//beconfused

Been kinda busy lately therefore not really blogging. I have so much things I wanted to say but don’t have the time to. I’ve been busy with my assignments, the Java assignment is done, yet not done. Hanging in the middle. My E-business module is largely about research which I am quite good at.

And then there is work which I code with ActionScript:

(Coding with ActionScript.)

Also busy with this work which I code with a coffee cup as you can see:

(Development with coffee cup, you just have to move the cup around and the IDE would start constructing. They call that scaffolding.)

Next week would be better. Schedules are tight and my reading has stopped too. Coming week would be prelims for my university. But let’s look at the brighter side shall we? That means semester is ending!

Yet another shooting case in America, this time in Illinois:

6 shot dead, including gunman, at Northern Illinois University

DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) — A gunman dressed in black stepped from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday and shot 21 people, five of them fatally, then turned shot and killed himself, said university president John Peters.

Four died at the scene, including the shooter, and two later died at the hospital, he said.

At least 22 people, including a graduate student who was teaching an ocean sciences class, were shot, Peters said.

Seventeen victims were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, its Web site said.

Of those, six were in critical condition and were flown to other hospitals. One fatality, a male, was confirmed — but was not the gunman, the hospital said. Two were admitted, and three others were discharged.

The gunman started shooting from a stage in the room shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall, officials said.

Police Chief Donald Grady said authorities do not yet know of a motive.

Read more at CNN

CNN also made a timeline of the past shootings that occurred in university.

It’s chinese new year and we had this yearly reunion dinner thing going.

(Our already emptied dining table.)

We had a great meal with our family. Most of my father’s side family came over. We had chicken, duck, chicken, prawn and abalone. And almond jelly.

(We are probably the only family drinking port on reunion dinner.)

I mean who the hell drinks port on new years. Port would like to announce that it has 17.5% alcohol in it.

(All the leftovers are kept in the refrigerator.)

(New covers for the bed.)

My mother got me new covers for my bed, says new year must change bed covers. So yeah. It’s safari and jungle theme as you can see. I don’t like the greens.

(Just thought that my plush elephant might just fit in for a cameo. And there’s a red packet hidden under my pillow. You supposed to sleep on it so that the money grows. No?)

(Another poor attempt on lunar new year decorations.)

My father’s responsible for it I think. He tried (and failed) to induce some Chinese New Year feel to our cold television. It didn’t work. Forgive him for the little white creature that looked like it belonged to Christmas because it did. It’s just there ’cause it’s got this bit of red on its hat and barely made it to the display.

(My cupboard that I did not bother cleaning this year.)

I was a little busy, okay lazy, and I didn’t clean up my cupboard this year. It still looks acceptable I guess so I’m just leaving it that way. I probably try harder during spring cleaning 2009. My tables cleaner already but I took out too many stuff to work on it’s as if I did not clean my table.

February is just going to be a tough month. My assignment deadlines are March 1 and I have the prelims coming on February 27 (Mathematics), March 1 (E-business), March 3 (Computing and Internet) and March 5 (Java). I saw my Gantt chart for my work - it looks very pretty. It’s just going to be busy.

Thank god I almost have no school in February. I think I probably be going a couple of days a week for a couple of hours each time only. The only bad thing is that this time the assignment seemed harder. But well, the secret is… I finished my Java assignment’s program already. Yeah!

Have a good day ahead. Happy lunar new year!

I was browsing through Facebook and realized that the NTU Zi Char Uncle starts Facebook too.

Got Facebook group some more.

Nowadays more and more advanced already. And you thought Zi Char Uncle only know how to cook your sin chow mee hoon? Uncle now know social-networking okay?

Finally I finished one assignment. It sure took long to launch Microsoft Word and start typing the answers. I hate having to type and type things I consider to be quite “common sense”. I finished it quite quickly surprisingly, I was expecting myself to take much longer.

Lessons at school are kinda ending already. Made me a little happier, a little worried too. It only means examinations are coming and I am not good in examinations somehow.

School’s been interesting. I enrolled into university into a course I pretty much expect myself to be alone. I didn’t know anybody who would join the university and didn’t expect to make friends much either. Before course commencement, I was still feeling pretty down that life’s going to be boring and routine.

Even when school starts, things didn’t start off too well also. I had a hard time grasping business and mathematics concept. Things are starting to get better and discussions with my clique helped a lot. I start having this feeling that discussions would eventually be stopped. Seems like not much people is really contributing to discussions.

Discussions require contribution and sometimes the contribution level falls so low that it is like a kindergarten teacher leading a class of 4. I watch the discussions die off a couple of times making no attempt to save it. Sometimes I tried to, sometimes I just don’t. Some things I note are:

1. If one person is teaching and receives little to no feedback during a discussions, he or she quits contributing. One person talking by himself or herself for fifteen minutes is not a good discussion.
2. Some people try to continue the discussion by asking more question. That typically fails after a while…
3. There are times contributions are disruptive. When one person understand the discussion and the other person doesn’t, the discussion doesn’t go on. Instead it gets stuck at one point where explanations just keep getting repeated and I had to visit the water cooler twice to excuse myself to keep awake.
4. Unproductive discussion often result when any one of the participants is feeling sleepy or joining in late. Feel sleepy then quit the discussion and go somewhere else, better than killing the discussion by asking for repeats.
5. Might be helpful for discussions to have a participant that would take up a moderator role.

Anyway… I doubt that our discussions would continue due to certain issues. I just have a feeling that it probably won’t happen again.

(Happy new year everybody!)

It’s the end of the year again. 2007 is going to end in like a minute but the good news is that 2008’s coming. (more…)

I’m spending quite a bit of time on university assignments and now I’m sitting in front of the computer wondering if everything really that worth it. Is gaining that little bit extra mark that worth it. The deadline is January 2, 2008.

I have assignments for e-business, Java and a computing course.

My e-business module is quite screwed. I can’t really put things to words. I know how things work roughly here and there, the lessons are interesting, concepts are quite refreshing generally. Unfortunately it is a quarter filled with common-sense knowledge. They are trying to document common-sense step-by-step which is wasting lots of time and trees.

They had this thing called general system analysis process where they cleverly broken down the analyzation process into 4 steps:

1. Defining the problem
2. Describing the situation in enough depth
3. Designing potential improvements
4. Deciding what to do

But isn’t this just normal thought process? Just like, I am late for work. So I start thinking why I am late for work and I realized it’s because I miss my bus. And next time I’ll reach the bus stop earlier. I decide to wake earlier to go take a bus.

I’m just amazed how they can break a thinking process into a flow diagram.

Okay, enough ranting. I’ll go finish up my e-business assignment now. I’ve finished the Java assignment already, that’s something to be relieved about at least.