Yet again!

Yep, this time even earlier. I didn't get home until around 2am last night, slept at 3am, woke up at 7am, repeat.

Who made up the final exam schedule? Why would you put two math-oriented courses together, seperated by 24 hours? Do they want to see us suffer and die?

It must be a conspiracy.

Oh the humanity..

Why the heck am I at the library at this hour of the day? Furthermore, why did I wake up at 6am this morning to drive back to the Water-hole? Why am I still online complaining when I should be studying?

Blessed

Inspiring blog from Gai On's Blog. Touched me quite a bit actually. Over the past couple of years, I have been complaining about one thing or another, and never really appreciated what I really had with me. Sure, a lot of things don't go my way, but I seem to have neglected things that do. The fact I'm still in school and struggling seems to strike me as the luckiest thing that could happen to me. Perhaps it's time to count my blessings, instead of disgard them and take them for granted.

Oh.. one more thing.

I hate when people brag, especially when they make themself seems more important than people around them. I'm sorry, everybody gets opportunities to take part in big things, there's no need to engage in 'downward social comparison'. (as Evelyn would phrase it)

To respond to whisper00's blog, I completely agree with you. I perform that experiment every school term (not on purpose, but by circumstances), and it's funny how many people actually call or e-mail me to show that they care.

This had been one of my toughest semesters by far (again, I know I am to blame because I did pick the courses), and a little encouragement doesn't hurt. In fact, I can *count* the number of people that were by my side and say 'go for it!' when I needed somebody to lean on. True friends huh? Those are few and far in between.

Time to Study

Projects have been completed and submitted, and classes have ended. There goes another semester. Now is the time to buckle down and study.. hahaha.. yeah right. :) I still have to drive back to Toronto tonight to sign my offer, then back so I can cram as much as possible in the next two days for two hardcore exams back to back. Yay, what a life.

More all-nighters

Still in the lab. Of course, where else would I be? Technically I haven't pulled an all-nighter this week yet.. but late nights. REALLY late nights. I'm talking 5am late nights. Looks like tonight will be another one. If I have learned anything this term, it would be that writing documents is not fun. I now feel for those technical writers who do this for a living. They are probably pretty underpaid too.

More Fourth Year Project

It's almost 4am, do you know where I am?

In the lab, of course.

This is one of the few rare occasions that I am here working on something that's not due in the next 12 hours, and still here at 4am. I don't make much sense now, but I am sure I will read this tomorrow morning (read: afternoon when I wake up) and have a good laugh.

Fourth Year Project Again..

What I meant tomorrow is today. I didn't notice that by the time I posted my last entry, it was already Tuesday. Anyhow, the demo was quite successful. Our consultant seemed really pleased with the work we have done. So now all there is left to do is the report. The bad news is, he wants to see it by tomorrow morning. So this means an all-nighter for me. *sigh*

More Fourth Year Project Work

Once again, we went to the garage for a good part of the day to work on the project. Tomorrow we are showing our faculty consultant the work we have completed, and hopefully get a decent mark. After which we have to finish writing our final sign-off report which is due this Friday.

I was soaked afterwards from pushing the vehicle back to the parking lot, in the rain. I don't know why it's so special, but it just feels weird knowing that I will get wet and willingly walk outside in the rain. A bit sadistic if you ask me.

Weekend

I completed the project on Saturday with my other two teammates - total manhour ~ 70 hours. Not bad for a final project in the course. Although we might have made it a bit too simple, but who cares, we're done. There are more things to attend to.

Decided that I needed a break, I took the day off on Sunday and went back to Toronto. Met up with Evelyn's friend for dinner, had some laughs and heard about stories from their high school days. Makes me wonder why I lost contact with all my high school friends. *sigh*

Early Morning

Yeah you're reading the time right. I'm already at the lab working on a project. How insane is this? On a Saturday morning too.. ugh.

Maybe not..

I take the last post back. It's not so lucky afterall. Just found out a supplier that we were getting an essential component for the 4th year project from, well, did not receive our orders. I have no idea why, but they just didn't. So now we have a week (wait, less) to find a replacement and hopefully still finish on time!!!

Lucky!

Whoa, I just went to get gas and as my tank filled up, it stopped when the tank was full. (if you fill up your own gas, you know what I'm talking about) It stopped right at $30.00!!! Not a cent above or below - and I wasn't even watching the meter. I know this is silly, but it's never happened to me before. Must be my lucky day!

Tiring Day

I just got home from working on my fourth year project. If I haven't made it clear in my previous rantings, during our final year we have to complete a 'project with significant design experience' in order to graduate. So here I am, spending every spare second I have to finish it. Today I worked on the wiring, and feeding the wires through mazes of electrical components. Then me and my teammates debugged our system - it was quite fun sitting there, the three of us, with three laptops. The room was dim, and the lights from the screen reflected off our faces making us look ever paler than usual. We finished off with a team meeting - in my car, for an hour after we left (which was 2am BTW).

Which reminds me, I still haven't had lunch/dinner.. mm.. seems to be a continuing trend. Oh yeah, Evelyn is in Toronto. She usually reminds me to take meal breaks. :)

Off to bed I go. Maybe sleep will cure hunger. (if that actually works, ppl in third world countries should sleep more often)

Update..

Why did people suddenly stopped updating their weblogs? Not that my life is particularly interesting, but I still like to record my almost-daily ramblings. So to those of you who have vanished off the planet - wake up and start blogging. Tell me all those juicy details of your life. (or how boring your life is) I'm in University of Waterloo for crying out loud! People, enlighten me here! There's gotta be more interesting lives out there!

Presentation..

Today our fourth year design project group made a presentation to the stakeholders of our project. Essentially, our 'customers' that is sponsoring the project. As if that's not bad enough, these are police officers, city officials, and our faculty consultant. Luckily, we didn't quite make a fool of ourselves (I spent the entire morning planning the flow of the presentation). Of course, thanks to my group members who prepared the budget and demonstration. Except for a little glitch (the simulation didn't run on the laptop), they seemed to be impressed with what we have done so far. Our faculty consultant gave us some more hints and suggestions, so we'll be working on those in this coming week.

Somehow, I feel that my presentation skill still needs some tweaking. Oh well, live and learn. :)

Busy Busy Busy

The word "busy" no longer describes the state I am in. Who said fourth year was easy? I suppose it would be easy if you really only care about 'passing', but what's the fun of just scraping by? :) Life without a challenge is not worth living, that's what I always believe.

Surprisingly, although I'm always in a peeved-off come-near-me-and-I'll-bite-your-head-off mood, and stressed outta my mind, I am unusually calm. Calm as in not in my usual end-of-term panic mode. Perhaps I have grown accustomed to the stress, or I simply don't care anymore. I hope it's the former and not the latter.

Gloomy Days

Yet another gloomy day. *sigh* The weather's been pretty bad the past few days, rain, sunny, rain more, now cloudy. I couldn't drag myself outta bed this morning so I was late meeting my group for a project. Now I'm sitting in the lab, working away. Seems unfortunate but this is how I am going to spend the rest of the day perhaps.

No point in complaining about it though, since what needs to be done has to be done. :)

Paddling Backwards

Lately, I feel that I am paddling backwards against the current (and may I add, a damn fast current). Things in my life are zooming past me, and yet I cannot help but feel helpless. I feel out of control with a lot of things. The more I want to assert control, the more it seems to be loosening the grip I had on it. Perhaps I need to learn to let go, and just let things flow..

Graduation?

Not so fast, I say. So I took my graduation picture (which warrants a whole blog to itself, maybe later), took my class picture today, even know the date for the grad ball and IRS.. but it's still a good 11 months away. Which equates to at least 9 more final exams, 5 more midterms, an entire work term, 2 major reports, 3 presentations, and a whole bunch of time.

I always wonder, what if I don't graduate. That would be real embarassing. I have done everything up to this point in preparation for next June, but what if it doesn't come through? What if I decide to say "Screw it" and take off to backpack Europe?

Yet another weekend

Hahaha.. what a weekend. I cannot possibly imagine myself slacking off this much during a weekend - yet I did. Adrian visited Waterloo on Friday, since it was his long weekend (independence day). Not very many people would actually drive in to visit, let alone after driving for nearly 9 hours just to get home. Thanks dude. Now that's a true friend, unlike those who never even bother to say hi, let alone visit.

Took the time out to go for dessert with Evelyn and Adrian, with the rest of the gang, in Toronto. Yep, it was some decent cheesecake. Took the early bus back into Waterloo (thanks to Adrian, again, for driving us down to the bus station), only for the Engineering Orientation Leader Retreat. Spent some time with other leaders coming up with ideas and cheers for the week. Should be an awesome week :)

Watched Harry Potter:The Chamber of Secrets with Evelyn on Saturday night, spending some quality time with her. Sunday was a write-off too! I helped Evelyn move some of her boxes into temporary storage until she moves down to Illinois, then I just lounged around at home, whining about the heat.

Loss of Motivation

Quite frankly, I just don't give a crap anymore. I have a quiz in, oh, say 1.75 hours. I have not finished studying. I went to bed early last night (any time before 3:00am is early). I simply don't care.

What is with this loss of motivation during the middle of the school semester? Am I already burned out, or is it just my laziness surfacing itself?

Somebody help me!

Long Weekend

Happy Canada Day! :)

Four day weekend - a dream come true for many of my classmates and me. Time to relax and catch up on the work that we neglected over the past two months. On Saturday I went to karaoke with a couple of my classmates, and had dinner with a couple of them afterwards. I also found out that they opened a Honest Lawyer in Toronto!!! :) :) I really enjoyed that place when I was in Ottawa, and now they have one in Toronto! Have to go drink with a couple of friends the next time I go back to Toronto.

Sunday was a full day of working on the design project.. at least we are making some progress. We only have about three weeks left!

Monday was relaxing and taking time out to clean the house a bit. Watched Private Parts and Harry Potter with Evelyn.. hehe.. I still remember watching Private Parts with my high school friends back in the days. *sigh* Now I feel so old.

Now I am working on assignments, then tonight I will be going to watch the fireworks with Evelyn. Hopefully it will be a nice clear night.. :) Canada Day is always so exciting!