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Don't say I don't update lar.

It is now the fourth week into the semester. It is true that this semester feels different than the previous semesters. Maybe it is the fact that we are now Second Year Students, thus getting a Senior status among the younger students? Or is it the freak showers that keep happening at the oddest of times? Perhaps it is the slight metal tinge in the Swinburne air lately? I don't know.

But when the first math class of the semester begins by having your lecturer emphasizing to you the importance of the FIFTEEN-PAGE FORMULA BOOK SHEET, you know that this semester is unlike any other.

As my friends (here and here) have mentioned, things are picking up quickly. Classes are in full swing, assignments are being handed out like brochure-under-the-wipers, deadlines rushing towards me like a Mat Rempit on a roadkill session and quizzes/tests are looming around every dark corner, always trying to catch me with my pants down. I don't remember any semesters where things get busy so quickly.

That almost happened yesterday. There was a replacement class for Engineering Math 3C yesterday, and the teacher told us beforehand that there will be a quiz at the end of the class. She told us it would be an open book test so I didn't really prepare for it. I was busy with my town planning project the night before anyways. Kinda serves me right la 'cos when I got the quiz paper, I almost couldn't do it. I had to make THREE attempts before I got the final answer -_-" Pants down, indeed.

When was this taken? Looks like math class

Side tracking here. You know how we used to work hard on a question to get the answer? In more advanced math (it starts at Form 4), it usually works the other way around. The final answer is given, and you have to PROVE that 'something' equals to that answer. And when your fourth attempt still churns out the wrong answer and there's five minutes left to the end of the test, you KNOW that you are six feet under a pile of shit. For those of you who have just stepped into this new world, you WILL learn to fear the words 'prove' and 'show'.

And of course there are the other subjects to tend to. Topographical Engineering (fancy name for Surveying) has been fun. It teaches us surveying techniques - how, in conjunction with basic trigo knowledge, basic surveying equipment can be used to produce a map of an area. One funny thing. The lab where all the equipment is stored is equipped with state-of-the-art stuff: compression test machines, tensile test thingies, truss internal force readers, etc. However, in the entire high tech lab, there's only ONE HAMMER. Mesin besar pakai potong besi ada, tukul biasa sik ada??!

Sharing one hammer between three teams is very troublesome. So we went back to our roots. Back to lessons learnt from our ancient ancients.

Use a rock! Hehe...

As for Computer Aided Engineering, assignments are given out in twos. Currently, there's the housing estate planning thing, and the Matlab program to write. Special mention must go to that Matlab assignment. I made some amendments to my code yesterday, but the program did not work the way it was supposed to. I scanned all 100+ lines of code several times and after one hour plus of mata juling-ness... I found an extra letter 'n' in it -_-"

And Structural Mechanics? I've sort of neglected it since Week Two. Hahaha!

Did you realize? There's not much point to this post. I guess I am just trying to justify my not updating my blog for over a month =P