I’ve been trying to get organized and adjusted to the baby. I’ve managed to do a bit about my thesis and even did a bit of reading. I must be quite stressed out since I’ve been mostly listening to classical and jazz on CBC Radio 2 and Espace Musique. I ended up listening to Bob the other day because Trevor was too hungry to let me find a better station. It was strangely conforting to listen to the same music I was imposed with in high school. Just to prove that nothing changed they played the same Aerosmith song twice. I think there was an Aerosmith promo.
Category: Higher Education
It’s a hobby
This week I decided to pull a Rory and take some time off school. This was a very difficult decision since I’ve never dropped a course before. Of course in undergrad, if I didn’t have the bandwidth to do the course I would just float along, show up to classes, attempt the assignments and get a C. It got me through the university and got me a job. I don’t regret it since I have great memories of hanging out with friends and doing great fun things that you only get to do in university.
The underside showed up much later when I was not able to get into grad school with that record and ended up doing half a Master’s degree worth of courses just so I can prove that I can do Masters. When I got my first A+ in grad school it was a complete surprise. I finally figured out how to get good grades. I went through pretty much my entire education getting Bs and Cs because those were the only grades I knew how to get. The thing is that I always wanted to do grad school. I got fed up with my teacher the second week of elementary school because I wasn’t in grad school. I wanted to read journals that analysed plant growth and benefits of watering or the effects of communal and personal ownership on society. When all I got was condescending speeches on importance of washing hands after going to the bathroom (which was what I have been doing since I was old enough to go to the bathroom and wash hands by myself thank-you-very-much) I was outraged. It didn’t help that all of the kids around me were drinking in this wisdom like it was the first time they’ve heard it.
The gist of it is that I love grad school. I love submitting quality work and getting good grades. But I am really exhausted this year and can’t get myself to work full time and do a good job in school. I caught myself slacking and drifting in class. It is not because the class is boring. In fact, this is one of the most interesting classes so far, but I am not in a shape to deal with it and I need to rest. I am no longer interested in getting a C and just pulling through. I had to drop the class.
So now I have some time to rest. It is getting really busy at work too so I will have to put in extra effort to get things running smoothly. I am also very excited about the things I can do with my newly vacated time, but I have to make sure I get enough rest.
About half way…
Which means that I still have a lot of work to do before my GA is presentable.
I am working on the Traveling Salesman Problem as a Genetic Algorithm. So far I got the basis, but the touch ups and UI will take most of the work. I took today off from work and got a lot done. The problem is that we’re quite busy at work so I get home exhausted. Most of the time I am in no mood to do anything, particularly not tax my head any more than it already is.
On the other hand, this is a very interesting course and I will be really upset if I don’t do well in it. So on with the slog.
Fun in the sun
I wrote my exam on Tuesday and now I’m back to work-a-day-rest-at-night lifestyle. Though not for long since we’re hitting the airport on Friday. There is nothing like going to the opposite end of the world to put a closure on a semester.
Currently I am making a mixed CD for my work buddies. We were discussing the trend of iPod swapping with co-workers. We agreed that it was a great idea, but since I am the only one with the iPod, which isn’t even mine, we stuck with CDs. The rules are as follows: there needs to be about 20 to 30 songs with no more than 3 by the same artist. The idea is to put the stuff that you like, but also try and get many genres. I’ve put the following artists: Belle & Sebastian, Cibo Matto, Diamanda Galas, Emm Gryner, Liz Phair, Laibach, Magnetic Fields, Neko Case, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Organ, Patti Smith, Rufus Wainwright, Tegan & Sara and White Stripes.
There are some trends with the music that I’ve chosen that I haven’t noticed before. For example, there is a definite mellowness to the music I put on the CD. I am getting more mellow with age ;).
Rut
I got pretty cocky about grad school last year when I had three A+ in a row. This year wasn’t so great. I got an A in Distributed Systems Verification class. This is by no means a bad grade, but I had set the bar higher and now I am grumpy about it. I don’t expect to be terribly happy about my Distributed Systems Engineering grade either, thought the whole class seems to be getting bad grades (at least the grades that are posted on prof’s door) so providing that he curves, it might still not be too bad. I admit to obsessing about it too much, but I have my reasons for this and I am sticking to it.
I still have one deliverable to go, a programming and research project. So far it’s fun and I hope I will have enough time to finish it, being a quarter end at work and all. Even though I am getting flustered about not getting the top grades, I am still happy to have taken this course. For one, I actually get to program in something other than C so I am learning quite a bit. On top of that, even though I did not find some material in the course appealing, at least now I know what approach to research appeals, or does not appeal, to me. So there you go, one more learning experience.
One exam down, one more to go
I wrote the Validation Methods for Distributed Systems exam today. Overall, I quite liked the course, though, as always, I will reserve the final judgement for after I receive my grade. It was the first CS course I took in a long time, the last one being FORTRAN77. In any case, it gave me a pretty good glimpse into an area of research I was not familiar with before.
I still have an exam and a project for the other course I am taking this year, Distributed Systems Engineering. This course is a polar opposite, it is very engineeringy in a sense of let’s try a few things and implement the one that seems to work most optimally. I like the project so far. I’ve used Poisedon UML tool and so far I am quite impressed with it. It is a lot easier to use that the Rational Rose tool I used last year. Right now I am using the free basic version, though I might consider buying the actual software (they have student prices) if I have to use UML again. One of the drawbacks of the free basic version is that images are exported with a giant Poisedon watermark on it and you can’t print directly from the application. I was also considered using Eclipse as I’ve heard it was quite good, but with limited time that I have, I was willing to pilot only one new software application at the time so I stuck with the trusty Netbeans.
Geek out.