australia

I slept for a nice, solid 12 hours last night. I cast a resurrect spell on myself at
around 7:30 am and went to the halls dining room to grab some breakfast. It’s good to know that I
can barely finish two bacon and egg muffins and two hash browns. I used to be able to eat three of
each. Perhaps that is a sign of better things to come. I’m planning to go on a diet, coz my weight
is becoming atrocious. I dunno how much I weigh now, but I feel heavy. =D Well, I met Vivek in my
IT Project Management lecture, and he told me about this gym promotion where you can get a
membership for the price of a renewal if you register on the 5th of August. I’m planning to get a
membership coz the Clayton branch of the gym
[monash.edu.au] is just a 2 minute walk from my halls and I can also use the Caulfield branch if
I want. The gym is owned by Monash University’s Sports and Recreation
[monash.edu.au] department, but it’s pretty well equipped. Anyway, I went for my first lecture
today – the aforementioned IT Project Management. It seems to have a pretty aggressive
deliverables schedule. Starting from Week 5, there will be a part due every week. Nasty.

Outside the Cummings (I kid you not) lecture theater.

Margot Schuhmacher is the lecturer for this course.

Anyway, I only had one lecture today so I went to the bank after that to bank in my bank draft
(try saying that three times, fast). I also managed to pay my Optus bill at the post office. Good
thing I thought to bring it with me this morning. Went to the Asian grocery in the campus center
after that to get some much needed laundry detergent and also a box of Cola chicken wings with rice
to eat later. Pretty good stuff, it’s nice to see that the rice boxes in Frank and Lily Lee’s Asian
Grocery has been beefed up with new products.

Today’s exam was pretty easy, which is good. I woke up at 11 am and didn’t
have time to eat lunch so I just grabbed a couple of power bars and a coke
from the Nature Pantry in the campus center. It’s on the way to the bus
loop. The creatine one tasted pretty good. I feel like I’m growing
already. Heh. The protein bar one is called Nitro-120 and supposedly
contains 40 grams of protein, 3.8 grams of glutamine and 10 grams of
glycerol. After eating it, I saw the label said Warning: Due to high
potency consume with plenty of fluid over a period of two days. Half a bar
before or after training. Not suitable for children under 15 years or
pregnant women. Now you tell me. Oh well, I’ve got another exam tomorrow.
Wish me luck.

Not a good day, today. Took the 8:30 am shuttle to Caulfield and got
a pastry and a coffee and a large chocolate milk to eat while walking
to the racecourse. I was balancing the latte on the plastic plate that
comes with the pastry. Unfortunately my skillz were not up to par and I
ended up spilling half the latte all over my shirt. Grr…had to go to
the toilet to clean up and I could smell coffee all day long. Oh well,
at least it woke me up. The first exam was went okay. Systems Design,
I’m repeating it (keep your comments to yourself) and it’s a core
subject so that’s good. Didn’t have enough time to do the business
class diagram well, but that’s okay coz I think I did pretty good on
the other parts. My “pretty good” might not be Martin’s “pretty good”
though. Heh. Martin is my lecturer for this subject. Anyway, I had a 2
hour break in the middle, so I got a burger from the plaza and went to
the labs to read up on Unix. I read all the past exam papers and the
lecture notes. I didn’t have time to read the Week 12 tutorial
exercises though, which, as I would learn later, was a Grave ErrorTM.
About this time, I felt a disturbing trickle of warm liquid down the
back of my pants. I already knew what was up without having to look
into my bag. The chocolate milk that I got this morning and drank only
a bit from lay spilt at the bottom of my bag. A little quick math
reveals the amount of liquid that has been displaced from the bottle
into my bag. 600 ml (bottle capacity) – 100 ml (amount drank in the
morning) = 500 ml of chocolaty goodness. My books were soaked and so
were my pants. I went into the Winner’s Circle feeling very decidedly
un-winner like. The Unix Programming assignment can be summed up in one
word. Hard. Upon coming out, I was told that all the questions were
based on the Week 12 tutorial solutions, which I didn’t read. There was
even a 20 mark question that can be done in one line of code. One
measly line of code that was in the Week 12 tutorial exercises which I
neglected to read. One miserable line of code to grant me a “Get out of
Fail free” card. One wretched (I’m using the inbuilt thesaurus here)
line of code that is worth 20 marks. I’m going to print out the Week 12
tutorial solutions and eat it for revenge. To top it off, I tried the
balancing act again with two seafood baskets and a hot cocoa from
slops. When I opened the door to my room, the plates tilted and the cup
of cocoa started to slide. One of my hand was on the door knob and the
other was holding the plates with the sliding cup which dropped and
spilled all over my floor. It was either that or drop my two seafood
platters. Guess which one I chose?

Exams exams exams. I have two papers on Monday so I’ll have to miss
out on some sleep tonight so I can sleep early tomorrow. Need to get in
bed by 11 pm so I can wake up at 7 am and take a shower and pay my rent
and then catch the 8:30 shuttle to Caulfield Racecourse. Last exam I
got a really good seat. Right in front where you can see out into the
race course. It gives me just that little bit of inspiration. Heh. I’ve
got a paper from 9:30 – 12:30 and another one from 2:30 – 5:30. Not
exactly the best arrangement considering both of the papers are really
important. Oh well. Wish me luck people.

I am going to sit for my finals one week from today. Better get some studying done.

Well, I had my Unix assignment interview today, which didn’t really go
well due to some “undocumented features” I didn’t notice in my…uh,
rigorous testing. Oh well. I hope that I get good marks for it, coz it
does meet the basic specifications. Anyway, I’ve noticed that the blue SmITh’s
vending machines accepts Malaysian 20c coins as Australian 10c coins. They
are the same size, not the same weight though, so the half price
trick won’t work on the more sophisticated machines. According to the
Universal Currency
Converter [xe.com], a 20c Malaysian coin is equivalent to 0.0940808
cents in Aussie dollars. That makes for a saving of 0.940808%. If you are
so inclined, you can lug over a trillion of 20c coins and use them here.
That should give you a net profit of…oh I don’t know, something like 5
dollars? Heh. The best get rich quick scheme is still the one which nets
you one million dollars in 2 weeks. Here’s how to do it:

1. Buy 20 kgs of raw chicken thigh (or some other white meat)

2. %@#$!&*^((*&^!ERROR: ASCII conversion error

3. Profit!

How’s that for a quick and easy million? 🙂

I can’t go to sleep. My fears about failing is keeping me awake at night. Jesus Christ bananas.
I feel that if I don’t get up and study, I’ll fail for sure, and I’ll regret not cutting back on
sleep and studying instead. Then I go into full out panic mode and entertain very weird thoughts
which I will share with no one. I wonder why the thought of failing makes me feel so bad and
depressed and desperate. What a guilt trip. Hmm…I need to chill out for a while and try again 30
minutes later. Get things in focus. *breath in* *breath out* *breath in*

Days till I get my digital camera: 1

This is my Java Unit Test. I got 5 out of 20. 3.0 for Part A, 2.0 for Part B and a total of 5.0.
Since this is worth 10 marks towards the final result, this means I got 2.5/10. That comes to 3
“real marks” after rounding up. Not a very good number by anyone’s book. I did notice that the
marks had been liquid papered due to a calculation error(?). It used to be 3.5 for A and 3.0 for B.
That gives 6.5 as the total, which is 4 real marks after rounding up. If I fail by one mark I’m
going to think about this paper.

Days till I get my digital camera: 2

If anyone noticed a numbering discrepancy, its coz I counted Saturday (the day I get my digicam)
as one day too, which isn’t quite right. Thus, I’ve cut the days by 1.