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.