Screaming on a page (kinda) about 6.009 by Powers '23

I. Spent. AT LEAST 15 HOURS ON THIS GODDAMN CODE. Endless stretches spent on a little blue couch, waking up early, leaving my physical form to be cOnSuMeD by the lab. ENDLESS. Helper functions. Helper functions for the helper functions. Functions to make test cases. Helper functions for the functions to make test cases to help me figure out what the FLIPPIN FRACK was wrong with my code. I wrote in so many print statements; I basically made my code recite back to me EXACTLY what it was doing in scripts a mile long. But still, for 15 hours, I was stuck in the exact. Same. Spot. It made no sense, none at all. Virtual office hours? I’ve literally never heard of anything worse. Just the idea of a virtual office hour FILLS me with dread. But I went anyways, twice, and I got advice, and it helped! jUsT kIdDiNG it didn’t lololololololololol XD. And then I hit this point, this glorious point, where I just didn’t care enough to keep going. Ah, bless the liberation of burnout-born apathy! So I left it half done as the late deductions incurred. I went on with my goddamn life. I made curry. I moved my roommate from MIT into the Maine house (!!!). I wrote writing thingies. 11 out of 17 cases was okay because, y’know, the world is like basically ending and I can just become *one with the nature* here in Maine and then MIT classes won’t matter. All was well, right?

But then. THEN. I had a checkoff two days ago. If I wanted even the measly 11 test cases I actually did pass, I would have to subject myself to a virtual checkoff. UGH. I HATE THIS VIRTUAL THING. So I go to clean up the comments and the obscene amount of print statements in my code, and JUST so the LA can see the cleaner version, I re-submit. But y’know what happens? DO. YOU. KNOW. WHAT. ACTUALLY LITERALLY FOR REALSIES. HAPPENS.

I pass three more test cases. And they won’t improve my grade at all XDDDDDDD.

This means that MY CODE. The code I had a WEEK before the checkoff would’ve improved my grade soooooo much if I had just s.u.b.m.i.t.t.e.d.i.t.

Do u know what it’s like. To have MIT pset dread. Mix with pandemic-fueled Nihilism?

It makes you write this blogpost.

I want a better grade in 6.009. I want to be back at MIT and swing on the rope swing in the East Campus courtyard. I want to grill veggie burgers and laugh and hug my friends without worrying that I might actually kill them with a virus I may or may not be carrying. I want 15 HOURS of work to amount to something —ANYTHING— because that would make sense. I want to not sleep and give all of you the best CPW there’s ever been because THAT would be fair.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

There’s no lesson. Just screams. Thanks for reading.