources possible, or getting the most bang for your buck, in a manner of speaking.

Or getting away with being lazy, in another manner of speaking.

Basically this comes down to reducing any hedge in your investment and increasing your risk. Obviously then, sometimes the risks overcome your investment, and you get screwed. Specifically, I’m thinking of investment of time and effort into some time-constrained project. If all you need is a C on tomorrow’s essay to pass the class, or all you need is to implement features XYZ by next week, then investing extra effort into the project is inefficient, right? Right. So I routinely cut it as close as possible, and inevitably end up striving for too much efficiency, when the project proves unsuccessful for the amount of investment I made.

The prime example from my life is my progression through college. There were times when I was pulled off amazing feats of efficiency. Procrastinating all quarter and then only studying for 30 minutes before a final and still getting a B, which was sufficient for me. There were other times when I used the same resources allocation and didn’t quite get the B.

Now might be one of those times.

Long story short, the Spanish class I took at SMC was 16-weeks of torment. About 25% of the grade was based on attendance, mostly in the form of independent, untested “lab” hours. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! That is not a college level curriculum. Anyway, I have horrible attendance practices and basically handicapped myself this quarter.

There are a few ways of looking at it. One way is that I wanted to make this class more of a challenge. It’s a valid, though untrue, perspective. Another is that I wanted to pay tribute to the feeling of hopeless despair that tormented me for years while I battled school. Bold, saucy, inaccurate. More accurate would be that I was struggling to adapt to fulltime job, crapifying health, commuting to class at night, senioritis, all while broke. Excuses, excuses.

So I was going to remain tight-lipped about this, but after a year of blogging, I’ve discovered the many benefits of transparency: clearer mind, less stress, more organized thoughts and focus, enriching self-reflection, more directed actions, etc.

So now I wait for my final grade. And that clearer mind. Until then, it seems like the only thing that gives me peace or hope is the fight-on attitude expressed in this take by that little virtual amphibian who has been embraced by countless morons around the world. Take it away, Crazy Frog.