Sun, April 14, Sun ‘15th Weekly’

This week is almost the worst. I couldn’t fall asleep until dawn since I had many cups of ‘Gong Cha’ not knowing that it contains caffeine. The vicious cycle lasted from Monday to Thursday. I set a goal of restoring biorhythm and life style to normal state. CodeJam Round 1A was held in this weekend. Offline gathering of ‘Open College’ was canceled because the number of attendees was less than minimum requirement. Because of spring, I’m tired and sleepy.

Caffeine

When I started to drink coffee, I might be 4th grade in elementary school. I didn’t study at that time but I drank can coffee everyday because it was sweety. As I started studying, I had much more coffee. I bought a box of coffee and drank one every 2 hours. As I look back on now, It was just a habit. I was already addicted to caffeine so I slept well even right after having coffee.

After getting into university, There was no reason to drink coffee. However, ‘barista’ suddenly started to catch on when I was freshmen. With the trend, an ocean of cafes was created on the street. Many books on coffee were published and sold well. Many people studied coffee to become barista. How they enjoy coffee represented their level of culture and taste. In the age of coffee, it was still good beverage to people who didn’t have knowledge about coffee.

I didn’t like to distinguish salty, bitter, sour and salty taste of coffee but I just enjoyed americano a lot. When I talked with friends, read a book, study and etc, coffee was the best beverage for all the moments.

As I think, the police organization likes coffee the most among all the organizations. Now executives prefer tea to coffee, but a number of coffee packet were consumed in the field. I don’t understand why we offered a cup of coffee as exchanging greetings. Sometimes, someone lose his temper when I putted little or much water than he likes into cup.

When I had practice training in police office, we visited seniors office to greet them. All of them offered coffee so one day I drank 7 cups of instant coffee until practice was done. No matter how they like coffee, It would be beyond his capacity. Instant coffee is most common equipment in every police office. We always enjoyed it when we finished a task, when we are sleepy, in the morning, talking with others. It was symbol of break like smoking. On summer, instant coffee with ice cubes was the tastiest drink.

After I started working in this company, I became to able to choose more way to drink coffee. There are canned coffees in the fridge. I also can brew coffee using machine or just have instance coffee. Moreover, I can order coffee made by barista in the in-company cafe. I drank coffee instead of water making excuse that I should concentrate on work.

After getting health screening, I completely quit coffee. I didn’t suffer from withdrawal symptom. After several weeks, I really hooked on ‘Gong Cha’. Of course, I didn’t know it contains caffeine. Actually, I was a only one who didn’t know it. I drank 2 cups of coffee right before going to bed and I never could fall asleep until dawn. Until that, I even didn’t suspect that caffeine caused it. I searched it on the off chance and could be free from ‘Gong Cha’.

From this event, I became to know that most of teas contain caffeine even peppermint too. I’ll just drink pure water. Drinking 2L of water isn’t beneficial to health and it overworks kidney rather.

Reason To Live

Sometimes, I wander the reason why this world and I exists. In this extremely long time of universe, I’m just dust which exists for a short time and disappears with no trace. This thought results extreme nihilism and eliminate desire for everything. Everyone who is alive now would be dead and gone at least in 200 years. Someday, I have to say goodbye people who I love and love me. No matter what record I leave, It would forgotten and vanish after one hundred million years. Would the important events in current world history still be considered as important, if the concept of world is widened from Earth to universe.

This emotion of nihilism is felt when we compare things which belong to different scale. The value we consider precious thing is only valid on the present. Even though everything what I prepare for the future won’t be meaningful after one hundred million years, It is meaningful for me after several years. Even though everyone would be old and die away, They are near me and it is really meaningful.

In the same way, we can approach the reason why we exist. As a monk said, there’s no clear answer to it. At least, it isn’t discovered yet. If the pain is only one we can get from thinking about the reason, just enjoying the present is better. If the death is the destination regardless of how we live, only the process of life can make difference in our life. At least, we could feel the meaning of life while we alive, if the road to death is full of happiness.

Google CodeJam

Google CodeJam is programming contest held by google every year. The contestants solve ACM-ICPC style algorithm problems. TCO which is hosted by topcoder is similar programming competition. It is becoming more and more famous, since most of big IT companies introduced algorithmic coding test on the interview. Whether this algorithm coding ability is really important to practical programming or not still has been in dispute. I have short career as programmer but I have participated in programming competition for a long time. I don’t know which side is correct because programming ability itself can’t be clearly defined.

Actually, hard coding interview can verify candidate’s ability to solve problem. The abilities are to observe given conditions and apply appropriate algorithm. Some algorithms are even hard to comprehend so they are used to measure the level of intelligence. Of course, I don’t know this kind of interview would be still valid in the future. In Korea, academies to prepare coding test are emerging now. Therefore, this test is likely to be categorized and cracked by learning past interview question. However, there’s no doubt that it is much efficient and objective way of evaluating candidates than other ways for now.

Weekly

I’m managing ‘Weekly’ which is small club in open college. Members share their stories of week with each other by uploading it to google drive on every Sunday. Offline meeting is held biweekly and it is not mandatory. I want to replace it to hangout meeting. Monthly gathering seems to be better than biweekly.

For now, approximately 20 people joined the club and I want to attract more and more people. The more people are gathered, the more stories we can see. Stories of other people show me each different shapes of life. Someone is going through hard time, some met turning point and others are just enjoying their daily life.

They write their weekly log with each unique ways. Someone made planner with Excel sheet and log daily todos. Some write with their own handwriting. Someone made cards with short sentence and pictures which he took. Having many people amplifies effect of diversity so I can see the different aspect what I even couldn’t imagine.

These experiences are really precious for me. As I have grown old, my attitude regarding new things have been changing to more conservative. Life experience what I have accumulated is not only wisdom but stereotype. Since we recognize this stereotype as right thing, new things are likely to be considered bad. Often, young which has only a few experiences is like empty paper, they can adopt new things well. In contrast, old people are like densely filled paper so they only can adopt drawings which is in harmony with already drawn style. 

To prevent paper being filled with only one style of paintings, we should accept diverse experience. If we are too late, we can never go back. We won’t be able to accept unfamiliar things. Having one style isn’t bad but it is also sad losing variety of life. Anyway, I hope to get all what I want to learn.