australia

Bloody 9:30 AM fire drills…the alarm just went on and on and on and on. Beep! Evacuate the
building! Beep! Evacuate the building! Beep! Evacuate the building! Beep! Fucking hell…
(me) Beep! For fucks sake! (neighbor) Beep! Oh, shut up! (another neighbor) Beep!
Fire drill people, get up get up. (overenthusiastic resident advisor) Beep! Only a handful
of people actually walked down to the designated area. I sure didn’t, I was taking a nap, so I just
stuffed my ears with my pillow and tried to ignore the irritating alarm. Besides, if it were real,
the message would have been – Beep! This is not a fire drill! Beep! Heh…happened last semester
when Richardson Hall (the one closest to us) got smoke logged. Why do they schedule the fire drills
in the morning anyway? It just irritates everybody.

Days till I get my digital camera: 4

I’m feeling rather pan because I’ve got heaps of assignments due and finals are on the 10th
of July and I’ve been really slack this semester. Arrrrgggggghhhhhh *runs around in circles* It
will feel good when all this is over and I pass all my subjects. It will be better if I get credits
coz pass doesn’t look really good on paper. Well…going to head off to the library later to borrow
some more books. I feel that I need to study every second of the day now if I hope to pass all my
subjects. I’m not worried about Unix Programming, Systems Design and Documents Imaging, but Java
and C++ is giving me a bit of trouble. Hmph. Oh well, at least I slept from 4 pm till 2 am last
night, so I’m all ready to hit the books. Libraries are mysterious places, don’t you think. Every
time I walk into a library, I feel like something weird and mystical is going to happen. Like
behind every shelf of books there is a time portal all ready to transport an unsuspecting library
goer to the 14th century. I did discuss this issue with my friend and he said that it’s probably
coz I don’t go to libraries much. It seems that the mysterious-ness disappears after you go to
libraries for a while. Hmm…must be something about the smell of old books. Possibilities!

The books I checked out from the library the day before. Lugging them back was no mean feat, I
tell you.

Days till I get my digital camera: 4

Just came back from a tiring day at school. I didn’t sleep last night to finish my Unix
programming assignment and I had to leave for a 10 am class. It’s just my luck that the tutor told
us it was okay to pass it up before Friday at 4 pm. I stayed up to finish my Documents and Imaging
Systems assignment earlier in this semester and the submission date was postponed as well due to
the lecturer leaving for Brisbane for a seminar. And the same thing happened with my Database
Systems assignment last semester. I wish that the assignments that get postponed are the ones I’m
having trouble with as opposed to the ones I’ve finished. Oh well, at least I have a bit of time to
add some features. Anyway, I saw that Chocfest 2002 (Melbourne Chocolate Festival) is being
held this weekend. I might drop by since I’m heading to Flemington this Saturday anyway.

Today is a rainy day, which makes the ground muddy. People like me shouldn’t wear light colored
clothes on a rainy day. That’s coz I track mud all over my pants. I saw several people wearing
white pants which weren’t stained with splashes of mud, so I’m force to conclude that there must be
something wrong with the way I walk. On a side note, Unix is the only thing I know of that can
reduce a grown man to tears. Manly tears, that is. 😉

Off to the washing machine you go.

Time to study. I knew that 11 heaped teaspoons cup of coffee I drank should kick in right about now.

More on the chair issue. I’ve already submitted a maintenance request form and I should get my
new chair tomorrow. I have given up on trying to sit on my sofa. It’s not that it’s uncomfortable,
on the contrary, with that pillow, my ass feels like he’s in heaven. It’s just that the books I use
to prop up the chair is small. I do not have a big ass, at least I don’t think so. =D The footprint
of my ass is larger than the books I use so parts of my ass are hanging off the edge. That is Not a
Nice Feeling^TM and is liable to cause mild discomfort and a general feeling of ill ease.
Heh. Thus, to rectify this situation, I have swiveled my monitor sideways and as I’m typing this,
I’m sitting on my bed. This is a much more acceptable position, not only to my ass but to my wrists
as well. But now my back hurts coz beds do not have back support. Oh well, you can’t have
everything.

Well, I was lazy to head over to the operations office today to get my chair fixed so I made do
with the sofa. After a while, typing became a burden due to the sofa being too low relative to the
table so I just used the keyboard from my lap. One of the good things about having a cordless
keyboard. However, that didn’t work so well coz I still had to squint when looking at the monitor
so I propped up my seat with 2 books and my pillow. It feels much better now. My wrists, not my
ass.

Finals are less than a month away. I’ve resorted to “counting time” to get my revision done
before the finals. It works like this. It doesn’t matter what time you sleep or wake up, but make
sure that there is at least 16 hours between the time you wake up and the time you sleep again.
Like for instance, I woke up at 3 pm today. That means I’ll have to wait until 7 am to sleep again.
That way I don’t shaft myself by sleeping too much. =D

Welp…I just got back from my Java mid semester test. It was pretty easy but I’m kicking myself
now for not studying the theory part more. I was led to believe that most of the marks will come
from modifying source code, but that part was just a measly 3 marks while the theory portion
carries 7 marks. Theory stuff is my forte too, so I wish I paid more attention to that. Oh well.
Anyway, I’m feeling like a drowned rat right now. It started raining at around 3 pm just now and I
went out with clad in only a shirt with a T shirt underneath. It wasn’t really cold when I left so
I didn’t think of bringing my coat along. Which inevitably makes it rain and drenched me while I
walked back from the campus center. Anyway, I didn’t get much sleep last night and what I had was a
caffeine fueled nightmarish nap, so I was feeling pretty sleepy when I got on the bus. It didn’t
help that I had a sandwich before and food always makes me sleepy. To top it off, the muzak playing
in the shuttle bus is a lullaby! I swear to God, it was a damned lullaby. Sweet Mary, mother of
Christ…

or maybe not. I noticed that I have a static IP address at the halls after a reverse DNS lookup.
Eureka! I thought and modified my webcam script to load the image by FTP from my machine.
Alas…even though I have a static IP, the Monash network does not allow outside connections as I
found out. Oh well…back to my revision for tomorrow’s test.

P/S – I changed the webcam image manually anyway coz it’s getting stale.