stumble, mumble, trouble

The past two days basically can be summarised with these three words. Stumbling into people I don't know, then forming groups with them, while they talk to me, I'll mumble back a reply. With the groups formed, all the troubles just come swarming in. Projects, assignments, presentations and so much more.

The first thing due will be the user manual, done in group of threes, then software engineering project, then preparing to give a lecture on week 6, next to form group for database project, and finally forming group for the group presentation of tutorial answer.

And while in lecture today, I happened to sit beside this guy who didn't bring a laptop, and so asked to share so that he will be able to see what the software the lecturer gave does. During the interval, he suddenly pops up a question "Where do I stay?". I was kind of surprised by the phrasing since usually people asks where i live, nevermind, so I told him. He was surprised by the answer, and told me "oh, I thought you were a chinese..". That puzzled me further. Then the conversation went on to talk about the influence of the U.S. and U.K. on us, and I wasn't really into this sort of topics, so I just tried to smoke it through.

This sem is the sem to remember, never were there so many things presentations in a single semester. Though I don't mind giving small talks, I always freezes up in front of audiences and cameras, familiarity with the topic and audiences will help matter, but it seems that none of the presentations will have both qualities.

Therefore one can conclude that I'm in for it..

Monday Sadness!!

Just went you think the timetable couldn't get any worse than this, it will certainly get worse.

The chain of events in the problemetic module bidding really causes a lot of inconvenience to me this sem. After they had initially estimated that about 60 people will be taking this particular module, the final number stands at 22. This changes the initial plan for having 3 classes to become 1. With this group of 22 students having different timetables, it's an uphill task to decide on what time should we have our recitations.

There are heated arguments, confrontations and fierce battle on the forum between the lecturer and students to decide the time, but leading to no conclusion.

Then the time came for the first recitation, where most of the personels involved come together on a not very convenient time for everyone to discuss this issue. With the lecturer's explanation of the need to have the recitation class for us to give each other lectures on different topics, the recitation concluded with the following timeslot:

2030 - 2130 hrs, Mondays

Now what time will I reach home on Mondays..

The PIE

It's another Sunday when I went to visit my relative. It's always nice to go there and take a break from looking at computers once in a while.

With my 1.5 years of driving experience, it has become routine for me to drive on family outings. I don't mind that since I like to drive anyway, however, I really hate driving on PIE. The density of cars on the PIE is sickening, I won't drive to the first lane, unless the car in front of me is exceptionally slow, or I might just end up missing the exit.

On the way back today, there was a slight jam there, caused by car accidents. 3 vehicles collided in lane 2, holding back the traffic, and just 100m ahead of that crash, there was another 2 vehicles involve in another crash on lane 1, then another metres away from the second crash on the road shoulder. What a sight, but it seems to me that they just knocked slightly into each other.

It's always the same

This coming week will be such a sad week. From a two-day week, suddenly became a five-day week. With tutorials due for submission, and I've yet to even go through the question, I will have to come out with at least something to hand in on Monday. Even though, I had wanted to take a tutorial with my friend, I found out we are in different class afterall after I mistakingly assumed that there is only one timeslot for that time. Now I have to suffer 10 weeks of english lessons with strangers again.

Nevermind that, since I've been a lone ranger for a very long time now. Everytime having to go to classes with people I never knew before, then getting to make new friends. But it's so much different in University, without fixed classes, I don't think I'll be making many new friends at all.

Round 4, BEGIN !!

Semester 4 is gonna be in full power next week on. I'm quite happy with the modules I've taken this sem, as the lectures are very interesting.

Comparing the timetable with last sem's, this sem is certainly much slacker. Last sem, I had 27 hours of lessons every week, now, the number descreased by 10. However this may not be good news, since I'll be having 4 projects to do, up by 2 from last sem. The sadest part is, there still isn't any free day :''(

I have more or less settled 3 of the project groupings, the last one is the one that's giving me the headache. The problem can only be resolved when we first meet for tutorial next monday, cause the members must be under the same tutor. Whoever I will team with, hope we'll do well for the project and not keep saying "We can't do it.".

Graduation

Yes!! I've graduated, not from NUS, but from secondary school.

I've finally decided that the weather is too warm to keep long hair and went for a trim at the friendly neighbourhood barber I always go.

“多少钱？”

“Poly 啊？”

“...”

Upcoming Semester

This upcoming semester seems like a tough one despite not taking as many modules as last semester. Four core modules, three of which have projects, and the fourth which seems more like a english language module than a computer science module.

I'm really not looking forward to this module after looking at the module info in the IVLE website. Proposal writing, letter writting, manual writting, and oral presentation.. With one hour of lecture and two hours of tutorial every week, u can imagine the agony of having to take this module, if only this was not a pre-requisite for my junior year project module.

For my database module, i basically can start having the lectures starting now, with all the lectures already webcasted and uploaded in IVLE. But for the S-option of database, I don't really know what to expect for this module, apart from an extra recitation lesson and a S-test.

Artificial intelligence is also included this semester. Artificial means fake, and so this module will be going there to fake that you are intelligent.

I don't know what to expect for software engineering since the lecturer still haven't uploaded anything in IVLE.

Good luck for your upcoming semester.

Will this be a Happy Year?

It's a brand new year again. 2007 hasn't been an easy year, having lots of ups and downs in life but I'm sure the road ahead will be tougher.

Though the result from the past semester showed a reasonable increase in the CAP, I should not be resting on my laurels as I just know that I have much more potential to score better. I feel that I have been too complacent and busking in the glory since leaving from primary school, causing my drastic drop in academic performance thereafter. How I hope I can find someone to crush my ego and bring me back to reality. However, I certainly feel that I won't find such a person in my school right now, since I don't really know many people in there, and from those that I know, I just hope that they would stop passing me all their negative thoughts about theories, exams and such.

As bidding starts today, I don't really care about what I was gonna bid yet. So far, I've just decided on 3 of the modules I'm gonna take, and I'm pretty sure I'm just taking 5 modules this sem. I usually procrastinate my bidding as it is really useless to start panicking in round 0.

Let's hope that since the year ends with a '8', everyone will get lucky this year. And since it's a leap year, with that extra day for preparation, we all do better for our exams.