Programmer mode

I’ve been practicing a psychology technique called anchoring. Simply put, it helps associate certain state of mind with certain triggers. These are secrets spots that only I know about (wouldn’t want anyone abusing my extreme happiness button now do we?). The effect of anchoring has not be thoroughly proven since this is all in the construct of our own mind. Like religion, it is more effective, if you believe in it. Self conceit, self fulfilling prophecy, blind belief, whatever. Use it to your discretion.

Because I didn’t intentionally craft it, my programmer mode comes with certain disadvantages. Similar when I am in the state of total involvement in dancesport, I lose the ability to speak coherently. My speech becomes slurred and it becomes hard for me to understand human speech. The mood is that of a depressive mood and I tend to grow zits if living in this mode for more than a week.
It is while trying to integrate a new anchor for when I need to switch to a programmer that I found out I already have one. Albeit incomplete, it is worth mentioning how the complicated paths of several bad habits became the defacto standard ritual I take before I write the first line of:

cout << DEBUG_MODE ? "Prgm mode on" : "Prgm mode off" << "Press to continue”;

getch();

It all started with university. Residence life is never quiet enough to concentrate during daytime, so I always leave the coding till well after midnight. It usually means involves all nighters from 12AM to 4AM and skipping the early English class next morning that doesn’t count for much. The nature of the all nighter calls for the help of caffeine to help me stay awake. Coffee, is the first ingredient. More specifically, Tim Horton’s coffee: 3 cream 3 sugar.
I also believe that coffee helps to suppress my thoughts, to slow it down rather. Normally, due to working in too many multitasking environments, I am very aware of the surrounding and every thought gets preempted by the next and I forget about the first one. With coffee in my system, I am able to focus on one trail and the noise of other random ideas gets muffled.

Sandals are the next requirement, which goes hand in hand with wearing jeans. Dressing like a slob probably got ingrained in my mind when I worked in a chip design house in Taiwan. My guess is it allow me to feel less like showing off and more like hiding in a corner so people won’t see me, hence ignoring any social engagement that might otherwise distract me from the matter at hand.

It is only when I am in this mode that I began to appreciate how far I’ve come in my self improvement. Hopefully it is only temporary.