April Fools 2008

I know time and again I've promised my readers something fun to look at, but today, I can't. I just can't. This is for real. I came back yesterday to find my Logitech Elite Keyboard crawling with ants. Loads and loads of ants. They made a bloody nest out of my keyboard. I've sprayed it down with Baygon, attacked it with a vacuum cleaner. Tomorrow, I'm submersing it in water to hopefully clear out any other debris inside - in addition to doing a full disassembly underwater. I'm not kidding when I say someone upstairs decided to wreak havoc with my life the past few days. Ants made a nest in my Logitech Elite keyboard. I got a notice to vacate my apartment. I got sick. I nearly forgot about a friend's birthday - and one of my friend's bags got stolen. It's not disastrous by any benchmark, but it sure as hell is annoying. Something tells me I'm going to get some of my old psychological attacks soon enough - and it's not going to be pretty.

I can't even play much or get much in the way of pranks since I don't have uni tomorrow. Grr.

Since I'm in a foul mood today and in no mood to do pranks, let's take at look at the two previous 1st Aprils this blog has seen. The first was 1st April 2005. For that, I posted a false text about nothing much that nobody would believe. I wasn't aiming for a prank, it was just something I wanted to do. Nearly everything I wrote in there was BS.

Then came 1st April 2006. I had a cool prank planned out - but Arrow on Swanston's internet service just conked out - and I wasn't going to post my prank late to be ridiculed. I have since forgotten the prank I wanted to do - and thinking about it, I probably didn't remember it because it wasn't that good. Chewxy did a good prank - although he didn't quite get the ending right - it was hilarious.

After that was 1st April 2007. I posted real tidbits of my false memories. I think they are false, of course, but there's no denying they exist - and those I wrote there I got maybe 7 to 8 years ago. Past a certain point, I got fewer of them, but recently, they've been coming back. I guess pushing the creative side of my brain triggers my imagination to leak into my memory.

And then, we have this year. I am without stable accomodation for the rest of the year. In addition, my favourite keyboard of all time got infested with ants (and their queen). I'm unhappy. I suppose that's OK. My birthday's tomorrow - and while I haven't mentioned it on my blog - some things have been changed a lot in the past year. I won't reflect on them now - expect that once I've either outgrown my delusions - or confirmed their authenticity. Until then, may you have a Happy April Fools' Day - I'm going to go back to being angry.

The Tasks I Set Out to Do

I realise I'm quite fond of revisiting old posts, so here I am, posting again as a revisit. If you remember, two weeks ago, I posted this. So, how much of that have I done?

1. Get tertiary newspaper cards - got 'em both last week, The Age card on Monday, Herald Sun card on Wednesday.

2. Get copies of my academic transcript - got 'em two weeks ago. All the applications for the latest deadlines have been sent out. Sadly, I think I didn't get much feedback or response. :(

3. Update my blog - well, how many posts have you seen since then?

4. Raid Big W/Safeway - I raided Big W and Safeway roughly 8 times in the past two weeks.

5. Think about getting a new computer - I decided against it eventually in favour of saving the money for something else (people who know me already know what). I realise I only want it to play StarCraft II, so I'll get one when StarCraft II does come out.

6. Visit the bank - got my new card, and I'm bloody happy with it. It looks cooler, and does so much more for me.

Well, I thought I'd miss certain things, but I didn't. That being said, the movement of my Wii into my room has increased my usage of it somewhat. (Maybe an hour or two per week, instead of never.) I'm gaming a lot more regularly, and I have had significant shorter amounts of dead time for the past few weeks.

While I now have more free time and less hours of uni per week, looks like I can look forward to a very very enjoyable year, be it study, work, or play.

The Degeneration of Diligence

Week 1:Do every tutorial question and reading as soon as possible. No funny business.

Week 2: Do every tutorial question and reading after the last lecture of the week.

Week 3: Do every tutorial question and reading during the weekend.

Week 4: Do every tutorial question before tutorials.

Week 5: Finish as many tutorial questions as possible in the one hour before the tutorial.

Week 6: Do tutorial questions while waiting for the tutor to arrive.

Week 7: Copy down answers from tutor and do questions afterwards.

Week 8: Forget about copying answers and doing questions, and wait for answers to be posted online.

Week 9: Decide to download answers next week.

Week 10: Decide to put off downloading answers (including last week's to next week.

Week 11: Decide to put off downloading lecture slides, readings and tutorials until end of the semester.

Week 12: Panic because exam is in 9 days.

My Third Year of University Begins Today!

And so begins my third year of university. Today. The first day of what is possibly my last year in the University of Melbourne. Oh, how quick time passes when you aren't looking. Here's what I have to do today besides go for class: 1. Get tertiary newspaper cards - since I wasn't in Melbourne during 'O' Week, I'll need to get my newspaper cards today. I'm not really interested in news and current affairs, but a newspaper is a good distraction from my daily life. I don't know how under a rock I would've been without the newspaper, especially since I dont' watch much television.

2. Get copies of my academic transcript! - I need copies of my transcript to try applying for jobs! I'm just applying this time round to gauge the jobs available to me this time round, but I still need a copy of that transcript to send off. Either way, I hope to find a suitable part time job this year, and do something useful with any extra time I have (if any).

3. Update my blog - I'm obviously already doing this now by posting this (but this is a scheduled post).

4. Raid Big W/Safeway - I always need to restock on stuff when I get back - and there's no day like Monday when all the offers are new and stuff is still in stock - unlike later in the week when everyone else has grabbed all the real good offers off the shelves.

5. Think about getting a new computer - I've already been thinking about getting the processing power I need, more now than ever before since I want to start programming more seriously and do more with my computer, I need to start looking for a more powerful processor that'll do what I need it to do. My PowerBook is enough for some work, but it's beginning to show its age when it comes to doing more taxing tasks.

6. Visit the bank - NAB has a new student account, and it might be a good idea for me to see if I can upgrade or just open a new account. A free Visa debit card seems like a good thing to have around (compared to my now generic NAB Flexicard).

Lots to do, and only so few days to do it!

Oh yeah, and something to add to my new year's resolution's list: Play loads of games - while still handling uni work well, as I've been doing somewhat OK the past years.

Switching of Schedule - And About Wasting Time

Obviously, a daily schedule doesn't fit one who procastinates like me. While I did like posting something every day for a week or two, as with every time I start such a stint, I already know I can't keep it up for very long, even if I wanted to. For the foreseeable future, I'll try to keep to a long post every three days, so that I post at least ten posts a month. In truth, I could keep up the daily rant thing, but I figure that I shouldn't. Number one - I'm unfortunately someone who easily succumbs to writer's block, and literally can't write anything for long periods of time. Number two - I'm going to be busy soon. I'm involved with SIFE, an unnamed project, and a new section of the cfgt.net site (from the looks of it, it'll have some kind of story going - still part of my Fantasy of War ;) ).

This is not even taking into account my university work (bound to pile up since this year is supposed to be a difficult and challenging year), my gaming (required to keep me sane) and constant long periods of zero productivity of any sort. I'm trying to cut off those long periods of doing nothing, but I get them a lot. There are just those times when you feel like doing something, just not programming, not studying, not blogging, not gaming, not watching anime, not watching reality shows, not watching TV, but just sitting around chatting with people online, surfing the net for funnies or even doing research on something you're ultimately not going to buy.

This waste of time ultimately hurts me - but is somehow necessary. I've been trying to cut it down since last year, but with no success - my consoles are a good example of this attempt, as well as my reentry into programming. While I have cut into it somewhat significantly, there are still a good number of spoilt days (usually due to classes being in strange gaps). I'm hoping the section of the site will soon remedy that, since I intend to work on it in those strange gaps - in addition to the now new music games filling in those gaps (being the only games I don't have to get into a particular mood to play).

While I can't truly be considered a procrastinator, since I plan my work very well. I've never actually had to rush for a deadline before, and I do work in chunks what I'm never interested enough to do in one shot. I even plan days around those last few days when my motivation to finish the assignment takes over to be free of any other distractions - or if there are those I can't avoid - enough time to do it anyway.

I've realised after so long that I enjoy doing computer work. Programming is really fun for me - and I'm good at it. I love putting parts together and getting them to work - be it software or hardware. Problems and puzzles while trying to solve problems interest me greatly, and I now realise that I could've gone and studied IT. Years ago, I was afraid that I'd end up doing nothing but massive amounts of coding - and what if at some point, that became deathly boring? Now, I'm a little more certain that boredom won't be too much of a problem. If at some point, I fail to shave off more dead time, I'll consider picking up a more intensive programming project - and if I do, expect it to be the battle system for the Fantasy of War!