Summer Break 2017, Day 1 of 83

What is this?

Imagine you could harness the full productive capacity of summer vacation without having to succumb to sleeping in while mindlessly looking over documentation or forgetting to finish a summer assignment until a week before school begins. Imagine how many hours you lose by simply not having a plan? (It's in the range of 581–787.)

I'm imagining summer break as school/work on my terms. Of course, that means I'm "off" on holidays, but I'm keeping weekends open for work. Weekends are fair game because I wanted to increase the "number of days in summer break" for marketing, and I realize if I properly schedule events on weekends, I can finally have projects I can start and finish in a week. 

Of course, I didn't begin summer break on the first day I wasn't required to attend school because I really wanted to begin on day one. Beginning on day one makes me punctual (if you don't count the fact a day zero would truly impress my future self).

Here's the goal: I'm going to show myself now and forever that I understand the sequence of decisions needed to ensure success in whatever I do. (Yes, pretty vague, but what do you expect from a teen at 11:54 PM?)

A Practice in Self-Discipline

I've already begun taking steps that qualitatively make me act like a junior in high school (or at least the one I wish to be). Last Thursday, riding on a bus going away from a school that's going to be torn apart in the coming years, I came to an epiphany. There's no way I'm going to get into MIT at the rate I'm going. Yeah, I taught myself how to program real things in at least three programming languages. Sure, I may be smart in my school (although not grade-wise), but the best of a "meh" is really a "meh" of the best; the highest performer in a population is likely to be an average performer of a population of high performers.

Long story short, I really need to update my standard behavior to get into any MIT.

Today in Summer Break

While I wish for a clean start, I'm stuck with a shaky one as I am unwillingly tricked into watching Wonder Woman. (For my thoughts on that, this video simply sums it up.)

After being asked by father if I wanted to see the movie (which I did not), he calls me downstairs in a hurry, and I, assuming from that tone of voice, took that as, "Son, why aren't you ready? Hurry up, we're about to leave!" I grab the keys, hop in the car, and drive to the local movie theater.

As my sister and my father grab our popcorn, my father informs me, "I was just going to tell you to cut the grass. I was surprised when you came downstairs dressed."

Sure, a two and a half hour movie that begins at noon is terrible timing to accomplish anything of value of today, but it gets worse as my father tells me he has a speeding ticket to rectify. He drives to the municipal building, and I wait almost half an hour. We drive home, and I look at the time.

There went five hours, simply wasted.

Two and a half hours later, I end up having to travel 25 minutes to taekwondo practice. In the course of making a left hand turn, a car nearly collides with me at 40-something miles per hour. As my father lets out an almost facetious screech, I realize my mistake two and a half yards away from the other vehicle. Instead of stopping, something old self might have done, I realize my training: if you're not about to collide head-on, keep going; it's better to attempt to save a bad decision than to not make a decision against a more unfavorable outcome. (Of course, this was never explicitly stated by my father. I'm not sure where I learned this.) The ordeal wasn't over, however; I nearly begun spinning out into oncoming traffic when I overcorrected and began drifting. My father corrected the wheel, and we were back on target.

I arrive with ten minutes to spare. With my father being the master, some people were naturally getting worried when we weren't already at the building, especially when it began pouring. As the time ticked closer to 6:00, students that showed up began filling up the room (relative to who had appeared in weeks past). Go figure, people stay home when it's a beautiful day but go out when it's pouring. Putting up a somewhat respectable fight for a black belt, I spar four two-minute rounds with a large 13 year-old about to go to middle school, a large 20-something in a respectable position in the Air Force, and a normal-sized 20-something working at the nearby Rackspace headquarters.

After getting home unscathed, I consume some pre-made flank meal from my neighborhood H-E-B and begin a machine learning course on Udacity before deciding to write this.

Yes, I know these are all first world problems; oh, how terrible I didn't get to finish programming an app on my mid-range computer because I watched a movie and only had an hour of free time before taekwondo practice! To the complaints, I say: my problems are perfectly legitimate. I'm trying not to squander my opportunities here.

Luckily, Google Calendar is here to keep me on track. Its goals ensure I accomplish what I desire within the week. Speaking of what I desire, I'm significantly past my newly erected bed time (11:00). I'll be back tomorrow.