Are you going back on December holiday?

Christmas is coming again... Can't believe how fast time flies! And definitely... the most frequent asked question in this season is: Are you going back for holiday?

Remembering what I answered every year make me feel funny... When I was being asked, these are my answers from year to year:

First Year: “Hmm… Less than half year here. So fast going back again? Wanna feel how is the Christmas in Singapore.. Then go back next year~”

Second Year: “Oh… Better use the time to take special semester.. so that I can reduce my workload at third year and go back next year”

Third Year: “Wah.. need to prerpare to work for Industrial Attachment.. can’t go back. Maybe next year”

Fourth Year: “If I’m not doing my FYP on December, wont have other time to do it. And what if got interview call? How to go back?”

Moral of the story: Whenever you have the chance and desire to go back, don’t keep delaying it.

Just a random post,
Erlin.D

2nd blog of the day ^^;

Today is my second battle. Still similar to the first battle, I can’t finish it on time. I wonder if I’m really getting THAT slow. During my last exam, I remember I always have at least 15 minutes to check beforehand. Now is like… I realized that I make mistake only a second before the answer book is taken away from me. Like just now. After the “Please stop writing” command, I realize I forgot to answer a whole part of a question! Estimating the time taken for invigilator to walk till my place, I secretly write another 2 lines to my answer book.. but gosh, nervous + feeling guilty, the writing isn’t even readable.. T__T.. I think I should just give up. Haha..

After the battle, I had a good lunch with others at can A… talking about anything from A to Z. I’m really sure that I’m going to miss this time, pals.. Don’t want to admit that we’re now in final year.. can we have more outing? T_T

At the same time, I remember about my karma case.. Hence I purposely buy a milo and paid 50 cents to them, explaining that I paid less the other day. Haha.. they accepted my apology.. I feel kinda relieved =)

Back to room, I can’t remember what I do.. (I didn’t study, of course) But time passed really fast.. and since I have promised Henry to go to library, I went there at 3.30.. and back again around 8.30.

When turning on my computer, I saw the MSN chat… SCE people were going out to watch movieeee!!! Aaaaa… and I miss the chance to go out with them… T__T.. I lost my chance to be the publicity.. haha.. Wish that another chance will come in… ok ok?

Btw.. schedule for my last semester is out… they have more subjects this time.. 11 to choose from, compare with 7 from last semester. Haha.. I still have no idea what to choose.. want to take robotics as they said it’s easy to score.. but somehow I feel like turning to the wrong track ^^; Ah.. anyway, it’s still early~ let’s watch Code Geass first… it’s getting addictive now XD

Procrastination mode ON,
Erlin.D

The Spinning Dancer

Ever see this pic before? What do you see? is the dancer spinning left or right?


The Spinning Dancer

It's said that if u see it spinning clockwise, then you're right-brained. Otherwise, you're left-brained.

No matter when I see it, the first time the dancer always appeared to be spinning right for me. But then, when i look longer, it will suddenly spin left. First time I saw the image, I was impressed. Second time, I doubt whether it is a bogus image (e.g. the image actually turn left and right occationally) and I actually splitted out the GIF image to check. hahaha.. (but result in nothing). Third time, I was really TOO curious.. hence I look for some explanation through internet. It conviced me that it's really not a fake test.. haha..

But anyway, I still want to prove it! Looking forward for a chance to see it together with friends... will ask and compare what they saw with mine :p

1 More exam to go!
Erlin.D

Karma

Yesterday, I was studying at library. Too sleepy, I decided to go down to canteen to buy 2 cup of coffees. Didn’t drink Canteen A’s coffee for quite sometimes, I can’t remember what the price per cup. $0.25? $0.30? I only know that adding 2 cup covers will cost me another $0.10, but not sure about the price itself.

Confidently, I paid $0.70 to the seem-to-be-new staff. I asked her to help me cover the cup as well and asking for 2 small spoons. Since she didn’t return any change to me, I assumed that the coffee is $0.30, and I went back to library~

But then… when Winson paid me, I realized that the coffee is actually $0.35! I have cheated $0.10 from the drink stall.. might seems a small value, but it’s more than 10% of the price I should have paid.. I felt uneasy.. but somehow I didn’t brother to pay the $0.10 back to them… I drank the coffee and wish that I won’t get stomach ache afterwards.

+++

Today, I am not going to library.. so go to dapao for dinner. I went to can 14.. and stopped at the Chinese stall, which happened to be the only stall without any buyer. The seller looked very unfriendly (and seems to just have a bad day) but I didn’t care. I picked my usual 1 meat 2 vegetables… ready to pay $2.. but then… he charged me $2.6! I wanted to question him, but he really didn’t seem to be in a good mood… kept banging the dishes.... I was scared and hence just pay… After I paid, he just threw the packet to me. So rude! I went back to hall full with anger, questioning how could react like that.. no wonder he got no customer. Huh!

Upon eating the food (yes, I still have mood to eat no matter how angry I am) I then remember about my case yesterday… I cheated people.. hence being cheated back... =.= Karma is really powerful. I hope that this case has already even out my bad karma yesterday.. T__T so sorry, drink stall owner…

My name is Erlin, and I believe in Karma, too :p
Erlin.D

In the midst of Exam…

Not in my finest condition. A chapter a day and I could hardly finished it. Headaches everytime my head touch the pillow.. which cause me stay awake until late at night. High chance of insomnia.. Worst, I lost my ability to fall to a deep sleep. I wake up around 9 with uncomfortable feeling, and must continue trying to study with dizzy head :(

Wanna say Happy Birthday to my dearest roomie.. =D Finally 21st.. yeah :p hahaha.. glad that I managed to surprise her this time =X Wishing you all the best... always~

Erlin.D

From the 1st paper of the year

Several weeks ago, during the last day of Neural Lecture, Prof. O said:

“Don’t worry; the exam this time will be very easy. So easy that if I give you any clue, you all will get full mark” (laugh)

The questions were indeed not that difficult. Yeah. Everyone said that they can do it. But I made mistake here and there! I’m so careless... After telling myself so many times to read the question carefully, I still fall into it. Wrong question leaded to wrong derivation and wrong calculations. I realized some of them the second after I hand in my exam paper. The rest were known only after I walked out from the exam hall…

“Since the exam will be very easy, make sure you didn’t make mistake… I will penalize every small mistake made”

And what happened to me is really the reverse. I make mistakes. Lotz of them. I know something like careless can always happen. But last time the occurrence was like one in five. Now is in every quiz I taken and even exam! All my algo quiz grade were deducted because of trivial error that I overlook. And even for resume writing.. The C grade due to wrong grammar… Erlin erlin.. Since when you become so negligent?

Oh yeah, 1 thing before I end my self reflection blog. The exam… 80% theory!!! And I spent almost 80% of my studying on calculation instead. So misleading T_T

Whatever done is done.
Erlin.D

To the 1st paper of the year

My Neural Network exam will be less than 100 hours from now…. And I felt so unprepared. Flipping through the past year exam questions, I can’t even understand what is being asked. When I tried to do some of the calculations, it took more times than it should (judging from the mark) and even worse, I made mistake in 90% of them. I hate to calculate all those decimals numbers... I spent more time pressing calculator rather than writing down answers. The good news is, all the calculations carry a relatively lower mark.. The bad news is, the higher marks go for theory and proving, where I have no idea how to do it. I’m particularly very annoyed with one last year question about SVM. It asked us to prove why the optimal margin of separation should be 2/||wo||… and all I can gather in my mind is “1 + 1 so 2 lor.” But it’s 20 marks question! And I’m just blank… I really hate those types of questions T_T


At the end of the day, will I get it right?

Is my brain deprecated after IA? Or I simply become lazy T_T
Erlin. D

Few Posts before exam?

This few weeks, my blogs related much to my dear PC ~__~ Ya, it keeps showing me bad sign. I worry so much that it’s hardware problem.. Upon consultation with several experts, one finally gave me an ultimate advice: “There are some problems with your driver. Format your computer and everything will be fine” And I did. And the problem resolved! Thanks so much Chris!

Recalling back, now I remember that the sudden shutdown problem happened since I started to download the theme =.= Upon installing the theme, it asked us to install some software as well. They said that we can always remove it afterwards.. I did remove it.. but seems like it wasn’t clean. So.. in conclusion, after so much network security warning from lectures, I was still fooled!!! Felt naïve T__T now I really think twice when downloading anything from not trusted source.. but still.. how many sites are trusted? Do you expect that all email are trusted as well? And after learning so many fraud in internet banking.. how am I supposed to still try to use it? Sigh.. now I become abnormal.

Ok, enough about the security stuff.. So now, I have my computer reborn, with no theme installed. Haha.. for first week, I’m using a classic windows theme. When chatting with mum over phone on weekend, she suggested me to use green color wallpaper, since it’s better for eyes. So I did.. For my first choice, I randomly pick forest wallpaper. Stick with it for 2 days.. but somehow isn’t satisfied.. It’s too common to fill my desktop for long time. Eventually, I remember about Leopard’s Beta Wallpaper. Changing the theme to green template .. and.. bump.. my computer got new look.. which I predict to last for long this time =]

Anyway, I had stopped drinking coffee for a week. Why? My tea bags are going to expire soon.. So did my honey lime. Both Tea and honey lime tasted great… but I still prefer coffee.. With mission to finish them soon, I mix the tea and honey… become tea-honey-lime. And I get the smell of lime.. but the taste of…? Plain water aka tasteless! Amazing ~.~

Talk about my daily life… Most of lessons are finished. I’m left with one prof comm tutorial. All the job hunting thing had hopefully stopped as well.. My last application was to JPM. Right after exam, I will have one discussion group for bank C. haha.. For bank B.. it’s painful… but I need to say that I’m waiting for it’s rejection letter after the disastrous phone interview. Bank D? No news so far. So did bank M. haha.. anyone can guess exactly what bank I am referring to? XD I felt it quite funny as they are really in sequence of BCD… XD.. Oh yes, for B+C… I should have as well rejected ~ One of my friend had already got the interview call although he submitted latter then I am. For FYP.. my supervisor is back already.. met her just now.. she asked if I’m studying hard.. eheem.. that’s a good question, Prof. haha.. Anyway.. thanks so much for asking =] Thanks to the lab technician too.. she didn’t get mad at me although I kept the computer at lab opened for 2 weeks! You’re the best!

Ok.. That’s all for the update… Shall ‘try’ to study now =)

Not get used to Mozzila Firefox yet :S,
Erlin.D

Neural Network Experiences

1. After an exhausting 5 days of work, including a Microsoft word which hang every time I tried to save, gladly glancing at my 6-pages report. Take a rest for half day, then starting the 3^rd question. Copy pasting my code for 2^nd question to 3^rd question. Upon examining the training output, finding out something very weird…
2. … Heart pounding, sweat dropping, and what I can define as nightmare become reality. Lacking of 1 line of normalization code, I need to throw away all my result and analysis of question 2 from the 5 days.
3. Try to find my teammate, but not contactable.
4. My computer starts acting weird. After training for 25 minutes, it will restart by itself, which of course, make my whole result gone. Everytime I restart, the life time becomes shorter and shorter. Now, every time I started matlab, the monitor will become blur and my computer will restart in 10 minutes. Countless time it encounters the blue screen of death. Now I need to depend on 512MB computer lab to do the training…
5. … But it didn’t last long. After the whole night training on Sunday, wake up in the morning only to find out that the computer in lab is absurdly shutdown. The result gone again. Run to lab and figure out that a FYP student is doing a demo in the computer Yes.. we’re sharing computer.. and it’s absolutely not his fault that he logged in. However, his demo including disconnecting the computer from NTU LAN. Means I won’t be able to even open the share folder anymore. Not until his demo on Friday.
6. In whole confusion… going back and try to use my computer. No improvement. Eventually, asked helios to help me setting up the computer from my lab. Then I can remote again! I then quickly tried to run the matlab again. Error. NTU run out of license for neural toolbox. What a short happiness.
7. Teammate told me that she stuck with the learning rate part, which is the first question, first part, first section. There are 3 questions in total containing 3 part each and 5 section each. The deadline is in one week time.
8. I didn’t know what to do anymore, so I went to eat Beef Pepper Steak. (ha?)

I think this is really the worst project management I ever did. I don’t mind the trouble of the long training.. but the fact that I was getting so many useless result due to my own carelessness… is something that I really cant stand with. Too rush to start the training even before I verify the code. Sigh. If I had done a proper training from beginning, the project itself won’t take more than 2 weeks to complete. Really.

After the project is eventually submitted (submitted 2 hours before the deadline) I would now gladly thank these people:

1. Teammate, who had been chased by me everyday until the submission date.
2. Arianto, who had sacrificed his laptop for matlab and training the whole week. I owe you =D
3. Helios, who had helped me set up the computer at lab. It means a lot!
4. Lab executive, who practically recovered the LAN for me. I really don’t know what excuse I should put on when I meet her… “Yes, I’m using the computer lab overnights for 2 weeks. No, not for fyp, but project...”
5. My dear computer, who accompany me in the beginning but leave me when I’m down. Despite of being given a new cloth. Huh! (so u’re put in the last of the list :p)

In conclusion… hmm… ok… experience is always priceless. So I didn’t regret to taste this one. It’s important in training out stress handling approach. But still, once is really enough to get the essence of it.

Bye Neural Assignment. Welcome Neural Lecture recording & Tutorial!

Neural Exam in 10 days,

Erlin.D