Milica prepared her CV, and now she thinks I should do the same. We talked about it last summer. Well, actually, she talked, and I agreed. I did work on it a bit, looking for a good template and downloading a few examples.
Milica: You haven’t done anything yet. Do you at least have a folder on your computer called “my CV”?
David: No, I don’t.
Milica: So, you haven’t even started.
David: Is the folder really important?
Milica: Every big project starts with opening the designated folder on your computer.
David: But this isn’t a big project. It’s something you sit down and do in one afternoon.
Milica: Even small projects start with a folder. And the older kids in the neighborhood were right when they forbid you to start sentences with “but.”
I deliberately changed the subject.
David: I’m coming home for the weekend.
Milica: How long will you stay?
David: I’m arriving late on Friday, staying until Monday.
Milica: If you had let me know earlier, we could have gone out. Come over on Saturday during the day. Do you have time?
David: I do. I don’t plan to do anything at home. I’m not bringing my computer.
David: Um… while I was home for summer break, we didn’t get along about my screen time. I mean… when I get home from the job at the Ministry, I was working on a website.
David: At night it was easier, and I’d wake up around noon if it is not a work day, then my mom would start complaining that I looked pale, my eyes were red, I didn’t have a normal biorhythm, I was going to have a “mouse shoulder,” this, that…
Milica: And your dad?
David: He says the same thing. They both say the same thing, even at the same time, but she’s three tones higher. They must have coordinated. And then…
David: Then I calmly tell them that this is just how it is today. In agricultural societies, people worked hard under the sun, had red skin, scratches, suffered from sunstroke. Later, in industrial ones, they worked monotonous jobs on assembly lines, stood all day, developed varicose veins, worked with asbestos, inhaled various poisons… hallucinated in the paint rooms, and all of that… well, today, they sit at computers and their backs hurt a little, they’re pale, and their eyes are red. Milica: Haha… you really tried… every era has its own problems.
David: I mean… I didn’t say I finish the website by midnight and then play Championship Manager until five a.m.
Milica: I didn’t doubt it. You idiot. Did you get an answer in Major third?
David: Of course. That I shouldn’t babble and I should think about what I’m doing.
Milica: Your parents still have hopes regarding you…
Milica: Where are you now, did you leave?
David: No… Yanko is sending me some messages. He says that vaccination is harmful.
Milica: Vaccination of people?
David: Yes, he says people shouldn’t be vaccinated.
Milica: Where did he get that from?
David: He read what some serious people are writing… he suggests I join a site and support that idea.
Milica: Tell him to join your brother’s party too.
David: I’ve never asked you, do you have any political beliefs? Are you in a party now?
Milica: What do you think?
David: I don’t know, you surprise me often lately.
Milica: I represent a progressive political idea that is just mine and no one knows about it. Not even my sister… who sends her regards to you as we write here.
David: Thanks. Say hi to her please. Is she not working? Did they manage to kick her out?
Milica: No. Not yet. She said she was sick. Recently, she’s been using a method…
Milica: …She calls in the morning as soon as she wakes up while her voice is still soft. So it really sounds like she’s sick.
David: Hahaha, genius!
Milica: She reads what we write. She says it’s immature to play that game for so long… for so many years.
David: Tell her I’ve known her for a long time and it’s better if she is nice to me. Tell her I remember when she used to pass by the fuel line 4-5 times in 1991, all dressed up… and drivers would whistle. I could see that from the balcony.
Milica: Yes, yes, she was already a big girl then, or almost a big girl… Oh no… now she’s mad… hehehhehe, okay, I’ll come to you on Saturday… don’t come, I can’t guarantee your safety.
David: Okay. Won’t she be over it by Saturday?
Milica: Hardly.
David: I always forget that she’s sensitive.
Milica: When the wrinkle in your brain presses with the speed at which a river carves a valley. That’s because you don’t have a normal biorhythm. Hahaha.
Milica: Anna says you can come on Saturday.
David: Okay, I’ll come. Speaking of unnecessary complaints about biorhythm, do you remember when mom was watching a TV show about drug addicts and after that, when I was moving things to the garage, she thought I was selling them? That was back in third grade.
Milica: Like I could forget that. Such stupidity can’t be forgotten.
David: I felt a little bad about doing that… I mean… after a few years, I thought it was excessive, and I felt a bit guilty for stressing them out. But now, I’m really glad I did it.
Milica: I won’t even comment. Wait, let me think about what sensible thing we can talk about.
David: Okay… I’ll read Yanko.
Milica: Read Yanko?
David: Well, yeah, I think that’s what you can call his messages. Every one of them is part of a novel.
David: Now my uncle is messaging me. I wrote him that things are going well with the game and that we might finish in less than two months. And now he says it will take six. I ask how. He says most of the work is done in a little time. The rest of the work takes a lot of time. He’s talking nonsense on purpose. I think he just wants to annoy me.
Milica: Yes, he probably thinks it’s good for you. You know his logic.
David: He says the devil is in the details.
Milica: He used to say the devil is beautiful.
David: Then beauty is in the details.
Milica: Beauty is in the eye of the observer.
David: Then the devil is in the eye of the observer.
Milica: Where else would it be?
We were silent for a minute.
Milica: It’s nice to see that you’ve finally thrown your hoodie strings over your shoulder and started doing something. Even if it’s just a game.
David: Thanks. And just to say, I have a folder for my CV, I made it a month ago.
Milica: I’m going now. See you on Saturday.
Milica: You idiot!
After Milica left, I went back to Camp 16, to the game code. So far, players can make buildings and use them to create vehicles and soldiers. Now I need to make sure the vehicles and soldiers move to the point the user clicked. That was my task, and I figured I’d finish it by tomorrow. I hadn’t done much for the past couple of days. Yesterday I scratched the surface of the task, and I saw there were complications. Today and tonight I’ll be working on it. So far, I’ve learned that no matter how complicated the problem is, there’s a good chance it’ll be solved by morning. One night is enough to solve a complicated task. The player can click on a soldier and then click where the soldier should go. Likewise, the player can select several soldiers, and in that case, they won’t all go to the same point, but their starting positions will be considered, and they will be arranged around the destination. During this, obstacles need to be considered. It may happen that they can’t pass the path or some of them can’t. Then they only move to the obstacle. When Ian and I realized that our part wasn’t complicated, we didn’t account for all the details. I believe it will work by morning. No matter how hopeless and complicated things seem, by morning everything somehow works, and then I’ll just wonder if it could work faster or be easier to maintain, but there’s no time for optimization since we’re moving on to the next problem.
One night has become the unit for taking a step forward in the game, solving one of the problems that need to be processed to finish the game. That’s the last thing I learned about software development. Milica and I shared these experience gained conclusions since the beginning of high school. Things that aren’t written anywhere. This was a somewhat less significant item from that set. I hadn’t written her about it because I was waiting to see her so we could comment it live. “Commenting live” has become a phrase that repeats a lot lately. We’ve written to each other a lot using computers, but some topics can’t be processed that way. Elena had the most topics that had to be commented live, including the ones where she wanted her sharp tone and discontent to be heard.
