I'm taking a course for work. Two colleagues took it before me and told me it's one of those things that you cannot "memorize." It requires actual knowledge to pass the test in the end. They both stated - and one of them is someone I consider a genius from a remembering everything sense - that the course is ... well, that it requires a good deal of study. In other words, it's not easy. This of course, in my mind at least, meant that if I take it I will pass the test and I will know it inside and out. I like academic challenges like this one. Perhaps it is my competitive nature, I don't know. It's also been a damned long while since my brain was knowingly and actively challenged with a real curriculum of sorts.
The first half of the first mod of the first section (there are six sections) seemed super easy. I skipped ahead and took the quiz out of boredom and then failed. Whups. So I went back through and found out it picks up a bit about half-way through. I mentioned this to the super-memory colleague and he smiles. "Wait until you get 20 hours into it." Ut oh. That was just the first four hours. Fuck. Balancing this with work is going to be tricky at best, right?
But the next couple of mods didn't seem that bad. In fact, I had a renewed sense of purpose and need. My brain was starting to like this exercise. Then I got to the one I just finished. Let's just say that while the concepts were exciting and I was eager to do some really fun things, I realized I had forgotten some basics. Namely, hex to decimal to binary etc conversions. Whups.
So I spent over an hour tonight re-learning how to convert hex to decimal to binary to decimal to hex so I can decipher packets. I was so focused on that I was only half-listening and skimming the rest of the lesson, which is all about how to do what I really wanted to do. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I'd get back to that and find a reference and pick it up as I began doing the work. It would come. This was unconscious at the time but I know I do this and looking back on it, that's exactly what I was thinking somewhere in my head.
Yet somehow, despite my inattention to these things, I picked up something and it was enough to pass a quiz. It's effed up. I don't understand how my brain went from knowing it knows stuff to thinking crap I'm gonna die no wait, I know that... how do I know that... how how HOWWWWWW do I know that... Maybe I've developed more of an audio memory than I'd thought? Maybe I need to move faster?? GAHHHH I don't know but I'm staying home in the morning to do more of this and try to get through the first section. If the next section is even harder and I fall further behind, I won't be seeing the light of day (or path of exile or Dale or tea or food or cats or life) for a long time.
And get this... I screwed up the first and last questions on my latest quiz but knew the answers. Those were the only two I got WRONG. The rest of it I sat there giving correct answers and having no idea how on earth I know them. Many of them I was answering before I saw the choices. This was beyond the simple "I'll guess based on the multiple choice answers I see" routine I used to be so damned good at. (Aren't most people good at those? I reckon so. It sure does help people pass tests.)
They asked one question twice in a different way but I got both right. Something about asking what a number in a header was for a UDP, the last one I think. I'm like, "The payload." Found the right choice, correct. Later they're like, "What does the last field in a UDP header mean?" I'm like, "The number of bytes in the payload. Zheezh, I just told you that." Found the choice, correct. Suddenly I realized I don't remember actually learning that.
This concerns me. I wonder how much of this is memorization (of which I used to have a more visual version of - how I am remembering this sh** is beyond me) and how much is real, solid understanding. What the hell is a UDP payload, anyway? I have some very vague recollection of what it is but I'll be damned if I can put it into words that mean anything coherent. The best I can say is that if someone references this, I'll recognize it now. But explaining it? Ha.
Sometimes I can't help but sit back and smile maniacally. I've always considered myself someone who can figure it out as she goes along, but, this is ridiculous. Is there any limit to what a human can accomplish other than a self-imposed one? Is there? Just yesterday I was explaining to someone that I feel stupid a lot of the time. When questioned about why I realized it's not so much that I feel stupid, it's more about feeling inadequate because of my own inner voices telling me that I should be able to answer any and all questions instantly and know everything all the time without any effort. Isn't this rather impossible for any human? Without this expectation of myself, I'd surely be far less stressed. However, how far would I have come without this burning need to attain perfection in knowledge? Whenever I hand something over to someone else to figure out or to do for me, I feel a huge section of my psyche slip into a depressive abyss as if I'm the biggest failure on earth. Why am I a failure for delegating things I honestly and truly do not have a need to know everything about?
This brings me back to one of the systems I support - and am, in fact, the primary support for. Again I smile and laugh maniacally. I was sitting there with this super cool smart guy. I saw him start writing SQL queries and asked him about it. He seemed surprised that I didn't know SQL given that I was maintaining the system I had been maintaining for 2 or 3 years at that point. I explained my background and how I ended up with this set of servers to support. His eyebrows went up and he looked a bit surprised. Apparently the amount of time between my doing tech work and running a set of servers seemed a bit short. So he showed me some basics and got me going. Now I love SQL. Admittedly, I don't know as much as I'd like, but it's really not that hard. I've often thought that having more time to just sit and mess with it would be ideal. But, I don't have that kind of time, so I don't. Much to my dismay.
This class is like that. It requires some real effort to gain its full value. But I like it just the same... now it's time for pizza and some photo stuff...
~w
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-Whitney
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Contentsofsignaturemaysettleduringshipping. -- Mike Beattie 
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