I decided to hold back on co-op this semester and start in fall.

It was not an easy decision to make, with all the potential backlash and lost opportunities that are there, such as a chance to try out doing system administration and seeing if I would enjoy such a job.

But this semester just feels right. I’m on the ball with my academics, starting my assignments early on, spending a good amount of time studying and focusing on my studies and managing my time a heck lot better.

Since my current state of grades aren’t really all that great, I should be able to make use of this momentum to boost them up and attempt co-op in fall. At least, that’s my reasoning.

Summer’s somewhat here at last! I would be happier if we didn’t have to deal with ants trying to find a home inside the house.

Originally, the plan this semester was to be out on co-op, having signed on to CMPT co-op lightning round for Summer 2007. How lightning round works, for those unfamiliar with it, is the co-op coordinators throw your resume and transcript to companies; in other words, they find the job for you.

It’s already going into week 3 and I have only had three interviews and numerous submissions of resumes to companies. However, I find myself enjoying this semester up at SFU.

Like always, I’m taking three classes. The three lucky courses this semester are CMPT 470, JAPN 101, and MATH 342.

CMPT 470 – Web Information Systems

I guess you can say this is one course I’m definitely comfortable with. It is a project course, with assignments that focus on some basic elements of Web development, something that I am quite comfortable with. As well, I have a group of people that I’m pretty sure I can work well with, so that’ll be quite fun. Hopefully we agree on some very interesting project.

JAPN 101 – Introduction to Japanese II

A continuation of JAPN 100. Learning more 日本語 would be very nice. Last semester was quite fun, although it did get difficult at the end, most likely due to my little rut with academics and focusing on it. But I need to get back on the ball with this, doing terribly on the first quiz.

MATH 342 – Elementary Number Theory

The only reason I am taking a math class now that I have already done all the required math for a CS degree (MATH 151 (Calculus I), MATH 152 (Calculus II), MATH 232 (Linear Algebra), MACM 101 (Discrete Math I), MACM 201 (Discrete Math II), MACM 316 (Numerical Analysis I)) is so that I can take a cryptography course. I would like to take crypto sometime before graduation, so yeah.

So here comes my grand dilemma.

Lightning round has struck potential gold, with me getting an interview with Business Objects for a system administrator position. Something of the sort would be something of interest to myself, since having done somewhat basic stuff at home with my Gentoo server and attempting to troubleshoot the machines at home.

However, if I actually am successful with this and manage to get offered a job, I don’t want to drop any of my courses. I like all of them and wouldn’t want to drop any of them.

The MATH 342 prof seems very good, despite being a PhD student, our CMPT 470 group has pretty good potential (and it provides a good chance for me to raise my upper division GPA), and JAPN 101 has a time and place that works for me. As well, I am determined to stay on the ball for school.

Should I get a job now, I hope I can postpone it to the fall semester.

This semester, I felt, started off strong.

I was on the ball. Things were going right for once. I was enjoying school and everything had a good balance.

Then something happened. I don’t really know just what happened, but it happened fast and brought this sweet, sweet taste of potential academic success down the drain. Perhaps it was the stress? The large amounts of commitments with extra curricular activities? I don’t know.

But in the end, what started off as an alright semester turned into one which I need to seriously look at what I’m doing. Of the three courses I’m taking, I did best in JAPN 100 with a B. Everything else? I did terrible.

After talking with Nancy, one of our advisors in CS, I’ve had a pretty significant wakeup call. My upper division CGPA is approaching 2.0. If that dips below 2, I will not be able to graduate with a BSc in Computing Science. And of course, my overall CGPA isn’t looking that pretty either. It’s not as low, but it’s gradually getting there and once that happens, I have one semester left to redeem myself out of academic probation and then I’m RTW-ed.

So I’m starting to tread on some dangerous ground now. I’ve been strongly advised to take out time from the extracurriculars to go and study more, as well as focus. My problem is that I just know exactly what I need to change, but the focus to make these changes are not there, nor is the motivation.

This should be a good wakeup call to get my stuff together and get myself out of this academic rut once and for all.

This semester, I tried curbing my caffeine dosage by drinking tea, which is generally considered something that is good for you in any amount and contains caffeine at the same time.

For most of the semester, where I had to wake up latest at 9 on a weekday and get out of the house at 10 so I can make it up to SFU for my first class at 11:30, it worked.

Then finals came. Two days. Three exams. Both starting at 8:30.

This really screws up my schedule. The fact that my sleep schedule is erratic enough as it is regularly isn’t helpful.

In case you were wondering: yes, today was a caffeine fiend day, as said in the previous post.

It really isn’t great for me, I know. But when they give people like myself who aren’t really morning people finals that force you to get up bright and early to write a final, it gets stupid. Here’s a list of caffeinated stuff I’ve had:

• Coffee at home – seemed stronger than usual
• Extra Large Double-Double from Tim Hortons
• 1/4 Costa Rican Rocket Fuel, 3/4 Irish Cream coffee
• 1 bottle of Coca Cola Blak

Yeah. It’s probably not good for me to drink so much coffee. It won’t happen again, exam schedule willing.

Life in Dom Land isn’t fun these days.

I have two finals left to go, both on Saturday, but as much as I try to study, I end up falling asleep. When I want to sleep, I just fail to do so. It’s a vicious cycle.

CMPT 307, the latter of the two finals, has me worried the most. It’s not an easy course, but despite myself believing that I know my stuff for the course, I know that that kind of thinking will kick me in the ass hard, because I know I don’t know my stuff.

JAPN 100, on the other hand, should not generally be something that I would be worrying about, although my 漢字 to ひらがな is a bit off, particularly for the last lesson, as well my rusty vocabulary have me somewhat worried. The time for the final, 9:00 in the morning, isn’t nice either, since I’m not a morning person. This just means I will end up being a caffeine fiend for the day, just like the day of the CMPT 471 final, where I had one cup full of coffee at home, then got a Costa Rican Rocket Fuel/French Vanilla drip coffee mix at Renaissance once I got up to SFU. For those who don’t go to SFU or don’t go to Renaissance Coffee for their coffee mix or just don’t plain drink coffee, Costa Rican Rocket Fuel is the darkest coffee they have available there (saying this fact just in case you did happen to think that I drank actual rocket fuel).

Oh well, I guess I should just sleep a lot today. Being held back just because of sleep is a bit sad, to say the least.

At least finals are over in just two to three days, which means a short hibernation period for myself. That is, until I realize that I have a bunch of side projects to do.

Damn busy-ness!

Whoop-dee-do. Finals.

I’ve finally managed to get some studying done today and frankly, a very small amount of it was actually looking at course notes and such. Taking a good look at the 471 PowerPoint slides does not do much because they are just crammed with ridiculous amounts of information it’s uninformative. Attempts to summarize the slides were for naught because I can not stand reading all that information.

So what did I end up doing? Reviewed everything on Wikipedia, while taking down notes that I can actually make use of and read without falling asleep. All the information on every single topic that we cover in class is there and it is explained in a much more directed manner than the slides could ever provide, for the most part of course. Things like how to use Ethereal/Wireshark and tcpdump cannot be found there, nor can I look up stuff on network security, but for the most part, I can study for my final just by browsing Wikipedia. That’s ridiculous since I should be able to learn the material from the lectures (which I stopped going to three or so weeks before the end of the semester, initially because of the amount of other things to do, but eventually because of the uselessness of going because it’ll just be dictation of PowerPoint slides) and notes from the class alone.

I guess me and PowerPoints don’t mix well. Well, rather, poorly made PowerPoint slides. Here’s my heuristics on evaluating effectiveness of PowerPoint slides:

• Does each slide look like it has way too much text? As in, there is so much information on it such that it overwhelms the reader.
• Does each point consist of multiple sentences instead of one single point?
• Does it take too long to read a slide?
• Does it not make you want to read it?
• Does it make you lost when you go off-topic?
• Is information all over the place?
• Is it not precise and to the point?

If “yes” is a response for any of the above questions, it has failed my own personal heuristics for a PowerPoint presentation.

Frankly, only a very small subset of professors that I have had at SFU who used PowerPoints use them effectively. They are meant to provide points of engagement for the presenter to initiate discussion on a certain topic. They should be used to make the listener think, recall, and easily link things together. They should not be used to be the main basis of the entire presentation.

Why do I say that? It’s very simple. For most, something they can see, like words on a wall, catch the eye of the audience more than the words coming out of the speaker. By throwing a bunch of text at the wall, the listeners would try to read all that information instead of the more important part, which is listening to the speaker. Therefore, it makes the entire lecture pointless since it’s all on these slides.

However, when the slides themselves are just stuffed full of information that one cannot make good use of them, it gets silly.

So what makes a good PowerPoint presentation? I try to go by the following:

• Tools >> Custom Animation.. >> Add Effect on text area >> Make it so that points show up one by one. Showing your points one-by-one allows the audience to understand you so much better since they just see a point, take note of it, realize what you are trying to communicate to them about, and then listen.
• Points should be short and to the point. They shouldn’t be completely convoluted. Multiple sentences in one point should not even be seen simply because that’s not even short at all!
• Be dynamic when presenting. Don’t just go idly because that’ll just get people to sleep.

Just to illustrate my point, compare the above set of points with the ones below:

• Make points show up one-by-one
• Do this by adding a custom animation effect on the text area of a slide
• Allows audience to be more receptive to what you say
• Each point should be short and to the point
• No massive blobs of text
• More than one sentence in a point = bad
• Dynamic presentation
• Failure to do so leads to nappers

See the difference proper point placement can make?

I wish they would force people who decide to abuse PowerPoint slides to teach their material to go through a class on doing proper slides before they are allowed to even use it. I’m pretty sure students would be thankful.

In AD 2007, election was beginning..

Captain: “What happen?”

Mechanic: “Someone set up us the election.”

Operator: “We get notice.”

Captain: “What?”

Operator: “Voting booth turn on.”

Captain: “It’s you !!”

Cats: “How are you CSSS !!”

Cats: “All your vote are belong to you.”

Cats: “You are on your way to new executive.”

Captain: “What you say !!”

Cats: “You have much time to vote make your time.”

Cats: “Ha ha ha ha …”

Operator: “Captain !!”

Captain: “Take off every ballot !!”

Captain: “You know what you doing.”

Captain: “Cast ballot.”

Captain: “For great democracy.”

——————————

This random moment brought to you by Dom working the CSSS general election.

Not blogging is the obvious thing.

I have been given temporarily a Nintendo DS Lite from Benton, who tells me to hold onto it so he cannot play and study/do homework better. Thanksfully, since I have kind of given up on giving up games for Lent (well, changed it to reduce playing games for Lent – see later), it actually has been beneficial to have as it helps put me back on track (surprisingly enough) instead of drag me deeper into lack of focus.

I went to Games night last Friday. That wasn’t bad, although I wish I could have stayed longer. I could not do so because there was a church retreat the next day.

The retreat was pretty nice, with the English group speaker being no one other than the recently ordained (one year ago) Fr. Justin Huang, who also went with the SFX/Corpus Christi joint group to World Youth Day 2005 in Germany.

The topic that Fr. Justin talked about can be summed up into how to find happiness in God. It was done in three sessions. The first talk was on things we need to have to be happy, which he called fruits of the Holy Spirit and consist of the following: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chasity.

The next session analyzed why we turn away from God. There are two reasons. The first is obviously sin, which we can resolve by doing a complete and integral confession, which requires one to confess all their mortal sins, along with the number of times the mortal sin was committed. The other cause is disorders in our lives, with the orders being the Four Levels of Happiness. Disorder occurs when either one of the levels are missing or they are sorted in the wrong order.
The final session was one focused on how to turn back to God and, hence, become happy in Christ. Unfortunately, I did not last that long (it was a pretty long day after all) and somewhat dozed off while listening.

After most of the retreat was over, I decided to go to confession. Some things troubled me, such as the burnout stage that happened a while back and my gaming Lenten promise which is in tatters.

It was one of the better confessions I’ve had. It kind of put things back on track, such as how to deal with stress that leads to the eventual burnout and resolving the guilt from breaking the gaming Lenten promise. With some internal searching during confession when Father asked me questions, I realize that I am quite a perfectionist, always wanting to get something exact, which in turn leads to my procrastination, which causes a good chunk of my stress.

To deal with it the stress, Father suggested I go and do something else like go for a walk. He also suggested I take part more in church things. As well, when I asked about how to keep the promise to give up games, it turns out that I only thought too short-sighted and failed to fill in something to the time freed up from giving up games. He, therefore, recommended that I just reduce my gaming time instead of outright outlawing it for Lent, giving my own nature to game.

It’s strange how the better confessions are the ones where I’ve done an examination of conscience with the list of questions to ask myself in front of me and where there was no screen, but a face-to-face one.

But yeah, I certainly feel better now after that and quite refreshed, to say the least. I’ve managed to clear off my JAPN homework stuff this week and actually found time to study for the classes. I guess I could do better with the other classes though, especially CMPT 307. I really should go and talk to Binay, but I’m not really all that sure what part to ask for help with. My problem is that when I look at it, it makes sense for the most part, but when confronted with it in an exam situation, it just does not come out, although I could probably use some help with that recurrence relation stuff.

I’ll see.

And no I don’t mean the game.

Tis the time when stuff starts getting silly and I start to wobble around with how much I am going to care. I don’t know why, but it seems like there’s so much to do that I cannot do schoolwork and such properly anymore.

It started off like an excellent semester. I was on the ball. My homework was done in good time. I actually found time to study Japanese.

I don’t know what happened. Now, every Japanese class starts off with me going “I’m so screwed..”. I don’t have the assignment(s) for the class done, I haven’t studied well, which will hit me most in the quiz marks. For my computing courses, I can’t study properly. My midterm review for both algorithms and networking simply consisted of looking at the stuff. No application of topics. No doing practice test questions, despite the availability of those things.

There’s also Scouts-related stuff. Since I am the group’s contact for PJ ’07, I have to get on the ball on that. Needless to say, I haven’t been on the ball at all with that stuff.

I felt stressed with no way to reduce the stress, given my giving up of gaming for Lent. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and played some Eternal Silence and checked out some Half-Life 2 mods, including Goldeneye: Source and Empires. Guess it was a futile attempt that’s currently toying with my psyche.

At least, despite all this, I started to work on my work assignment.

I need to de-stress some, but not take it to the extreme and slack off and not care for the rest of the semester.

Looks like I’ll be quite busy next week.

I went through co-op intake yesterday. Just a few hours after, I was notified that I have been accepted into the program. Woohoo!

But I probably won’t be applying to stuff until the week afterwards. Lots of stuff to handle next week.

The big events are the CMPT 307 quiz/midterm that’s coming up on Monday and my self-imposed deadline on Wednesday, which I technically have an extension till Thursday now since that is when I am meeting up with my boss to talk about it. But hey, a deadline’s a deadline and it must be kept. Hopefully I’ll be able to work wonders with my time and avoid the distractions to get things working nicely. Something to pray for.

There’s almost a Scout leader’s meeting sometime during the week as well that has yet to be scheduled. I’ll need to throw that into the schedule somewhere once the time’s decided.

According to Timbo, the practice questions for 307 are quite hard. That has me worried a bit. But then, the fact that there isn’t that much time to really study is also worrying. Saturday’s pretty much occupied with WCCCLC training stuff, Sunday morning’s occupied with Mass, and Sunday afternoon with a WCCCLC promotion team meeting, which really means I have a small block of time Friday, a few hours Saturday night, and all Sunday evening to study for this potentially uber-hard quiz. Something else to pray for.

Then mom’s coming home after three weeks in Hong Kong on Tuesday, and she’s bringing home some 香片 (jasmine tea), which makes me a happy camper. I love that stuff. It’s so delicious and fragrant. And she’s got her birthday coming up on Saturday, which means going out for dinner. Thankfully, by that time, the busy week is over, so it’ll be like a cooldown period.

As an aside, Code Geass is awesome. And from what I heard about it from Dan, Afro Samurai sounds pretty ludicrously awesome as well.

How so you might ask? Let’s see here. Besides the fact that Samuel L. Jackson provides the voice of the protagonist, a black samurai with an afro, they have a mix of feudal and modern technologies, one example of which is fully automatic crossbows with RPGs mounted underneath. I think that warrants a WTF.

Well, wish me luck and/or pray for me. I’ll be needing it.