UQ-Who?

Thursday, September 12th, 2002 | University | 2 Comments

It all started with a curious note passed to me by my lecturer.
“I have an oppertunity to put in front of you”

It compounded when I found out what the oppertunity was. I had the chance to present my dissertation in front of a room full of professionals, competing against three other students from other universities around S.E.Queensland.

Richard from QUT.
Craig from UQ.
Blake from GU.
Doyle from USQ, a ranked outsider who had to travel three times as far as everybody else.

I was the only Engineering Girl there, however, I wasn’t complaining. The other three students were not hard on the eyes, and I suspect that I would have lingered longer had it not been for the huge drive home. Indeed, I am now cursing myself for not getting a few email addresses while I had the chance.

The presentations themselves were fairly interesting, Digital Watermarking, Software Monitoring and Symbol Recognition. My humble TCP/IP entry seemed to be one of the dullest by comparison, however the old gents in their shorts and long socks managed to find it in their hearts to award me with second place.

Not too bad, seeing as 1st place (QUT) had already graduated and was now tutoring full time.

So, now I sit here. The day after the night before. I passed into a semi-coma after I got home and raided the fridge. Woke up at 1pm. Surely a record, even for me.

Apparently an email zipped around the Engineering Department, and now Varnsey (Mr HaveAChat) is excitedly planning some form of celebration which involves the class throwing/pouring/splashing me with some substance.

Should I be scared?
Well, I should be, if only I could stop smiling.

Butterflies like Rhino’s

Wednesday, September 11th, 2002 | University | 1 Comment

Ok, somewhat jumpy at the minute.
I’ve just rehersed my presentation about 6 times. Each time, I’m about 2 minutes shorter than when I did it for real back in May. How can that be? Surely, in 5 months, I’ve learnt more about TCP/IP than I care to tell you about. Why cant I put all these techno-thoughts into words?

This is not good news.

“The selected students are expected to present a 20minute (maximum) seminar on their final year thesis topic.”

*gulp*
I’m kicking along around 14 minutes. I need to find something to yap on about… I need to regain my fantastic bullshit ability so that I can stand up in front of all those people and spin some finely detailed crap.

See, Dad’s great at this sort of thing. Dad could bullshit his way out of just about anything. He’d be able to take my slides, with zero prep time, and STILL manage to charm the pants off the judges…. I only hope that genetics counts for something.

*drops to knees*
Please, Dubya Bush, please, oh High King of all bullshit artists. Grant me the strength to overcome my silent tongue, and the cunning to get away with it until I can get out of the building.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Monday, September 9th, 2002 | University | No Comments

What you want, baby I got it
What you need, you know I got it
All I’m asking is for a little respect.

In the imortal lyrics of Aretha Franklin, Respect the Geek, yo. More importantly, I must respect myself and respect my own physical limits.

This weekend was a godsend. I needed the time off to read fiction, to watch telly, to write a bit more of the “Coffee” series and to cook dinner in my own time. Now that its 12.43am on Monday morning, I’m feeling much more human.

I read “Son of Shadows” by Juliet Mariller and have restored my faith in the human spirit. Yes! There is a reason why I’m half killing myself. Yes! There is a valid idea that I’m trying to get accross with my thesis. Yes! I am going to be better off for it. And damn, if that doesn’t make me wanna jump up and dance.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.

Holy Shit

Friday, September 6th, 2002 | University | No Comments

I’ve done no work.

Where did the past 6 mths go?

I’ve done no work.

I’ve been sitting here…. right here on this chair… plowing
through the ENDLESS SHIT that my computer has thrown at me. I’ve
struggled with so much of the code that it seems like I’ve been
taking one step forward, one step backward and done a little dance
on the spot.

The code that I have could have been created in a week by somebody
who actually had a clue. Me? Well… its taken me all fucking
year. I’ve sacrificed my life completely for this computer, to
get zero result.

I’ve got nothing to show for my time aside from about 50 broken *.c files
(and two *.h) that don’t do an incredible amount.

Sure, they pipe data through an external null modem connected to
my serial ports. Do you think they pump _usefull_ data? Ha. Not
a fucking chance…

I can form a single packet, with ETH/TCP/IP headers, but can I do
anything with it? Well… I can break it… effectively…. many
different ways…. useful? hardly.

So, I’m slowly going insane, as tomorrow my project dissertation
abstract is due. What do I write for the conclusion?

4.0 Conclusion I am a braidead numbscull who has nothing to show
for all her time that she’s wasted on this project.

Doyle, signing off amidst a cloud of stress vapour.

If I told you, I’d have to kill you.

Wednesday, August 21st, 2002 | University | No Comments

Kill you. Deep fry you and serve you with baby carrots and barbeque sauce.

I have just entered the realm of the uniquely disturbed. In a very interesting way.
It involves Engineers, secret notes, deliverys and a really strange request for 24 hours of silence on my behalf. Silence? Like I could ever be totally silent. As my unquietness is well known to all, i’ve decided to enter all this information into this sterling piece of neo-journalism called my blog. In fact, without revealing actually what it is that I’m talking about, I can only really tell you that I’m BLOODY EXCITED, and nervous as hell….

I have class in an hour, however, my thoughts are bouncing from one end of the spectrum to the other. Will keep you posted. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I’ll be able to jump about and hug everybody, revealing my obtuse secrets with a little more clarity.

Til then, bloggy.

14 weeks to go.

Wednesday, August 14th, 2002 | University | No Comments

Well, life as we know it is about to change.

I’m going to graduate this institute of imbeciles in 14 weeks. Just (14×7) 98 days.
*cue stress attack*
I have so much work to do before then, and so very little motivation to get it completed.

For instance, Web Publishing C2406. I am here in the very first tutorial that I have ever attended. In itself that is a huge feat of dedication and motivation, however, once I arrive I realise that I’m probably the only person who has ever voluntarily played with CSS or Apache for the sake of interest. Thus, I am now sitting here in this tutorial playing with all the funky things in the CSS documentation that will never be covered within the scope of this unit.

I didn’t realise that CSS could do all kinds of funky things with images. I just assumed that all the cool tricks I had seen were some kind of HTML trickery… Oh well. I guess this is yet another way for me to spend my prescious time, when I should be doing my project.

TCP/IP anybody?

Eh.
I dont know whether to be frigtened or really really excited.
Doyle