I think my delight at having my spleen shrink has worn off. I was pretty depressed yesterday, so depressed that I left work early. The only task I had to work on yesterday was to make some slides for HotNets, and I just couldn't make myself work on it. I'm sure that everyone has their off days at work, but this was not the only such instance for me.
In fact, I feel like it's been going on for a long time. I really feel that over the past 4+ years in grad school I've become dumber, lazier, more distracted, and more frustrated when it comes to my work. This might surprise some people, since I've actually been very successful in the past two years; see my publication record on my web site, though it's missing my latest IMC paper and the fact that Persona won the best student paper award. However, I find myself working twice as hard to do half as much.
Until now, I just blamed this feeling on the aging process. Now I have no choice but to question if Carmichael has been to blame for some of it. Have I not been getting enough oxygen to my brain? Or do I just want something to blame on my own failures? This inability to tease out what the effects of Carmichael are and what are "normal" changes to my body is incredibly frustrating. Which of these changes can I prevent, and which are inevitable?
These are the thoughts that went through my head as I walked home. It really weighs on me, because I've always prided myself on a job well done, and without that, what do I have? I'm really worried about Sigcomm this year; heck, I'm worried about finishing this presentation in time for Syschat on Wednesday. In the end, I suppose the only thing I can do is to try my best, as tacky as that sounds...
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