To do list:

Do CDS final report.
Do CDS application - again.
Get passport photo taken.
Apply for passport.
Get new health card.

probably to be continued.

Why am I so pathetic?

Cheer up Ming, cheer up.

Early Night

The first night the whole weekend that we left the lab before 5 am (okay, so we left at 4), and without a bug to laden our minds with.

The end is in sight, for this assignment anyways. I still need to constantly remind myself that I do also have assignments due in my other classes, but haven't gotten around to yet.

Registers

Found our bug from last night/this morning. Turns out we were forgetting to save the EBP while context switching.

Deja Vu

A night of real-time kind of reminds me of Vegas. When you finally get outside to go home, it's dawn. Except instead of being frustrated at losing money, now it's being frustrated over a bug and facing a cold bike ride home.

We really should stop these late night/early morning coding blitzes and just go in earlier in the day.

Boiling Point

One thing that really frustrates me is how hopeless you feel when you encounter a bug in this course. You think that you've followed all the necessary steps, and can't think of anything else to possibly do, and the only way to really debug it is to "write your own debugger", as they so nicely put it on the webpage.

We've spent about 8 hours today trying to get interrupts working, but to no avail. It shouldn't take this long, and it's probably just some stupid little thing that we're missing when we're pushing and popping in assembly. It just gets to me when it's 4:30 am on a Saturday morning, and I'm beyond the point of even being tired now.

It better not be raining on the way home. Wouldn't that just be a kick in the nuts.

Back in the Lab

Was at the lab until 3 last night trying to get a context switch to work.

The reason everything takes so long, I think, is because no one really knows what they're doing. It's more of a guessing game, trial and error if you will. And once it works, we deduce why it worked, and perchance learn something new.

I played soccer last night. Well, I tried to. I really have to do some cardio, it's killing me out there. So much so that I volunteered to be in goal. Maybe I should start running like Robin.

One Day Break

We handed in our first real-time assignment, after staying up til 3 the night before finishing it off. Estimated time spent on this one was about 40-45 hours. Now we have scheduled a one day break to recover and prepare for the next assignment - the first part of the OS, which is due next Thursday.

We also had ridiculous weather. When I got up in the morning, and the weather channel website said it was 16 degrees outside, and will be 23 later on with a chance of showers. In the afternoon it rained, and the temperature dropped sub 10, with strong gusts of wind. I was cold on the walk home.

I drove to Guelph to pick up my bike and dvd player. While driving, I could feel the car being pushed by the wind on the highway. I had to turn the steering wheel slightly left just to keep straight. But now I'm back and safe.

At least the LCD monitors are looking good in the lab.

I'm a Nerd

You know you're writing too much code when:

• I type ; after every sentence instead of the period;
  
• I use emacs commands for cut and paste instead of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V
  
• I feel complied to leave spaces before and after brackets

Tired and Hungry

Just helped my cousin move into UofT in Mississauga. I had to carray many heavy suitcases up many flights of stairs. Why can't they just install elevators?

Back in the lab.

Real-time

Mozilla is gone from /software, so I have to use stupid Netscape.

Real-time is catching up with me. I spent about 5 hours making a counter to work (sure, some of the mistakes were stupid), but that's way too long to get something to count in 1/10th of a second.

Now I have to try and talk to the trains. I hope they answer.

Police

Police are weird.

Driving back from Hamilton tonight, after dropping off Heather at the airport, along the 403, a police cruiser pulls in from a turnpike a couple of cars ahead of me, lights flashing and everything. Then it hugs the middle of the road and just slows down, bring all traffic behind it to a mere crawl.

Meanwhile, another car merges from yet another turnpike at highway speed. The driver is sort of slowing down, but hesitant since he didn't know what was going on. The police car swerves into the merge lane, and cuts the car off. Merging car stops.

Police cruiser continues and finally stops in the open space between the highway and an exit ramp. Traffic slowly edges past cruiser and returns to normal speed. As I drive under the overpass, I notice another two police cruisers sitting on top of the bridge.

Random.

Life and Things

I wish my 370 prof would go a little faster in class. We've already spent 3 lectures talking about cubic splines, and at this rate, I don't know how we're supposed to finish the course material.

My friend Heather from the Bay is visiting.

Tomorrow I have to go home, and then drive the parents to the airport on Wednesday morning because they're going on vacation for 2 weeks in Hawaii. They also planned on going to China afterward, but decided to cancel that part of the trip.

Sometime this week I have to start the first real-time assignment, which doesn't look all that difficult, but requires a lot of reading time and probably coding time. But at least we get brand spanking new LCD monitors in our lab (take that Benny, you chose the wrong term to take compilers). I'll probably be stuck in the lab this weekend while everyone else is drunk on their asses for Victoria Day.

School sounds tough.

Well, just real-time really.

Back in School

Finally got the internet and everything settled at home. Now I can go back to doing nothing.

I finally met the ever elusive Jenn today, in the computer lab of all places. She came in, sat in front of me, and peeked around the monitor, "Are you Ming?".

"Yes," I said, "and you must be Jenn".

And that was that. Now I've pretty much met all the virtual proxy friends on the 4 stream.

In other news, the quote board is back up:

Q (H.E.): Does anyone know what happened to my bananas? I seem to have lost them.
A (A.F.): You should stop masterbating with them.

(S.K.): My blows aren't as wet as yours.

Stalker?

Does anyone know Spanish?

A recent conversation with someone who thought that I know him. I don't, nor do I speak Spanish.

[14:40] soy el mudarra 5: hola
[14:41] Ming: who is this?
[14:42] soy el mudarra 5: jaja
[14:42] Ming: who?
[14:42] soy el mudarra 5: q dices tonto
[14:43] soy el mudarra 5: dime algo
[14:43] soy el mudarra 5: loko
[14:43] Ming: sorry, I think you have the wrong person
[14:43] soy el mudarra 5: sabes quien soy?
[14:43] soy el mudarra 5: a mi me hablas en espa�ol
[14:43] soy el mudarra 5: sabes
[14:44] soy el mudarra 5: dime quien soy
[14:44] soy el mudarra 5: eo
[14:47] soy el mudarra 5: me comtesta
[14:47] soy el mudarra 5: q soy el jesus
[14:47] soy el mudarra 5: del 10 b
[14:47] soy el mudarra 5: de tu bloq

Tired

So they schedule me for an 8:30 meeting this morning for my exit interview. I get in at half past eight, coffee in hand, and no one is there. No manager, no HR. And I'm the one who went out with Kevin last night to a bar.

I need a nap.