March 23, 2002 (thing)

The last item on the test was to write this moderately beastly program for about 60% of the test grade... meanwhile I had been taking my sweet time since I had no idea what was at the end, plus I had got there late and was still plowing through the exam at a nice leisurely clip, at which point I realize I had about 30 minutes to write an hour-and-a-half program...

Somewhere on the verge of panic, something clicked in my brain... someone OR'd the bit to set it in overdrive. It was amazing. Normally for something tedious and difficult like Assembler coding I just zone out and in a few hours realize that I've produced a flawless program, but unfortunately a few hours weren't available at the time...

So instead of entering a subconscious idiot-savant mode, I clicked into a sort of hyperconsciousness... I still remember every single character of that program... it's burned into my mind now like an important memory, or at least singed a bit. The important thing is that every bit in that program is the direct result of conscious thought.

But the true beauty was the state of consciousness. In 5 minutes, I produced half an hour's thoughts and progress... entire sections of code spontaneously architected themselves in my imagination as I wrote, fitting themselves seamlessly into the emergent design, carefully leaving hooks to add the rest swiftly and flexibly... The adrenaline high was fantastic, and the moment of truth! Just as the professor asked for the tests, the last few lines spontaneously burst into my mind, the ink leaped from pen to paper and for just a second, my thoughts directly connected to that paper as my mighty stylus performed the coup de grace. All in a heartbeat!

I'm sure I did well on the rest of the exam, but I know that the program was perfect.*