Still Ticking
Hehe, like I said about half a year ago, I don't find much time for this place XD. I'm so busy doing stuff that I hardly find time to write about it. Still, for anyone who's interested, I have a sneaking suspicion that'll consist almost entirely of people I link to this myself XD, here's what's up with your tyrannous neighbourhood furball.
First off, I'm doing great at university. I'm studying Software Engineering, for those not aware. I finished my first year and will be starting my second on the 24th, so how have I done so far? Well, I'll try not to sound like I'm bragging, hehe, but let's see. First off, due to my good results in college, I had a £2,000 a year scholarship fund, although I failed to get one worth £3,000, but still, I wasn't complaining. Tuition fees are something like £3,000 a year, although due to a technical snag, the several more thousand pounds I am paid as living support, you know, to buy food and such, on a loan, are considered "income" by the people who pay my benefits, and thus go in one pocket and out of the other to them, which sucks, because if it didn't I could just give the money back at the end of my course since I don't need it to support my living with benefits. They really got on my case about it too, getting all legal action with me, like I was trying to defraud the system or something, which was annoying too because one, I just didn't think that a loan counted as income, I mean it's just being lent to me, I haven't earned it, I don't own it, I have to give it back, but whatever, and two, because in all honesty, they're absolutely shit at their job. Seriously, they're so useless XD, you know those cartoons where they make gags out of organisations screwing up things over and over? Well it's actually kinda like that. They're inconsistent, unreliable, slow, uninformative and generally suck; I mean, they got all big and tough with this whole formal interview/statement deal during the summer like they were a court or something, "You won't be troubled if nothing is found wrong but otherwise this could lead to criminal charges shit". So I went to this interview, did all the things they asked... And nothing. That was like a month or two and I haven't heard a squeak out of them since. N00bs, personally I just wanna sign over the thousands of pounds sitting in my bank account doing nothing but collecting a little interest and shut them up. Anyway, I've gotten off-track, and this paragraph is big, so...
There XD. Anyway, so yeah, I forget the numbers, but coming out of uni I was looking to owe, if I remember it right, about £20,000, and it's a 3 year course, so blowing £6,000 out of that would be nice, yeah. Anyway, that aside, the year. It was long, and hard, and there were so many frustrating moments, computers not working, programs not working (two entirely different problems in Software Engineering), the people who were supposed to know what was going on not knowing what was going on. Despite this, it's been a positive, if challenging experience. All of the crap I went through, you know, besides the actual curricular challenges of university, was outweighed by the good times, to which I owe my friends, so even if they never read this, thanks Manjit, Joe, Steve and everyone else who made it fun. That aside, as much as the needless difficulty sucked ass, it's good practice at life, as by the time your in university I figure you'd best be ready to do what it takes to excel come rain or snow, as the saying goes.
On the academic side, having fought through all the adversity, I gotta say it's been worth it. Maybe if my results were less impressive I wouldn't be so content, but hey, I put in the effort, damn it, I earned these, so feast your eyes XD. This is copied direct from the uni website, with a lot of unimportant stuff edited out already, so excuse the all-caps.
DATABASE SYSTEMS: 55
INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION MODELLING: 63
COMPUTER ORGANIZATION: 100
PROGRAMMING METHODOLOGY: 71
SYSTEM SOFTWARE: 76
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS: 74
INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET PROGRAMMING: 78
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES: 75
Now, just to put this in perspective, these are out of 100, and the pass mark for a module is 40. That's right, you can only get half marks and still pass soundly, that's how hard this stuff is meant to be XD. Also, you only get a chance to earn each mark once, so this isn't a bunch of averages, you get 10 marks available in a test here, 30 in a piece of coursework there, 60 in a final exam, you get the idea. I couple of highlights were in Systems Software, I got caught up in a plagiarism scandal, there were a lot going round, one with like a dozen people, but mine was only me and two others. Basically, in the module in question, we were taught mainly by being showed working code, so if say, you needed to know how to do a loop, they gave you the code to do a loop, actual working code. Based off of this, when a friend or two asked for help, I sent them pieces of my code, not to copy, but to give them the basic idea. It seems I was too kind for my own good, as two people copied off me, although I don't hold it against them, we all made our mistakes, me in sharing (which I learned was pushing the line a bit too much), and them in copying. Out of the three I was the only person to really appeal, and although the punishment for a first offence was only a zero for the work it was made in, and the work was only worth 10 marks, I went through with it anyway, did the formal interview, hit it off well with at least one of the two guys holding it, and long story short, although I got a formal warning, meaning if this happens again it'll be treated as a second offence, which is a lot stricter, they decided to restore my marks, yay ^^. Hehehe, so that was nice, and bumped my Systems Software mark up by 8 points, thus bumping my average up by a full point from 73 to 74. Again for reference, the first year marks don't actually count towards your final result, but if you get 70+ average over the second and third year, you get a first degree, that being the best, so I'm on course :D.
Another highlight was getting 100 in Computer Organisation. I don't mean to brag but, gaze upon perfection, hehe :3.
So yeah, busy year, lot of hard work, but it is paying off. On the social side I've had more awesome times, mainly with the three people I named above, than I can remember, and again my thanks guys. Many fond memories stick in my mind, but to give an example, take this. Myself and Joe were working in a spare classroom, I forget on what work, but it was on LINUX, a different operating system from Windows. I've got no personal bias with OS's beyond the fact I'm most used to Windows, but there are some things about LINUX that will wind you up a little, this was one such thing. Joe was copying code between two applications, simple copy and paste job, and nothing fancy. Problem was that, he couldn't paste, for some reason, and it was a lot of code, so retyping it manually was out of the question unless it was the only choice. What he was doing was opening one application, selecting the code, selecting copy, closing it, going to the other application, trying to paste, and finding he couldn't. Now, I was watching him, our computers were besides each other, and while I'm not the biggest techno-whizz by far, I have had so much experience with strange and annoying computer issues I've developed a quasi-six-sense for them. What I did was this: I told Joe that, with LINUX, when you "copied" something, you in fact didn't copy the actual thing itself, but the location of that thing in the computer's memory. Think of it as saving a webpage to your favourites, you don't save the actual page, just the URL, which seems like the same thing, until you disconnect your Internet. Now, I didn't actually know this, it was more of a hunch, but I said it like I did because if I was right it would be funnier, so what we did was this, step by step. I got Joe to open the application with the code, copy it, open the one he wanted to paste it to, then right-click to bring up that little menu, and saw that the "paste" was active. He was about to click it, but then I told him not to, and instead to go back to the source application and close it, which he did, then see if he could still paste it now, and.... He couldn't XD.
Stupid? Yes, geeky? Verily, but damn you should've seen how he cracked up, he was laughing into his keyboard XD.
That's not even that special or typical an example of the laughs we had, but still, I'm fond of it. Also, on another high note, but a few days ago, upon trying to apply, having gotten emails from uni which are sent to everyone (seriously, I've been asked to join the women's netball team at least twice o.O), for a better scholarship, I found that while you can apply for more than one at the same time, you can't apply for one if you already hold one, which I did. But, less than half an hour later, I found that due to my 70+ average mark for the first year, my scholarship, which for the first time I can recall was referred to as a "silver" scholarship, had been upgraded to a "gold" one. In short, I now get not 2, but £4,000 pounds a year towards my course, how freaking ace is that XD? Seriously, that's £10,000 off over the 3 years (it doesn't go back to the first year), so I've basically cut my final total debt in half, talk about reaping benefits 8).
University aside, my life has been generally awesome, but, well, it's hard to discuss why at length. Still with Maria, we've been together now for almost 2 years, I love her more than ever, and she's the most important thing in my life <3. On the hobbies and interests front, the hip hop forum that's been a massive part of my growing up and getting to know different people and ways of life, I now am the sole moderator of, so that's pretty sweet, even if the place isn't in its prime, it's doing alright and I'm doing all I can for it. I've also become the third moderator of another forum on the same site called the Neo Duelist League (the site is called Neoseeker), which is basically a forum where you can create fictional characters and take turns posting in duels between them, the winner being decided on your writing skills. As a huge fan of fictional writing, it's like the ultimate pure sports arena for me, and although I haven't been all that active over time, I've been a part of it on and off for a long while, and now, the first two mods having vanished in as-yet-unexplained circumstances, I'm doing what I can to restore it to its former glory. Besides that, an RP that I run and is about 16 months old is still going well, we started our 4th chapter recently, and damn it's awesome fun, and another I'm in, but don't run, and is about as old, is still going, it's slower, but it's a lot of fun all the same, I use Zone in both of them, although he's human in the former, hehe XD. I have another little experimental RP going on the side too, although I'm not as enthusiastic about it since I've been so busy with other stuff, but still, it goes, and lastly, on the fanfiction side, I'm finally managing to write a few of the many stories bouncing around in my head, which is fun.
So, yeah, I think that's everything major, there's much more to tell, but I doubt you all want to hear my entire year in full account XD. Suffice to say university goes great, my hobbies thrive, my loving relationship takes my breath away, and my friendships are going pretty damn well too. So yeah, I'm quiet here, but best believe I'm loving life, all the same ^^.