The Return from Easter, pt 2.

And now for the second and final week back from Easter before exams!

Only actually had to go in for lectures on Monday this week, with Tuesday, Thursday and Friday being a write off. But this still meant I had to prepare and perform a presentation regarding my final year project at 11.30 on Thursday and still hand in an assignment regarding microkernels for Friday.

So, Monday wasn't too bad, just a bit boring once uni had finished. Tuesday was pretty lame though, being stuck inside rather bored as the sun was beaming, mocking me.

Wednesday though, ugh. Very shit day. Somehow, as soon as I woke up, I couldn't hear. It was strange, it sounded like I had been swimming and had water in my ear. It hurt hearing this that were quite low, except for some reason using earphones didn't effect it. Once again the sun was beaming and I got up early to make some progress on the presentation. But I got so bored by 12.30 and didn't want to spend another nice day indoors so I took my ball up the park with my iPod. Only 10 minutes later though: BOOM! Ball over fence, into stingy nettles, which stung me on the calf. Fun. Got bored of that and ended up going for a walk/run/jog, something I don't normally do, ever. I just kept on going and going and without realising I was by the train station I use to go to uni, which is around 15-20 minutes driving, or an hour away walking. So that meant an hour's walk/jog/run back too in the warm sun.

Some 3 days later my leg and back muscles are still messed up, got a bruise from the stingy nettles and a blister on my right foot. Happy days.

Getting home at around 3ish, I just couldn't get in the frame of mind to carry on working on the presentation. Eventually I did, but I still hadn't finished by 3am, where I decided to get some sleep and wake up early to finish. Fantastic plan. I woke up early, but still couldn't get into it, until I was rushing. I ended up finishing late, and still had to get ready. I left late and arrived at uni at about 11.40. I think they bought that I "had trouble starting my car" ¬¬.

The presentation itself was pretty poor. Videos I had recorded just didn't work. Fucking codecs. So I had to wing them. I think I may've answered their questions pretty decently though. But yes kids, don't be late. either way, I consoled myself with a(nother) McDonalds afterwards.

Was the day over? Noooo. Time to crack on with boring reports about Microkernels where information is a little scarce, even when using Wikipedia (which I was aiming not to). I already had 1500 words of the 2500 so wouldn't be too bad. I managed to get to about 2250 on Thursday night and decided to call it quits, wake up early and just finish it off to get it out of the way. I even watched Kick-Ass again on Thursday night afterwards, but fell asleep during it, so I carried on watching that again in the morning too. Did that and finished both around 12.30pm on Friday, score. So, that's my (hopefully) last ever piece of coursework handed in. In the end with only a couple hundred words left I just meh'd over it just to get it done.

To "celebrate" the end of uni, or just get out the house, I dunno, we took a trip to Barfly to watch a nice n' friendly band: a Pantera tribute band named, ironically, "101% Pantera". They were loud, they were angry, they were good. They even made me like "Walk", a song I dislike. Even as a fan of metal, wearing a Metallica shirt, we still looked out of place next to the big, hairy sweaty blokes, god knows what our female friend felt like. Glad to report we stayed away from the front and the mosh-pits. Then took a trip to Revs, which in all honesty is better than I thought it would be. Less full of chavs and the ability to breath and move unlike the similar Live Lounge. Ugh, I hate Live Lounge.

Now it's May, and only have 2 weeks and 3 exams left, and 4 weeks until my birthday. Yay.

The Return from Easter, pt 1.

Following the three weeks off from Easter, it meant the deadline for handing in the finished version of the final year project. Whoop-dee-do. Back in September when we started this shit, I was pretty sure I'd be pulling an all nighter, which would be my official first all nighter. Every other time for other assignments I'd be able to finish and get at least some sleep, albeit it going to bed at 5am with a wake-up of 7am. I guess I only have myself to blame though.

With only 2 days remaining before the project needed to be handed in, I was still stalled. Only the day before I could make a little progress, which forced the all nighter. Then, only some 3 hours before deadline I was able to come up with a solution for the code, which meant trying to hammer out a sufficient testing and evaluation sections, tidy up the what would be 86 page report and get it printed and bound (twice) before 4pm, with zero hours of sleep. I got it done in the end, even if I am fully aware of the piss-poor nature of my testing and evaluation sections. Oh and I realised a few days later that I left some crap in that I was going to change. Fuck. It's done now though.

I will say that that all-nighter was quite eventful though. I found myself eating cornflakes straight from the box, having a nosebleed (or aneurysm, one or the other), wasting time on Akinator and talking to people who I didn't expect to be up at 5am, as well as talking to those that I did expect to be up. I can say that I'm thankful for the company, and I'm sure it's the same for them too. Had to celebrate with a McDonalds at 4.30pm after not eating since my cornflakes-athon at about 3am. Waking up at 9.30am Tuesday and going to bed at 1am on Thursday isn't that fun, kids.

With that project out the way... that meant I had 48 hours to start and hand in an assignment! This one though was pathetic. The program doesn't need to be explained and requires about 4 lines for the minimum marks, and that was what we were aiming for just to get it done, given that the assignment was for the worst lecturer there. He doesn't explain shit. And his assignment sheet wasn't much help, it was about 3 lines long. May as well have said "pfft, do some shit." And he probably got shit. Glad I (hopefully) don't ever have to use Linux again! I was more concerned trying to play PlayStation One classics on my PC using the PS3 controller than that coursework.

Now to try and get a presentation done for the project for Thursday next week, and hand in another report on the Friday. Will I rest then? No. Exams. Fun. Thank god we got to celebrate the conclusion of the project report though.