Halloween

Halloween tonight... explains the few strangely dressed characters on the train this evening.
One exam down, two to go.
Wooo 31 degrees tomorrow - perfect weather for cup day!

Restless & Unmotivated

ARGGHHH this happens every semester, but has gradually got worse.
A few days before exams, I'm sick of studying, I can't do anything else with much effort because I feel guilty that I should be studying.
I can't wait to graduation and going to UK/Europe, which is kinda not good coz I need to pass the exams to graduate! and the trip is going to pretty miserable if I don't, also means I lose my job next year. So these exams are more important than ever.

Just need to hold out for one more week Simon, and it'll all be over.

Week 130 completed!

Week number 130 of uni completed! (13 weeks x 2 semesters x 5 years)
I remember counting them for a while back, lost count around week 40 something.

Finished the big 3 semester project - quite please with how it turned out in the end, I thought we were heading for distaster about 5 weeks ago.
You can tell from the bleary eyes that this was the last team meeting for the project, with our double shot Lattés from Espresso Bagel at QV.



60 days to graduation (exams all being well), and 61 days till I fly to London for 6 weeks.

Moving On

Whilst I have had panic moments when I wonder whether I have really done everything i've wanted to do while being a student, a few things in the past couple of days have reassurred me my life doesn't end once being tied down in a job

Accidently typed my name into the search box in IE instead of in a login box, and the MSN search returned an entry in a blog. That's not my blog I thought, so who else would have a blog with my name in it? Turns out this guy does. Noticed he had a post on England's victory in the Ashes and left a comment referring to a post I made here. A few hours late he has left a comment on my blog (here).
So here I have stumbled across someone with a very good name :-) who appears to live a very vibrant life while working - phew! It appears DirtySi shares a fair bit more in common than just the name.
(Note to self [or should it be DirtySci reads this - can drop me a line] - have to find out where he DJs and put it on the list of places to party at when I head to London later this year/early next year).

My starsign (Leo) today in mX today, was as with most days was quite relevant - funny that, well maybe more relevant today.

"As much as the past appeals to your nostalgic side, you must be realistic enough to move on. Set yourself some new and achievable goals or make plans for a mini-break. Change will be a tonic for you."

Amoungst other things - according to a very popular academic at RMIT today said - you're not accepted as an adult until you work. Do I really want that I ask? I realise I'm not going to feel completely like one until I move out, whilst many of my peers appear to want to stay with their parents next year - usually a financial decision, perhaps to save for a deposit on a house, I have every intension of prioritising lifestyle choices over financial ones where possible. Not that I don't get on with my parents, but I am 23 I figure I've been at home long enough - perhaps even too long.

So as the week draws to a close, my apprehension about next year have subsided somewhat, and find the prospect of next year exciting a new, but before that, doing some serious partying (after exams of course! :-)).

The Island

Went and saw this film last night. It was very far from an original plot, but I wasn't after a complex storyline. Lots of action scenes and a storyline that was a cross between The Matrix, I Robot and the book Brave New World.

Last week of 10th and final semester

After almost 10 semesters of university, I'm heading into my final week.
A range of emotions come into play, like this time in any semester I'm glad it will be all over soon and looking forward to the summer break.
But at the same time I find it sad that my days as a tertiary student are almost over. Last week and the week ahead will be spent on polishing off a project that has taken 3 semesters to complete.

In my first week of my first year in 2001, I wrote the following program, which I dug up from my archive of every assignment / report I have done

class ExerciseTwo {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
  String str1,str2,str3;

  str1 = new String("This is my first try");
  str2 = new String("at programming in Java");
  str3 = new String("It is fun!");

  System.out.println(str1);
  System.out.println(str2);
  System.out.println(str3);

  }
}

Now it's my last week of my final year, and the team I am in has almost completed an application (also written in java) that has taken 3 semesters to get requirements on, design, refine, write and test with thousands of lines of code and over 50 different types user defined classes.

I have come to realise that university has recently failed to challenge me like it once did and it's time to move on.
Reports and presentations are often mundane, and don't motivate me to do my best, as I have done so many of them that I feel like a factory that just spits out another report/presentation.

But having said that I will no doubt miss the lifestyle of being a university student, every day of the 5 years has been worth it. Sitting around in the hire centre, drinking coffee (originally at Melbourne Centre at Between Takes, before it was renovated, and more recently at QV at Espresso Bagels), and of course the heated discussion with mates about some trivial topic.

It's not quite over yet, but the end of classes at the end of this week will be tinged with some sadness as this chapter in my life closes (for now at least).