A little before the end of 2016, I was informed that I’d be the newest intern at Toradex, a Swiss company that designs and selss industrial-class computer on modules, also know as CoM or SoM (Computer on Module and System on Module, respectively). It was a nice surprise, given that I’ve awaited eagerly for a positive outcome, yet this bonus came with a common onus for an undergraduate: move to a new city.

Changing cities by itself and having to plan a new life were not a surprise, and yet I saw myself in a bit of a complex situation that requires some explanation before being understood:

  • Sao Carlos, where I study, stays about two hours by car from Valinhos, where the Toradex office is located.
  • Somewhere between those cities is located Americana, where my father lives.
  • As an intern, my only pending duties with the university were the internship hours - 180 hours total - and the final paper presentation.
  • My final paper has an automation theme so my presence in the lab would eventually be required and, therefore, my bond with the city of Sao Carlos would have to remain until the end of the semester.
  • The internship demans 30 weekly hours, thus I have chosen to work from Tuesday to Thursday full time, and on Fridays the remaining hours. That way, I would have three and a half days for my final paper, exceptions granted.

Given this situation, came the question:

Where to live?

With at least 3 and a half days didicated for the internship, it didn’t seem very hard to choose to live in Valinhos. In the end, this was the decision I made, but before getting to it I brough up some questions and alternative solutions: continue to live in Sao Carlos, since I had an apartment ready-to-live with a rent that was going on very well for quite a while, and besides that, I would also be very close to the university lab. To go to Valinhos, I could stay at my father’s house from Tuesday to Friday.

After some thinking, I realized that this plan would have an elevated cost, if not financially, physically. I’d have to travel every Tuesday in the break of dawn to Valinhos and during the week, from Americana to Valinhos and vice-versa, which takes about two hours each leg. Besides, if on a weekend I decided to stay in Valinhios, or even if during the week I got tired and decided to sleep over, that would not be possible.

I got even more inclined to setting foot in Valinhos when the opportunity to share an apartment with two other Toradex members came up. They were also from Sao Carlos and although I didn’t know them beforehand, they were people I trusted; besides, all the furniture from my apartment in Sao Carlos would be shipped to Valinhos with a cost divided by 3 people. With regard to Sao Carlos, I could stay in some friends apartment during the weekends, solving the matter of my final paper.

The new routine

I finished moving three weeks after the internship started and I planned my routine thinking that I wouldn’t go every weekend to Sao Carlos, which means that at weekends I’d do some domestic chores such as laundry, cleaning, financial management, among other stuff. As the deadline to my final paper came close, the need to go to Sao Carlos became a routine; in the few weekends left I had to go to my father’s house; I found myself without a weekend left to stay in Valinhos. And with it, I consider it a fact that I was living in two cities: Valinhos during the week and Sao Carlos during the weekend.

During the week, I woke up at 6 AM or even earlier, and that gave me enough time to do something useful before work - usually my finances or something related to the final paper. From 8 onward, full focus on the job until 6 PM. Then, if I went home, until I had dinner and some rest, it was already beyond 8 PM, optimistically. If I went out for dinner, time could stretch. Besides, not on every night I was able to focus on the final paper, because it is hard to spend the whole day working on something and come back home just to resume working on the matter, day after day. Something between 10 and midnight was sleep time.

From Friday to Tuesday morning, things changed a little. Sometimes I could get a ride to Sao Carlos and sometimes I took the bus. Getting there, the focus should be on the final paper, but among my defects sometimes I got lost talking to somebody or even too exhausted to work. At night, there would probably be some party to go to or even stay up late drinking and talking to the guys in the apartment - it is really hard to focus on sleeping or working when your bedroom is the living room and everybody is partying. This is also a stressful point, for when you sleep in an improvised place, you wake up without knowing very well where you are, tired and eager to go home.

Enter the Saturday, if I was in a good enough shape, I would go to the lab work, otherwise I’d stay in the apartment and try to work from there. This is hard to explain, but on days I would be very productive, while on others the time would drag and I would feel like making no progress at all. If the Saturday night party helped, on the Sunday morning I would go skating; otherwise, I would go in the afternoon. The rest of the Sunday would be a work day.

On Monday I’d have to go to the lab, since it was the only day I could get help from the lab mechanic. Even being lucky that the mechanic was very friendly and competent, things would walk very slowly being it only once a week. Going back to the apartment, I’d often stay up until very late, to wake up very early and go directly to the internship in Valinhos. On some days, I slept for only 2 hours, and until today I am not sure how did I endure it until the end.

Health at stake

With little sleep, a lot of work, the self-imposed ever rising pressure to deliver an imppecable final paper, skate under a devil’s sun, strenous social appointments, finance management at the edge and a constant feeling of not knowing exactly where I am, life takes a toll. There is no need to consult a specialist to figure out that this is not very healthy. And I figured it out, with time.

Stress is an incredible energy sink: you get home and realize you can’t throw away your time resting or with leisure, so scarce it is, and then the next hour is spent on a small despair breakdown, until you are able to recover control. I also noticed an increase in the frequency of flus, colds and sore throats. It doesn’t bother me too much when on occasion, but when it happens very often your performance drops, the stress raises and you find yourself walking in circles again. And then you look back and realize you once thought that graduation was heavy - and maybe it was, back then.

Final thoughts

The big questions that remain are: is it all worth it? What can I do to change this? And what if there is nothing to be done? But really there isn’t?

Being an optimist and based on my history, I can only see it all worth it. Maybe in a couple of years I change my mind, but it is what I do today that will reflect on where I am in the future. Besides, all this dedication is not without a purpose, I am not doing this just because; when there is no plan, no ultimate goal, I believe it is time to stop and change directions, but this is not the case. I honestly don’t see a way out, but I also don’t worry about it, since in two months it will all end and my quality of life will significantly improve. I’ll make a toast with my beer to a bright future, full of new challenges. Everything has its own time.