daBlog by goddess101

Broken

It’s funny sitting at a computer programming all day can give you the same feeling of having done several hours of physical activity. In the morning, they both make you feel broken.

These last few mornings, I’ve been waking up feeling like I’ve just been beat up. In some sense, I have. Debugging and testing a program is a lot like trading punches with a powerful enemy. Just when think you’ve got a bug put down, another one comes up to play on your weaknesses and bite you in the butt. The struggle can often last hours. More often than not, I wind up victorious at the end, with the ability to walk away from the computer knowing I’ve got something solid working, free of the most obvious bugs.

Last night, I wasn’t as lucky. I had been working on a specific problem for hours, and it was left still unresolved by the time dinner rolled around. After the meal, I realized I had been done for the day. The stiffness in my forearms and the ache in my lower back told me it would have been foolhardy to continue. So, I spent an hour on the couch, contemplating how much my body hurt, and eventually dozed off. When Rudi told me to come to bed, my body was in such excruciating pain. The shlep to the toilet was like a death march, sharp pangs in my hip and back. My shoulders ached. I needed to grab onto the door frame for support for the quarter step into and out of the bathroom.

Luckily, this morning wasn’t so bad. Somewhat refreshed and re-energized, I am determined to tame that buggy beast sometime today.