johnjosephbachir: okay i have to get back to work
lkbalzano: good luck john
lkbalzano: motivate yourself
johnjosephbachir: you too, good talking to you 
johnjosephbachir: thanks
lkbalzano: I believe in you
johnjosephbachir: :- )
johnjosephbachir: thanks
lkbalzano: you know when I had trouble with motivation
lkbalzano: I had to go through this whole epiphany thing
lkbalzano: before I learned my lesson.
johnjosephbachir: i've had many epiphanies 
lkbalzano: it was *after* graduation
johnjosephbachir: what do you mean by the epiphany thing
lkbalzano: no it was a real epiphany, I mean the kind that takes you to the next level
lkbalzano: well I realized that I was being stupid and that if I really want to motivate myself, I can. it's not out of my control.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004
From: John Joseph Bachir
To: Laura Balzano
Subject: motivation

can you write me a little bit about your motivation epiphany?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004
From: Laura Balzano
To: John Joseph Bachir
Subject: Re: motivation

I've never really written about this before, so bear with me.

So throughout school I pretty much just managed to get my work done at the
last minute. I figured out some ways over the years to keep my grades from
falling as fast as my motivation did, like taking classes from particular
teachers or studying with friends etc. I got through some really bad slumps
with not very good grades but came out realizing I was depressed and I didn't
want that to happen again. So you know, just by staying generally happy with
my life, I could be sure to also do OK in school.

But I wasn't "living up to my potential" you might say. I mean, parts of me
LOVED electrical engineering and math and computer science when the right
topic popped up, or on nights before exams when I was studying so much that
the beauty of it all was really evident to me, or when I was reading some
awesome article by some famous scientist. So if I loved it so much, why
couldn't I ever do well at anything?

I wasn't motivated. I knew that was the reason, because I would spend like
hours surfing the web-- I mean it wasn't fruitless, it was fun and I would do
cool things like learn about new music or something, but it didn't really get
me anywhere. I wondered if I should change my career-- get into writing about
music or something, something I seemed to do all the time to distract myself
from school work. But I sort of knew that if I changed, I'd start surfing the
web for new EE technology and reading science magazine or something to
distract myself from that.

So I was like "how do I motivate myself"??? and I was thinking damn other
people have more motivation than I do (which is true). And I was genuinely
trying things to motivate myself like saying "You can go out later if you
finish" or something, and I even got way more creative than that, but nothing
worked.

So then one day after I finished school, while I was working on my research
project with ed knightly, we had a status meeting and he asked me how far
along I was. We only had three weeks left and he knew there was a serious
amount of work left to be done if my work was going to make it into the paper
before the deadline. 

Something happened to me during that meeting. Usually when people ask me how
my work is going, I just answer vaguely and get out of any further
questioning. But that time for some reason, I didn't feel relief after he
stopped asking me questions. I felt really weird, like everything I was doing
was just temporary. Like I surf the web today but forget mostly what I read
on the web last week. Like things were going in my head all the time, but
then going out in a matter of days. Even school work-- knowledge from each
week's homework set went in my head the day before it was due and out the day
after.

And I felt that the word "accomplishment" describes a feeling exactly the
opposite of this feeling I was having. I knew looking back that I had
accomplished things-- some good projects, some good papers, a degree. But
none of it FELT like an accomplishment while I was doing it, because none of
it actually took more than a minimal amount of time and effort (scattered
amongst hours and hours of surfing the web and writing emails, of course).

So then I realized also that when I started school, I had this idea that I
should get everything done quickly and efficiently and on schedule. But that
slowly that idea had left my philosophy, that I should get things done at my
own pace. And that sort of had changed my view on how to spend my time-- that
really, if I chose to take another semester to graduate, that would be fine.
But also it made me realize that days weren't as big a deal as I used to
think. Like if I didn't get something done that day that I was supposed to
get done, it wasn't a big deal.

BUT, this is the lesson I learned the day of that meeting: if I was going to
keep that attitude about time and pace, I would have to beware of the
slippery slope of saying "well I didn't get it done today so I can get it
done tomorrow". 

I had 21 days before the deadline, and that didn't sound like too much time
when you consider that I had been living for 23 years. If I was going to do
something that would actually make me feel accomplished, I would just have to
*focus and do the work* and if it was only going to be for 21 days, well,
then I knew an end was in sight. It's like giving up candy for lent, 40 days
is actually really easy because I know I'm going to eat a big chocolate egg
on easter sunday. But, when I try to give up candy with no end date, it's
practically impossible to even go one full day without eating it. And so that
was it, I was like "I'm going to experiment and try to work really, really
hard for 21 days. I really am. No excuses." It was the perfect time because I
had no other obligations. So I made rules that I couldn't surf the web,
couldn't call anyone, couldn't go off campus for lunch, etc, and I followed
them in hopes of feeling really good about something when I was done. 

if these ramblings haven't made this clear: I think one of the driving
factors for my experiment was that it would all be over only three weeks away
from when I started.

journal entry 1
journal entry 2

Since then I've really better understood the concept that --to get something
done, you just have to sit down and DO it. I realized that all those phrases
people use are really just true-- you have to buckle down and do it, you have
to put your nose to the grindstone, etc. I realized that maybe people who did
that aren't necessarily super motivated. Maybe they're like me but they're
less pompous. Like they just DO what they're supposed to DO.

it sounds so stupid just writing it like that, like the words are obvious but
the actual doing is not so obvious. But actually, after my experiment I
really really realized that it IS that obvious.

Maybe it took doing it once to realize that it's usually worth the effort in
the end... who knows.

<snip>

laura

------------------------------------------------------------------------

mcgradstudent: a propos of laura, i think she is right....it helps to
think of hte majro accomplishment that it will be to be done with whatever
project.....i remember when i was workign on my writing sample paper for
grad school, i was completely unmotiv ated and when i gave a shitty first
draft to prof marcia brennan she totally called me on the shittyness and i
had a bit of a n epiphany that wow other people can tell when i don't try
very hard...and from that day until i finished the paper liek a week l
ater i kicked it in high gear and thoguht about how much better the paper
woudl be after i worked my ass off to make it good....and it almost killed
me and i was in mudd at ALL hours of the day in my polar bear pajamas and
nto showering and seriously slee p deprived and at the end the paper was
excellent and i was so releived and exhausted that i cried in front of
marcia brennan (and then i slept for a few days)...... 
johnjosephbachir: aww chris that is a great story
johnjosephbachir: what does propos mean
mcgradstudent: a propos means relevant to

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004
From: Alex
To: John Bachir
Subject: fuck

Ever notice how it's six times harder to make yourself do work when
you're not sure how to do it? God dammit. This stupid fucking project.
I just want it to be over, and then I want to do nothing. I'd say I
want to quit, but it's kind of dumb to quit when the paycheck keeps
coming in.

This is going to be such a bitch. I just have to make myself sit down
and fucking do it. I have a Monday deadline and I'm almost sure that I
won't make it. Even if I miss Monday, it has to be done ASAP because of
manufacturer requirements. Basically, it's not going away and I have to
finish it or die. Fuck, you idiot, this is not that hard. You just have
to stop procrastinating, and suffer through debugging all the bullshit
code that you're not sure is right. Maybe I should reference the
documents again, that's always a good idea when you're not quite sure
what to do. Sigh.

-Alex