It’s Sunday night and as I bid farewell to this interesting week of ups and downs (in a sinusoidal fashion) I thought I’d just summarize it here on the blog as well. I mentioned in the last post about the start of Spanish classes, which I was looking forward to, perhaps to inject some discipline in my erratic post-exam life. The classes have begun, and I must say, apart from being hard, learning a language is really fun. The improvisations to churn out a legible sentence, juggling up words and verbs and pronouncing the “rolled-R” (errrrrrrr) is quite fascinating.

Also, I managed to start working on my project, which is mostly reading about stuff. The pace has been slow, but nonetheless, progress is what counts. A commenter asked for the project details which I shall post up soon. In fact, I worked last for three days to make a simple web space to keep track of my project. I will post the link as soon as I finalize it, and that will contain everything about the project, from details to daily progress.

Web development remained one of my top priorities throughout the week as I continued to work on my personal web (and blog), tweaking the designs, and implementing everything that I dreamt about during the exam preparation. Honestly, most creative ideas spring out at such times (when they are NOT required :D).

I’m still undecided on my vacation and home trip plans and this is something that’s bothering me. I really feel the need to take a break, but travelling for eight hours and then a return trip within few days doesn’t sound like a relaxing break to me. Its more like torture in the sky. So unless I have enough days to spare, I don’t think I will be able to go back home and it is pretty sad

Oh, and by the way, I’ve been neglecting the blog quite a lot lately (although this particular is getting most of my attention so you can imagine how others are being treated), but due to a comment by Zafer, I won the blogging incentive of this month So a big hand for Zafer *claps*

The weather is strange - it’s hot! There’s plenty of sunshine, but for some reason I feel that the burning sensation of sun is much stronger here than that at home. It may be the result of experiencing this high temperature after a break, but really temps above 20C doesn’t attract me - I’m not liking it!!! I spent the Saturday at Hyde Park where most of the people were enjoying the sun, and poor me trying to sit under the shade of a huge tree. I had KFC for the first time here on Saturday, since they have put some branches on halal trial. I never liked KFC back home, nor did I enjoy it here. Those guys really need to improve:D

Finally, I applied for a provisional driving license and as soon as I am getting it, I’m gonna take the real test and hit the road (ofcourse I will pass in the first attempt!!).

Looking back, the week was quite good, but I’m anticipating the next one to be even better. Will keep you guys posted.

Adios!

The word procrastination is undoubtedly the best explanation of the behaviours of university students. Wasting time and then whining over the lost time (and the lack of it) is perhaps the favourite time pass activity of most of us. A friend (and a geek!) made an attempt to evaluate the outcomes of the most popular ways (read algorithms) to waste time. A lot of time has been put (wasted) in this legendary work which I’m presenting here with the hope that you guys will love it too!

Follow this link for the paper: http://www.anasimtiaz.com/files/procrastination.pdf

Comments will be appreciated!

I think I’m dead. Seriously, nothing seems to interest me at all. All the post-exam plans that were being hatched during the exam prep have wilted, as if they were just to comfort me during that period. I’ve lost sense of direction. My MSc project is supposed to have started and I should be attempting to work on it now. To fulfill the obligation, I do wake up early in the morning, a routine carried from the exam prep days to secure a place in the library. I do reach the uni early, but end up doing NOTHING!

I’m acting like a robot, who has been programmed to wake up at a particular time, carry out routine stuff and go back to bed. I don’t mind waking up early (it does feel good), but unfortunately, the old program fed to this robot for carrying out the routine stuff has not been updated. The routine stuff needs to change!!

The good news is that the project, that I mentioned earlier, will start off slow and in the mean time I have enrolled for beginner level Spanish classes. Learning a new language with not much else on mind is something I’m looking forward to.

Spanish classes will being on Tuesday, but till then I’m totally lost until someone slaps me real hard to bring me to life!

P.S. If someone reads it, PLEASE leave a comment (even if you feel like cursing me)

The exams are now part of the history. Much to my disappointment, this isn’t the end and life, as usual, will need to resume very quickly. However, the torturous exam season’s end is a big relief. I can say with certainty that I’ve never been pushed to such limits EVER! (yeahh Imperial )

There is a reason for this too.  This should be relevant to all those who are aspiring to study at Imperial especially for the MSc courses.

During my first two days of lectures, back in October, I was quick to realize that I’m lacking behind in knowledge. The professors expect the students to know the basics very well, and have not only a solid foundation but a good understanding of numerous concepts. In comparison to the undergrads with us, the (majority) of MSc students struggled a bit to get to that level. The undergrads are well-trained from year one!

Thus I had to spend my first term, learning the stuff I was already supposed to know and hence couldn’t keep up with the lectures. The Christmas break was devoted to the courseworks and term two had its own subjects (and similar issues). Therefore, the pre-exam season was the time to learn all those things that were missed in the lectures, especially in the first term. Now, after making it through this time and having been able to tackle the questions and courseworks I really feel that I’ve learned a lot within a short span of time. So, a word of advice appropriate here for the prospective MSc students would be to expect the unexpected :D  No seriously, start studying even before the university session commences

Returning to the events of yesterday, the last exam was a memorable one. One of the best subjects of my course, and supposedly the easiest one. As usual, the allotted time was three hours, but I was in a hurry to finish off the matter and came out of the room in one hour. The first reaction of people on this gesture was that perhaps I was clueless and hence came out of the room early. No, I was pretty much confident, and did everything I was supposed to.

That’s perhaps all that I have to say about the exams but I’m considering a few posts for the prospective students now since I have received a couple of e-mails asking about how the study life is at Imperial.

It is time for me to return to my sleep now and then catch up on all that I’ve missed during the past month.

Have a great weekend!

So just two more exams to go, and I’m hooked on to YouTube. It is terribly difficult to study when you know the end is so near, and equally hard to study for the first exam. So that leaves out the first and the last. This makes me wonder how people having three exams managed to study

Tomorrow’s exam is an optional cover-up, an attempt to make ammends for the losses in the second exam. This thought makes me even casual. The so-what-if-i-fail-this attitude is easily winning. To top that, the subject is the one which I don’t love at all. And to make matters worse, I’m relying on probability and luck too! I’m skipping some chapters (nearly half the course for that matter) and hoping that with some luck and choices I will be able to manage the exam with comfort. The risk is very calculated. I’ve had a look at past exam papers (eight years!). There is a definite pattern, a certain section is stressed upon every alternate year while it is mysteriously missing in the others. Another section of the syllabus makes up half of the paper in odd years and only 33% in even years. One particular section has never been questioned for eight years. With this, and more, in mind I can certainly afford to take this risk. Ironically, my weakest mathematical aspect is probability and statistics. However, you don’t need to be a genius to follow this particular pattern.

What if the pattern isn’t repeated this year? Obviously I’ve given that a thought too. Two scenarios quickly spring up. One, why will the pattern not be repeated? And two, let’s just not think about it!!

Tomorrow will be a tough day, or the last tough day! An exam in the morning followed by the need to solidy the prep for the final exam very next day.

Hopefully, the next post here will reek jubilation. For now, the weather is still cloudy.

I can see that most of my fellow bloggers are now enjoying a peaceful sleep thanks to their early finish of exams. However, I’m still few steps from that final line. I posted the story (read misery) of the first two exams earlier but couldn’t continue due to the pressure of back to back exams. So I will continue from where I left. I went in to the examination room for the third exam with my confidence level at an all time low. And why not? I had the two worst exams of life in the past two days without any time to recuperate. The second exam, which was an optional subject, was something I was banking on. I had earlier planned to skip my upcoming exam (an extra optional subject) if things went well. But obviously, now this meant I will be forced to give the extra exam to make up for that loss.

So, this third exam, which was completely out of phase in context with the first two exams began with a bit of caution. The events of the past two days were playing on my mind but this time the lady luck was smiling on me! I had quite a good exam which more than cheered me up and I was ready to study for the next exam which was scheduled after a gap of four days. Unfortunately, the tiredness and lack of sleep of these three days finally started having some effect and I fell sick. Recovering from fever, I entered the next exam with some confidence and had another good one. I was on a roll!

Another day break before the next exam meant I could enjoy watching some cricket/football games, which I did! And then came today, a tough paper was expected which turned out to be rather pleasant!

I have got not much to talk about other than exams (and some gadgets that I picked up off ebay and amazon while taking study breaks). Things have picked up nicely after the initial dip. Got two more back to back exams to go after a gap of four days and that should be it. I’m feeling quite relaxed right now, will sleep for 12 hours and hit the library early morning, hoping that its not THAT difficult these days to get a space in there.

Will try to chip in tomorrow again if something interesting happens. That’s it for now, over and out!