The lack of extra tiredness

This Friday, the 24th of January 2014, there is a huge hackathon (programming competition where individuals and teams go and try to create the best program they can from scratch) going on known as HackTech. This competition has people coming in from all over the country to try and create the best program in the time constraint of 36 hours. The competition begins at 11 PM on Friday, continues all the way through Saturday, and ends at 11 AM on Sunday. Sleep is optional during this period and those who stay up are usually considered to have better chances at succeeding. Prizes are usually given out to the teams or individuals with the best programs and can range from credit to websites like Amazon to straight up cash prizes. Along with that, there's usually some sort of sticker that participants can put on their laptops to signify that they participated in a certain competition and food is always provided for those who need it. I think I already described my last two experiences with hackathons and how I enjoy them for a period of time while I'm at the events, but don't look forward to them or want to look back at them, but this one is different. 36 hours straight is longer than any other competition I've done and I have no intention of dying of fatigue after a programming competition. That would just be embarrassing, I feel. I enjoy programming to an extent, and I don't feel like I'm terrible at it, although when I don't have any ideas what I am doing with a program, it becomes a bit of a different story, I at least have a basic understanding of programming concepts. These competitions are a too intense for me, though. I can't handle the lack of sleep and I don't know how other people can. Perhaps if they're out of college or out of school, then I can understand because sometimes it's possible to just put down a vacation and rest after the hackathon, but having to go to class after staying up so long programming sounds ridiculous to me. That being said, I was initially planning to go to this event with my roommate and some other people from school, but my roommate just got sick yesterday... YES!

I apologize to my roommate, but I really didn't want to go to this hackathon and his sickness gave me an excuse not to go. Of course, I'm a bit sick as well, but it's not really enough to warrant missing a hackathon. I really should consider just taking programming classes or looking at videos online, but I'm just lazy, short on time, and forgetful. For realz, though, I might just try and learn something like C# this summer... or try to properly learn C++ and Java... Depends on the amount of free time I have.

I'm having serious worries about my grades this semester... I know that none but the business class count towards any of the information that I'll try and put on a resume, but it still would be nice to be able to look at an acceptable GPA by the end of the year. I MUST WRITE QUICKLY, REVISE WELL AND PLENTY, AND GET DUH A IN MY GE AND WRITING CLASSES! With luck, writing about ethnicity and film may not be too bad.

-Sam Rho