Thoughts on my First Job

2013-08-07

I have been working for about 2 weeks now, and it is different than I expected. There are unexpected things, but overall I have noticed just how ordinary it is. I just do the same sort of things I already did with the yard at home, only now I do them somewhere else and for longer. They also give me money (I've been told), which is another plus.

In a broader sense, a lot of things in life that look different from the outside turn out to be essentially more of the same. University was like high school except less well-organized and more confusing. Quantum physics (what I know of it at least) is like classical physics except that it makes no intuitive sense, and only a little of the other kind. Ray tracing (a fancy way of doing computer graphics) uses the same math as triangle based graphics (a simpler way of doing graphics used in computer games). Typing messages on Facebook is about the same as typing up reports (I even have to go back and change things). Making a computer program to perform new scientific research is like writing a program to duplicate something that has been done a thousand times before (except that it has less chance of doing what you want when you are done). Not knowing what to do while somewhere far away is an awful lot like not knowing while close to home.

I suppose this makes sense, as we always uses the same senses, languages, social conventions, etc. Also, it makes sense that the same skills I use all the time to do what I want would also be useful to do what other people want. Still, it seems kind of weird.

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