I don't want to jinx it, but the project is finally done. As in, we tested it enough last night to be confident that it won't crap out on us during the actual demo. Too bad we missed the bonus deadline by two days - which kinda sucks because I could really use that one mark, and we didn't miss it by that much! The good thing is, now I get the rest of the week to do whatever I want. (which means more school work, more labs, and more studying) Speaking of which, I should really get back to re-working on my work term report (got a freakin' resubmit, argh).

The coffee count will live on, however. :) I don't think it'll ever reach that high again, but hey, let's keep track how much coffee I drink so at the end of the year, it will give me motivation to quit because I spend too much money on it. Now I just made drinking coffee seem really bad, like smoking. It's not at all. Drinking coffee is a normal day-to-day activity people participate in, like breathing. It is based on the mere monetary value that I consider cutting down. :)

Do I seem more jolly in this blog? Perhaps it's because I no longer have to worry about the stupid software project and actually do something else for a change!

Actually, I just realized that when I posted that it was already past midnight. So now the coffee count is officially reset to zero. Yay.

Coffee Count for the Week = 12.5

Alright, only a few automated tests left to clear up. This is going much better than I thought. I thought I was going to have to spend years in this lab in order to get a simple telephone switch working. Well, looks like my coffee count next week might be a slight bit lower than this week's. :)

Alright, so we have passed 6 out of 14 automated tests.. not bad.. now let's see how I can get them to all work.

My coffee count will reset itself tomorrow I guess, since I started on Monday. Man, that's really sad. 11 already. I think I'll be needing a couple more tomorrow to keep me going on this stupid project.

Coffee Count for the Week = 11

Dammit. I thought it was ALMOST over - but it seemed like it just started. More to debug.. at least the code is done. Now it's just modifying it and making sure it satisfies the standard that the profs have set.

Speaking of standards (as you can tell, I'm just procrastinating now), why are we EXPECTED to all work towards some sort of a standard? Who defines the standard anyway?

Coffee Count for the Week = 9.5

Alright, so I think the collective agreement within our group is not to kill ourselves trying to finish. Although it would have been NICE to finish on time. Argh. Oh well, you can't always get what you want. You give some and you take some right? Just got some more coffeeeeeeee before William's closed. I think I will need to recover from this week.

It's 2:30am.. maybe I'll cut tonight short and go home, seeing that we probably won't make much more progress today..

Coffee Count for the Week = 8

It doesn't seem like I will finish. Still a major component of the system is not finished, and not to talk about debugging.. argh. Sorry for those who have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm a geek, I know. But it's hard to not immerse yourself in the 'techno babble' when you basically LIVE in the computer engineering program. Kinda sad, really.

Haven't slept yet. One more night of struggle to finish, and then I'm giving up and crashing for good.

Nothing has changed since the last time I blogged. Except I'm about _THIS CLOSE_ to killing everybody around me. 5:15am. Seems kinda early huh? I think I'll need some serious sleep, don't you? Perhaps the 1% is not worth this much agony - my time could be much better spent elsewhere. I feel my motivation dying, sorta like trickling blood after slitting your wrist open. Kinda morbid huh? Well, that's what happens when you are messed in the head after not sleeping for a week, with the combination of coffee!

Speaking of which, the coffee counter is broken because William's Coffee Pub is closed. But trust me, tomorrow the count will be way high.

Coffee Count for the Week = 7

That one was from before dinner. I still have to go out and get myself another cup. Only to know that the closest coffee place is too far to walk. Damn. I hate working late nights - even coffee houses close down on me.

I'm a *BIT* psychotic right now. So don't mind me if I start speaking with incoherent sentences and profanity that would hurt *YOUR* virgin ears.

Coffee Count for the Week = 6

By the way, the coffee count above is from Monday of this week. Just to keep track of how many cups of coffee I have consumed during the course of the week. An XL size coffee counts for 1.5, where as anything smaller than a large counts only at 0.5. Yes, I'm a geek, sue me.

Still more programming to go. Looks like I won't be sleeping tonight either. I didn't get to bed until 5:30am yesterday, and I still have millions of things to do. It's crazy.

Coffee Count for the Week = 3.5

Yep, I'm in the lab again. What else is new? Every time I post at un-human hours, I end up being in the lab. This is kinda stupid. I'm going to try not to bitch about it from this point forward, but to simply come on here and rant. Things are slowly falling into place - but will it be too late? We have about 72 hours to go before deadline, and not to mention our code is barely completed. Guess it's time to really start kicking into high gear and work our ways through the night.

Happy Birthday to Evie.. :) Hope this year will bring you absolute happiness and bliss.. :)

Okay, one more day wasted. I have been in 'slack mode' this whole weekend. Didn't do any work. Suddenly school didn't seem so important to me anymore.. perhaps I have run out of steam? That motivation and drive within me is dying? Or I have simply accepted the fact that nothing else I do will matter and I might as well fall upon the hands of fate?

Tonight we went to Red Lobster for Evelyn's birthday dinner.. alright so her birthday is not until tomorrow, but given all our schedules, tonight was the perfect night for the dinner. For those who know - I am allergic to most seafood. Why I picked Red Lobster is beyond me. I think this invisible force kinda made me to do it. Hahaha.

I ended up eating fish and chips.. ugh.. something I'll learn to like in the next couple of months..

Right now I'm into the programming mode for a good week - my software engineering project is due next Friday. I will be spending day and night in the lab, non-stop, no sleeping, for the next week. This really reminds me of last semester when I had to do the stupid operating systems project. At least this time there is no hardware to interact with - maybe it'll be easier? It's finally back to what we're familiar with, just simple C coding and nothing fancy. Except now we have to use UNIX messages.. ugh.. right. I just entered 'geek mode' also.. excuse me.

Nothing much is happening. Next Friday (which happens to be the day that I will be submitting my project) I will be attending a charity ball with Evelyn. I am sure it will be lots of fun. Too bad Adrian couldn't make it, but some of my other friends will be there too. Need to start going on a diet in order to fit in those pants I have. I wonder if it's formal or just semi-formal. Oh well, doesn't matter, for guys, it's just a shirt and a tie, jacket optional type deal. :)

Back to coding..

Something really funny happened to me over the weekend when I went to the mall with Evelyn. First of all, it was pretty far away from campus so not a lot of people know about it. The first impression I got when I walked in was, "Wow, this feels just like being in high school again." because there were MANY younger teenagers roaming around. Secondly, there were almost no presence of Asians.. feels just like where I used to live.

I got hungry while walking around so I went to a certain fast-food place for food. The girl that was serving me, she was no more than 16 or 17. As she was serving me, she couldn't keep her eyes off me. Not in a weird kinda way, but just staring and smiling and giggling and the whole thing. It took me a while to click in what she was doing. Then she started whispering to her friend and giggle some more. Now fine, maybe you may think that I'm ugly and she's just laughing at me. Well then she started piling on the food, and it was almost double of what I was supposed to get. Anyway, the whole time she didn't take her eyes off me. It was kinda funny at the time.

But that wasn't it!

Then Evelyn got thirsty so we went to get juice. The girl at the juice place ended up charging me for a small, gave me a large, and had to say to me, "I think I charged you for a medium.. but I'll give you a large anyway." I mean, I am not going to refuse an gratuitous offer like that! Much like the first girl, she was smiling at me quite a bit.

Funniest part of the whole story - Evelyn was right next to me the whole time these events occurred. Not that she�s the jealous type - we even talked about the events after and had a good laugh. It was funny though, the forwardness of these younger teenagers makes me feel so old.

Perhaps they both had a really good day at work and they genuinely feel happy. Yeah, that must be it.

Took the weekend off. I have decided that I had far too much to do, and that stressing now or stressing later wouldn't make a difference, so I chose stress later. Didn't do much Friday, took off to Toronto for the night, needed to get away from the Waterhole. Stood in line for a long while on Saturday, before heading back to Waterloo for the par-tay. It was fun, although I'm not a big dancing person so the night went by slow. It was cool to hang out with some people though. Woke up at 1pm on Sunday, went to the mall, walked around, went home, had dinner, went curling. What a weekend. Did everything but work!

Perhaps that's what life should be like.. ahh..

The presentation went well today! I was quite surprised how well it turned out - last night we were still a bit fresh at the written speech, and today it seemed so different. I guess everybody raised above the expectation when put under pressure! I know I'm like that.. when being pressed for performance, I always come out ahead and deliver. I guess you could say it's a good trait to have.. but I still don't like the fact that it all depends on how pressured I am. I mean, what if there is this ONE time I don't come out ahead? What then?

Also handed in my microprocessor assignment today! It felt really satisfying today to know two major hurdles are now history~~~ Although I did pay for them - two weeks of no sleep, constant stress, and driving everybody around me crazy. I swear, my group members certainly learned a 'new side' of me they never saw before.

To Evie: You will be fine tomorrow. There is nothing to worry about - really. I still live by my high school motto : "I have kept the faith. I have finished the race." I hope you can keep that as your motto also. Never lose faith! Somehow I always knew you would surprise everybody including yourself of your abilities..

Finished preparing for my 4th year project presentation just now with my group.. took us a long time just to sort out a lot of issues. I think one thing that's lacking in me is communication skills - sometimes I just can't communicate properly, and it's very evident when I'm working with a group of people. I always thought of myself as a proficient speaker, can clearly communicate my ideas to others - how wrong I am. I should really take some classes to improve my skills.. or just talk to people more often. Effective communication - I think that's what the course is called. I'm definitely going to look into that for my next elective.

Feeling really down lately - must be because of my nearly broken finger. Due to some weird accident yesterday, my fingers were slammed in between the door and the door frame. It was kinda funny afterwards when I told myself that "Damn, I won't be able to type".. little did I realize that I also would have trouble writing, eating, or doing anything with my right hand for that matter. I can barely bend it, and it hurts a whole lot when I try. I should have seen a doctor, but lately I have developed this doctor-phobia.. ugh.

Wonder if anybody else reads this besides the four or five people I can count.. wonder if any of my classmates read this?..

Alright, one down, one more to go. About 3 hours from now I have to submit my slides for my 4th year project presentation. I wonder if people will buy our idea.. and just to think, standing in front of my fellow classmates for 14 minutes is a long time - longer than I have ever stood in front of my class. Of course, I am not scared that I would not perform well.. I am a natural when it comes to public speaking. It's more that I'm scared they will ask me questions regarding the project that I totally did not anticipate, leaving me stunned and a little bit more than embarrassed in front of everybody.

Finally I have caught up with my sleep and started working on another project that's due this Friday.. :) Writing a microprocessor! Fun! Plus I have to finish my 4th year project presentation.. gonna try to convince people to fund our project!

Oh well, back to work :P