Ohh just a typical grad student life I guess... feels a little bit bad I chomped down that much pizza and chocolate what with my training for Chicago half marathon already on halt for the exams.. (but no I'm not counting calories). I ran around 4 miles every other day until last week and now I miss working out! Hmm but I don't hate TA'ing and studying as much as I did last semester so that's good :p And also this semester I have bit of time to do other things like volunteering for WCS fundraising thingi.. should be fun. Oh and I am dying to play foosball in the grad lounge @_@! who knew wooden sticks playing football was so fun!! All after the exam.. having 2 things to study for the exams on the same day just epic sucks. Maybe I'm not as good a multitasker as I thought..?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Rubying around
I have been wanting to learn either Ruby or Python or Perl for sometime, but could not decide on which one to start off with. Each of them sounded very useful and I am hoping to learn and become fluent with at least two of them before I graduate. And then I was sold when a friend told me "Ruby makes you write code that is as pretty as its name" :D I just thought that was a really a nice description.
So when my TA professor asked if anyone could write a small bash or Ruby script for automating some file checking process (actually a cheater-detector) I didn't hesitate to volunteer although I have never really wrote any useful script with either bash (I've seen some during one of the courses I think) or Ruby before. I told him I would like to dig around, and now I am writing Ruby. So far I've been learning from examples, and I don't think I qualify to comment anything on Ruby yet, but given that I started poking around for less than 4 hours and have some working script on my lap(top), I'm liking it a lot :)
One beginner's block I've faced - I was writing a class and methods in my script, so it didn't occur to me that I had to have methods declared before the line where I call it from. But then it's a script.. I don't compile it to run it.. so I had a DUHHH~STUPID! moment after about 10 minutes trying to understand why interpreter said there was no such method when it was there in the same class. This made me realize that whenever I'm learning a new language extensively, I feel that sometimes I'm "trapped" in the Java way of thinking and that can be a block.. but breaking that mind-block is so refreshing!
So when my TA professor asked if anyone could write a small bash or Ruby script for automating some file checking process (actually a cheater-detector) I didn't hesitate to volunteer although I have never really wrote any useful script with either bash (I've seen some during one of the courses I think) or Ruby before. I told him I would like to dig around, and now I am writing Ruby. So far I've been learning from examples, and I don't think I qualify to comment anything on Ruby yet, but given that I started poking around for less than 4 hours and have some working script on my lap(top), I'm liking it a lot :)
One beginner's block I've faced - I was writing a class and methods in my script, so it didn't occur to me that I had to have methods declared before the line where I call it from. But then it's a script.. I don't compile it to run it.. so I had a DUHHH~STUPID! moment after about 10 minutes trying to understand why interpreter said there was no such method when it was there in the same class. This made me realize that whenever I'm learning a new language extensively, I feel that sometimes I'm "trapped" in the Java way of thinking and that can be a block.. but breaking that mind-block is so refreshing!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Preparing for the summer
No, it is still bitterly cold here and summer seems so far far away (but weather forecast shows a positive 2-digit temperature next week so it is not all bad).
I was talking to my office mate today about wanting to find an internship for the summer and it turns out that it is basically now or too late. The problem is that if I don't get an internship, I'll have to secure a TA job for the summer semester, which I was told is very hard to come by because of the number of courses that are available. And the economic situation now means it is harder to find an internship too. Someone from Google came for a seminar last week and actually said so :S.. Man do I hate being an international student...
So, my grand plan is to submit my CV to virtually everywhere, here, UK, Australia, NZ even :p otherwise I'll have stay here without any income for 3 months, probably living off my savings, in which case traveling anywhere near Europe this summer is simply impossible (because I still have to pay rent! unless I sublease it.. hmm). Curses! :(
At least, if I get something in Australia or NZ, it would be a good excuse to go home for 3 months hehehe... I don't quite hate that idea. Finding an internship in UK will just be uber nice though :D
Oh well, I'll see how it goes - all this brings back the memory of job hunting... and the fact that I'll have to go through this again when I graduate. Oh the horror.
I was talking to my office mate today about wanting to find an internship for the summer and it turns out that it is basically now or too late. The problem is that if I don't get an internship, I'll have to secure a TA job for the summer semester, which I was told is very hard to come by because of the number of courses that are available. And the economic situation now means it is harder to find an internship too. Someone from Google came for a seminar last week and actually said so :S.. Man do I hate being an international student...
So, my grand plan is to submit my CV to virtually everywhere, here, UK, Australia, NZ even :p otherwise I'll have stay here without any income for 3 months, probably living off my savings, in which case traveling anywhere near Europe this summer is simply impossible (because I still have to pay rent! unless I sublease it.. hmm). Curses! :(
At least, if I get something in Australia or NZ, it would be a good excuse to go home for 3 months hehehe... I don't quite hate that idea. Finding an internship in UK will just be uber nice though :D
Oh well, I'll see how it goes - all this brings back the memory of job hunting... and the fact that I'll have to go through this again when I graduate. Oh the horror.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Sometimes I can't help it
Sometimes I feel so tired and can't-be-bothered so much that all I wanna do is sleep away the day and hope I'll feel better tomorrow. Even when I have tonnes of things to do. Exams are already looming in a month's time (2 on the same day! DAAAMMNNNN) with a number of assignments/projects/work in between and I am slowly stressing out... I get stressed too easy when I'm studying me thinks :( I blame stupid cold never-ending winter here. Snow is ok still, but not when it melts and soaks the hem of my jeans and covers my floor with muddy footprints. Yuck.
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