Ups and downs while the world goes round

When was the last time I blogged? Nothing keeps a student busy like the finals and then getting over the finals. And life doesn't exactly give us a break in this hard time, always with the ups and downs... here are those form last week.

I passed two more finals: correcting codes and concurrent programming. One is the well deserved result of hard work, the other the well deserved result of making the wise desicion of picking a mathematical class for computer science students and putting my knowledge of algebra to use.

I failed one final: artificial intelligence. Getting sick two days before the exam doesn't help, but those two days wouldn't make a difference if I was ready earlier.

I broke my new sunglasses. I guess carrying them in a backpack with the laptop wasn't a great idea.

I went to see the movie "Sex and the City". With Boyfriend. He survived.

A headhunter called. She was a bit rude and her company doesn't have a website, but it's nice to see I'm wanted and tell her twice what I earn to see what happens.

We almost finished the team project. The teamwork went great and now we're really good friends.

The presentation of the team project was a disaster. Ubuntu 7.10 wouldn't cooperate with the projector, so all we got to show were the bits that we had on another laptop.

There must be something more, but that's all I remember for now.

Not everything is due at midnight.

Today has been another day of gaining life experience and wisdom.

I used to think everything was always due at midnight, unless otherwise stated. The operating systems assignement were due in the morning, which meant sleepless nights. Everything else is always due at midnight, as far as I know.

Today, an economy paper was due. Interdisciplinary and related to our studies. With the team project going like crazy and finals, let's just say that an economy paper is not exactly my main priority, nor has ever been in the 45 given days. (Yes, 45.) I sat to it tonight, at 10 p.m. (Yes, two hours, and it was 45 days.) Well, I did some work before: I chose a subject. Buying DRM-protected music made me wonder wether good protection of the kind can be done, which is crypto, which is related to my studies. So, subject: piracy, because it's so interdisciplinary (crypto, economy, sociology, ethics,...) So, 10 p.m., me logs to the platform and what do I see? It's due at 11 p.m.! Did I panick? Not at all, I didn't have time. I just started writing and produced 6500 characters in one hour. This is easier in Polish as the words are longer, but the thing that really helps is writing on a regular basis, which I do here. Anyway, I wrote my paper without sacrificing more time for it than it deserves (now I really really hope the teacher doesn't read this).

Today was way longer that this and way richer in experiences, but, tomorrow is the correcting codes final exam, so I have to go now. Sleep well and remember that not everything is due at midnight.

School goes on.

The team project meetings have been rescheduled. Me not happy. But, that means I start at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. Actually, I'm not sure wether I should had come to the meeting yesterday or not, but I believe that if you have any doubt whether you should go to school or not, stay home.

So I spent the morning home. I did some yoga: two sun salutations. They were hard, but I know I'll get back in shape soon. I made some chicken. I cut my hair in order to look more like a decent human being rather than a coughing and coding creature (is there a point to hiding the sad truth anyway?).

I went to school. First, a networks lecture. I am interested in networks. Since today, but I am. I am interested in security so networks knowledge is important for me. Sadly, the teacher had throat problems and only gave us some general information. 15 minutes and we were free. I went to the lab and learned some Java.

Then came my favourite subject, error correcting codes. It's the continuation of last semester's class, focused on cyclic codes. I liked the linear block codes lecture a lot and got 90% at the final exam, so it's no wonder I went for the cyclic codes as well. Huge was my disappointement when the lecture turned out to be another algebra revision! It was hard to take in the first semester, as every single student knew everything already, but twice? Why? What was I supposed to do? Turned my laptop on and played The Sims.

The next class was an introduction to LaTeX. I played Need for Speed on Xbox at my boyfriend's place.

That was a nice day. But today isn't bad either, as I went to the networks lab and was done with school for this week at noon! Now I have the whole rest of the week for quality time with operating systems (which means I'll be busy and won't be blogging my best, sorry about that).