The computer labs are full at all times of the day. Okay, that
wasn’t even funny, I’m too busy right now, got heaps of stuff to do. 🙂
Uni life
The Pink Bin
I don’t think my new neighbors is aware that this is a feminine
hygiene product disposal bin. Two new people moved in this semester,
one of my previous neighbors has graduated while the other moved to
Oakleigh in protest of the recent raise of the halls rent. The Pink
Healthcare Services bin has never doubled as a rubbish bin last
semester or the previous one, so I think either one or perhaps both of
my new neighbors is making the poor bin do double duty.
As you can see from the photo, it has been stuffed with
miscellaneous things like toilet paper wrappers, toilet papers, an ice
cream wrapper (?) and a plastic soap dish (!). The auto closing
mechanism of the bin has thus been blocked by the debris, and so it has
remained for several days. The cleaners should put up a sign clearly
labeling the original purpose of the bin to prevent such occurrences in
the future. Heh. 🙂
Edit: My apologies about all the disclaimers floating about.
I’m feeling a bit paranoid about getting raided, seeing as to how my
address is visible to anyone who does a whois query. Not that I have
anything to hide of course, nor am I in possession of any illegal
substances. Just felt like putting up the disclaimers.
My wallet?
I passed by the campus center cafe while on the way back from my
tutorial. I was alone at that time. I decided to take away a rice box
for dinner, so I ordered one. I proceeded to the cashier and put my
right hand into my right pocked to get my wallet out. It wasn’t there.
I checked my other pocket, and it wasn’t there too. I had forgotten to
bring my wallet out.
*cough*
“Er…I seem to have left my wallet at home”
That’s what I said to the cashier.
How embarrassing. 🙂
Behold the new dog tag, same as the old dog tag
Behold, I say! 🙂 This is the new Roberts Hall dog tag. It’s used to
open doors in public access areas like the kitchen, common room etc. I
received a memo advising me that there’s only one day for Roberts Hall
residents to change their dog tags, and that is today. Good thing I set
an alarm in my Palm to remind me, or I would have totally forgotten
about it. It looks similar to the old one, except the new one has
grooves reading RoY instead of RoR.
This is the last post I make before I change the name servers. It
can take 24 – 48 hours till the DNS propagates to everyone though. If
you’re still seeing this post tomorrow, check back again in a couple of
hours to see if your ISP’s DNS lists have been updated. Take care
people. This is me signing off from Host Nexus…see you all tomorrow
at ICDSoft.
Mummified possum
Look at this picture of a dead possum! It was left out for so long it looks slightly mummified.
Saw it today while using a shortcut back to halls. It’s a rarely
traveled path so it’s no wonder it’s been unnoticed for so long. I’m
gonna make this Picture of the Day. 🙂
Well, I finally sorted out all my subjects today. Today is the last
day to add subjects and 5 pm is the cut off time. I got an email from
the GSC2714 Alcohol and Drug Use
[monash.edu.au] lecturer at around 4 pm that said I could enroll in the
subject even if I didn’t do the co-requisite. I did a first year
Psychology subject back in Inti College, Kuching and he accepted that
as a pre-requisite.
In a last minute decision, I dropped one of my CSSE subjects and
took this one. I already had more than enough 3rd year CSSE subjects to
meet the requirements and already had enough for two specializations,
so I’m taking an interesting subject for a change this semester. I’ve
previously only taken subjects from the CSSE (Computer Science and
Software Engineering) faculty.
We actually have several free electives where we can take subjects
from other faculties, but I’ve never exercised that option until now. I
also found out that we need 36 points of second year subjects and I
only had 30 before this semester. I had always taken 3rd year subjects
and logically that should be alright, since 3rd year subjects are
harder. But there is a quota of 2nd year subjects which I haven’t
fulfilled, so that’s why I’m taking some 2nd year subjects in my final
semester. A bit weird eh, but I’ve already done more than enough 3rd
year CSSE subjects.
My final subject list:
CSE3151 COMMUNICATION NETWORK PERFORMANCE
CSE2030 WEB INTERFACE TECHNOLOGY
ELC1000 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE FUNDAMENTALS
GSC2714 ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE
This should be an easy semester for me. I’ll be pretty comfortable
with CSE3151 and CSE2030 from the subject description. I’m also taking
a first year subject from the Electronic Commerce faculty as an
elective coz I figured it’ll be easy and it’s somewhat related to my
degree anyway. And finally, GSC3714 Alcohol and Drug Use, a Behavioral
Science faculty subject and something I’m personally interested in, so
this should be fun. They even have an agency visit to a related
organization planned, which we’re supposed to write up and give a
presentation on.
I also managed to allocate all my classes to Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday so I have an extra long weekend. Heh! 🙂 Well, I also paid all
my bills and sorted out some stuff today so everything is ready for the
new semester. Did you know I couldn’t make outgoing calls on my cell
phone yesterday because I forgot to pay the bill? It just slipped my
mind and I only paid it today and got it unbarred again.
Paid my course fees and halls rent too, so everything is settled.
Phew. Had to run around a bit today. Since there is a limit of EFTPOS
transactions here, I had to withdraw A$3,500 from the bank earlier in
the day to pay for everything. They didn’t have A$100 notes so it was
all in A$50 notes. I couldn’t even fit that pile in my wallet! I tried,
but my wallet wouldn’t fold after that. I had to carry it around like a
stack of letters.
Anyway, there seems to be a lot of competing calling cards nowadays.
The prices for calls to Malaysia have all dropped down to several cents
compared to 20c when I just came here. There were heaps advertising
4.9c, 3.9c, 3c and such. I saw a new card called Australian Express
which stated 3c to Malaysia. Usually, the quality of the connection for
the low cost ones are terrible, so I just got an A$5 one to test it out.
I found out that it was made by the same company as Planet Telecom Australia
[sixthseal.com], which I mentioned in that post as having an absolutely
terrible connection. The dial in numbers for Australian Express were
the same as Planet Telecom Australia so I wasn’t expecting much. I was
pleasantly surprised that the connection quality has improved. However,
they have an absolutely appalling connection fee/flagfall/watever. I
called back home to discuss my subjects with my dad and got my mom and
I called my dad’s cell and talked for probably all of 15 minutes and
that was the end of the card.
Granted, it was only a A$5 one, and calls to cell phones are charged
a higher rate, but that means their connection fee is really, really
high. It said I had 96 minutes when I called my home phone (there’s
something wrong with their math here somewhere, that’s not 3c per
minute) and 63 minutes when I called my dad’s cell, so I reckon the
connection fee (the fee that’s charged each time you use it) is A$1+.
That’s a ridiculous amount, so I don’t think this card is worth it
unless you buy higher denominations and plan to talk for a long time.
Almost heaven, West Virginia
Good news! I have wonderful news! The issue with my CSE3153 Network
Administration subject, which marks were withheld because my
assignments were somehow lost, has been resolved! I resubmitted the
assignments (which was why I was up all night yesterday) and have
gotten word that I’ll get a Credit for the subject! I did correctly
predict my expected marks [sixthseal.com] after all. Wonderful news by itself, but wait…when it rains, it pours! =D
Remember that I failed my summer semester subject? The BUS3650
Business Applications of Neural Networks one? Yeah, I got a 45, which
is a Fail. I’ve been talking to my course coordinator, Sylvia Tucker
who has been extremely helpful and I ended up getting a Near Pass. A
Near Pass is considered a pass and counts towards the credit points so
that’s good news indeed! I don’t have to re-take any subjects and I’m
taking a normal workload this semester. Many thanks to Sylvia and also
my lecturer Kate Smith for making this happen. Anyone notice the
abundance of hyperbolic adjectives in this post? It’s because I’m
absolutely st0ked! =D
Life is peachy…
Yeah, I bought a nectarine at Coles before I came back just to add
that “Life is peachy” sentence and a peach picture in the post. It cost
me 81 cents if you’re interested to know. I was anticipating that
things will resolve itself this way, and it sure did! 🙂 Ah…the 81
cents wasn’t spent in vain. 😉
Anyway, I didn’t get any sleep last night, but I’m still alright. I
actually spent more time doing other things than my assignment last
night. I spent 2 hours at McDonalds with my buddies and ended up
surfing a whole lotta blogs and making comments here and there. I only
rallied up and started working seriously at 3 am. Heh! It’s all good,
everything is resolved now and I can finally get into my last semester.
Well, there’s another thing, I also received word from my IE client
Jason Ceddia that we’re passing the subject for sure, although the
grade is still unknown. Rains. Pours. =D Anyway, tell you about my
day…went to uni early in the morning to print out my stuff and
discovered that my account was locked because there is one unpaid
subject. I have paid for the whole year last June but I didn’t know IE
was considered as two subjects, so I have to pay for an extra subject.
Anyway, that’s okay, gonna pay everything tomorrow so my account
will be unlocked again. Good thing my halls net access is still online.
Well, since I couldn’t use the computers in uni to print out my stuff,
I went to see Ashley (my IE supervisor) and he kindly allowed me to use
his computer and his staff printer to print out my stuff. It has just
been a good day for me, everything is falling into place nicely. 🙂
Yeah, anyway, I can take an elective from any faculty this semester.
I’ve done most of my 3rd year CSSE (Computer Science and Software
Engineering) electives so I’ve got some free electives stashed away. I
was very, very interested to take this:
BNS3052 Drugs, brain and altered awareness [monash.edu.au]
An excerpt:
Clinical, prescribed and recreational drugs are discussed in
regard to their modes of action on brain cells, the regions of brain
targeted and their effects on cognition and behavior.
What an interesting elective to take! It’s from the Faculty of
Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and I would have really enjoyed
doing this subject. I mean really enjoyed it, instead of thinking of it
as uni work, I’ll be willing to spend heaps of personal free time on
it. I reckon I would do well in it too…;)
Well, too bad it’s only offered in the second semester, and it’s the
first semester now. 🙁 Too bad, that would have been a very interesting
subject to take. Another interesting one is:
CGP1004 Alcohol and drugs [monash.edu.au]
An excerpt:
Management of withdrawal and brief and long term management
strategies are discussed in relation to alcohol, nicotine,
benzodiazpine, opiates, stimulants, cannabis and other drugs.
They misspelled benzodiazepine. It has an ‘e’. Don’t mean to be the
Spelling Nazi, but this is pretty basic to get wrong. This subject
sounds slightly anti-drug compared to the previous one, which sounded
neutral and more interested in research than moral issues. Oh well,
it’s a second semester subject as well, so there’s no point drooling
over this. I can’t take it coz it’s the first semester now! I would
have loved to take the first one though, I would have enjoyed working
on that one indeed! I’ll be interested to do some research (in the name
of science of course, what were you thinking?) on whether high doses of
methamphetamine actually causes the irreversible degeneration of
dopamine receptors and dopamine transporter loss. 😉
Ah yes…I lost my train of thought.
Failing sucks, eh?
I saw this today while in uni. I just got my summer semester results
today and as I said earlier, I failed and wanted to see if there was
anything I could do to get something like a near pass or faculty pass.
I was worried about failing this and approached the lecturer during the
exam about the possibility of doing some extra credit work just in case
I fail.
Well, the lecturer pretty much said it’s out of her hands. I went to
my course coordinator for help so we’ll see what happens. I hope to get
some consideration regarding this matter as I’m supposed to graduate in
June and my student visa expires then. I like Sylvia (my course
coordinator) as she’s always been very helpful.
Well, I hope we can work something out. I really need to pass this
subject. I’m pretty bummed about this right now. Hoping for a conceded
pass or something. Well, we’ll see how things go. Hmm…I posted
pictures I took of the clubvibes.com reps that were at the Clayton
campus this afternoon but talked about something else altogether. My
Industrial Experience is practically over and that should be something
to be happy about but this failing business sure rained on my parade.
Failing sucks. I feel st00pid…
45
I failed my summer semester subject. I had wanted to write about a
lot of things today, but I’m not in the mood right now so I’ll make a
proper post tomorrow or something. I’m already stressed out and sleep
deprived from IE and I’m trying not to think about this right now.
Lock Your Door
Lock Your Door
It is your responsibility to ensure that you lock the door to your
bedroom whenever you are not in your room. If you do not lock your
door, you risk having your personal property stolen. Even if you leave
your room for “just a minute”
LOCK YOUR DOOR
I just saw this sticker stuck on my door today. It was stuck on
every single door in our halls. It’s sad that living in a community
does have some bad elements as well. Personally, I’ve only been shafted
twice and only once was from my room. I am notorious for not locking my
room when I go out, partly out of a belief that people are generally
honest and partly because I hate having to dig though my pockets for my
key when my hands are full.
I’ve had a fridge stolen two semesters ago, but that wasn’t from my
room. I had stored it in the common room as required by the regulations
when I went back for the mid semester break and when I came back, it
was gone. The resident advisor’s records showed someone claiming to be
me checking it out and moving out. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to store
my Marquis reagent in the common fridge from now on. I’m kidding of
course. No, I’m really kidding so don’t go rooting around the fridge.
Anyway, the second time was when I left this really nifty A$24.95
can opener in the common sink. When I came out to wash it, it was gone,
and I thought that was the end of it so I got another cheaper one. A
week after it disappeared, it mysteriously appeared again at the same
place again. So I guess this qualifies as “borrowing” but he/she could
have at least asked me. What am I supposed to do with two can openers?
The third time was when someone took cash out of my room while I was
taking a shower. My room was right beside the shower then and my door
creaks distinctively when it’s opened. While I was taking a shower, the
door creaked and I shouted “I’m in the shower, I’ll be out in a sec so
just sit around a while” coz the walls are thin and they can hear me
from my room. I thought it was a friend, but the person didn’t answer
me and soon after that, the door creaked closed again. I returned to my
room to see that the A$10 I put on my keyboard to remind myself to get
a calling card was missing.
The guy rummaged around a bit too coz my room was messier than
usual, but he didn’t find my wallet so I think the most he got away
with was A$10 and some change that was on the table. Heh. I don’t think
it was done by a ressie (resident) though. Must have been someone not
from the halls. Oh well, it’s just A$10 so that wasn’t that big a deal.
But I did lock my door after that, although I’ve gone back to the habit
of not locking my door again.
I believe most ressies are honest people anyway (me = idealist), and
these things don’t happen all that often. I wonder why the management
decided to stick this new sticker on everyone’s room…I didn’t think
theft was such a big problem here.
Stuff like single serve ice creams, dairy food, yogurt, juice and
beer have a mysterious habit of disappearing from the community fridge
though. 🙂
Death in the family
My Athlon 750 killed itself yesterday afternoon, may it rest in
peace. The fan somehow fell off the CPU, which resulted in it
overheating. It happened in a couple of seconds, which raises questions
about how hot the CPU was running. My theory about what happened was
that the thermal glue was transfering heat to the surface of the chip,
but with no fan to dissipate the heat, and thus it burnt. I couldn’t
get the computer to restart after that, not that I expected it to,
considering that there was the smell of burnt electronics eminating
from the case.
Christopher’s Indomie Pien Nuk
Well, I woke early this morning to get the motherboard and CPU
replaced. Adrian came by and we went to Christopher’s place, where he
was eating breakfast – pien nuk (basically wonton) with Indomie flavor
packets. He swears it tastes good…I gotta try that someday. We went
to three places – IT Computer Supermarket, I.T. Warehouse and
e.Computers. Very convenient, since all of them are in Clayton. After
comparing the price lists, I found IT Computer Supermarket to have the
cheapest prices. I have to say that e.Computers has the nicest cat
though. Look at it! 🙂 It was lounging around the shop when we went
there. I think it belongs to the owner. Very cute cat and it touched my
hand with it’s nose when I went up close. Furry, furry cat.
🙂
Anyway, we went back to IT Computer Supermarket and I got:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ A$210
Gigabyte GA-7VA VIA KT400 A$158
Kingston 256MB DDR PC2700 A$134
80GB Maxtor 7,200 ATA133 A$195
Sparkle 64MB GeForce4 MX440 SE DDR TV Out A$98
Omni Black USB+Audio P4 See Through Case A$105
GA 008 PS/2 Keyboard A$5
Total: A$905
IT Computer Supermarket
I can’t say that they have good service, but they have some of the
cheapest prices in Melbourne. I got a discount on top of the total
price, so I only paid A$850. I didn’t actually need the hard disk, but
Windows XP can be really anal at times and refuses to start if the
system configuration changes drastically so I got one to be safe. I’ll
enjoy the capacity anyway. I didn’t really need the case as well, but
it has a clear side panel. With lights. And a fan. And front USB ports
and headphone jacks.
I’ll have the 2 piece chicken meal please
Anyway, after getting all that (except the GeForce4, more on that
later) we went to Coles to get some grocery shopping done and then to
KFC. I have to say that KFC really sucks over here. The chicken is so
fatty and soggy that I can barely choke it down. Does Australia use a
different recipe for KFC? It’s a franchise so that’s unlikely, but it
sure tastes like it.
Push down and outwards
Well, after all that, I went back to assemble everything. Getting
the heatsink and fan mounted (haha) on the CPU really took a lot of
effort…until I read the manual. It turns out that I’m just supposed
to align one side and press down and out with a screwdriver tip to
connect the other side. I tried doing that as well but I still couldn’t
get it to connect. I poured over the diagrams. It said “push down and
outwards where it’s circled”. WHAT CIRCLE??? Damn manual should have
never passed Quality Assuarance. After a lot of attempts I finally
realized that I should push at the top groove, not the bottom one…
Don’t look at me! I’m naked! 🙁
Well, after that the RAM went into the motherboard, the case got
disassembled, the motherboard went into the case, the cables went into
slots and the screws got screwed. I looked at the power button. PUSH.
Nothing happened. Puzzled, I looked around the case. Ah, one of the
power supply cables were not connected. That’s it! I connected and
pushed the power button. Still nothing. My monitor says it’s not
receiving a signal.
Note to self: Edges are sharper than they look
I removed the graphics card (GeForce2 MX – my previous card) and put
it into my old motherboard with the dead CPU. It detected the graphics
card but of course couldn’t boot up due to the burnt out CPU. I put the
card back into the new system. Still nothing. I called the shop – they
were closing at 4:30 pm and it was nearly 4 pm so me and Adrian went
over again to get the motherboard replaced. I thought it was a
motherboard problem, until I read “This motherboard does not support 2X
AGP cards. Only 4X-8X AGP supported”.
Stuff that matters
My old GeForce2 MX is 2X AGP, so that was where things went wrong.
It’s a good thing I read that before I went back home because if I
didn’t, I would have been without a computer the whole weekend coz the
shops all close on Sunday. That would be BAD because I have IE stuff
due next week. Well, long story short, I got back and put everything
together and everything worked! 🙂 Thanks to Adrian for helping out
today. I’m pretty tired now coz I didn’t enough sleep and was running
around Clayton most of the day. So that’s it for today. Yay, everything
runs so much faster now. It’s like my PC had several points of meth and
it’s now raging, eager and helluva tweaked out. Naughty boy.
All riced up and ready to go!
Oh, and if my spelling degrades noticably today, it’s because I haven’t installed spell check yet. 🙂
