The life of a coder

Whether or not I have anything on that day, I always wake up at 8am. I suppose this is strange for a millennial going through college, as most of my friends sleep from 5am to 12pm supposing they have no class that morning. 

Today I could try and sleep in, but if I try and sleep anymore I just end up laying there feeling more and more restless. So I suppose I wake up and turn on the computer. It's interesting how that's most people's morning routine, but I suppose if I'm staying at home the whole day there won't be a need to look good. Heck, even I won't be looking in the mirror for the whole day. 

Today is a free day from school, so it means grind day for projects, especially coding assignments that are infamous for being tedious. As soon as I type in my password, my two screens buzz to life, as they start going through their startup procedures. Open Github, Telegram, Discord, YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit for memes.

I fetch from Github, refer to my group chat for tasks for that particular day and start testing and coding straightaway. For many, these lines of different colors do not make any sense at all, and they do impress a lot of people but to me, they are simply variables in my head that I store and go through as I read them line by line. They are instructions that mean nothing to the computer and they execute them without question, all for me to get an A. 

I would log into an empty meeting room on discord just to let my friends know that I am awake, and every so often a friend would log in to talk to me while I coded away. I would have conversations with them, but my mind would always be on the code. I am quite impressed that I do manage to think about the conversation and code at the same time. What I can't work with is silence. I must have some sort of background noise, whether through twitch or discord. 

My only solace throughout the day would be lunch, of which I take a break from the big screen to look at the small screen on my phone to watch a documentary while I have lunch, made to perfection from my maid. Of course, I would get stares of "this kid just stay at home all day and type on his computer" from family members and my maid and the fact that I haven't brushed my teeth or took a shower doesn't really help with curing this impression. I don't really care though, I just need to get back to work afterward to finish my code. 

My groupmates would definitely be online by now, of which then I can start asking them for their particular code logic so I could code according to what they did, shifting my priorities accordingly. Depending on the intensity of the bug I have to fix or the functionality I have to build in, I find myself skipping dinner. This doesn't really bother me that much since I haven't moved an inch since lunch. I agree that this is unhealthy but hey, at least my brain and fingers are working and I only do this on my off day from university, so once a week at least, three times a week at most. 

Now is the time where I brush my teeth and shower. I can't have morning breath before I sleep after all. I can live the day feeling dirty, but I definitely can't do so before sleeping. After doing this I turn off my computer and lights and hop into bed. Before I sleep I notice all the lights coming from my computer. I forgot to turn off the power from my computer so I do see blinking lights emanating from there, or the router next to it blinking on and off to show that WiFi is still available and from the power button on my second screen as it goes on standby. When I take off my glasses they look like lights shining in the distance, like bright stars against a dark sky in the horizon. I spend 10 minutes to sit on my bed and stare at them for a while, thinking about how this must be what Gatsby felt like: staring at a light in the not-so-far distance, thinking that somehow happiness lay somewhere beyond them.