I plan for failure, I plan very very well for failure.
My Day.
When I was a kid I did Tournament of Minds, some people who read this blog might remember it. You'd have a problem and you'd have a few weeks to come up with a solution and then act it out based on the criteria provided. The science and engineering(Math and Engineering back then) problem was always the tricky one, because you had to build something and make it work using a limited amount of material and stuff and even if it worked at school you'd never be 100% it would work on the day.
This is why when we had to build something I insisted that the script reflect the possibility of failure. Because it could fail and it would suck if it did but at least we'd have an option instead of looking stupid while the thing didn't work. I always planned for failure whenever it was a possibility. No other team I've ever encountered in years of doing ToM or Optiminds as its called now has ever taken such a position and it can cost them because you look foolish trying to improv an explanation.
My point is that I had a post ready for today if I failed my assignment and wasn't going to graduate, I was ready to write it all up, about how I'll just graduate in December, eighteen months later than I had planned originally instead of just a year later, about how I deserved to fail because I waited until the last minute to get everything done and all the usual things I think when I'm worried about an assignment.
Hell most of my assignments over the last two years I did on the last night possible, usually staying up until 3am-4am to get them finished and then passing out for two days afterwards. I get most of the research done long in advance and get my outlines written out and then populating the actual essays or reports can just drag on. I work best when I have a deadline I've found. Most of the entries I've written this month have come at around 11pm every night. Mostly because that is the only time I usually have to myself most nights.
The long and short of this is: I passed my last assignment, near as I can tell I'm graduating in a few weeks. I found out when I went to Indro this morning to get some curry for breakfast after soccer. Which leads me to what I did today:
I woke up late, because soccer was only ten minutes drive away I figured I could be a bit late for once and slept in until 9am, but I took a bit longer to get ready because I had to take both uniforms with me to the game(green and white uniforms) because the team we were playing have a green and white striped uniform now instead of the old blue and yellow one they used to have.
I got to the game and it was already underway, it was also raining, so I changed clothes(I thought we would go green, we went white) and put my shoes on and ran pretty much straight into the game. We only had nine guys on the field at this point(I was number ten).
The next thirty minutes were a bit of a blur, I did pretty well and we were really going great in our communication and talking to each other every few seconds to make sure that no-one was going to get through. The team we were playing had 14 players there today and so they had three substitutes to our zero, but a couple of their better players seemed to be missing so they weren't as good as they usually are. The rains kept coming down on us all morning as eventually we got our eleventh player just before halftime. We were actually winning 2-0 at this point and the second half we were starting to get tired and worn out. But we held on and kept ourselves on top for a 3-1 victory. Which was good.
After that I went to Indro and got myself a curry. Except as I was walking into Indro I remembered that I had my email page up and open at home waiting for an email from my professor about my last assignment. I pulled out my phone and checked my email, except the Gmail application on my Android phone is SERIOUSLY THE WORST EMAIL THING EVER MADE FOR A PHONE, because it tells you you have an unread email in your inbox... but doesn't let you see that email. You have to go to "All Mail" to access it for some reason. I need to dump this phone. I really really do.
So I checked my email and found I'd passed so I'm graduating soonish. Which is nice.
The first person I got to tell was the lady waiting for a curry with me because I just had to tell someone as soon as I could.
I ate my curry and then went home to tell my parents, they were happy and wanted to have something special for dinner tonight, but I was planning on seeing Man of Steel so I told them not to bother, to wait until my actual graduation day because thats the one I want to celebrate on.
After I got home I pretty much just stayed happy for about two hours and then went to see Man of Steel at around 3pm. It was a pretty decent movie, I liked how it carved its own version of the origin story out and for the most part it worked pretty well. Some small flaws here and there but I'm positive the next movie might be even better, so that's good news.
After that I came home, had sausages for dinner, really really badly cooked sausages. And then sat down to watch Pure Pwnage on iView, the TV show is seriously better than the webshow which went just a bit off the rails when it gave everyone super-powers out of no-where. The TV show was much more grounded and I liked it a hell of a lot more.
Goals for the Year.
I've decided to set myself some goals for the year because I read my last entry from last year and it didn't really say anything about what I was planning for the rest of the year. My original plan last year was to Graduate back in December(because I had friends graduating then, it would have been nice to graduate with my friends for once, maybe I'll pull it off for my next degree in 2018(I seem to do another degree every five years)).
June a Month in Review.
This month was a bit madder than usual. Usually I have a few assignments here and there and I can work around them, this month I had a behemoth of a thing I had to get done and not much time to do it in(only 27 days to do about 20 hours of work? IMPOSSIBLE!). I think I had an overall interesting month, I rode my bike when I could, I wrote a lot of things, I cooked stuff I hadn't tried before. Things went good and some things went badly but overall I think it was a good month. I hope everyone else had as good a June as I did. Or better really.
An asterix indicates I went to a library that day. I went to libraries on 11 days this month.
Sat. 1. I helped a friend move house and went to a child's birthday party.
Topic: The Last eleven months.
Sun. 2. I drew in soccer and went to look at a property.(*)
Topic: Short Story Sunday: All Bad Things come in Three.
Mon. 3. I had a steak dinner and went on a walk.
Topic: Things I Treasure: My Notebooks.
Tues. 4. I met a girl walking her dog behind my house and rode my bike to my brothers house.
Topic: Things I treasure: My Comic Book Collection.
Wed. 5. My friend Julia got a job at ALIA NSW, I cleaned the dust out of my computer, my younger brother had a birthday and the internet died.(*)
Topic: Things I treasure: The Wardrobe.
Thurs. 6. My bike died, I bought Comic Books, did some soccer training, I made a curry and rode 25kms somehow.
Topic: No topic that day because of bike death.
Fri. 7. The 2 key on my Laptop broke. Riveting stuff.
Topic: Things I Treasure: My Laptop. AND Things I Treasure: My Social Media.
Sat. 8. Went to Kelvin Grove Library, saw people lining up for Nickleback tickets in the City. Didn't buy things at the markets.(*)
Topic: Things I Treasure: The Painting, my Trophy and my Bike.
Sun. 9. Drove to the Airport, watered the horses, saw some music at a charity fete and walked the dogs with my brother.
Topic: Short Story Sundy: The Very Quiet Young Ladies Guide to Multiple Personalities. Part 1.
Mon. 10. Put stuff in my dogs eye, got rained on, had steak.
Topic: I like Writing But...
Tues. 11. Australia beat Jordan in soccer, I read about some guy shooting homeless people with a bow and arrow. (*)
Topic: Kokoda presentation for my Eportfolio.
Wed. 12. I got a free coke, watered the horses in the rain, had a journalist over for dinner and cut my brothers toenails.
Topic: ePortfolio: Radical Information Theory Seminar.
Thurs. 13. I waited for an hour at the airport for my parents and bought some comic books.
Topic: Self Censorship.
Fri. 14. I missed out on a job fair at Ipswich and got attacked by the failure of my password at QUT.(*)
Topic: One Copy only and its on an antique computer somewhere and they aren't allowed to copy it.
Sat. 15. A flat tyre ruins a perfectly good bike ride, I run into a bunch of bushwalkers for charity and my bike went missing for the first half of the day for some reason.
Topic: ePortfolio: Alia Online Conference 2013 Reflection.
Sun. 16. Lost at Soccer 7-2, got Meatballs at IKEA, went to my cousins baby's 1st birthday party, my dads horses got loose and I slept in a room with a window open.
Topic: Short Story Sunday: The Red Line.
Mon. 17. I took my table to pieces, I rode a bike around for no reason, Subway now shuts at 9pm not 9:30pm and I fell asleep at the kitchen table while typing the daily blog entry.
Topic: No Entry because I fell asleep.
Tues. 18. Australia beat Iraq, making it impossible for me to concentrate on my blogging, I assembled a shelf and I rode my bike to Matts house.
Topic: My Pile of Shame AND ePortfolio: SLQ preservation lab tour reflection.
Wed. 19. I was held up at the doctors for an hour, was told to stop cycling everywhere, got weighed, made Goulash and helped my dad get some ink for a printer.
Topic: State Library of QLD. John oxley Branch Blog Reflection.
Thurs. 20. I skipped soccer training, didn't finish my reflection and might have been caught speeding.
Topic: LinkedIn Profile Reflection.
Fri. 21. Was woken up by a small fire, had trouble breathing for an hour because of smoke, lost my ePortfolio in the latest redesign of QUTs website and went to a birthday party at an Italian restaurant. (*)
Topic: No Topic because of party.
Sat. 22. Took a taxi to my car, Went to a House Warming, Discovered it isn't called Mold wine, watched Australia lose to the Lions, got caught in the traffic jam after the game and began to realise I was in the crunch of this degree.(*)
Topic: No topic because of three parties.
Sun. 23. We won at Soccer 3-0, I fell over, drove to QUT Kelvin Grove because taking a railbus always gets me angry and then had dumplings for dinner.(*)
Topic: Short Story Sunday: He's an unpopular Group of People
Mon. 24. Realised I was a day behind on my work, wasted hours on playing Command and Conquer because I'm an idiot.
Topic: Nothing done, total write-off(I think I actually did some work but didn't post it)
Tues. 25. Lost my car keys, counted every coin I owned($175.85), watched Good Game's E3 special, did more ePortfolio stuff, probably the Logan Library feedback forms and packed enough clothes at my brothers house for the rest of the week..
Topic: Living in the Crunch.
Wed. 26. We got a new PM, literally any other year I'd write a few thousand words about it but I didn't have the energy to write on it and keep going with my ePortfolio. (*)
Topic: I feel like I just lived through an Aaron Sorkin TV episode set in Australia.
Thurs. 27. Assignment Due Date, woke up, had a cry, went to the library, didn't go to soccer training.(*)
Topic: Shortest Blog entry I've ever done.
Fri. 28. Missed the train, had lunch with a mate of mine, couldn't get a carpark at Indro, bought my brother a birthday present and just passed out alseep.(*)
Topic: Twitter, why I don't use it very much.
Sat. 29. Had a panic attack on discovering my ePortfolio didn't automatically send itself to my supervisor, had stomach cramps from what I thought was stress but was likely the chocolate diet I'd lived off for the last week, got my grandfathers dog to sleep in my room, celebrated my brothers birthday.
Topic: I wrote 70,022 words in a month. Sadly its 30,000 short of my goal, mostly because my assignment in the middle just threw everything off.
Sun. 30. We won 3-1 at soccer, I saw Man of Steel. Also I'm going to graduate next month.
Topic: Short Story Sunday: The Very Quiet Young Ladies Guide to Multiple Personalities Part 2.
The Very Quiet Young Ladies Guide to Multiple Personalities.
If you can see this it means I'm still writing the entry. But wanted to actually get this last post in before midnight.
YouTube Clip of the Day.
I had this song in my head all day.
When I was a kid I did Tournament of Minds, some people who read this blog might remember it. You'd have a problem and you'd have a few weeks to come up with a solution and then act it out based on the criteria provided. The science and engineering(Math and Engineering back then) problem was always the tricky one, because you had to build something and make it work using a limited amount of material and stuff and even if it worked at school you'd never be 100% it would work on the day.
This is why when we had to build something I insisted that the script reflect the possibility of failure. Because it could fail and it would suck if it did but at least we'd have an option instead of looking stupid while the thing didn't work. I always planned for failure whenever it was a possibility. No other team I've ever encountered in years of doing ToM or Optiminds as its called now has ever taken such a position and it can cost them because you look foolish trying to improv an explanation.
My point is that I had a post ready for today if I failed my assignment and wasn't going to graduate, I was ready to write it all up, about how I'll just graduate in December, eighteen months later than I had planned originally instead of just a year later, about how I deserved to fail because I waited until the last minute to get everything done and all the usual things I think when I'm worried about an assignment.
Hell most of my assignments over the last two years I did on the last night possible, usually staying up until 3am-4am to get them finished and then passing out for two days afterwards. I get most of the research done long in advance and get my outlines written out and then populating the actual essays or reports can just drag on. I work best when I have a deadline I've found. Most of the entries I've written this month have come at around 11pm every night. Mostly because that is the only time I usually have to myself most nights.
The long and short of this is: I passed my last assignment, near as I can tell I'm graduating in a few weeks. I found out when I went to Indro this morning to get some curry for breakfast after soccer. Which leads me to what I did today:
I woke up late, because soccer was only ten minutes drive away I figured I could be a bit late for once and slept in until 9am, but I took a bit longer to get ready because I had to take both uniforms with me to the game(green and white uniforms) because the team we were playing have a green and white striped uniform now instead of the old blue and yellow one they used to have.
I got to the game and it was already underway, it was also raining, so I changed clothes(I thought we would go green, we went white) and put my shoes on and ran pretty much straight into the game. We only had nine guys on the field at this point(I was number ten).
The next thirty minutes were a bit of a blur, I did pretty well and we were really going great in our communication and talking to each other every few seconds to make sure that no-one was going to get through. The team we were playing had 14 players there today and so they had three substitutes to our zero, but a couple of their better players seemed to be missing so they weren't as good as they usually are. The rains kept coming down on us all morning as eventually we got our eleventh player just before halftime. We were actually winning 2-0 at this point and the second half we were starting to get tired and worn out. But we held on and kept ourselves on top for a 3-1 victory. Which was good.
After that I went to Indro and got myself a curry. Except as I was walking into Indro I remembered that I had my email page up and open at home waiting for an email from my professor about my last assignment. I pulled out my phone and checked my email, except the Gmail application on my Android phone is SERIOUSLY THE WORST EMAIL THING EVER MADE FOR A PHONE, because it tells you you have an unread email in your inbox... but doesn't let you see that email. You have to go to "All Mail" to access it for some reason. I need to dump this phone. I really really do.
So I checked my email and found I'd passed so I'm graduating soonish. Which is nice.
The first person I got to tell was the lady waiting for a curry with me because I just had to tell someone as soon as I could.
I ate my curry and then went home to tell my parents, they were happy and wanted to have something special for dinner tonight, but I was planning on seeing Man of Steel so I told them not to bother, to wait until my actual graduation day because thats the one I want to celebrate on.
After I got home I pretty much just stayed happy for about two hours and then went to see Man of Steel at around 3pm. It was a pretty decent movie, I liked how it carved its own version of the origin story out and for the most part it worked pretty well. Some small flaws here and there but I'm positive the next movie might be even better, so that's good news.
After that I came home, had sausages for dinner, really really badly cooked sausages. And then sat down to watch Pure Pwnage on iView, the TV show is seriously better than the webshow which went just a bit off the rails when it gave everyone super-powers out of no-where. The TV show was much more grounded and I liked it a hell of a lot more.
Goals for the Year.
I've decided to set myself some goals for the year because I read my last entry from last year and it didn't really say anything about what I was planning for the rest of the year. My original plan last year was to Graduate back in December(because I had friends graduating then, it would have been nice to graduate with my friends for once, maybe I'll pull it off for my next degree in 2018(I seem to do another degree every five years)).
- Walk the El Camino De Santiago. about 800kms across Spain.
Get a job in a library somewhere. - Keep that job for at least a few months.
- Go to the US for a wedding, stay about a week in Portland, Oregon.
- I wouldn't mind one of those girlfriend things I've heard about in the storys on the Television.
- Finish at least one of my novels.
- Save up enough cash to start thinking about moving out of my parents house.
- Cycle over 100kms in a week(current best is about 70kms).
- Go to the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.
- Survive Christmas.
- Survive my 31st Birthday party.
- Stay out at least once this year at a party or pub and be the last person to go home.
- Graduate and get some photos this time. Last time was horrible, my father took the photos and everyone of them was ruined because he didn't understand how digital cameras work.
- Visit and photograph as many libraries as I can along the El Camino.
June a Month in Review.
This month was a bit madder than usual. Usually I have a few assignments here and there and I can work around them, this month I had a behemoth of a thing I had to get done and not much time to do it in(only 27 days to do about 20 hours of work? IMPOSSIBLE!). I think I had an overall interesting month, I rode my bike when I could, I wrote a lot of things, I cooked stuff I hadn't tried before. Things went good and some things went badly but overall I think it was a good month. I hope everyone else had as good a June as I did. Or better really.
An asterix indicates I went to a library that day. I went to libraries on 11 days this month.
Sat. 1. I helped a friend move house and went to a child's birthday party.
Topic: The Last eleven months.
Sun. 2. I drew in soccer and went to look at a property.(*)
Topic: Short Story Sunday: All Bad Things come in Three.
Mon. 3. I had a steak dinner and went on a walk.
Topic: Things I Treasure: My Notebooks.
Tues. 4. I met a girl walking her dog behind my house and rode my bike to my brothers house.
Topic: Things I treasure: My Comic Book Collection.
Wed. 5. My friend Julia got a job at ALIA NSW, I cleaned the dust out of my computer, my younger brother had a birthday and the internet died.(*)
Topic: Things I treasure: The Wardrobe.
Thurs. 6. My bike died, I bought Comic Books, did some soccer training, I made a curry and rode 25kms somehow.
Topic: No topic that day because of bike death.
Fri. 7. The 2 key on my Laptop broke. Riveting stuff.
Topic: Things I Treasure: My Laptop. AND Things I Treasure: My Social Media.
Sat. 8. Went to Kelvin Grove Library, saw people lining up for Nickleback tickets in the City. Didn't buy things at the markets.(*)
Topic: Things I Treasure: The Painting, my Trophy and my Bike.
Sun. 9. Drove to the Airport, watered the horses, saw some music at a charity fete and walked the dogs with my brother.
Topic: Short Story Sundy: The Very Quiet Young Ladies Guide to Multiple Personalities. Part 1.
Mon. 10. Put stuff in my dogs eye, got rained on, had steak.
Topic: I like Writing But...
Tues. 11. Australia beat Jordan in soccer, I read about some guy shooting homeless people with a bow and arrow. (*)
Topic: Kokoda presentation for my Eportfolio.
Wed. 12. I got a free coke, watered the horses in the rain, had a journalist over for dinner and cut my brothers toenails.
Topic: ePortfolio: Radical Information Theory Seminar.
Thurs. 13. I waited for an hour at the airport for my parents and bought some comic books.
Topic: Self Censorship.
Fri. 14. I missed out on a job fair at Ipswich and got attacked by the failure of my password at QUT.(*)
Topic: One Copy only and its on an antique computer somewhere and they aren't allowed to copy it.
Sat. 15. A flat tyre ruins a perfectly good bike ride, I run into a bunch of bushwalkers for charity and my bike went missing for the first half of the day for some reason.
Topic: ePortfolio: Alia Online Conference 2013 Reflection.
Sun. 16. Lost at Soccer 7-2, got Meatballs at IKEA, went to my cousins baby's 1st birthday party, my dads horses got loose and I slept in a room with a window open.
Topic: Short Story Sunday: The Red Line.
Mon. 17. I took my table to pieces, I rode a bike around for no reason, Subway now shuts at 9pm not 9:30pm and I fell asleep at the kitchen table while typing the daily blog entry.
Topic: No Entry because I fell asleep.
Tues. 18. Australia beat Iraq, making it impossible for me to concentrate on my blogging, I assembled a shelf and I rode my bike to Matts house.
Topic: My Pile of Shame AND ePortfolio: SLQ preservation lab tour reflection.
Wed. 19. I was held up at the doctors for an hour, was told to stop cycling everywhere, got weighed, made Goulash and helped my dad get some ink for a printer.
Topic: State Library of QLD. John oxley Branch Blog Reflection.
Thurs. 20. I skipped soccer training, didn't finish my reflection and might have been caught speeding.
Topic: LinkedIn Profile Reflection.
Fri. 21. Was woken up by a small fire, had trouble breathing for an hour because of smoke, lost my ePortfolio in the latest redesign of QUTs website and went to a birthday party at an Italian restaurant. (*)
Topic: No Topic because of party.
Sat. 22. Took a taxi to my car, Went to a House Warming, Discovered it isn't called Mold wine, watched Australia lose to the Lions, got caught in the traffic jam after the game and began to realise I was in the crunch of this degree.(*)
Topic: No topic because of three parties.
Sun. 23. We won at Soccer 3-0, I fell over, drove to QUT Kelvin Grove because taking a railbus always gets me angry and then had dumplings for dinner.(*)
Topic: Short Story Sunday: He's an unpopular Group of People
Mon. 24. Realised I was a day behind on my work, wasted hours on playing Command and Conquer because I'm an idiot.
Topic: Nothing done, total write-off(I think I actually did some work but didn't post it)
Tues. 25. Lost my car keys, counted every coin I owned($175.85), watched Good Game's E3 special, did more ePortfolio stuff, probably the Logan Library feedback forms and packed enough clothes at my brothers house for the rest of the week..
Topic: Living in the Crunch.
Wed. 26. We got a new PM, literally any other year I'd write a few thousand words about it but I didn't have the energy to write on it and keep going with my ePortfolio. (*)
Topic: I feel like I just lived through an Aaron Sorkin TV episode set in Australia.
Thurs. 27. Assignment Due Date, woke up, had a cry, went to the library, didn't go to soccer training.(*)
Topic: Shortest Blog entry I've ever done.
Fri. 28. Missed the train, had lunch with a mate of mine, couldn't get a carpark at Indro, bought my brother a birthday present and just passed out alseep.(*)
Topic: Twitter, why I don't use it very much.
Sat. 29. Had a panic attack on discovering my ePortfolio didn't automatically send itself to my supervisor, had stomach cramps from what I thought was stress but was likely the chocolate diet I'd lived off for the last week, got my grandfathers dog to sleep in my room, celebrated my brothers birthday.
Topic: I wrote 70,022 words in a month. Sadly its 30,000 short of my goal, mostly because my assignment in the middle just threw everything off.
Sun. 30. We won 3-1 at soccer, I saw Man of Steel. Also I'm going to graduate next month.
Topic: Short Story Sunday: The Very Quiet Young Ladies Guide to Multiple Personalities Part 2.
The Very Quiet Young Ladies Guide to Multiple Personalities.
If you can see this it means I'm still writing the entry. But wanted to actually get this last post in before midnight.
YouTube Clip of the Day.
I had this song in my head all day.