4 down, 2 to go!

The last two exam papers of my university life (I hope!).

Wednesday could not seem any further than it is now.

I haven't got a clue what I should be studying for DSP and Digital Filters. It seems like a lost cause to me. Image Processing is more interesting, yet being the last exam suffers from last-exam-depression (also known as non-existent exam motivation).

Speech processing was so fun, my mind toyed dangerously with the idea of a PhD in speech recognition for one wild moment. That was rather scary. I don't really think the frontiers of communication technology welcome me at all.

I'm looking for a reason not to go back to work. So I ordered my copy of May 13 and had it sent to my Malaysian address. I'm expecting it to arrive before the ban is sanctioned.

Alright, back to filters...

Updates for the week

1. If I had to be a character from Sex and the City, I might be a hybrid of Charlotte and Miranda. Compulsively old fashion/conservative and yet power hungry.

2. Watching Heroes at 4am in the morning surprisingly has not messed up my schedule... yet. I still woke up before 9, probably due to the rising panic for Speech Processing on Thursday.

3. The EE library really is the most wonderful place to study in blissful quiet and at the right temperatures. *sticks out tongue at people melting in the main library*

4. Coffee gives me pimples. It took me 24 years to figure that out!

I'm sleepy. Goodnight.

I've gotten over my depression from my previous paper after I realised it really is rather stupid to be overly depressed because my failure standard is at 60%. Yes, I am kiasu, I never said I wasn't.

I hate these one week breaks between papers. I never know what to do, how much to revise and how to spread out my revision so I won't end up forgetting stuff, but the trade off is exam burn out. The next paper is Speech Processing and I really really really love this course. Dr. Naylor is an amazing lecturer with amazing notes. However when it comes to setting exam questions, he's the four horsemen of the apocalypse all in one.

I still need to survive Speech Processing to sit for DSP and digital filters and Image Processing. There's a lot of overlap which I am very grateful for. But somehow all this studying is also overlapping with my current addiction to season 3 of Sex and the City. Although their glamourous lifestyles are pretty entertaining, I still have a morbid fear of being a single, unmarried 30 something in a power suit. Who hates children.

That's my update for the week. Back to work. Line Frequency Spectrums are calling.

Spectral Estimation and Adaptive Signal Processing

Checklist

1. I know what a spectrum is
2. I know how to find a signal's power spectral density
3. I know a power spectral density is the fourier transform of an autocorrelation
4. I know how to find it's estimator
5. I think I know how to prove its bias and variance
6. I don't know much else, so Wednesday is not going to be a good day

I also figured out the difference between IIR and FIR filters yesterday. I am screwed!

There is no point in studying earlier

You forget everything anyway and spend the 24 hours before the paper in a frantic crash course of every single chapter, problem sheet and past year paper.

I am as calm as a Hindu cow...
because I admit, I know not a thing...

And just for the mathematicians and because Khim Nyang has let his wonderful geek-blog die... (and all the geeks in the world are still in mourning)

Midnight reminders

Must stop sleeping at daybreak!

Must drink less coffee!

Must eat more fruits and vegetables!

Must MUG!!! Like my life depends on it!

and currently this is my all-time favourite commercial... because I reeeeally want to get a Wii
(If you haven't watched the mac vs. pc which this parodies, head over to here)

Hmm...

My mum sms-ed me in the middle of the day, on Tuesday while I was rushing to prepare a presentation and was walking back and forth between the data resource table and my desk.

"Do u want your results?"

I'm not sure that my mum realises the inpact that one phrase has on me. All of a sudden, whatever work I was doing was absolutely insignificant when faced with this awful feeling of failure.

Anyway long story short. I got my first. Despite my mother complaining about my dismal marks in DSP and Operations Research ("You can sit for the paper yourself, Mum!") and surprisingly awful marks in Decision Analysis. What can I say. I was never able to make decisions. I can't care what the rest of my marks are... I'm just happy that I don't need to work so hard next year.

Total slacking, here I come!

In the meantime, I've got 4 weeks more to go in Hong Kong. And I'm surprisingly wishing it wasn't coming to an end so soon! Quick, come visit me while you can!!

Nerding

While I'm waiting for Alton Towers photos (I have none because I was just too lazy to take my camera out, and besides everyone else had theirs ever ready to catch the most unfortunate photos of me...), let me entertain you with some trivial nonsense.

Exams ended with Control Engineering, after which instead of going home and sleeping or going out and partying, some of us actually sat in the level 5 comp labs preparing slides for the next day's career talk organised by the ever efficient Jia Hong. He probably regretted delegating the task to tired post-examinees. We had slides saying :

Introduction
1. Listen to Jia Hong
2. ATTENTIVELY
3. Hey, you over there! I know you're not paying attention. Look THIS way!

or

Resources
1. Careers office
2. Internet
3. For more information, take Chien Liq out to dinner
email: chienliqisthebomb@gmail.com


Anyway, I'm really glad exams are really and truly over. One, because I can finally clean the kitchen and bathroom (which I did), and two, because I want to stop looking like this:


Yeah, it's shocking isn't it?

I wear glasses with no power because the laptop screen hurts my eyes. It also makes me feel smarter. I become a whole different person, like Superman when he becomes Clark Kent.

Reason number 3 to be glad about the end of exams is so I can get all this coffee out of my system. Caffeine has been my best friend, and it was good while it lasted. But now the final drop has been drunk. Till next exam...

(I drink coffee from a chinese tea mug... I find that wrong in so many ways)

Writings before a last exam

Let me immortalise this moment.

Little Fujitsu is purring like a kitten. It sounds contented and full of milk, but it's more likely to be suffering from overload. I'm thinking I need to get the processor checked, but my left brain is asking "what's the observability matrix?". The glow of my table lamp is starting to hurt my eyes. I need to see an optician soon. Everything is becoming so blurry. My thoughts included. It's been a long journey, and my room is infested with paper. Like a white locust on my bed, my desk, my floor, my clothes, with queer markings of thetas and sigmas and alphas and omegas. Yes, alphas and omegas. Is the end finally nigh? I've travelled so far and yet I feel like I'm back where I started.

Knowing nothing.

EE in a closed loop

I think
I just disconnected myself
from reality
Life exists
in ' 1's and '0's
I draw myself
closer to infinity
in a locus
And stability is just a state
where oscillating dreams fade away
Press 1 to speak to an operator
(sum or product) chosen by an observability matrix
Press 0 to close the loop

If you haven't slept in 48 hours... how do you think you'll handle a Z transform?

It's back to an erratic sleeping schedule.

We finished off what Sandip calls the devil's signal processing (DSP) this morning, and what a relief.

Since Analogue in the first year, this is the first time I've gone into an exam room where my best effort would be to try not to fail. Turning the first page and realising that I could do 2 complete questions was pure, sweet relief. Who cares if I stumbled and flopped through the rest of the paper. The prospect of being able to pass Dr. Naylor's doomsday exam is nothing short of a miracle!

2 more papers. TWO MORE!

The rings around my eyes are growing darker by the day. It's a pity that my optimal study hours are between midnight and 5am in the morning. Sacrifices have to be made. And that includes resisting the urge to clean the kitchen.

2 more days. TWO MORE!

I can't wait to get my hands on a sponge and bleach.

Biology 101

I'm not sure that I really like the serious atmosphere hanging around my blog these days, so I'm going to give an update. Xiaokai can call me a scum, I'm not gonna care.


6 papers have gone. 3 more to go. I crashed after the last paper on Thursday (comms systems, which apparently was a bloody massacre... I couldn't tell, I was doing the paper in a stupor) and slept all the way until Friday morning. I had huge, HUGE, sleep debts to pay. That's what I get for not starting my revision plans earlier and only discovering lecture notes on public switching telephone networks the day before the exam. I'm a brilliant last minute mugger. Nothing enters my head unless it's done in a panic stricken, last minute moment... with a caffeine IV drip on my arm. Clearly, I've never learnt my lesson since secondary school. I'm currently getting flashbacks of Anushia and Choo staring at me in bewilderment as they are about to begin their 2nd or 3rd round of History revision while my textbook remains untouched, un-underlined and un-highlighted.


I think I've been much too relaxed this weekend. This week's papers are a slaughterhouse of DSP, Databases and Control Engineering. But instead of mugging FIR filters, I've been tuned to American Idol and CSI. Oh! Oh! Joke of the week - so we're all gathered around the TV watching CSI New York, (the housemates and Lu's older sister), and some small eggs were found inside the victim's ear (I know... ewww), so the CSI's decide to incubate it to find out what laid them. Lionel, Lu and I were guessing spiders or roaches or such, when Lu's sister very seriously says maybe they'll hatch rats. *silence in the living room* After she leaves the room, Lionel the bio-chemist bursts out at the abomination and I say maybe she never studied biology. Lu just eyes the ceiling.

And the joke just seems to live on at every opportune moment (more so since the state of the kitchen is incredibly filthy, by my standards and Lionel's FYP which deals with infected rats):

"Why's the rice pot on the floor? Feeding Kitchen God, is it?"
"No lah, feeding the rats. After they hatch from the eggs"

"Oi! Look at this mess! You want to attract rats ar?"
"Yeah, after they hatch."

"So we're going to harvest the intestines from the rats to test for the nematods"
"Oh! Can I come into the labs to see the rats?"
"No! They have to be kept in the animal house... where they are hatched from eggs"



It's almost mid morning. And it's rainy. I guess I won't be going in to the level 5 labs today then. I'll just hide under my duvet and read up on non-linear control systems.

By the way, I've agreed to go to Alton Towers after the exams. Yes, my motion sickness and I have agreed to go. Well someone's got to carry their bags and popcorn and drinks while they're on Nemesis and Ripsaw, etc.

Alright, let's get this show on the road!

The dreaded first paper begins with Finance and Financial Management tomorrow and ends with Control Engineering in 3 weeks time.

Till then, this blog is probably going to go into a comatose state.

Be nice to each other while I'm gone, ok?

Reasons to spank me... ("oh no, she didn't!")

1. For playing way too much Pac Man. Pac man is EVIIILLL!!! Once you go Pac, you never go back!
2. For trying to watch American Idol while simultaneously attempting MCQ questions
3. For rewarding my 20 minutes of studying with a 40 minute surf-the-net break
4. For trying to act 'clever' and taking on too many 'clever' modules (clever = can soooo die!!!) when I could have done easy (albeit useless) modules like HCI. Nine freaking killer papers when I could have been doing 7 or 8!!!!
5. For not listening to my mother - who warned me about number 4 at the beginning of the year
6. For babysitting my downloading files - however pointless it may seem. Why is there this impulse to watch the 'number of bytes received' increase??
7. For blogging... too much.

And now we return to our normal programme - cursing at adaptive filters! We have to study these things called Wiener filters. Really clever things, but what an unfortunate name!

sleep is overrated

sleep is overrated
studying is for nought
eye bags, long days
the price you pay
for knowledge so highly sought

yet no joy it brings
no use it yields
the glory fades too soon
no priceless things
no strawberry fields
no dancing on the moon




... another deep sigh, and Charlotte resumes where she left off - picking apart the Cramer Rao Lower Bound theorem.

I haven't really got anything interesting to say

That's normal for me, and even more so during exam study periods.

I called up Vidal Sassoon's Academy out of desperation this morning. My hair has outgrown its former straight sleek self and is now resembling a shaggy carpet with split ends. My days of not knowing where my hair brush is, are over.

A bored drawl picked up the phone and I said, "Is this where I book an appointment for a haircut?".
"April 18th", answered the drawl.
"Erm, are you saying April 18th is the earliest date you've got?" (I get a little thrown off when people don't answer my questions directly).
"Yes. 1pm... no, 3pm"
"Alright so I'll take April 18th at 3pm" (Although it's not like they were giving me several choices to begin with!)
"Okaay. We'll see you then." *click*

This had better be worth all my 5 pounds and tube fare.

With regards to studying, things are coming along just peachy. I have (hopefully) stopped making so many mathematical faux pas and can now move on to the advanced stuff like proper engineering concepts because I now know that:

1) The square of root(-1) is NOT 1.
My proof to Lionel (the biochemist) that :

root(a) x root(b) = root(ab)
and therefore root(-1) x root(-1) = root(1) = 1

only held water for about 5 minutes. Moments later Lionel walked back into the room and showed me how the square of root(-1) really and truly is -1. I think we ought to swap degrees.

and

2) Always simplify partial fractions
When dealing with partial fractions, it helps to remember how to use the cover up rule and not blindly sub in numbers. In addition it is always best to look at the numerator and think about simplifying it further before proceeding to over create variables without enough simultaneous equations to solve them all!!

Now on to digital FIR filters. I shall pretend they make me happy.

Small mercies...

My mother woke up the entire house with her phone call at 8am. Apparently she had just received my results and was much too anxious to check with me the mark for a 1st class. After I reassured her that it was indeed a first class (*tiny whoop of joy*... very tiny because still very sleepy), she proceeded to read out all my individual marks which REALLY woke me up!

My best score was in Discrete Math and Computational Complexities??? 95??? Even I don't believe I did that!

Actually I should be happy to see any marks above 90 at all. Even the 80 for Software Engineering, after missing out on the last two chapters which I didn't know were there... I'm baffled. And I just scraped through with a 67 for Modern Literature & Drama, after writing the most awful essays! Thank goodness! I wouldn't know how to explain a plummeting average just because of a humanities course!

Discrete Math, Communications and Controls tops the list. Digital just managed to scrape through the 1st class mark. Everything else is as expected, even Dr. Nabar's nasty Stanford standard Signals and 'Seesteems'! (What an aliteration!).

Second year is finally over! Going back to sleep...

I am NOT returning to blogging just yet. I still have one last paper to go. But just for emotional entertainment sake. This photoblog and it's photoessays are an absolute catalyst for homesickness. No matter how much I gripe about Malaysia and 'Malaysian Ethics', I miss the vibrance that is our multicultural heritage. The colourful chaos of our ethnicity. The ancient and everlasting traditions pitted against the background of the modern skyscrapers (and THE sky scraper full of oil). There is really so much more 'life' back home.

Every Picture Tells A Story

It really does!

Four more to go. Just four! And there are just so many things catching my attention that I want to do. The more blogs I read (particularly those lucky critters who are done with exams for the year), the more I want to -

1. Go Shopping!!! I have yet to find a shopping buddy in London. I can't shop alone because I end up reasoning with myself and buying nothing. I can't shop with people other, because I feel bad making them wait for me when I try on stuff. So far, I've only been able to shop with Charmaine and Sherene (because I know they'll be honest, and also extremely persuasive...), and my Mummy (because she's my greatest critic - she's had 22 years of practice).
2. Cook!!! I am dying to take over the helm of the kitchen again. It's not that your cooking is bad, Lu. In fact yesterday's Californian Rolls were great! But, I just wanna make something to clear out all these leftover things we have in the fridge and spice cupboard before we leave for summer.
3. Watch Hong Kong-ese serials. I miss watching my Cantonese soap dramas. Like Charme said, its a pity Venki's already left for the UK. If not he could have passed me a stash. Anyone else making a trip to the UK? Anyone wants to send me any belated birthday presents? No guessing what's at the top of my wanted list.
4. Berjalan-jalan. Then Lu will have company on his wandering trips. The weather's so beautiful right now. It's just cruel to keep me chained to my room and my notes.
5. Start on my Andalucian Dream Adventure this summer. One whole week in the south of Spain (and a little bit of Barcelona)! Eeps! It's unbearable to wait so long.
   

I won't be ranting and raving for the next week. There's a slaughter-house full of exams just over the horizon. So screwed. so screwed.

The exam period has come to a temporary standstill for now. I have an itsy bitsy break to study for Math and Language Processors while the EEE people toil over Power, Fields and Devices and curse the ISE people lolling about enjoying their peace.

Sometimes I wonder what gets me through exam times here. I seem to hover around aimlessly like a cloud with no wind to guide it, while back in JC, I was frustrated to the max and at my books from the crack of dawn till the lights in the study room were turned off and all I had to fuel my drive was the fear of my escalating stupidity and Charme and Sherene.

I'm feeling a sudden nostalgic 'home-sickness' for the days when we'd gather in the cold boarding school study room in our varied colourful pyjamas, with a pile of notes so high, armed with no less than 10 past year papers. I miss the "Good BRAINS" notes, Charme slipped me before A-Level Maths. When I jump around before my exams and Vidu and David tell me to stop looking so nervous because I look like a petrified hamster, I wish I was holding hands and jumping while chanting the '4 As, S-Paper Distinction and GP A1' mantra with Charme and Sherene, like we did every night before A levels. 2 thirds of us didn't achieve it, but that's besides the point. It really made me feel like there was a goal and I knew which way to shoot.

Right now, I know there's a goal, but I don't seem to know which side of the field it is. I'm getting distracted by every little thing, until Lionel puts on that disapproving tone and I'm back at my notes for another 15 minutes more before something else catches my eye. My attention span is as bad as Charme's was back in JC. Hehe...

These exams are probably more important than A Levels and yet I don't seem to be giving much of a hoot about it. I'm taking last year's achievements for granted.

I will be kicking myself at the end of it all.

Why do I always, ALWAYS, do this!