by David LeMieux
Do you ever get in the zone while you are working? I do, but almost to a fault. I was going to go to the Orson Scott Card forum yesterday (Joel Dehlin ended up coming to my class today, so I would have gotten the best of both!) - anyway, I was going to go to the forum but I was on a roll at work making an interactive calendar element when I looked up and it was 2:30 - the forum was half way over.
This happens to me a lot. I get on a roll with something and I lose track of everything else. Unfortunately, I have not quite mastered the art of getting in to that zone at will, but when I do I am super efficient, effective, and creative. When I am "in the zone" solutions just pop in to my head, I can see where problems might arise in the future and I can preemptively correct them. I am a machine! But then I usually end up being late for things and ignoring the world around me.
However, as I said not all was lost. Brother Dehlin visited my class today and said a lot of great things. Like "action item" and "games." Ha! In all seriousness, he did give a lot of good advice and reminded me why it is I love Computer Science so much. One thing he said that I really appreciated was that it is important to get out and not get addicted to technology. I have seen that happen, from time to time, in my own life. I was reassured to know that it really is a problem that others face, and I was inspired by his career decisions; he stopped making games because he felt guilty about the addiction it was causing in others. Another thing I though was interesting was the fact that Brother Dehlin was an Accounting major that did programming in his own free time. He was good enough to work for Microsoft, and now the Church, but he says he regrets thinking that he knew all he needed to know and not going to class because he missed out on learning things like design principles.
It would be cool to work for the Church, but I am a Comm. major, and it would be way more fun to work for the broadcast/production arm of the Church than for ICS. I love CS, but there is a reason it is not my major.