Overkill

Didn't even get a post in yesterday and today I'm up until midnight again. Some of this is in response to some annoying run-time errors we're seeing on our Oracle platform at work, but mostly it's spending a lot of time messing around with the final project for Bayesian Stats.

I finished it this evening. I'll proof it on Monday before turning it in on Tuesday, but the work is done. I won't post it until the due date (next Friday), but when I do, there won't be much to explain why I spent so long on it.

In short, while I'm not trying to make this harder than it needs to be, I am pretty interested in actually learning this stuff. So, I don't always (ever?) go for the quickest path to an answer. I spend time thinking about ways to frame the problem. I try different solutions. I do a lot of editing.

From a purely cost/benefit standpoint, this approach doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I could get A's on a lot less effort. But, I'm really not caring that much about my GPA. A meaningful dissertation is as much about the journey as it is the destination. I need to keep myself in the mindset of learning rather than answering.

Obviously, if I was in a real crunch this semester, I'd cut corners where appropriate. As that's not the case, I don't mind a few extra hours running down some side avenues. I've actually learned quite a bit in the last week simply because I bothered to follow up on a few questions that weren't necessary to producing an answer, but presented themselves nonetheless.