the flying squirrel

Wednesday, August 1, 2001

Dammit, that's the fifth person in as many days who's told me I should smile. I'm getting to the point were I want to say, flat out, "No!"

I mean, first off, I don't like people who go around with a strained, insincere smile all the time. They strike me as phony, often giving off mixed signals. Well, saying I don't like them is a bit harsh—most people (me included) quite understandably don't want to give away the full extent of their anguish when they're feeling down, if only to simplify routine social intercourse. "I'm fine." But there's a difference between masking emotion and pretending it's something that it isn't.

Second, I'm actually in a not-all-that-bad mood at the moment (an improvement over last week, throughout much of which I was a little depressed for no very good reason). My facial expression at the time my coworker commented should've been one of concentration. Work is actually progressing and I'm getting stuff done (I'm calling the time spent writing this an extended lunch break). I'm not really feeling happy-happy right now, but then I don't have too much reason to be. Really... Smiling like an idiot whilst sitting alone at my desk not surfing online comics would, in my mind, indicate deeper problems than a grey mood.

Third, I'm a little bit self-conscious of my smile. I think it's goofy-looking.

Speaking of deeper problems, I found this little online personality (disorder) test yesterday. I thought I'd share the results with you...

Disorder: Rating

Paranoid: Low

Schizoid: Low

Schizotypal: High

Antisocial: Low

Borderline: Low

Histrionic: Moderate

Narcissistic: Low

Avoidant: Very High

Dependent: High

Obsessive-Compulsive: High

-- Click Here To Take The Test --

Hmm... I suspect this thing was done mostly as a joke, but the descriptions of Avoidance Personality Disorder are frustratingly and scarily on the mark for me. But maybe I'm becoming an Internet-based hyopchondriac. No, the symptoms don't match. :P I found this apropos, however:

My psychiatrist has told me, that my essential problem is that I don't act according to the feelings I have inside. The inside and outside are very different. I think that pretty much sums up what APD is all about, and what I need to do: I need to externally express what is inside of me. I'm working on that, but it's hard work.

For me, it's a little easier. When I was younger, I wore a poker face all the time. Nowadays, unless I intentionally clamp down for some reason, my emotions are a lot easier to read. Sincerity is important to me. So no, I'm not going to smile because you tell me I should. I'll smile because I'm happy.

Tuesday, July 24, 2001

At the risk of sounding like a 'blog, just commenting on web pages and stuff, I really feel I have to point out Piggy and Puppy. Read especially Puppy's Journal. Piggy and Puppy go on lots of adventures, and Puppy was very good to write all of them down.

Tuesday, July 17, 2001

Work has been especially frustrating the last week or so. I'd managed last Monday to solve a small problem that was very important to one of our customers. This made me feel quite good about myself, which is important since I hadn't been making much progress in the preceding weeks. When I tried to see if my solution worked, though, I found that nothing worked at all. The entire product was broken.

I reverted my changes and went back to build the offending library again, based on what should be the code that was shipped out for our last release (which was nearly two years ago for this particular thing). It didn't work either. This was a small relief because, while something was horribly wrong, at least it wasn't my fault. On the other hand, if it had been something I'd done, it'd been a lot easier to fix. I knew what I'd done, after all. I have no idea what happened nearly two years ago, and no one who might have worked on it is still around to offer advice.

Now I'm at a loss. I've been beating my head against this thing for a week now. It's not giving an inch. I've been trying to build related libraries thinking that maybe my library got out of synch in some way I wouldn't think would be likely. The only thing that's accomplished is to turn up more problems, proving that the mess I'd inherited is far more widespread that I'd have guessed. I have no idea how this stuff ever worked, and the two-year-old CD that proves that it did once is only there to taunt me. It's my job to fix this, but I don't really know where to start.

So I decided to post a small journal entry instead of thinking about it. It seemed like the best thing to do, under the circumstances.