Sem 2 Week 12 & Summary

So the last week of (proper) classes has now come to an end. With deadlines fast approaching it was quite a busy week, but my procrastinating didn’t help and so I think ill be behind for software eng, and to tell the truth almost all of this week I have wasted away when I should have been doing work. Oh well on to the week that was and then a bit of reflection on the semester as a whole at the end.

Monday

Monday was not a very good day for me I kept myself up too late, did almost no work and skipped my Software eng lecture. Not very smart with the last assignment due in at the end of the week. Also meant I did very little testing and this will put me behind in the schedule.

Tuesday

Tuesday started much like Monday dragging myself out of bed after way too few hours of sleep, so for the rest of the day I was dog tired and found it hard to concentrate on anything. The only work I got accomplished today was the presentation that I had to do in the evening, and distracting others I was working around, so nothing good here either.

Wednesday

Third day in a row of 5ish hours sleep and I was feeling it, but I got up and went to what had recently been a team meeting for Software eng, each Wednesday the hour before class, but I was the only one from the team there FOR THE ENTIRE HOUR. I understand not coming in but at least let me know for crying out loud. I was struggling to stay awake all morning yet I got nothing to say my team mate was going to be late. The other thing is with the assignments we had previously submitted (stages) we still had no feedback on the coding aspect and so don’t know how we were going, this is very disappointing because we had to submit documenting stages in between and the same thing happened, feed back comes too late to help with the next stage. I mean if students have deadlines surely the marking of work has a deadline as well, especially when further assignments rely on these marks to shape future submissions. Due to my previous 2 days of procrastination, my PM gave me a deadline for Monday to show progress with testing, which if I had actually worked instead of procrastinating im sure id be nearly done with. Eventually I got home and was just so tired I slept for 2 hrs and this helped to a degree, once I went to bed for the night, I ended up with a good nights sleep and putting my sleeping patterns back to where they should have been.

Thursday

Well I was at uni early today to work on my HCI assignment so that I had it out of the way and could concentrate on Software eng. Although that went out the window when Software eng got an extension through to Monday, I did something I really shouldn’t have and I relaxed. This meant all I did for the rest of the day was finish off HCI as far as I could and went to the pub, I should have gone to bed instead.

Friday

I went into uni early to print out and submit my teams HCI report. This got done pretty quickly and once we get the presentation out of the way ill be quite happy for a while. Once this was accomplished I went home with intentions to do work on software eng, but with the weather where it was woods called up and I skipped out on software eng and went down the peninsula for the afternoon. It was a really good afternoon and very relaxing, followed up by a joint 21st which was really good.

Saturday

Saturday would have consisted of me working on software eng but I still had not gotten any feedback from the last coding submission we had made so I decided to stick with my plan from a few weeks ago and keep Saturdays free to relax and rest. I had a 21st to attend that night but I decided to drive because I had plenty of work to do on Sunday. The 21st was a really good night.

Sunday

Well in the early afternoon I went for a drive to help Dze out in getting a hard drive caddy for his laptops hard drive, all because his laptops graphics card decided to give up on him on Saturday. Once I got back home I set up my laptop with every intention of working on testing all afternoon but for some reason I couldn’t and cant seem to work at home, whether it’s the noise or the questions (“What’s that” “What are you working on”) I haven’t gotten anywhere near what I wanted to get done today done. Although once it gets dark and the rest of the family sets themselves in front of the TV’s I have gotten a fair bit done. Well once I finish this blog it is back to testing until I need to head of to bed, cause I have an early start for a client meeting.


The Semester That Was IE

Well the semester started with me needing to get a test plan completed. Cladi was a great help in the formatting and wording of this document, and the decoding of my ideas into English. I like to think that while this was being done that I stepped up and did do a fair bit more work then normal. Then after the test plan was in it was time for Cladi and Danny to get the User Manuals done, and because I was waiting for the system to be more functional before I tested it, I helped out as much as I could. Im pretty sure that my work rate dropped a little here but I did try and get everything I was asked done pretty quickly. Occasionally I found a good rhythm and found myself knocking out a lot of good work very quickly but unfortunately these occasions were few and far between. I helped Ben on the training manual until I needed to start work on the test plan we would be submitting, but by this point I had a process going and got Danny to take over this for me. Then I have come to the Test Report, which took a lot longer to get finished then I thought it would (need to manage my time heaps better), and now with the start to testing I find im working on my own to a degree. This is ok and I guess if I were quicker off the mark with it I would have almost finished already, but some crucial functionality to the use of the system (validation of fields) is not quite done so this is making things interesting.


Ben has been the best example that I should have been following, he always has so much work to do but he never complains, and is always getting it done. Although he has defiantly been stressed a few times and I don’t think I help out there, with my procrastinating during class time generally being quite distracting.

Cladi has been really good as well, she dish’s out the work with the user manuals, while doing quite a large portion of it herself, and helps out with any other docs cause she is just brilliant at looking at a word document and knowing exactly what it needs to be in line with the standards & governance, and I just generally have no idea how to format.

Dze has been a machine with his programming and I find it amazing how well he works on this because he spends so many hours each week coding, and I doubt I could code for even a tenth of the time he has on a weekly basis (or else my software eng assignment would be in by now). So anything I can do to help him out I do as soon as I can.

Danny has worked hard through all tasks assigned to him and from all ive seen has worked quite hard.

Rowan I have noticed has fallen a bit behind with the validation for the site so this is making it hard to test, and will require retesting once it’s complete.

Myself I have defiantly slacked off the past few weeks. I finished the framework for the testing report later then I wanted to, and have not gotten as much of the testing done, when I wanted to have finished the first round by now. I think once I have Monday out of my way (software eng) I should be able to have the first round of testing complete by Tuesday mornings meeting, unless the validation is up and running which will make things quite interesting. Before the end of Wednesday I will also need to get some usability testing done and when I saw how long that can be with HCI, I think ill be pushing it to get all done and written up by Thursday. I have slacked of and let my workload build and so I now have to step up and work hard to get it all done in time.

Sem 2 Week Break

So the long awaited week off to relax and get set for the end of semester crunch. Well it wasn’t really a week off because with all the work due in soon there wasn’t time, so instead I got a few days off I normally wouldn’t have had, but then its not like I used those days the best I could.

Monday

Well Monday was one of those days I had off, I slept in a little and then did pretty much nothing all day, yes it was relaxing but no where near enough, mainly because I never seem to be able to go to bed and sleep at anything resembling a reasonable hour.

Tuesday

Tuesday was much like Monday up later then normal, not much done, but unlike Monday I got an email from work so I did a little of that and planned to do the rest on Wednesday, just like me to procrastinate.

Wednesday

So for once I was up at normal time and off to uni, with the plan to do a little work work and then software engineering work. Well I did work work for quite a bit longer then I thought, due to using svn for keeping our code right up to date I couldn’t do a whole heap while my team mate was working on it, so I rescheduled doing my coding till Friday (and I knew I wouldn’t do it anyway). While I was out mum had decided to re arrange my room so instead of being an organised mess the way I like it all my stuff was on y bed so I finally cleaned my room and got the use of dads car back. It was funny the way I got it back though I said I was going out to drink with the boys (was walking so I could drink) and dad asked if I wanted to take the car. Anyway it was a good night just chilling with a few of the local boys at the park, with plenty of beer going round, but then some underage’s also had the same idea as us. Now they obviously couldn’t plan a night of drinking properly and so they had run out of booze and all the local bottleos had closed. So what did the ringleader decide, how bout trying to intimidate 4 guys to get a beer, well nothing happened except his mates were smart enough to drag him away and they left for a while (out of the 4 of us, 2 wanted to take the guy out, and the other 2 would jump in out of mateship regardless). Eventually they came back and joined our group, and within a minute or 2 the ringleader decided to grab an empty (he thought it was full idiot) and run off, although after a bit we did give out a couple of beers. All in all it was a good chilled night with a little excitement thrown in.

Thursday

Well after the previous night it was a very early start because I was getting a lift with dad into the city to go in to work for a little organising a few things. In the end because nothing had really been organised for me or woods to do there was nothing for me to do so all I did was put in last weeks timesheet and check in with my boss. So after such an early start it was off to uni to meet up with Ben and Cladi to do our HCI assignment. We got quite a fair bit done before Cladi had to go to work so she dropped Ben and myself at Ben’s and then we were off to get footage for the website we were making to later review. After this Ben and me went back to his via Chadstone and chilled at his for quite a while playing X box. Eventually I left and got a lift home then checked for work emails, when I saw there weren’t any I turned around and went to the Nott. It was a good night with 2 mates 21sts (one before midnight the other after), and the next day I found out I left at the right time cause shortly after I left there was a bit of a punch on and the cops turned up.

Friday

Well I got up early to go to the optometrist, because I was due for a check up and earlier in the week I had had to fix up my glasses so I figured I may as well find out how much my eyes had changed and if I could get contacts or not. In the end my eyes haven’t changed much at all, so no need for new glasses, and my eyes can get contacts but they wont be standard contacts, so I need to decide if I can pursue these (weather mum and dad will pay for them). Then it was off to get my hair cut back a lot shorter for summer. After that it was a while chilling at home before going off to Marcels 21st. It was a good night and I enjoyed myself, some seriously bad stories came out that I wish I hadn’t heard. Anyway it was a good night.

Saturday

Well I got up about 2:30 3 in the afternoon so most of the day was already gone and it was time to get myself organised for the 2 21sts I had tonight. I somehow talked my older sister into driving me and went to the one closest to home first for a little bit then it was off to Bens 21st. It was a really good night and I enjoyed myself, but all too soon my lift was back to take me home via the first 21st if it was still kicking. It wasn’t kicking for long so I was home pretty quickly.

Sunday

Well after another epic sleep in (well not really I was up quite late surfing the net and watching a DVD and TV shows, after getting home from the 21sts), I did very little for the day except get 2 new pages done for HCI and further put off my Software Eng work. I need to stop procrastinating, starting tomorrow.

All in all it was a pretty good week even though I didn’t get anywhere near the amount of work done I thought I would.

Sem 2 Week 11

Week 11 a slightly less busy week then others but in the lead up to a week off with no deadlines that happens.

Monday

Ok well a pretty normal Monday, team meeting and group meeting. I got some work done during the team meeting but not as much as id like (still lots to do). Very little work got done by me once we moved from the meeting room. Once I left for my Clayton class I just didn’t see the point (the lecture is worthless, well all the ones ive been to have been), so I waited and just went home.

Tuesday

Well it was off to work before uni, which was ok. Had my building safety briefing and met the mobile content editor who I will be working with quite a bit from now on, hopefully this should set me and Woods up to do this work from home/uni. Made it to uni for lectures (well I attended one skipped the other) the IE lecture about the expo was very interesting and lots to try and work out. I skipped my other lecture for the day and instead watched wall-e. It’s quite a good movie. Went to class and watched 2 presentations then it was off home a lot earlier then normal for that class.

Wednesday

Wednesday was software eng at Clayton and before class I met up with my team mate and we set up a lot of work to be done in the week off. It wasn’t that bad of a class and I got a little work done, until I got a call from the Police. Basically it was to organise a time for me to come in and give a statement about the night I called the police for a girl that had been robed. No biggy really, some people blew this out of proportion. So I spent the rest of the class planning which bus I would need to take and when to leave uni, and then I went to the Police station gave my statement and got a lift home (unfortunately there was no siren use).

Thursday

Thursday started with 3 hr at work with almost nothing to do and no internet. This was soooooo boring so I did a whole heap of IE work, im quite surprised at how much I had gotten done. I also hadn’t been paid so I talked to my boss and he rang the pay department and if im not paid in next weeks cycle there will be problems, so I guess ill just have to budget a little till then. Then it was off to uni for a pretty standard afternoon, of HCI Tutorial, wasting time, and sitting through HCI lecture. The lecture was soooo annoying, im in IT I have a laptop and I haven’t written any notes since I got the laptop it just doesn’t happen, why write when I can type, but the lecturer had the great idea to ban laptops because so many people find his class boring and don’t turn up, and then of those that do (me for example) spend some time scanning the lecture slides from online then quietly surf the net. Probably not the best thing to do but meh its how I feign interest in that lecture.

Friday

Well Friday was to say the least relaxing. Did very little all day then went to a mates place and drank for a while. It was a really good night, I met his neighbours (at like 1-2am), I opened and finished a bottle of good ole Jack Daniels and then a short walk home with a little rearranging of construction signs along the way.

Saturday

The best way to start a Saturday is with a call from the previous nights drinking buddy with them feeling like absolute shit, when your feeling like you’ve just had the best nights sleep in weeks without any hint of a hangover, and that’s what I woke up too (don’t mix your drinks kiddies, or you'll be the one with the hangover it seems). So with it being grand final day, with 2 grand final parties to try and get too, a 21st that night we worked out what we would do for the day. With more of an interest on catching up with people we decided to hit up both parties for a while and headed off. In the end after a detour to my mates brothers for his birthday between both parties we saw very little of the match but made it to the second party in time for presentations and the spa. Before too long though it was time to go home and get ready for the 21st. The theme of which was something starting with E, and I went Eighties. Anyway it was a really good party and meant another late one but then getting a taxi was hell, especially with it being grand final day and the house we were at being blacklisted (ie no taxis to that address), so in the end my younger sister woke my older sister up and so I got a ride home and didn’t have to walk all the way home.

Sunday

So it seems it’s been another day of doing nothing while awake, but apparently when im asleep I can find my set of keys to my parent’s cars and produce them for dad when he can’t find his key to mums car, all without waking up. I had no idea about this till later I saw said keys on the stairs instead of where I keep my keys and that’s when I got told what happened. I went and helped a friend with her laptop but it seems its hard drive is dead (well that’s what the BSOD was saying) so I think she’s going to have to wait for her dad to get back from overseas to do much with it. Then I procrastinated and am finally doing my blog at 3 in the morning because the internet can be very interesting when you’re not in the mood to do a blog.

Things to do this week

• Tax
• IE Work
• Software Eng Work
• HCI Assignment
• Get Paid
• Party (three 21sts in 2 nights)

Sem 2 Week 10

So week 10 and a busy week it’s been, two deadlines down 3 to go and still exams are coming up. Although hopefully there will be some relief with only 1 week until the week break from classes, but not from work to be done.

Monday

Nothing terribly unusual happened today it was a usual team meeting and trying to get something done followed by a group meeting with some interesting information from other people. But then in the afternoon I made my lecture for Software eng although my team mate didn’t so that means no actual work got done.

Tuesday

So this week I had to go into work to get a move on with the new Flicks site that was going up later in the week, but as usual Rodeo (people making the site) hadn’t put it into the CMS quite yet so it was just a lazy day converting work I was sure Woods was meant to be doing over the weekend. I made it to uni in time for the lecture and then wasted my time before I went to my Intro to Security class. This was terribly boring once more but my team mate for this subject and me sorted out what we were each covering for the assignment and so then we could start on this, although I didn’t start till Sunday.

Wednesday

Well Wednesday has never really been an enjoyable day and today was no exception in the morning, it was software eng and with a lot of documents due Friday I knew it would be busy. Due to needing to work with another team we basically got nothing done except set up what needed to be done and then we were waiting for their email. I wasn’t needed at work today because for once Woods was pulling his weight and the CMS for Flicks still wasn’t up. So it was off home, and with the weather being as nice as it was and me having had little more then 6 hrs sleep most night I decided to take the afternoon off and chill. Well think woods had the same idea cause about 3 in the arvo he called up said he’s on his way and it was off to his with a few of the boys for beers and a chill in the sun. It ended up as a really good arvo/night and was quite relaxing. I had planned to get some work done in the evening but that fell through badly.

Thursday

It had been decided the night before by me that I needed to ski class and go to work to meet with a bloke from Sydney who basically controls weather or not I will have a job, and thankfully the contract with the other company is valid till January so im pretty certain I have a job till then. Before this there was a fair bit of waiting because we got most of the work done earlier then normal, due to me because Woods was writing an article for that days paper, but once we were both finished we went to the press conference but it was ending so we missed out there. Eventually I got to uni but it was too late to go to my lecture so I got a very late lunch and tried to get some work done for the 2 deadlines I had coming up, Friday and Monday.

Friday

Well today I had a lot of documenting to do but decided to do it from home via msn with my team mate, and in the end we got everything done quite well compared to the first stage and in a little earlier so it was a little less stressful then normal. Now we just have to start on the final stage of coding which will be very hard.

Saturday

I have decided that Saturday is my day off and im not doing any work on Saturday, I needed the break just doing nothing but I find it’s still not enough, but deadlines don’t care so I knew Sunday would be a big day of working hard. I did go to the footy and watch Harvey’s last game and the Saints get knocked out of the finals. It’s disappointing, but I knew going in that there was very little chance of winning but with a lot of hope. Although I did make the big screen in one of the crowd shots so that was funny.

Sunday

Well Sunday was a bad day, it was off to a slow start and so I knew that meant a late night would be coming up. I got my team mates work quite late so that was quite annoying but once I had it I fitted it into the document I had created finished mine off (mostly all of it) and was happy with it by 1:30 so I got some sleep, and I would have to submit it once I got to uni on Monday.

All in all a pretty busy week for the most part, I ended up starting my tax on Saturday and so I am nearly finished that and hope too early this week so I get some more cash, because work is also due to pay me this Wednesday or else I will go onto contractor rates and earn even more. Although I have decided that im not going to waste my money on gadgets or a new laptop I want, im going to save it and see if I can get my own set of wheels sometime after exams or before the end of the year at least, well that’s the plan anyway. Hopefully my tax refund can be my spending money once that comes through. Well just this week to get through and then a week without classes hooray finally.

Sem 2 Week 9

Well week 9 and deadlines are fast approaching and im doing nowhere near as much work as I need to. Ahh well so onto the week that was.

Monday

Well the usual team meeting started the day off and a reshuffle of tasks means im now working for Benji on screens for the training manual and testing where I can. So basically im doing all the steps of the training manual and capturing a screen shot of each step, and any errors I will get dye to look at before I do my proper testing. The rest of the day was pretty un-eventful though so all in all not too bad a day.

Tuesday

Ok well this was quite an interesting day with the winner of blog of the week being discussed and then the real reason for the award going the way it did. Which is to say that because the winner complained enough, they won blog of the week, not necessarily because it was the best blog. This is really annoying because it has taken me a long time to write even decent blogs let alone good ones, and when I did a really good blog for once others would also do better themselves, and so I missed out. I can take not winning because my blog isn’t the best, because it’s a competition, but to win through complaining, well that’s just downright unfair upsetting and not cool, it also makes it very hard for me to continue to put the effort in, thinking that is the best way to win the weekly award, when it makes no sense vs complaining loudly and often.

Now because of this how do we know any of the past results were not due to political reasons or someone complaining instead of just the best blog? Well the best blog is always going to be a subjective measurement, but I just thought that the judges would judge on each blogs merit not all the other noise that is made. Surely one weeks result can’t be allowed to affect the next, I mean come on its “Blog of the WEEK” not blog that had the most complaining behind it, or the most skilful manipulation of the judges. If the system is not kept fair for the rest of this year the blog of the week should be scrapped and blogging made into a hurdle requirement just to avoid this drama next time.

Well after all of that it was off to other classes and a start on more group assignments was made. So I know what needs to be done and can eventually start on it (probably next Tuesday just before class knowing me)

Wednesday

Well it was off to Clayton well before class to get some work done on software engineering, but with plenty of time to the next deadline (1 week) we were pretty slack. It seemed most of the other teams were also being slack because very few attended the class and I left quite early to head into work. Work is going really well and im quite enjoying it, which always helps. It was a short afternoon because most of the content was not yet available. A night of relaxation at “house night” that had a nicer level of attendance then the past few weeks it was a good way to end the night.

Thursday

Well this day started off interestingly with my ride to work calling me saying that he is sick, so it was a scramble to get to work but I got there only a little later then I expected. Much work got done and before long I was off to uni, went to class and then sat through one of the smallest lectures ive been too but I know I need to go or there’s no hope of me passing the unit.
In the evening it was off for some buzz and sing star at Cladis, which I think I helped the other teams more then mine but hey that happens. Then it was off to the Nott to try catch up with woods to work out how to get to work. Well id missed him and his phone had run out of power a few hours ago so there was a few of us looking to talk to him but I got on to another mate he was helping so I finally organised the next mornings trip to work. So another busy day for me once again.

Friday

Well this was a bad start to the day with me missing the alarm and finally waking up about 10 mins before I was due to leave. Well I postponed my ride coming to get me and got ready in record speed, and then it was away to work. It was a pretty slow day but enough work got done and everyone was out of the office around 2ish, and so it was off home. With a bit of time to relax so I rested up cause I have not been getting enough sleep during the week, too many early starts and late nights. Then eventually it was time to go out so off I went into the city via bens place and we made it in just before 9 and so we made it in for free. It was a really good night and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

As someone that likes driving and is used to it I drove few mates home. This meant I took a much different way home and in the end stopped me from getting home for about an extra hour. What happened after I dropped the last few people home was that I got flagged down by someone that had just been robbed. The girl who flagged me down told me she had been robbed so I pulled over and called the cops, I spoke to the operator initially and then she did and then back to me. I was warned to look for shock so I got her to sit in the car and gave the best description of where we were I could. Then it was hazard lights on and time to wait for the police, which ended up taking around 20 mins. Once the police arrived it was time to tell all I knew which was basically nothing, because I had missed the actual incident. Once I had passed on my details and all I had seen, I was told I could go and that I may be called, so I left. One of the things the officer had mentioned is that the night was quite a busy one manly due to the full moon because normally the shift was quiet. The worst part of this for me was that it occurred extremely close to where I used to do youth group in high school and this is an area I knew fairly well, so it was a bit of a shock to me as well, for this to happen in this area.

Saturday

Well this was one heck of a wasted day, with all the work I had planned to do this weekend and none of it done I have to say this day was wasted. I was up late I lazed abut home and my use of my parents cars has pretty much been removed (pending me cleaning up my room, but there’s bugger all chance of that with all the work I need to get done). Anyway the night was ahead of me and with the Saints playing for the prelim spot it was a good night ahead of me, and even better because we beat the Pies, an are moving on to the hawks next week who we did beat towards the end of the year. So GO SAINTS.

Sunday

Well today hasn’t been a total loss I got a lot of procrastination done early and that made work the only option as the night moved on. Still I didn’t get anywhere near as much done as id wanted too, but that’s what happens when you get forced to move to a table with a view of foxtel and there’s docos on the rise of Vegas via the mob. Quite interesting actually but slows down work to a grinding halt, and I can safely say that Underbelly makes writing my blog almost impossible. Anyway that’s over and so is this week of blogging basically.

The Week to Come

Well onto the things I know are coming up, lots of study time will need to be found by me to get all my work done and meet my deadlines, I know ive got a fair bit due Friday for software eng and then Monday for intro to security has a big assignment due. Then there’s all the other work ill still need to do, and my work with the mX will surely ramp up in the second half of the week with a new mSite going live on Thursday, though im pretty sure I get paid either this Wednesday or next (im hoping its this Wednesday). I still need to organise myself a pyramid rock ticket in the next day or 2 and get my tax in but where ill have time for that I don’t know.

Sem 2 Week 8

Ahh so week 8 is here, but where is mid semester break. Ben said it best in his blog that by now we have had a weeks rest, well no one has and I for one am missing it terribly. I just need the time to catch up on some of the many things that I have been slacking off on lately. I am really hanging out for that week of sleep ins. Anyway onto my week that was.

Monday was a pretty good day I was at uni at a normal time for the morning group meeting. I didn’t get much work done but I did give trying to talk to the server guy a go (damn meetings) because that would make it heaps easier for testing and documenting, by having the site on the uni servers instead of only on Dze’s laptop. During the group meeting Cladz Jake and myself went to Jakes house to pick up supplies for some Birthday celebrations that had occurred over the weekend, this made the class very filling (lunch, lollies and cake, how will we beat that this week). At the end of the meeting I went to see the server guy then once that failed miserably I decided to skip my afternoon lecture at Clayton and go into work. This went well and in the end im happy I went in, much work was done then, because woods wanted me to come along to an industry thingy (mobile Mondays or something like that) we hung round at transport bar for drinks and dinner. Well in any case this was turning into quite a good night, many beers were drunk, drunken footballers were greeted (and filmed, and with 2 of our drinking buddies working at newspapers the video was in high demand), more beers were drunk and then it was time to head off to mobile Mondays for a couple of hours. Mobile Mondays is basically people drinking and networking with other people in similar industry’s, and all the people I met were pretty cool to talk to. Anyway eventually that bar closed so me and woods decided to head home because we were going back into work the following morning.

Tuesday was a very hard day because I was damn tired. I was up exceptionally early to get into the city to go to work. Anyway eventually I made it in to uni and got the footage from the previous nights greetings (me shaking fevs hand). Then there was another 4 hours of uni still to do. Although the break we had between my first class and the second allowed Ben Cladz and myself to get in touch with the server guy and that means we now have our site working on the uni servers. The afternoon/evening class was ok and I found out I passed the previous week’s unit test. Then it was planning for the group assignment (damn research assignments.) which hopefully shouldn’t be too hard to do in the end. And with an abnormally early night that was the end of Tuesday.

Wednesday I started early due to another group assignment with stage 1 being due this Friday. We got no where near enough done, but we are now starting stage 2 much earlier. I was quite happy that when I checking with woods to find out if it was worth heading into work and he was just about done so I had no need, it was home time and that meant more freaking programming. In the evening I had a brainstorming session with woods (so basically it turns out we (well mainly woods, im happy with the little work I do) are trying to push new stuff into our work, but aint allowed to say anything more). Then it was off to bens for house night (sans house) and to chill. Was a good way to relax midweek.

Thursday was an early start but instead of the extreme early a ride with dad involves I caught the train with woods. We got most of the work done before I had to head to uni with only a few things needing to be checked by rodeo (the system guys that can change the non-standard stuff), and so once I got to class I spent about half of class time finishing it off. The rest of the day went fine, and I even found time to drop into the pub for an hr and a bit.

Friday was my worst day of the week doing Eiffel programming all day with my partner via msn (I was too lazy to go to Clayton). Well we got most of it done but to nowhere near a good standard, but at least we have stage 2 to hopefully make up for this. Friday night it was time to chill with the boys and we ended up at Eddies with beers wii and then the movie In Bruges (shortly after we started it was time to get food, damn hungry jacks being shut so that meant pizza). Anyway a few beers were drunk (I only had like maybe one, thank you full license) and then it was home at something resembling a reasonable hour.

Saturday was an ok day slept in really well, and then in the arvo it was off to the movies (the older sister had freeish gold class upgrades) to see Tropic Thunder in gold class. DAMN gold class is good, so roomy and comfortable, and best of all no carrying your own drinks and popcorn in. Saturday night was Carla and Claudia’s 21st, which was a really good night. The photos are up on facebook so no more needs to be said about this, the pictures tell the story.

Sunday was fathers day and I think dad is pretty happy with what I got for him (and if my sisters give me money, they can say they helped), even though he had very little time to play with it because once he got home from golf it was time to get ready for the footy. Well the saints were playing for a week off, but well we didn’t get the week off. We were soundly beaten all round but at least we are still in the finals, there’s hope yet.

Well this is the latest ive posted one of these blogs but last night I just couldn’t really think any of this, I just chilled with a DVD I had picked up cheap on Saturday and then some sleep but that always ends up being too few hours of sleep and not enough of the TV shows ive been dl’ing. Well here’s to this week and hopefully a better and more productive one then last week.

Sem 2 Week 7

Week 7 started off very early but the lure of a car for the week was enough to just grin and bear it. With this extremely early start I was at uni way before 9 so I got some good quality procrastination in, although with the early up and the not quite early enough to bed I was so tired I got to have a nap before the group meeting started. The nap was good, and so was my timing waking back up just before anyone else turned up. I guess y habit of starting the week on next to no sleep is a bad one because I found it very hard to concentrate enough to work and this needs to change, time for at least 7 hrs a night I think. The rest of the day went smoothly except that I missed my partner in another subject at the lecture I have at Clayton, no big loss because I thought id see him on Wednesday but that was a bust as well. I spoke to Woods who got me the position at the MX and he made it back from Sydney this evening, and so a few of us went to his for a couple of beers and a catch up. Was a good night but could have been better if I hadn’t had to get such an early night due to the early start I had planned to start work.

Tuesday was a very early start again, and before long I was in the city at the MX and staring work. Work isn’t that bad it’s just the teething problems there are when working with a new system. All up this meant that I missed our group meeting and the lecture, I thought I would be back in time but just missed out, so Woods and I finished off the work for the day and I drove him home before heading back to go and sit a Unit Test, thank god that is out of the way. This wasn’t too bad although the negative marking could get me in the end (2 points for a correct 0 for un-answered, -1 for a wrong answer), oh well ill find out my results eventually.

Wednesday I was at uni early but still had not heard from my partner so I went to the library where I got an email about 20 mins before class stating that my partner for my Clayton subject was sick. Well this sucks so I guessed that the work was up to me, but during the class I divvied up the work and sent him some to do while starting my own sections. After class I went home and then straight on into the city to meet up with Woods and head on into the MX. We got the last of the content up on the site and we were ready for it to go live on Thursday.

Thursday I went to Vicroads before uni and within 45 mins of getting there I had my full licence. I was very stoked about this and was quite excited for the rest of the day, even though they need to get there stories straight, with one guy saying I need P’s up until the 26th of next month (or this month cause this has gone way too late), but then the photo chick taking my probationary license and telling me I can go to the car now and take off my P’s, I liked her option so I followed that. I was too excited to work for the entire day so I got through my classes, and then in the evening I talked to a few of the boys that frequent the Nott, and with a few of them going I went up there for a couple of hours. It was good to see them all again because I had missed the previous few weeks, and the pub was pretty quiet for once although once you see the bouncers all run inside you know something’s up. Well im sure something was but I didn’t see anything with everyone crowded round having a look I saw nothing. Ahh well the night started to get late so I went home and was in bed extremely early for a night at the Nott.

Friday I got up nice and early (yeah about 9, but normally its my day off), and worked quite well through my work that was due at 5. Eventually my partner got in contact with me and we finished the work before 5 (4:50ish) although blackboard had gone down so once it was back up I submitted and that was in. My mind was so gone from such a long day just working and so I had neglected my IE work, although I had spoken to Cladi about this, it still don’t feel good not to get things I should have done, and this shows me that I need to start getting proactive and working as soon as I can. I attribute this to my excitement with the new job and then having to do most of a group assignment on my own on Wednesday and Friday. Friday night I just hung round home then went to a mate’s place for a few hours to recover after the stress of the group assignment.

Even after a big day of work on Friday I still had more to do on Saturday and Sunday and I should have done more then I did on Saturday but in the end I got a fair bit of rest done and no where near enough work. IE and IT security had been piling up so I got some done, but when Sunday came around I still had too much to do to go to the footy and I was quite disappointed, because it was the saints playing for finals ladder position. Well I saw bits and pieces of the game through my work, but I took a break to watch the last quarter and in the end we made it to 4th on percentage, so this means a tough first week but a definite second or third week match, and no travel in the first week of the finals.

Well its onto a new week and probably plenty of work to do, well I need to step up and get it done this week as early as I can, or ill be swamped again, at least I have this written down for once I might actually do it.

Sem 2 Week 6

Ok so week 6 has been and gone, and that means semester is basically half over. The Olympics are on and aren’t hard to watch and neglect work, but I just have to focus and get the work done regardless. Anyway so what’s happened this week.

Ok Monday started normally with work on the user manual, but in the end Ben got me to help him out with the updating of the design spec. Its pretty straight forward work but its soooo mind numbingly boring, you can’t stop and start because you’re always refiring to previous examples. I didn’t get this done as early as id have liked (I wanted to go to the pub on Thursday night) but I knew Ben needed to send it off on Friday morning so I pushed through and eventually got it finished around 1ish, so it was waiting for him in the morning. After our morning meeting we had our usual class meeting and its good to see how the other teams are going except the one that’s like 4 weeks ahead.
After the group meeting I had to head into the city for what I thought was a job interview, but it was actually an introduction to the system I would be using, which should be going live this Thursday. Keep an eye on the MX this week and you might see an add or two about it. So this is my first IT related job and im really looking forward to it. I haven’t started too much, but I have had a look for content this weekend that I will send into my boss and during the week I will go in and actually start setting up the content on the mobile site. Im really looking forward to this and for once not always being unemployed.

Tuesday was another day that started with a group meeting and I got some more work on the user spec, and got Ben to check I was on the right track, it was around here that I worked out how hard it would be to focus on this work. I didn’t do much work on IE after the lecture instead I had a break as I waited for my afternoon classes, and eventually got a test from the previous week back, a pass or better I passed and I was happy.

Wednesday I had my software engineering test and I went into Clayton a little early to try and study at least a little bit. In the end I was ok with it the coding isn’t 100% correct but im pretty certain ive done enough to at least pass. Now I just need to get stuck in on the assignment because that’s worth 50% so I need to do well.

Thursday I went into uni very early, I got in around 11 when I started at 1 so that I could do more on the design spec, and I got some done before classes. Class was boring got my marks back just passed but meh im generally not to fussed with results if I pass. I did call my boss at the MX to try and work out when he wanted me to come in next but I got his voicemail and left a message, this shows I wasn’t thinking about everything on Monday, but at least I had got in contact with him. Then in the evening I sat down and worked solidly (but slowly) through the last 11 parts I had of the design spec. I gotta say that was really hard I don’t actually know why it was just killing my brain but im repeating myself so ill move on. I ended up sending it twice because it wouldn’t say sent in outlook so I sent it through the web interface and pretty much as soon as that one sent the outlook one said sent so sorry Ben for the 2 copy’s.

Friday I expected a call from my boss to work out when I was going into the mx I thought he may have wanted me in on Friday so I had set my alarm early. Although I didn’t need to worry, he ended up calling just after my alarm had gone off so I was glad I had had a few minutes to wake up and sound ok on the phone. Basically with the lack of content around now we have scheduled Tuesday morning in to be confirmed on Monday, and if I come across any content that could go up to email it through and ill get paid a few hours for my efforts, which I haven’t quite finished but I will in the morning before uni starts. Also I found out that dads going up to Sydney on Monday for a few days, so ill be going to work with him on Monday morning and then getting to uni very early, with dads car for the week.

Saturday I was up early to go shopping at Knox (its funny what having money allows you to do, you can look and go I actually can afford one of those now, but wont get one now). In the end all I got was a set of 8 books that was cheaper then any one of those books on there own. In the evening I went to James house for some footy and cards and it was a good night, although on the way home I got a call from the younger sister asking for a ride home and the big brother gene kicked in so it was another hour before I got anywhere near home and sleep.

Sunday has actually been a really good day it was up earlyish (I went to bed really late) and straight off to the footy. I hadn’t been in a while and I really enjoyed it, and even more so the result. The problem is it was Robert Harvey’s final home game, and he’s one player I have always admired since as long as I can remember going to the footy down the road at Waverley.

Anyway due to my procrastination this has waited till the end of the Olympics and considering I have to be up so very early tomorrow to get a car for a few days im off to bed.

Sem 2 Week 5

Ok so week 5 and things are really starting to ramp up. This week ive had 2 tests and I have no idea how they went but I never really dwell on them so meh. Ok so onto the week that was.

Monday was IE as normal we finished off the task list for the user manual and it was really good to get it finished, im sure it will change as the system changes but it’s a great foundation to work off, now all we need to do is all the task write us and this will take a long time. Cladi cleaned up and made sure everything was in the correct order for Tuesday so that we could start writing out the tasks in detail. In my lecture at Clayton I got no listening done cause I got the Olympics working on my laptop so I watched that (yeah im lazy).

Tuesday morning had Cladi Danny and myself working on the tasks in detail, by the end of our meeting we had a great template going and Cladi gave Danny and myself a few of them to do by Monday (ive actually finished mine a couple of hours ago) so im sure we will be given more tomorrow morning, and I think it will be like this for quite a while. Then I had a couple of lectures and then it was off to my first test of the week and that was for security and I hope I did ok cause everything worked it just probably wasn’t the correct way (i.e. there’s probably a better way to do most of it).

Wednesday I had to find a partner for my software eng class, my problem with this is the guy I have been doing a lot of work with is not doing the assignment (apparently done it before) so I had to meet a new person and he seems to know what he’s doing so things are looking up. In the afternoon I got a call from a mate to see if I could help him out and test a system for a newspaper he works with, I said yes of course and after a fair few phone calls I have my first meeting with them tomorrow and im really looking forward to it. More on this next week once ive worked out what im doing or at least meant to be doing.

Thursday I went to uni nice and early because I had phone calls still to make to organise my meeting on Monday (originally it was for Friday, but the Content Management System, CMS, was not ready so it as pushed till Monday) I did a little study for my second test for the week for HCI. I have no idea how I went and will be very happy with anything above a pass. It just seemed silly to have a test when an assignment seemed much more appropriate to me, but well it’s not up to me is it. After the test was the lecture and this means now we have the new lecturer so it will be interesting to see how he goes.

Friday was pretty much a non day I caught up on foxtel and that’s about as productive as I got, oh yeah and I ran my sister round to uni and work cause mum was busy and she’s spoilt.

Saturday was a great day, I did next to nothing and even though I had planned to organise my toga much earlier it ended up being a 7pm sheet job, but I gotta say it worked well for me. Then it was off to the party and a great night was had by me, and im guessing most of the people that attended.

Sunday was not bad either. I had stayed at Luke’s and so I helped with the clean up a little. I think I was 4th up or something like that but I kicked around for a while just cause I could (love not having to be anywhere). In the end I sorta had to race home to be there in time for Hackett’s swim, and the pit stop for maccas lunch got me home right on the dot, I barely had time to get a plate out. After my younger sister got home she wanted to go to Knox to shop and I felt like going shopping so I indulged her and it was a good way to spend most of the afternoon vs sitting around home on the pc or in front of the TV.

So it was a good week (although I still didn’t do my tax) but with plenty of work to do this week im sure, starting my career as an IT Analyst, and a software eng test on Wednesday. Im defiantly going to be busy this week.

Sem 2 Week 4

Well Week 4 and I guess no im really back into uni. Things are defiantly starting to settle down especially with due dates coming up so that not going to be very fun at all, on the other hand there is still plenty too look forward to.

Monday was IE and saw a nice amount of work getting done by me (although I sent it through pretty late) that was pretty good so that’s always reassuring. It just sucks that I can never finish work off early in the day it always takes till late at night, I guess I just need to sit down more often and just work.

Tuesday saw some more IE work get done less then Monday but some days just generally have more work then others. In the evening I had Security which once again was terribly boring, but the lecture was short so I didn’t have to duck out like I normally do. The class was even better as well because it was rep for a test this week, based on the previous class’s Unix commands which have been coming back to me so well its not funny, so im going in quite confident.

Wednesday or as I call it my day as a Clayton student, I had software eng and I actually did a heap less work then I normally do so that means ill have some to do on Tuesday night. But there’s really only 2 more weeks of assessed class work and then it’s just the assignment, which I still need to find someone to work with because the one person I do the class work with doesn’t have to do the assignment for some reason. Ahh well ill play that as it comes on Wednesday. In the arvo I did a little shopping and then had a mate round most of the night playing Mario Kart on Wii, I gotta say that’s one competitive and addicting game.

Thursday saw me attend a class that was really just a survey (I could have slept in past 10) and then a lecture which for some reason I can only pay attention to 1 in every 10 mins, and this really isn’t going to help me considering we have an assignment to complete next week in our class, looks like a lot of cramming is ahead of me. With the nott this week things were really different, I wasn’t driving I had money to drink for once and I did so (even got a few free drinks) it was a really good night and now I just need to organise to drink more often lets hope my very limited funds can last me a few more weeks.

Friday was a very lazy day with me just chilling at a mates place instead of getting ordered around home to do jobs. I got absolutely nothing accomplished which made for a good day but makes me think of all the study ahead of me that I could have been doing, not that this made any difference cause I basically did the same thing on Saturday, nothing except I was at home this time.

Saturday night I had planned to go into the city with a group of mates but something twigged and I just lost all desire to go out so another lazy night to follow the lazy few days preceding.

Sunday has been like any other Sunday nothing has happened and there’s still heaps to do this week so heres to hoping I get it all done and hopefully ill end up with something interesting for next week.

Sem 2 Week 3

Ok so week 3 of semester has been a very good week, for starters ive had 2 cars for the durations (mum and dad went away, my older sister has her own car and my younger sister has no P’s yet so they were both mine, not that I drove mums she left the petrol tank so it was basically empty) so getting around was really easy and I probably did a few more trips places then I needed to (something else to do when im bored at home and should be working). Although driving dad’s car around has its cons, my younger sister is always demanding a ride here, a pick up there and always making me either wait or be late to something. or the worst thing yet getting up at 6:20 on a Saturday after going to bed at 3. Anyway that’s over now cause the parents are back home so it’s back to the normal swing of things.

IE work this week and the next few will consist of testing the system as modules come online and helping Cladi and Danny with the user manual, because they helped me heaps with the testing plan. This is going to be a big document but at least I under stand the documents a lot more then I do the coding, which I give huge kudos to Dee and Rowan because they both understand it. This week was very slack in my amount of work done because I didn’t do much at all during the week except Monday where I helped Cladi find templates to base our user documentation. So we found a few and worked out what sort of layouts we need and which sections we will be using or not using. Tuesday we had our client meeting which went well because we have some of the client’s big requirements working already (user access rights) although they always have some things that need small changes and I hope these don’t affect the coders too much.

Wednesday saw me at Clayton making bad attempts at effiel coding although apparently I got furthest along in the tutorial and there’s only a little bit left for me to complete by next week and this ha my confidence in effiel getting up there so hopefully I can keep it up and do well for once in a programming language (and not fail it 2wice). For once in quite a while I had nothing on for a Wednesday night so I started watching episodes of Dexter I had “acquired”. Now id been watching Dexter on 10 when I remembered and I liked it but having all the eps in the first season took up a lot of time to watch late this week and even included me acquiring and watching the second season as well (finished that this evening), and ive got to say do yourself a favour and watch it it’s a great series and it just keeps getting better through out each season.

Thursday saw HCI and for some reason im just finding that im acting like a 3-4 yr old in that class I dunno why but the subject just doesn’t seem serious to me so I find it very difficult to concentrate or be serious in it. Although I guess this could also be due to the fact that im looking forward to the night because Thursdays are pub nights and its great to get out and catch up with people when I can.

Friday was not very productive at all, I got my sister to work and chilled with a mate then I think I binged on Dexter till way too late, that little voice that says “come on one more ep won’t kill you” really messes with my sleep patterns. Saturday morning well I only really saw about 20 mins of that and that consisted of taking my sister to work at o-dark-hundred and then it was back to sleep and up in the afternoon. This meant I missed karate again, but ive been missing a lot of classes lately. It’s disappointing because it is a good sport and if I go back ill be well behind many others I know, but if there are as many little kids as normal I won’t be back for a fair while. I find the kids just make it too hard to advance very far when to them its just day-care and I never get to do anything advanced because we have to stick with basics as a class, I dunno I think I need a new sport or find some very different classes.

Saturday afternoon saw the big road trip out to Werribee for Luke’s 21st birthday, and it was a great night even more so because I was drinking and Pokey is great fun drunk. Although I think it was me that got the worst group ghosting of the night, meh I got a couple of good ones in. Im sure there’s a lot of photographic evidence of me doing something stupid at some point but it was a great night so no regrets. I think I pulled up best on Sunday out of the group of us that road tripped it out there, and I know I haven’t had a nap yet I even had to head to the airport shortly after I got home.

Well that’s the week that was no one knows yet who won blog of the week, and I still have my tax to do but oh well on with week 4.

Sem 2 Week 2

Ok so we have been given some topics to possibly blog so I will try and write a little on these points before my normal blog just to be a little different to normal (side note, don’t blog in front of the TV its damn distracting).

So during our IE seminar on Tuesday we were posed with a series of questions to blog about the first one was the purpose of blogs. Well when I started this unit the purpose of blogs was to annoy me and have something that our supervisors could use to try and find out a little more about what was going on within each team and with everyone in the teams. After a few weeks though it started to change and it feels good and helps to just go over each week and reflect a little, relieves a bit of stress and helps get prepared for the next week. As much as I originally disliked blogging every week ive now come to see how it does help me, it lets me go through my week see what ive done (or in most cases haven’t, still have to do my tax damit) so that as I start a new week I can prioritise my time hopefully that much better to fit everything in. So I guess the reasons people blog are many and varied but im just trying to express mine in MY blog.

We were also asked why blog as a student, well first up cause it helps gets you marks in some classes (and extra marks are always helpful), but depending on who reads your blog it can give feedback to the right people even if you don’t know it (and if you title the blog correctly the anonymity of the internet allows you to say exactly what you want). Blogging as a student can be no different from blogging as anyone else although im sure the content would be very different. Blogging can also help with learning because by writing about what you learn each week it solidifies it in your memory and helps with the retention of knowledge, so long as it’s not all about why you hate each subject and all the assignments that cut so deeply into your social time.

The last question posed at the IE seminar was about what rules apply to blogging. Well I don’t know it really depends on how you see your blog? Is it going to be something you want taken seriously, then write it like you would write a newspaper article, if you just want to write and you don’t really mind who reads it, well go for it and have fun. Its really up to the writer and the audience to make the rules (if your readers don’t like your style change, if you don’t care about your readers opinions well hey your set have fun with the reader-less blog).

Ok so onto the week that was, week 2 semester 2.

So this week started with a good start on the test plan and with the early start to the day Cladi, Danny and I pretty much knocked the test plan over, or so id thought. Once we got feedback I continued to work on the test plan getting help from the others along the way and with Cladi making sure the formatting (and ideas) were correct (and made sense) the second plan was ready. The feedback on this was useful and by the end of Thursday we had what I thought was a pretty good test plan organised, and I left it in the hands of the Project Manager Ben to do his submission magic, and so now I guess im just waiting on the result to see how we did, and how I did being in “charge” of the test plan. This was the main pressure for the week, with the rest of my units just starting up and getting into the swing of things with the start of tutorials for most subjects, although im going to be hating Tuesday afternoons/nights till 8 from now on.

I missed a shuttle to Caulfield on Thursday so I got to experience a little of green week at Clayton, which was interesting to say the least. I ran into a friend who explained the current event called “4 legless”, which was like a 3 legged race but with 3 people (1 whose legs were taped to the one from each of the other 2 people), racing to all the libraries on campus (I think its 4 at Clayton) and skulling a beer at each then 2 at the finish point. Some of the teams coming into the finish I don’t think were doing so well. I heard a lot of stories about the events of this week and it sounds like something to see, that I doubt we will ever see at Caulfield.

Friday saw me up reallllllly early for a Friday (before 9) cause I went with my parents to the airport so I could drive dads car home and have it while mum and dad are away (yeah no bus’s this week) but t does mean I now have to drive my sister around a fair bit (which always sucks but meh) I guess getting a car for a week has its downfalls (oh wait I get mums too but I can only drive one at a time anyway so meh ill just drive dads around).

Saturday saw a lazy start but a good night, going into the city for Alex’s belated birthday celebrations. This was a really good night I was driving and gave a couple of people a lift so I wouldn’t have to drive both ways on my own (its just a bit boring). Many people were there and it was a very enjoyable night, a few people appeared very happy and energetic and just a little disturbing on occasion (try my facebook status).

Sunday has been a slow day for me just catching up with a mate and playing a fair bit of MarioKart on Wii (I won more then I lost, I think). So now I like to think im rested and ready for another week at uni, and a big weekend out in Hoppers Crossing.

Sem 2 Week 1

So Semester 2 has started and looks to be a pretty good one, my subjects look good (after only one week so expect that to change), my timetable is good although Tuesdays are going to be my long day, and least I get something resembling a sleep in on Wednesdays and Thursdays with Fridays off I know ill be wasting those by sleeping in way too late. Anyway I think its time to catch up on what’s happened since the last blog.

Ok first up is exams, but not really cause my exams were badly outnumbered by the number of 21st's I attended during June so I call it a period of 21st's with a couple of exams breaking it up. Anyway my exams were Programming, Sys Int and Game. I think the timetablers at the uni are a funny bunch scheduling Programming (probably my most hated subject at uni, on my third attempt) on the morning of my 21st bday (/sarcasm). Well I guess its not that bad I ended up passing the unit so I guess it was third times the charm. Next up was Sys Int and that went ok I thought but I guess I was wrong because somehow I ended up failing, its not that bad I guess I thought that this would be border line I just didn't expect to fail by as much as I did. Game was a similar story with a different result, I had only just scraped through the assignments, and the exam threw me like I wouldn't believe especially the last question. Although I guess it didn't throw me too badly because I passed this unit.

In between all of these exams I had multiple 21st's all of which went really well and I only drove to one so im very happy. This included my own 21st which went really well and I had a great night (and there’s actually still decorations up that no ones taken down). Well the 21st's didn't end with the completion of the exam period this past weekend ive had 2 21st's and they went really well (how could the bar tab go from covering tab beer and wine to anything behind the bar be a bad thing, well I guess it did stop me from going to karate on Saturday morning). It doesn’t look like im going to have very many weekends without a 21st for a while and im looking forward to all of them that are coming up.

With the first week of semester came the time to start our first deliverable which is due on Friday, but we broke up into 3 sub teams to make sure we get on top of all the deliverables that are due this semester. Well that meant that Cladi Danny and myself are responsible for the test plan while Dye and Rowan are getting all the code working, and Ben is going over all of last semesters deliverables to update them as necessary. We got a lot of work done on the Test plan in our team meeting on Tuesday morning especially because Cladi was very prepared and had already done a template so this allowed us to jump in and work on the content. This is going well and if everything goes to plan tomorrow we should be very close to finished with the test plan.

So the first week of semester went well and for the first time at uni I am a Clayton student (Monday afternoon and Wednesdays only though) as well as being at Caulfield, although the few of my mates that have told me many stories of there Clayton escapades have gotten over it I guess its time to see if there stories do really happen (oh yeah and its green week this week so this is the week it could happen). Anyway so our IE rooms have changed around a little we have a new lab and a new lecture theatre for the year (which is way WAY too big for our class) although a change of scenery is always good. Nothing really interesting or remarkable happened during my first week of classes I haven’t had all of them yet but that will happen by the end of this week. Oh yeah and if I get up early enough on Friday I will get myself 2 cars for a week and a bit so that’s going to be fun.

Anyway that’s been my uni break and my first week back here’s too week 2.

Semester 1 Summary

This week was a fair bit slower then the preivious few weeks because all my other units assignments were in and i used this to justify the slacking off in those subjects i did. Although the other subjects were done i still had sequence diagrams that i finished off on monday night and a couple of other little things that were due tuesday for IE. This was good and because my normal tuesday class was not on there was a screening of our game levels so after going to the meeting for the first 1/2 hr i went and saw how badly my level looked in comparison to most others. Then it was back to the meeting and an ie seminar before heading off for a client meeting. The client meeting went ok although i dont think they understand completly about the issues that will arise in the database if it is constructed the way they want.
Wednesday brought me y programming interview which i was very happy to get over and done with and im quite pleased with my marks in it so far, and so long as i find a way to pass the exam i will be set for finishing with java for quite a while (hopefully). Thursday gave us some Sys Int, which went ok i guess i was starting to suffer from the cold i picked up on tuesday and so that made everything anoying, but i did get some good info on how toanswer the exam questons so that helps.
Friday mum and dad were going away for a reunion for dads uni or something about that, i dont really ask too many questions. Although this ment a very early morning for me, i went to the airport so i would have dads car for teh weekend and to save on parking. So the rest of the day was quite a waste with me cathing up on the sleep i missed oout on by getting up so early. In the evening i went out for a short while just to say a quick hello to those that were out and happy birthday to chloe cause i dont see her hat often. Then it was back home and eventually off to sleep. Saturday i really slacked off, because my cold had mde me feel like absolute s**t, so all i did on saturday was kick around home staying warm and relaxing. This was a great idea cause once i got up on sunday i felt heaps better and my cold is nearly gone, which made me feel sort of motivated and i got most of what i wanted done before it as off to the airport to pick up mum and dad.


SEMESTER SUMMARY


Dream Resolutions
We have a very good team which works together really well, and quite often. I think we have nearly made the meeting room our own when we dont have classes and this is good because we know where people are normally when they dont have class so we can always ask questions of each other.

Deliverables
These were done really well and i have to hand it to the documenters for getting everyones work collated together and looking correct as quickly as they do. Ben leads by example and always has more then the rest of us to do, which gives no room for being late or of a low standard. This has really pushed me because it means i have to do more work more often then all my previous subjects, which consisted of a crusie period followed by a busy period and a short cruise before the final busy period and then the lead up to exams. Then theres Dze who gets his tasks done so quickly, im just always stunned he gets em done so quick. The rest of the team get there task done on time everytime and this really has pushed me to get mine all in on time (except 1, when my net was down so that 1 was about 1hr late).

Blogs
I have to hand it to the rest of the team they really get into blogging. Ive never liked it although after a few weeks its sort of grown on me and i found it best just to start typing about the week and let it flow, sometimes it gets hard other times its really easy. You can just see in the blog of the week winners how well our team has done, 4/6 with ben winning it twice. So you can see when i actually had a good one it was never going to be easy to win with almost the entire team nominated each week and then there was the other teams that might have members that could win it.

In summary working on a unit such as this with task due continuosly (with the outcome affecting my team not just me) i have had to work a lot harder and more often to allow me to meet my deadlines (and i need to stay away from distractions at uni, by portal and psp from my uni bag), i would like to say this was a quick lesson to learn but it wasent and i just hope i can take it over to my other subjects next semester and my exam preperation this semester. If i can keep my work rate up where it was the past 2-3 weeks (these weeks i know i improved in, and i think theres still some room to go) i know i will bring my marks up next semester and hopefully help me through these exams.

Week 12

Well it’s been a stressful week (and I don’t help myself out with my ability to procrastinate), but with a very relaxing weekend im ready for this week. The main things I had due were Programming and Game Level both of which were due Friday.

Monday I went in to uni early with intentions to start work on my fit2048 assignment (game level) which didn't really happen, I should have started it earlier so that I could understand how to use the program to complete the assignment. Instead I was stupid and had charged up my PSP so I spent most of the day playing that instead of working. Luckily I saw this and left it at home for the rest of the week though. Monday night I talked to a few people online and got some tips for my game level (fit2048 assignment) and started getting bits of it to come together.

Tuesday I went to FIT2048 to get help from people in my group and was very pleased that Gab had come in early because he helped me get a lot of work done before the start of class. Although I had missed a few weeks of this class Gab and Morgan weren’t much further through the assignment then me, although they did really know how to use the program. What was annoying was the 4th member of our group had been away as well but didn't even turn up this week to finish his part. So we decided to move on without him, and we still haven’t heard from him so hopefully he has found a way around this himself. At the Tuesday seminar I really couldn't follow the guest lecturer, dunno what it was I just really couldn't get my mind onto listening to him and so I just pulled out my laptop and spent the time catching up on other things I like to keep up with. Oh yeah and Ben won blog of the week although he has been promised his chocolate at a later date.In the afternoon team meeting I actually did some work (sequence diagrams) and then after I had done the first few, I did something ive never done at uni before and very infrequently at home as well (i.e. years between each time), I asked for more work. Eventually I went home and continued doing sequence diagrams and my game level and even further putting off my programming.

Wednesday was a pretty stupid day from my point of view. Basically I wasted the day and got very little of anything done while I was at uni. I had discovered word twist on facebook and that application is pure procrastination. Once I was home I skipped karate and actually got some work done on my game level and it was really starting to take shape. Although the stress of the deadline was rapidly building I got around this and went to bed at a reasonable time to continue my theme this week of being at uni a lot earlier then I normally am.

Thursday I was again at uni very early and started working on sequence diagrams and my game level, which was pretty close to finished it just needed some added interaction and the UFO to stay away from. Once the rest of my group had a break in classes we went and worked on it further and at the end of the day I had the UFO in the game and most of the interaction finished off. Then it was off to SYS INT, oh yeah and the lecturer has finally noticed that not a lot is thought of her by the students which I thought was quiet obvious. The lecture was quite dry until the end where we got an idea of what may appear on the exam. The class was ok and we basically went through some questions of a type that may appear on the exam. damn I hate exam and unit revision, I just really wanted to know my marks but im way to scared of how low they may be to go and ask. Once that was over it wasn’t as easy a night as it normally is because mum had to go and change plans we made last week without telling even though it affected me quite a bit, and I didn't go to the pub cause of the deadlines the next day and it was very very cold. So yeah I continued with my game level as best I could and went to sleep.

Friday I woke up after 8 hrs in bed and felt like id had maybe 3-4 hrs of actual sleep (there’s that stress affecting me for once), I helped mum dismantle my bed then got a lift to uni. I met up with gab and we started working on our game level and he really helped me here and I got my intro movie working and then once Morgan got there we finished off all the levels, burnt them and submitted about 2.5 hrs before the deadline. After this I got lunch and tried to do programming which after a while I knew just was not going to happen so I called it a day and went home. My 21st pressie from mum and dad had arrived while I was submitting my game level and damn its a nice bed, mum tried to play it as if the bed hadn't fitted in the room but I was so tired I waited to get home before I said anything, cause I thought she might be joking which she was. And what a nice bed it is im loving it so far. Well I procrastinated the rest of the afternoon with foxtel and some relaxing and after dinner I got in and worked hard on programming. After re-organising all my work from the previous weeks assessed work I was happy with it and submitted it 45mins before the deadline of midnight.
The minute I hit submit I felt soooooooooo much better and less stressed, & then went around to a mates place just to chill and catch up with the boys. That was such a relaxing finish to the night I stayed out much later then I had planned and only got home about 2ish. And I didn’t get up for a long time I had a kick arse sleep in that I was really happy with.

Saturday I slept in and skipped karate for the second time this week and did nothing all day except relax and eventually I got ready for the 21st I was attending that night. I was feeling really lazy and couldn’t come up with any ideas for the theme that I could do with what I had at home so I didn’t bother, and luckily was not the only one although there were some really good costumes there. The 21st was really good and I really enjoyed myself, I had decided to drive cause I didn’t want to miss out on getting back to my new bed, and really didn’t want to have to catch a taxi.

Sunday I slept in again of course and started doing some serious organising for my 21st which included my invite which are very nearly done, and listening to mum go on about what she wants to do to the deck to make in enclosed which im really over because every time mum has a day off and im home she goes on and on about what she wants to change at home and it gets boring after you hear it enough. Anyway I got on with things and did not much of anything except transfer files around to make space and copy a disc to my laptop and phone I had acquired on Friday night from my mate who got 100 copies of the disc too late to distribute at gamerthon, and it’s actually quite good. Then I ran a COD 4 scrim that we have to dispute because Game Arena are crap and let there servers die way too often, we probably would have won too, we were coming right back, but the other team agrees with us so hopefully it will get rescheduled.

Oh well im going to go to bed early for once because im meant to be up early tommorrow for some reason, and I have plenty of work to do in the morning.

Week 11

Ok so after spending many hours after last weeks blog and more then a few while at uni i finally finished my Sytems Integration assignment right before i had to leave for our groups client meeting. Im ok with the assignment even though it was fairly rushed, mainly because im no good at assignments with such a large amount of writing. Other then finishing my assignment and the client meeting which went well from my point of view (I was recording it and wasent sure how it would work, it worked well from my point of view), Jake threw chocolate and cake day during our IE Studio. This went really well mainly because chocolate and cake always go well.

On tuesday i felt the effects of a late night sunday due to my lazyness and missed my morning class. This is annoying but was my fault due to consistent lack of planning with assingments and so i am still a fair way from finished with my game level and it would have helped to be at class and get help from others in my group, although i think i have a solid foundation and will try get it finished before this weeks class. The ie semiar was very good and gave me a good idea of what to expect mid next year if i end up getting a graduate position, which i hope i do.

Wednesday i had programming which i didn't go to *again* but i will have to go this week to find out if i need an interview for the final assignment, which i have heard probally wont happen. After uni i went to Bens place for house night which i really enjoyed escpecially because i havent been to it in a long time, although it did mean i had missed karate. Missing karate was not such a bad idea because it makes me remember how much i need to find a class on a night other then wednesday so i can get out more.

Thursdays classes at uni had been cancelled this week due to "extenuating circumstances" so this allowed me to have a really lazy day, mainly because i was expecting to do some work on Friday. I didn't go to the nott for once this week, mainly because from those i had spoken too it seemed no one in my group was going to be there so i stayed in instead of going out way to late in way too cold weather.

Friday i ended up with no work done but i did get my 21st present organised and ordered, which im certain ill be getting early. Then once i got home (im not so good at shopping that much walking is annoying) i got organised and worked out what people were doing before meeting at the footy, and with no organised predrinks it was going to be much easier so i just caught the train into town (which i only just made, damn you traffic). The footy was really good except for the score but its been a while since i had been to the footy so it was good to see a game again. Now i just need to get to the footy more often and for theSaints to win some more games.

Saturday was just a normal day really Karate in the morning and then doing not much else for the rest of the day. it was a good day just to relax and catch up wth a few of the boys durng the day. Sunday was very similar except no karate. My COD 4 team did have a scrim which we drew, but it was a very tense match with the bomb getting planted almost every round, and is good because we havent had many wins latly. Then as soon as that scrim had finished the BF2 SF team needed another player so i filled in and we won this 115-65 so in all it was quite a successful night.

All in all it has been a good week with a nice relaxing weekend in prep for a busy week with 2 really big assignments due friday night, plus all the other time i will spend on IE work while at uni.

Week 10

Ok so I will start this with last Saturday night where I had a 21st not far from home at all. It was really good because it was such an easy and fun night, just talking drinking and listening to some absolutely hilarious stories during the speeches. There were many people there that I don’t normally get to see because people are always getting busier and make it out less and less often. A few mates started the night at mine and once a few more had arrived and wed all finished our pre drinks we set off and walked down to the local bows clubs function room. After greeting the birthday boy (happy 21st again AB) it was off to the bar and to see what sort of dent we could make in the tab. With a couple of beers I went round seeing who was there and generally catching up with most people, and as usual most of the group was outside so I grabbed a chair and the night was off. The speeches were very good and AB knew what was coming so before most of them he was in hysterics, and after each speech or story so were we. The night went really well and the bar tab held out till the end as far as I was aware (I didn’t have to pay for any beers so all was good), although after I didn’t really feel like bed so after dropping by home for a few beers (I didn’t quite finish all my pre drinks) and to drop my sister off (she never takes her keys anywhere) me and Woods headed off to find the other 21st Chad had run off to earlier just before the speeches ended at AB’s. after I think 3 phone calls and 10 minutes of walking we found him and he tried to get us a few more beers from his party but couldn’t so we went off to the park and drank the last beers we had and sat around chatting for around an hour or two. Which was good because normally we don’t get to talk for long at the pub and a lot has been happening lately so lots to catch up on. Eventually we ended up heading off for bed, although we have made tentative plans to go away for a week over the semester break just to relax and chill, just a few of us and it will probably end up like schoolies 2 but without the nice weather.

Sunday was a quiet day I just relaxed and finished off my blog, which was disappointing because I had wanted to get more work done on my use case’s before Mondays IE class. Which probally would not have mattered because due to my inability lately to wake up on time I missed my bus, and then to kill time I thought a good idea would be to go to the local library and work. Well that was a good idea until I missed the second bus and was then quite late to Mondays IE studio. Well apparently I didn’t miss much, and after a group meeting most of the team worked for a bit then headed off, and I was much the same I headed off after finishing half my use cases. I ended up finishing my other 2 use cases a little after dinner and then worked for too long on my level for FIT2048 late into the night.

Tuesday started much like Monday after finding my alarm (my mobile phone) next to my bed and not on the other side of the room I could tell I was late again, and it gets worse because the email with my use cases I had sent to Ben the night before was still trying to send itself, so I had to reset the net again (I had some serious issues on Monday night with my internet which helped me get plenty of work done with almost no facebook to help me procrastinate) and send him the email which apparently worked.

I should have spent the rest of the week writing up my academic paper for FIT3068 but all I did was half ar*ed research and found a few resources, but since starting to write today I have now realised its not enough so I will be struggling through it until late tonight/early tomorrow.

On Thursday I went to the pub for a couple of hours and could really tell I shouldn’t have been there because even the hardcore Monash Clayton uni residents weren’t drinking and so it wasn’t as full as it normally would have been.

Friday was meant to be a day of work on my academic paper but mum distracted me by getting me to start planning my 21st which is coming up during the exam period, and so I got no work done. Saturday was much the same but it was more me off at karate and then too tired to really get much work done for the day, I should have gone with dad to the football but instead I tried to get some work done on this academic paper which again did not happen. Anyone else noticing a recurring theme here? (While there’s time left I don’t work to well on subjects I hate).

Finally today I have gotten some work started although still wishing I was better at the research and had gotten more work done before today, oh well its my fault now its just time to get back to work and get this done before IE tomorrow.

Week 9

Ok so week 9 is just about to finish up and what have i done this week. Not much really when it comes down to it.

Ok so last friday after my previous blog i went out to a 21st for a mate ive known since primary school (lets call him Andy), the 21st was dinner in richmond (actually really nice place and the measl were very good) and then back to his place (cause his parents were away) to chill and hang out. So we all met at Andy's place before heading in, but due to lack of planning we were like "oh shit how do we get to the station". We worked that one out by getting a mates dad to drive one car load to the station, another of the guys getting dropped off by his sister got her to take a car load and one of the other guys was driving all the way in so he took a car load. Anyway a few of us took some travellers and we were off.
Once the train got to the station we were all about to get on but some ticket inspectors had just escorted some really drunk guy off the platform, and then decided to come and get 2 of our group for drinking on the platform, one of the 2 was me and it sucks cause now i need to wait for a fine that may or may not come, i just wish i knew if it was oming or not (im pretty certain ill be getting a fine though).
Anyway i put that behind me and ended up haveing a really good meal a couple of drinks then we all headed back to Andys place. At dinner we had another of the group turn up from a prior commitment and she took one car load back to Andys, so that left Andy Chad Woodsy and myself (all of us have been mates since primary school, we went off to different high schools and now Uni's and we still see each other every other week, oh yeah and the 4 of us went to schoolies together as well) to catch the train back and then taxi it to Andys, Kyle tagged along and picke up her car along the way to go home for sleep (she had been to the dawn service so she was a little tired).
Instead of catching a taxi Wos had recently finished work and so he gave us a lift back to Andys and so that saved us a cab fare which is always good. Well the rest of the night consisted of drinking (i think i ended up suppling for most people due to Woodsy, i fixed his dads pc a few weeks back and i think Woodsy talked him into getting me some beer which arrived that friday night, so i was more then willing to share it cause i dont drink too much on my own anyway), and sitting around talking for most of the night. In the end i shared a taxi home with Steve and Karen, mainly because im lazy, it was wet and they were heading that way anyway.

Saturday i went to karate which is harder then you think after a big night and little sleep but i stuggled through it and once i got home i ended up feelng heaps better (i was mainly tired, but i had gotten all of my balance back) i was "reminded" (i say reminded because i never get told whats happening by my family till its on) that our family was going out for the arvo and evening for mums birthday which was on sunday (but due to my sister working sunday arvo we did it on saturday) we went to dinner at the Lobster Cave and before that we went and visted some family. All this ment that i couldn't go round to Rowans and finish off our Systems Integration that we had to resubmit. So this was quiet annoying, although once i got home i found the work id done on friday and emailed rowan the points i was going to be using to complete my answers to my 2 questions for the resubmission work, then i needed some sleep so it was off to bed.

On sunday evening, after spending most of the day going here and there and everywhere me and dad got my sister a usb drive because she broke her first one, then the one i loaned her (my old one) which she anihilated (now i know what the inside of a usb drive looks like, quiet unimpressive), so we were trying to get her one much like mine so it might hold up to her use, (we ended up getting one similar to mine but plastic instead of metal cased (same design etc)), i got a lot of work done on my questons for Systems Integration with only a very small amount to finish off on monday before IE Studio.

Monday was meant to be an earlier start then it was but it wasn’t, although once I did meet up with rowan before IE studio, I finished off my questions and got him to go through them, which was useful cause he saw a couple of things I had forgotten to put in so I fixed that up and were had then finished Systems Integration. The IE studio went well, well they all do it’s a good way to keep up and Jake and POD always have something funny so that helps make things go quick. After IE and a short walk to submit Systems Integration we all went off to our clients for a client meeting. The client meeting went well to a point, we had our mock-ups to show them (great work Dze and Rowan), then our clients had ideas of how they wanted it which were different to ours and don’t seem the easiest to implement, but we will work out how to either overcome this or we will find a work around.

On Tuesday I went to my class that makes me miss out on the morning meeting which was quite a bad thing for the week I think, mainly because I got Portal working on my laptop (its now gone from the laptop so I don’t get distracted by it anymore), the other reason is because I missed out on a fair bit of drama concerning our groups use of the K1.06 meeting room. I was filled in on the details but because I wasn’t there I won’t comment on it other then to say “power trip”. So after I was filled in on the details we went off to the IE seminar (after a bite of lunch) which involved flying minties and a lot of information on data bases, and Dze winning blog of the week (about time too his blogs have all been really good).
At the afternoon team meeting we all started on work that had to be done, Ben Dze and Rowan were working on use cases that had to be done for the FRS, Cladi and I were working on parts of the FRS. All in all I slacked of badly, I was meant to be helping Cladi but once she was typing up what we had worked out I would hit up portal for what I told my self would be for just a minute, which usually went for 10, unless Cladi asked me something which wasn’t fair to her. So yeah no more games on my laptop or ill get distracted too much, and I really have to much work to do anyway.

Thursday I had planned to get up early and go to uni to do my use cases that I have been assigned, but that wasn’t to be and I got to uni at normal time and wasted some time before class. The lecture had was different enough to be interesting because that’s the last one that is examinable and there was a virtual guest lecturer so that was different. The laboratory after this was ok we were working on pivot tables in groups and this went well even though most of the steps were incorrect for office 2007. Oh yeah and we got the answers to the questions wrong, because of decimal points, but in the end we found our problems. Thursday night at the Nott was ok but cold and few people were there, although the Bundy Chicks were there again so Simon ended up with 2 hats (I relieved him of one) a shirt and a photo, he was annoyed cause he’s only ever gotten large shirts and needs a medium.

Friday was quite boring and I got a reasonable start on my use cases before I started this blog, but I haven’t finished them quite yet. I’ve finished this blog on Sunday but I will start next weeks blog with this weekend, all I can say about Saturday night though is EPIC, and if you want to know why you can tune into my next blog.

Week 8

Ok so week 8 started with Saturday night just catching up and sinking a few beers with a few mates from primary school because one of them had just turned 21. It was a good night and i was so glad to be drinking for once, driving places has its downsides even though its cheeper. Oh yeah and as a proper celebration a lot of us are going into town this friday for dinner and find somewhere to party for my mates 21st.

Ok well monday we had an IE studio which for once i wore my suit to instead of brining it in a bag, which shocked a couple of people. After the IE studio our team had a client meeting which got a lot of questions answered for us so we now have a lot more detail with which we can work with.

On wednesday i had programming due which i have been neglecting quite badly so i decided to skip it and hopefully get it done by next week and ill try the sick card next week but i doubt that will work and i dont mind either its only a couple of marks. After i got home from uni i went to karate which i have been very lazy with lately but im really glad i went because we did sparring for once which we havent done for a while and something ive been missing and i believe the source of my lazyness.

Thursday was another boring SYS INT leture althoug i paid a fair bt of attention in this one compared to prevous weeks. Oh yeah and i really hate that a lecturer can call an assignment the 70% of the students failed "written very clearly" im sorry but not if 70% of students failed can something be called written very clearly, so yeah that involves resubmission on monday. On another note the class was interesting if just for the simple fact that it was frustrating. I really hate making a big deal of things but when it annoys me this much i do have to vent at least a little. Lets just say that i wish people that dont have things they need to complete work dont join other groups and force members of that group out, and stop them from getting a word in anywhere. (Thats going to come back and bite me im sure). Anyway thursday was not completly a bad day i had a really good night at the Nott so i guess in all im pretty happy, and with a big night planned for tonight the weekend should only get better.

Well heres to a good friday night and the rest of the weekend, heres hoping i dont fail the resubmission for SYS INT that is due monday.