A Jaunt to Sydney

That's me just back from a great holiday with the parents in Sydney. I say just back, it's been over a week, I've had some serious relaxing to do now that my summer holidays have finally started, but there's been a lot going on that I should probably write about.

First off, the car. I have one now. It's a '93 Toyota Corolla SECA for those who want to google a picture, a silver one. For those who don't want to google a picture, imagine the Delorian from Back To The Future, except with normal doors and back seats... and just generally less cool... well it's more like the Delorian than a bus.
It has a lot of miles on it, but so does everything in Australia, and it has air-con, which was a prerequisite of the parents' for their visit, I'm sure I'll get the most out of that.

I met the parents in Sydney on the second of December, the day after handing in my final report of the semester. The weather was good on the whole, though a bit wet for the first few days, during which we saw the Blue Mountains (or the bits that weren't covered in low cloud anyway) and the Jenolan Caves, both of which are best described with photos, which will appear on my picasa account when my monthly internet quota is renewed (should be tomorrow).
Update: pics are now online (http://picasaweb.google.com/thetopping)
After that we headed back into Sydney to see the Opera House and the Bridge, which were impressive. I didn't realise the Opera House was tiled, from up close (like several feet away) it looks like a bathroom wall or the floor of a swimming pool. They say the rain cleans it so they don't have to, which is lucky, I'd hate to tackle that with a toothbrush.
Spent a day on 'Manly' beach where I humiliated myself by almost getting swept out to sea. The tide was a lot stronger than I'd ever experienced, I only went out past the breakers but coming back was a relentless struggle akin to sprinting up that treadmill at the end of Gladiators: stop or slow for an instant and you go backwards. If I'd gone out any further I would have needed a lifeguard's assistance (and though I would never question their proficiency as lifeguards, these weren't exactly Baywatch quality figures). After that little debacle I spent a good while just lying on the sand, and got quite sunburnt.

Back in Adelaide, I took the parents to the vineyards, where I, being the designated driver, had to spit out all the lovely wine I tasted. Being generous sorts though, the parents bought a couple of bottles so we could drink them together later. After that we had a bit of a failed attempt to see the animals at Cleland Wildlife Park (not really failed, but the rain in the hills that day dampened spirits of both us and the animals), a trip to the beach and a dinner at Hahndorf before they headed home.
We basically covered everything I've done since arriving in four days.

Now that the sightseeing holiday is over I'm left waiting for my exam results. If they're good I get to start that minor thesis I've been planning, If they're not I try to blag my way into said minor thesis. If they're awful I get to beg. I really don't want to do more taught modules.

As for the weather, It's currently hot and sunny. I'm preparing for christmas (and possibly hogmanay) on the beach. There will be barbecued turkey, and I think I'll be getting a beach umbrella this time, so I don't get so burnt.

Too Hot

Just as I hear Britain is getting its first winter freeze, Australia is getting its first scorching days. It's 35° in the shade as I speak, same as yesterday, and this is just the beginning. The butter (for example), which I keep at the back of a cool cupboard downstairs in the kitchen, is liquid. If I hadn't used a butter dish it would be covering the floor.

Although we have air-con, it's expensive to keep it on max all day, so I spent yesterday in the university library, which has powerful air-con keeping the whole building pleasant. The only problem lay in getting to Uni without getting burnt, hiding in the shadows and running for cover etc. The evening was worse, when the Library closed I had to get home with heat coming at me in two directions: directly from above, and radiated from the superheated ground below.

Nighttime is also hot, but without direct sunlight, so almost bearable. I might become nocturnal during the summer just to sleep through the heat, drinking a lot of iced coffee, iced tea, and beer.

I still have one exam left before my holidays start, and a report due December 1st (which is so far after everyone else has started their holidays it's not even funny, and I have some sort of mental block preventing me from doing it until the last minute). Electromagnetic Compatibility (my last exam, tomorrow) I expect to do well on, involving a lot of speculation and opinion, and less memorising formulae. Did pretty well in the assignments too. As soon as that's out of the way, well lots of plans are already being formed on how best to start the holidays.

Most involve sea and sand.

Summer Holidays

Oh that's right, I have a blog. I'd nearly forgotten about it in the last few months of constant work.

I'm not really finished yet, I still have one exam and one report to finish, but I finally have some time to breathe, blog, and maybe play some computer games.

I'm not going to go through what's happened, there were many assignments, some went well, some not so well. The mechatronics robot, for example, wasn't quite finished. No team managed a flawless lap of the course, but a few were way ahead of us. Advanced Power Electronics was... well... advanced, and Electromagnetic Compatibility has been more like an art than a science. My Power Systems presentation on fuel cells went very well: almost everyone else talked about very basic concepts (“Sometimes terrorists break into power stations, so they need to have good security”), but David and I went into mathematical modelling and control systems, which the lecturer liked.

Unfortunately given that I've been tied up with Uni work, not much else has happened. I haven't had the chance to appreciate the glorious weather we've started getting. I did notice that I haven't been caught in the rain for a while, I used my air conditioner for the first time a few weeks ago, and I'm starting to get sunburnt around my neck. Looking forward to spending Christmas on the beach.

The increased heat hasn't stopped me cooking big hearty meals however. I never did learn how to make light summer salads, so I've been continuing with Cottage and Steak & Ale pies, roast pork and roast beef with roast potatoes, Lasagne (which translates into Chinese as 'thousand layer,' so Jonny and Sara were unimpressed when it only had 7), and tonight I'm making Curry. The shops are full of summer fruits and I'm still hunting down root vegetables.

Should be getting a car before the end of the month, so I can drive around more and get some good pictures to send back. The real road trip will take place in January, when I'm planning to drive up the east coast until I hit jungle. Summer holidays here are long, and after my last exam next week I'll have more than 3 months to get very sunburnt...

...or stay indoors playing computer games...

Operation Relocation

That's me, I've moved out of the city. Actually I made the shift a week ago but I wanted to get a feel for the new place before talking about it, and also I've been busy with Uni work. I moved in with a Chinese couple, Jonny and Sara (who are probably reading this, hey guys!), and one other guy I don't know that well, called Yang. Jonny is in a few of my classes so I knew him before the move, I'd mentioned I was looking for a place nearer the Uni, turned out one of his flatmates was moving out, I went 'round for lunch that day and met Sara, and a week later moved my stuff.

I won't describe the look of the house, I've been waiting for some sunny weather so I can take some nice photos, but it's on two levels, all white inside and very new looking. Everything just works: the mosquito nets on the windows have no rips, the carpets are clean, sliders slide, cupboards close (etc.), nothing like the last place. The bathroom has a two large 'heating' bulbs either side of the light, and (as usual for Australia it seems) a quite epic shower. The kitchen is of excellent quality: gas hob, shiny oven, dishwasher with 'eco' settings and two fridges (Yayness!). My cooking is appreciated and encouraged (rather than grudgingly tolerated) so I've been making risottos, trifles, chocolate truffles and cooked breakfasts for Jonny and Sara, and they've been introducing me to Chinese cuisine. It turns out the farmer's market they go to on Sundays is even cheaper than Central Market is on Saturdays (I just picked up a >6kg box of Broccoli for 2$ this morning), and you can buy fish fresh from the docks there. The house also has a big garage where I can keep my bike out of the rain, and they have an electric piano in the living room with a full 88 force-sensitive weighted keys.

So overall a great improvement. It's supposed to be good weather this week, so I'll have the photos up on Picasa by next Saturday.

Dishonoring the system

Is it really week 6 of this semester already? Where did the time go? One minute I'm enjoying the start of my courses, happy that I'm not expected to know anything yet, and before I know it I'm being given assignments like there's no tomorrow (actually that's a bad analogy, if there were no tomorrow there'd be no reason to do the assignments).

Heading the offending classes list is Advanced Power Electronics, shortened to APE because it makes you feel like one, still discovering his opposable thumbs. A week ago we had a lecture which felt like being back at school: the lecturer picked some guy at random and asked him to solve some obscure problem on the board, and when he had difficulty he got severely chastised:

“you are supposed to be a master student, why do you not know this? How old are you?”

[waits for answer]

“Have you read the notes?”

[his handwritten notes, to date, are about an inch thick]

“Have you been coming to the lectures? What's your name?”

[looks up the poor guy on backdated attendance sheets in front of everyone]

etc.

After the lecturer gets bored with the guy he turns to the rest of us, and the lecture, really turns into a 'lecture'

“You cannot have a job if you are studying... it's more important than your family, your friends... I had nothing when I went to university... you dishonor the system.. you are like the terrorists... [seriously] ...everyone will be coming up to write on the board, and I will be marking your performance... every time you are absent from class I will take 2 marks from you...”

And so it went on, until the end of the lecture, quite scary. So I spend the rest of the day trying to understand his notes, not looking forward to my turn.

Just finished a Mechatronics presentation too, which went... well it could have been worse, we went over-time, into far too much detail, our slides came out in the wrong aspect ratio and they had some crazy peer-assessed marking scheme which was executed in a really awkward way. Suffice to say the presentation could have been better, and our course co-ordinator resigned shortly afterwards, so that's not a good sign.

Also I'm moving in with a friend from uni, details will come as I get them, but don't send any mail until I get the new address.

On top of things

The first week back to uni is always the best. You haven't got started into the heavy stuff yet, and (hopefully) you already have the background knowledge, so there's a sense of being on top of things that just doesn't come back until the first week of the next semester.

My classes this semester look mostly project based, so my exams'll be a breeze, but I might actually get quite stressed towards the end. The class I'd been looking forward to most (mechatronics) is entirely project based, as I had expected, but I hadn't anticipated the size of the teams. There are 11 guys on my team right now, making group meetings and organisation difficult. To make things worse, they made me project leader, they still seem to think I'm one of the 'smart' guys, I really don't know why. I've got some of the (actual) smart guys who're going to lend a hand in the micro-managing, and some strong characters I can trust to work hard, which should make up for those who aren't going to pull their weight. Overall I'm optimistic (though when am I not?).

The project is your average autonomous navigation, object sorting robot, representing some sort of automated warehouse system presumably. I appealed against a project this boring, trying to convince the class to do flying robots instead, but was proven, by a show of hands, to be in the (albeit enthusiastic) minority. Hey, at least it's not line following.

The other classes have many smaller groups and projects, so they'll get tougher as time goes by, and aren't something to worry about now. It's still the first week after all, I'm on top of things, remember?

Not quite, as the case turns out... one thing that I have been kicking myself about has been my laptop. Last Sunday I was so sick of it crashing I decided it needed to be professionally fixed. Amazingly, the toshiba repair shop for the whole of South Australia is on my street, so I handed it in Monday morning. They seemed to think, by my description, that it was probably a hardware problem, so it should be covered under warranty. The reason I'm kicking myself is that I sat playing computer games through the whole holiday period on the laptop I bought for university purposes, then handed it in for repairs the day uni started, when I might actually need it. It's been a week now, and I'm not sure they've even had it turned on long enough for it to crash on them, as they keep phoning me up (when I'm in lectures) and asking if I could be more specific about the problem.

The loss of my fancy laptop didn't stop me playing games though, I spent my entire weekend playing Chrono Trigger on a SNEZ emulator on my old laptop. Note to self: get out more. Ach it was rainy anyway, in fact there was thunder that shook the windows (well I am in a 'land down under'), I guess the wet season's not over yet.

Australian Wildlife

Well that was my holidays, they went quickly. Back to Uni tomorrow, just as the weather's starting to get nice  again. I sat on the grass in the sun today reading from my laptop (I started reading through the Harry Potter books a few days ago, I've got to the fourth so far), and was quite comfortable, I think the rainy season might be... well I don't want to jinx it, but it was nice today.

I haven't really done much over the holidays, I know I had the chances, but I was just so relieved to have some free time I may have accidentally spent a week playing Oblivion (which looks oh so shiny on my new laptop). In an effort to make the most of my last free day (not counting the weekend), I spent Friday visiting the 'Cleland Wildlife Park' just outside Adelaide. Having by this point spent about $160 on my bike (what with the service, crash-helmet, bike lock, etc.) I avoided the bus and took one of the cycle tracks out to the park.

What I didn't know when I set out was that the park is up in the mountains (2385 feet up, to be exact), and on only my second bike ride in over half a year I'd set out on a two and a half hour uphill winding struggle. It's a dedicated bike path, the crafers bikeway, initially running along beside the M1, but to make sure all the inclines are vaguely manageable it diverges from the motorway and takes the scenic route around some totally different hills, while the motorway presumably goes through an uphill tunnel or something. I can't say I enjoyed the scenery, being as I was: puffing and panting on the lowest gear, repeating "gonna pet a Koala, gonna pet a Koala" to myself like some kind of mantra. I'm proud that I never got off and walked, though if I had I would probably have been freezing (I could see my breath in the air), the constant exercise let me make the whole journey in a t-shirt.

The park was great, I got a few pictures, though my camera started complaining of low battery just after arriving (typical) so I had to pace myself. The first creatures I came across turned out to be my favorite, Potoroos. Potoroos look a bit like fat gerbils the size of rabbits, with big three toed back feet and small front paws. They were EVERYWHERE around the camp, extremely cute and very tame, I was standing in front of the park map deciding where to go when I suddenly noticed about 6 of them dancing and playing around my legs, I'm surprised they don't get trodden on. There were supposed to be Bandicoots and Bettongs which are similar sorts of creatures, but I didn't see any, and was quite happy with my army of Potoroos.

There were Kangaroos and Wallabies of course, I got some photos of Joeys poking their heads out, and some silly ones with me in the foreground grinning inanely (all will go on Picasa tomorrow). There were three separate aviaries: swampland, forest and Mallee, with flocks of budgies and tiny tiny birds (smaller than golf balls even when puffed up) and rare parrot varieties. The Emus were elusive, the Dingoes were playful, the Wombats were hungry and the Tasmanian Devils were quite energetic.

It was very cold in the park, I had to stop at one point and go get a cup of tea to warm me up, winter is supposed to be a better time to see the animals, because they're more active in trying to stay warm. The Koalas proved to be the exception to this rule. The park has special 'Koala close-ups" sessions where you can pet a Koala, so I queued up in the petting line, Potoroos still playing around my feet, I was quite excited (though not enough to pay $30 to hold one, that's just ridiculous, it's more than double the entrance fee). Anticlimactically, the Koala I got to pet had fallen asleep with it's eyes open, staring into the middle distance, looking a bit glaekit. The handler was gently trying to get some Eucalyptus into it's mouth to make it more photogenic, but it was like trying to feed a stuffed toy, so I got a slightly less enthusiastic photo with the comatose Koala and then went to play with the Potoroos some more.

The journey home was unbelievable. It was almost as much fun as playing with the animals. I had known it would be downhill all the way, but what I hadn't noticed was how shallow the slope was, the force of gravity balanced with wind resistance to keep me at a comfortable speed, and with the gyro effect keeping my front handlebars stable I was able to sit up and really enjoy myself the whole way down. Even the downhills I remembered from the journey up turned out to be merely flat bits (they had just seemed like downhills compared to the steep sections) which I zoomed through. I spent a lot of time gesticulating wildly, trying to keep warm as I wasn't exerting myself at all, grinning at cyclists going the other way, dancing (as much as one can on a bike) and pretending to play an invisible piano for the amusement of passing motorists. I was home in half an hour.

That trip on Friday managed to make up for most of the time wasted on computer games, though I still regret not playing my violin and keyboard more, and I'm still to design my website (which will be at www.philiptopping.com). I did actually get a lot of cooking done, most notably I made my own pasta, despite problems with consistency (having to weigh everything by creating a counterbalance of two cups on a wooden board on a rolling pin, and using exact measurement packaging like unopened blocks of cheese as weights, tends to give rather inaccurate results). The pasta turned out alright in the end, in fact fresh homemade tagliatelle with fresh homemade pesto was the type of meal you just can't eat without noticing how good it is.

As for finding alternative accommodation, it turns out I was looking in the wrong places, and should have been using gumtree. I avoided gumtree after trying to use the site to find a job in the UK, and getting only scam/spammers, but that seems to be confined to the job offers on the site. I shall continue to look, now in the right place, though I guess most people will have already found a place for the coming semester. Meantime, I can afford to stay where I am for now, as the rent will stay lower as long as I have to share a room.

Winter Holidays (but no Christmas)

Finally that's my exams over (it took long enough) and I can relax. Both of my exams started at half 6, and as it's winter here, it's properlly night time by then, so it feels like going to the cinema or something. Exams here are en masse, in a giant hall which resembles an aircraft hanger, with at least 10 different exams going on at once, some with hundreds of students, so the place is packed. A squad of invigilators spread out to their respective focus areas, and announcements warn of a zero tollerance policy, e.g. if caught with a mobile phone you could recieve "a minimum of zero" (which sounded to me like a pretty empty threat, but not tempting fate, I left my phone at home). Then after the exam they evacuate everyone out of the nearest available exit like there's a fire (perhaps there were a lot of little fires and I just didn't see them). Makes a big change from what I thought would be my last exam ever: a Robotics exam upstairs in some converted house off university avenue, two years ago (my it's been a while).

For a bit of a celebration of the holidays I went to see Bill Bailey perform  yesterday. Even though I had to go on my own, I got chatting to a few people, so it wasn't too bad. The show was great, a few old favorates, a few new, he didn't do so much messing about with the music as I would have liked, just a couple of well known songs on strange instruments and a kraftwork re-imagining. He did 2 encores and left, the house lights went up and everybody started flitering out. I got outside before deciding to nip back in to use the loo, and Bill was back on stage doing karaoke of "la bamba" and teaching everyone the words! After that he went on to do "Midnight in Parlament Square" too. I almost missed that whole section. The people who left in front of me definitely did. Suffice to say after that I didn't leave until roadies were dismantling the set.

On my first day of holidays I got my new bike a service, so now the seat's the right height and the handlebar handles were replaced etc. I took it out early this morning, early as in 7am (a few minutes before sunrise, so I got to see that happen), when the plants in the parks were still slightly frosty and breath hung in the air. Bracing was the word. I pedalled hard and only my hands got cold, gloves are needed (as was a crash helmet, I just found out they have compulsory helmet laws, no wonder people were staring at me, had to shell out for a helmet on ebay). I cycled south into the park that borders the city centre, then stayed in the park, travelling clockwise around the city back to where I started from. Took me a couple of hours (I got lost a few times, ending up in housing estates), sure I can pin it down to an hour with practice. I'll bring my camera tomorrow for picturesque dawn photos.

One thing after another

Been busy recently, seems like whenever I finish something there's something else on the immediate horizon, I've not had more than an afternoon off in weeks. Of course this is university, so some people would argue that it's all holiday until just before the exams, but the uni's actually organised things very well, the tutorial "quiz" tests and assignments seem to have improved 'fundamental' understanding through the year, so I'm actually pretty confident about the finals (which are in a week btw).

The News: has to include my new laptop, all shiny and new and sleek and full of potential, etc. [this section might be a bit technically heavy for some people]. It's a Toshiba Satellite A500 if you're interested (not that you would be, it's a laptop, it does computery stuff). It has an aerial input which is weird, not had a chance to test that yet, or the sim card slot behind the battery (probably requires some sort of subscription), and it picks up fingerprints as if everybody in the world has sticky children's hands. It also appears to be possessed by the vengeful spirit of Shodan (system shock), in that the sound drivers occasionally slow down music/podcasts for a couple of seconds, elongating the vowels in a spookily familiar manner. I also get a few (I'm assuming) driver related blue-screens and some "your display driver has crashed and has recovered" messages, despite my drivers being fully up to date. It actually happened halfway through writing this, and I've had to re-write it. I blame windows 7 (64bit), I'm using ubuntu to write the rest of this, and I'll continue using it for a while, just to make sure it's not a hardware fault.

Anyway it's nice to be able to do two things at once. Oh and the processor's strong enough to do fancy motion interpolation, which I've been itching to try out. Basically that means videos have their frame-rate doubled, the extra frames a composite of their surroundings. At first it looked strange and sped up, but after a while I got used to it, and occasionally I seem to see things in a whole new light. Back watching Firefly (I know, I know, AGAIN), the sudden sweeps of the camera feel a lot more like you're there actually turning your head to watch things, and action sequences are oh so shiny.

OTHER than the laptop, it's been rainy, and cold at night/hot in the day. I have to bring a hoody to uni with me, but keep taking it off during the day, only needing it at night. It's definitely autumn, I've taken autumnal pictures of red and gold trees and piles of crisp brown leaves. I was going to set my camera on a timer to catch myself throwing leaves about, but people really started staring at me, so I had to abandon it.

The trains have stopped, so I have to take the bus to Uni each day, which takes ages, and shakes so it's difficult to read, and my laptop keeps going into 'hard drive protection mode' thinking it's being dropped constantly. Oh and at night there's only one every hour, and I usually miss it, so sometimes it takes me almost 3 hours to get home, which is a pain.

University is tough at the moment. There was a Systems assignment due last Monday, then the big dynamics project was due Friday, and that was so hard! (dynamic modelling of a separately excited d.c. motor). My group spent days, many days (and full days at that, 10am-9pm) working on it, working really hard and not producing anything. You can imagine how frustrating it feels to have worked all day and got nowhere, each day we tried, we needn't have bothered. We weren't alone either, some of the 'smart' guys from the class just gave up on what we were supposed to do and made a  model of a much simpler motor. We couldn't even manage to copy them, try as we might. At one point I took all the equations we had, and just wrote them into a box in LabVIEW, as if it would know what to do with them (it didn't). Thursday evening we were still searching Google and trawling through help files. I went home and sat in bed staring at LabVIEW. Apparently the other guys lost sleep over what we could possibly manage in one day, to get us even a basic pass mark.

I don't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up my laptop was on my desk (I don't remember putting it there), and had powered down on its own. When I powered it back up, it had a working model on the screen. I must admit to dancing around the room at that point. I have no idea what happened, I suppose I had probably been messing about with LabVIEW and couldn't see that I had a working model when it was staring me in my sleep-deprived face, but I think that magical software pixies came in the night and did it for me. The rest of the day was spent in glorious triumph, playing with the model, and lauding over the so called 'smart' guys with their pitiful half-model (which we had been desperately trying to copy only the day before). It was kinda surreal, felt brilliant. I think we'll get a good mark.

Anyway that's finished with now, and I've just completed my final Engineering Research Project Assignment due in a couple of hours. It looks good. Now I've just got a final VIP project due in a week (along with the exams), that I'm yet to start... 

It'll be fine...

I'm going to have to work HARD, but it'll all be fine.

Must live elsewhere.

Well I'll definitely be moving house after the exams. My landlord (Sunny) just told me he's going to have to increase the rent by $40 a month, and right now I just don't have that spare, so I'll be finding somewhere cheap in the suburbs to stay. Shouldn't be too difficult, August's the start of the second semester, so there should be a decent shift in student accommodation.

It's for the best, seeing as the only train operating in the entire northern half of the city is about to be shut down for 4 months so they can replace the sleepers. There's about 7 different trains travelling south, and one going north that they're shutting. That means my morning trip to uni's changing from a 20 min train to a 40 min bus that I'm guessing will be absolutely packed.

I'm actually glad I'll be leaving the flat, as these guys I'm staying with are the most unlike me in the world.
Sunny actually asked me at one point "why can't life be like American Pie, you know the movie? Why can't life just be like that all the time?"
Yeah... that's probably my idea of hell.
Chris, the other random, actually seems annoyed when I ask if he wants a homemade chocolate truffle, or a cup of tea, or anything picked up from the shops when I'm there.

[I seem to have gone on for quite a while at this point about how Sunny thinks I'm scaring his fish and breaking the sofa by sitting in the same place too much; and complaining that cleaning the windows and re-using jars isn't normal... I'll just leave it at that]

Oh, but Sunny's mum also appears to be living here now, sharing the same double bed with him and his brother, and hanging around the house all day staring out the windows like some sort of ghost.


Man, all I do here is moan. In other (lighter) news I made pesto in my mortar and pestle, which was fun, and tasted like the real thing. I really look for any excuse to use that thing, makes me feel like I'm in a computer game, even if it's usually just black pepper and garlic for pasta sauces. If anybody knows any good mortar & pestle heavy recipes I'll be pleased to try 'em out.

One last thing, I bought a bike yesterday, on eBay. Actually I bought 2 bikes: I needed ONE for definite, and the first one was going cheap ('cos it's slightly broken) at $5, so I got that for safety, then the auction for the second bike didn't skyrocket as I'd been expecting, so I got that one for $35. I'll collect them on Wednesday, don't know how easy it'll be to cycle 2 bikes home, maybe I could bring and attach training wheels to the second one, and drag it behind me on a rope?

Triumphant!

I stand before you, okay I sit typing before you, but triumphant! For I have in the past few hours, finished a remarkable battle. A battle of wits, skill and cunning, a battle for knowledge, survival and a decent grade.

My foes in particular, were four assignments, one for each of my subjects: Dynamics, ERP (Engineering Research Project), VIP (Virtual Instrumentation Programming) and Systems. Four assignments due in as many days, as concentrated a body of work as any person can hope to overcome. The possibility of greatness, the danger of failure; I stood alone against these mighty giants (presumably my classmates also stood against similar giants, I imagine their struggle was more academic and less heroic though).

The Dynamics assignment was tough, but being the first in line, and given that I'd been working it through the week, I only had to strike the finishing blow on Friday. The VIP assignment, also a tough looking one, turned out to be a lot easier to overcome, I took it down in two quick movements, didn't even break a sweat. This gave me a false sense of security however, and the ERP assignment was able to sneak up on me undetected.

My struggle with the ERP assignment was the stuff of legends, for two days and two nights we battled. I won't go into the underhanded tricks that assignment hit me with, every time I thought I had the upper hand it would slip from my grasp and appear before me in a bigger, more foreboding persona. A number of times I narrowly escaped defeat, when my gantt chart collapsed, and when my reference list disappeared I almost lost hope, but I kept my wits, and eventually the giant fell before me.

I had not escaped unharmed however, my head was strained from the effort, I was malnourished (having subsisted entirely on a diet of peanut butter on toast), and suffering greatly from a lack of sleep. This made the Systems assignment a lot more difficult than it should have been, it was small and relatively simple, and shouldn't have presented a challenge. I was even supposed to have help against it, but the rest of my team lost morale (they don't know how to effectively wield a calculator anyway) and abandoned me with the project.

I couldn't focus on it, I could see what the questions were, and I knew what I was supposed to do, but my mind couldn't put the thoughts together. The final hours before the deadline fell away, and I sat staring pathetically at the assignment as it danced around me, always keeping just out of my reach. At last a little luck however, as the deadline somehow slipped a day and a half ahead, either an error occurred in the online submission system, or some student had complained, perhaps the gods themselves intervened. Regardless of how, I now had time. Time, and the textbook. Bracing myself I struck out with renewed vigor.

The final assignment submitted this morning, I stood over it like Jack Bauer at the end of a season of 24, beaten, tired, and surrounded by bodies. The battle is over, and with any future assignments at least two weeks away, I go now to feast, carouse and rest.

Big week down, big week to go.

Whew. Big week.

I had my laptop and flash drive both fully operational by the end of Monday, so I got a lot done, of course there was a lot to do, so I'm still a bit behind. I've got the hang of spraying backups wildly around now, so that on Wednesday, when I just forgot my flash drive as I left Mawson Lakes, I was able to carry on working as if nothing had happened, the only irritation being the loss of hardware (luckily some guy found it and I got it back on Friday).

I pretty much spent the whole week working on my VIP (Virtual Instrumentation Programming) and ERP (Engineering Research Practice) assignments, and my Dynamics lab report. When I get all that lot done, I've got an EPS (Electrical Power Systems) lab report to write up, and that's all due a week from now.

So another big week to come.

Also, why did nobody tell me how easy pizza is to make? We pay a fair bit (remember I'm comparing this to the price of beans and bread) for it ready-made from supermarkets, and getting a take away's like eating out. Now I've got the magic ingredient (a.k.a. yeast, a big tub ~300gram, and at half a teaspoon per pizza I don't think I'll be running out any time soon) the rest is just flour and water mashed up. Well I've been eating nothing but pizza for the past week: for breakfast, egg calzone (you can eat it like a sandwich), cold pizza packed lunch, and a large cheese & tomato pizza for dinner. Cost for the week: about $5, that's about three of your Earth British pounds. Living on a budget WIN. I've gone through more than 3kg of flour so far though, not sure it's such a good diet...

Glenelg Beach

On Saturday, with an inoperable laptop and a corrupt flash drive, I did the only thing left to do: abandoned technology for the day and headed to the beach. I'd not visited the main beach at Glenelg before, it being entirely too hot and sunny for that sort of thing, long walks on the beach should be done when it's cold and wet, I find it tiring to walk or run on dry sand, half the energy you put in gets absorbed. Nevertheless, I haven't taken any photos or done anything interesting in a while, so the beach it was.

Adelaide has a tram line straight through to Glenelg, it goes through the city at roughly walking pace, having to stop with the cars at every red light and having the acceleration of a freight train. It's free if you're going from the city center to Glenelg, or vice versa (you still have to pay if you're only going halfway, I think the free pass is to encourage tourism to Glenelg), I didn't know this however, and wasted one of my peak journeys by scanning my ticket on the way there. It also smells quite bad, though I seemed to be the only one to notice.

The beach itself was nice I suppose, if a bit seaweedy, there were pony rides, camel rides (which I thought unusual, but I guess you can get more kids on a camel than on a pony, and they probably have less problems with sand), lots of people fishing from the pier, etc. I can only assume all the sand is being slowly washed away, and more imported, because at one end there were huge piles of sand and diggers. Either that or somebody's getting really ambitious about sandcastles.

The beach wasn't long enough for a decent walk, so I clambered over the rocks at one end until I could get a comprehensive picture, read a bit more of my book, got a shot of me reading a bit more of my book, walked around a bit more, and when no more sand could fit into my shoes, I went home.

I'll try to get all these pictures I've been mentioning posted tomorrow, it's fencing tonight, followed by hard grind at my laptop finishing off this VIP stuff.

Oh, also wanted to mention that after I made pizza yesterday to a fair degree of success, I repeated the process this morning, but with just a couple of eggs as the topping. Result: the dough really puffed up without a heavy topping holding it down, and it was pretty much impossible to eat with knife and fork due to extreme toughness (was perhaps cooked for too long), but with a quick fold, a sandwich was made.
Take that, lack of bread in the cupboard!

Point and Click

Seems like all I do is moan on this blog, so I've got up early to post something, as I'm always upbeat in the mornings. I had pancakes for breakfast, filled with salad (because that's what needed finishing up: lettuce, tomato, cucumber etc), so healthy! Except all the butter coating the pancakes says otherwise.

I'm running out of programs to watch with dinner, having gone through 2 seasons of Arrested Development, 3 of Black Books, Darkplace, Firefly, FLCL, and most of the movies I brought. Right now, I'm on Bucky O' Hare (he goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare), after which I decide whether to watch my way through Kenan and Kel... or just not.

Oh, I did get an email from google just there now, telling me they're excited to announce that finally the nexus one is available in the uk! grrrrrrrr...
Yes, yes, I know I'd rather have a droid, I'd rather have any android phone really, I've got ideas for a few killer apps and a will to learn how to make-em.
If I had a smartphone I'd want lots of surfing time, but I don't have one, and I don't make many (if any) calls, which Australia's mobile services don't seem to cater for. I did ask at a 3 shop recently to find out what deals they do, and the best they could offer me, the lowest use prepay (pay as you go) offer, was to top up the minimum ($10 probably, though it could be $20) every month, and what you don't use always expires at the end of the month, so you have to top it up again. The only way to not get charged monthly, is to sit on an empty sim card and assume the first phone call you make will cost $10-20.
I had £5 on my phone in the uk for about 3 months, always available even if I never used it, most of it was still there when I left for Australia.

So I'm sitting in the computer barn at west campus, waiting for the banks to transfer some money into my account, then I can go buy the laptop power supply, use the laptop to restore the flash drive, open the flash drive to get my files, take the files to uni to work on, finish and submit.
Feels like I'm in a point and click adventure.

ARGH!

ARGH!

Spent a while last night on wave being all happy and funny, making jokes and adding comments. Then something happened (to either wave or my browser or the university internet) that unsynced wave and undid all I'd just done, which put me in a bad mood, and I didn't feel like being happy and funny all over again, and my blood sugar level was low, so I yanked my flash drive and stormed out of the library in a huff, and went home to have a 1/4 bottle of port and loose consciousness at 9pm.

This morning I awoke at 5am, quite happy. Shower, breakfast, coffee and a book for a few hours before heading out, went by Oxfam Books and bought three new Jules Verne books which I'm looking forward to with great anticipation. Then I headed into Uni to work on my Dynamics team project and MY FLASH DRIVE IS CORRUPT! I've been using it for everything: internet/camera pictures/important uni documents (as the uni computers reformat themselves after every logoff). I made a backup but that was at least a week ago, I think before Virtual Instrumentation Programming so there's a chance I've lost everything I need to submit by tomorrow. Besides, the backup is on my laptop, which I can't get on 'till I buy another power supply.

I think my technical despair must be a form of homesickness.

Snap, Crackle and Pop

Unfortunately my laptop's power supply died today with a snap, a little crackle, and then a loud pop that tripped the whole building's fusebox (not just ours), so we had to call for a tech guy (from the company that maintains the complex) to come fix it. Anyway power's back up to the house now (after I had to have peanut butter sandwiches and salad for lunch, what with no kettle or hob working), but I'll still be sans-laptop until I can get a new power supply. Hoping Özdamir Göl will give me an extension on my Virtual Instrumentation Programming submission (which is due Friday), he seems a good sort and he knows me, plus this has to be a reasonable excuse (the only time I've ever really had one).

The temperature's dropped now, to almost Scottish summer levels. The sky's grey more frequently and since I only really go between home, Uni, and Central Market, I've stopped slathering myself with sun-cream every morning (bet I'll still get burnt). 

Oh, and update on the red pepper growing in the back garden: it turned out to be a chili (surprised me a little, but was still very tasty). The main problem plants seem to have in our back garden is the number of trees and large bushes in the surrounding gardens, taking up all the soil with their roots. Sunny says he has had all the soil taken out and replaced, but nothing grows (except that chili apparently, and the small wilted sprigs of mint). I'd like to think it's nothing that can't be solved with a bit of "you know what" in the head department.

...sorry, I think that's a Mrs Doyle quote... there aren't too many (or any) opportunities for me to be a bit silly nowadays.

Food and Fencing

Well I can't say I'm not eating well, as much as half my protein intake is fish (which my flatmates have started complaining about, I need to find a different way of preparing it that doesn't smell as much as frying). I eat a lot of fruit, drink a healthy amount of wine (a bottle every few days), and finish every meal with a small drink of port before coffee and dark chocolate. Last night I had a sort of kangaroo bolognese with a Pinot Noir from the Adelaide hills. Highly enjoyable.

I do all this alone however, as my flatmates are always asleep (yesterday lunchtime one emerged from his room admitting that he had gone to bed late Friday night and just missed Saturday completely. After telling me this he grabbed something to eat and went back to bed). Everyone I meet in my course lives around Mawson Lakes, and I don't really know them very well. The only ones I've made friends with are Indian, and it's difficult to fit in when the rest of the crowd are speaking, and sharing jokes, in Hindi.
I get on well with the guys in my fencing class, I got to go on the strip for my first time during last week's practice (which is where you get wired up and have an actual match, with buttons on the tips of the swords triggering alarms to indicate who hit who, where, and when). It was a lot of fun, I was doing well until I noticed that everybody else had stopped what they were doing and were watching my first time, and somehow into my head popped the voice of mouse saying "Morpheus is fighting Neo!" which was ridiculously melodramatic, and made me loose.
I won my second fight, though it was against a much smaller, younger novice I'm not claiming to have beaten him with skill. Definitely had a lot of fun, looking forward to getting back on the strip. As for making friends, I only see those guys once a week for a couple of hours, so I don't know them well enough to (for example) go for a beer with them, which in my mind is what University clubs are for.

So I'm frequently quite bored. I can't make any noise at home, given that my flatmates are always sleeping, so I can't really practice violin at all. My internet quota's been reached, the speed's gone down to almost dial-up levels, so no more skype 'till next month. I'm left with the choice between reading (with coffee) and playing computer games (with headphones).

One thing I do always look forward to, is shopping at central market, and as I'm out of butter, bread, and a few other things, I headed over there today. Sure I could've headed to a supermarket, but it's just more fun to browse the fancy cheeses and fine beers, smell the rich coffee and the fresh basil, explore the narrow extremities,  play with the rabbits in the pet shop, chat with the friendly shopkeepers, and unfortunately I found out when I got there that the 26th is ANZAC day. That means Central Market, and the whole city in fact, is shut (includes big supermarkets).

So no bread 'till tomorrow, and that also means no fencing tonight.

Deus Ex

I've just finished playing through Deus Ex.


Well what was I supposed to do with an old laptop? I can't exactly play Portal or ME2 with 200Mb of RAM can I? So I've been trailing through all the old greats: Theme Hospital, Diablo 2, Dungeon Keeper, Starcraft, GTA Vice City, a bunch of stuff on emulators, etc, and Deus Ex.

To make it different to all the previous plays, I only used one hand (with my thumb scrolling the touchpad), randomly abandoned all my weapons a bunch of times, and forced myself to avoid most guards, rather than picking them off systematically until I have the building to myself, and can search for goodies in comfort. Also, who knew the riot prod was such an epic weapon?


Now on to System Shock 2!

The Tortoise and the Hare

Day 3 of Virtual Instrumentation Programming, and everybody else has caught up with me. On Monday and Tuesday I basically ignored the lectures, as they were really simple (first you move your mouse to the start button on the desktop and click it, navigate through to 'all programs' and select LabVIEW, now let's take some time to explore the start up screen, etc), and since the lecture slides can be downloaded, I zoomed through them, and completed all the problems with great ease, even though my laptop's specs are below the minimum requirement for the software.

Aaaaaaaanyway, everybody's caught up now, and although I know what I'm doing, and can solve the problems faster than anyone (including tweaking the settings to give pleasing visual effects to my programs) I spend my time twirling my thumbs while my laptop grinds away in front of me.

On the up-side, I have all sorts of games on my laptop.
On the down-side, that only makes it go even slower.

The original wave

Here is the original wave, the predecessor of this blog.

Unfortunately you won't be able to see the wave if you don't have (or aren't signed into) a wave account. For those of you this applies to I'm sorry, I'll try not to give background info to my posts so you know what's been going on so far.