The Story of My Last Battle

These few days were tougher than ever...but

These few days were also the moments I enjoy so much...

The moments where I was excitedly counting down...

For something that I aimed for the last four years...

And at last, today is the D-day...

the moment that I've been waiting for...

the moment of joy...

the freedom...

I GRADUATED^_^

*only left with the exam and fyp results then I'll officially earn that B.Eng(Mech) title:P

The story of my last battle in NTU began from here...

D-4 (Saturday, 3 May 08) - the omen

After enjoying the two off-days (giving myself a lil' break after the last paper), I began the fight for my last battle (read: fyp presentation). First thing I did was to re-read the first few pages of my own report and then I tried to make a big picture of what I'm going to present, kinda like the backbone of the presentation. Apparently, that night wasn't really my best moment for making good presentation slides. I suspected that it was the beginning of my series of unfortunate events (but i guess when some unfortunate things happen to you, something good will happen a few days later. "Every cloud has a silver lining" --> this is so true!)

D-3 (Sun, 4 May 08) - lazy day

I still felt that my slides are not good enough but I was blinded and couldn't really figure out the parts where I felt the uneasiness. I was extremely lazy on Sunday, so I slept a lot and at night I just went to the new canteen to watch my friends' rehearsal. I was there to look for inspiration. I did find some, but not too many though. Thank you guys for becoming my source of inspiration!!!:P

D-2 (Mon, 5 May 08) - unfortunate disaster

Yeah, the day started with me waking up at 10 am, planned to rehearse before going to school and print some hand-outs, but alas, I didn't have enough time. So I just rushed to school, had my early lunch and printed the hand-outs in library (which apparently today, weren't really "touched" by my audience, 2 supervisors and 1 moderator, nevertheless, I did look prepared for the presentation, didn't I?:P)

Then I had this meeting with my supervisor, he gave me some eye-openers and very useful feedbacks. I started to see the uneasiness fallin' apart as I slowly realized the things that I've done wrong. I highlighted too many negative parts of the projects. I took my own achievement (the good ones) for granted.

Moral of the story: I should try not to be too harsh on myself sometimes and focus more on my accomplishments (especially when I present something). I should celebrate the fact that I've done my very best and see the bright side, always...^_^

And then off I went, back to my own room and edited my slides for about an hour or so, but to my great surprise (not panicking yet), my comp started to just hang in there and wouldn't respond to any vigorous presses on each keys, including the ESC key, CTRL+ALT+DEL key, and so I thought,"Well, maybe I just have to turn off my comp (you know, by pressing the on/off key for like 5 secs)". Usually, it works. But, unfortunately that day is the F day for me, IT DIDN'T WORK...instead, it gave me this blablabla warning and my lappie just refused to boot for me!!!! WTF!!!!

And then I thought about the worse, what could happen to my files? did I have the backup files for all? At that time, obviously, I only care about my fyp files, for goodness sake D-2 before my D-day and why did you have to give me the 'attitude' huh? Apparently a computer is still a computer afterall, it can't choose when it should and shouldn't gimme the attitude. What a GREAT timing!!!! Did I save my edited slides just now? will they still be there? Did I have the backup? Did I save it to the external harddrive?

Luckily, I always save my fyp files since day 1 because I believe that,"All the bad things will come out when you don't want it to happen at all, esp. when you least expected it, and usually with a great timing too"

*like my case....sigh*

So to my relief (I wasn't in the verge of tears 'coz I knew that I have the backup of my most important files), I calmed myself down, try to do this and that before I finally gave up and took my 'baby' to the 'doctor'. But even the 'doctor' can't cure him. I was sad, but not devastated. I immediately prepared myself to accept the loss of my precious data, especially MY PICTURES and PHOTOS collection!!!!! bunch of them and they all gone!!! shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, reformatting computer sucks!!!!!*sorry folks, i dun feel the need to censor myself here, 'coz i really felt like i'm in a real deep shit.

But then again, every cloud has a silver lining...Let's look at the bright side:

(dark) So I just have to lose some data, including my pics, resumes...

(bright) Lucky, I still have my most important files (but my pics are oso important, how arh?T_T)

(dark) So I have to re-install all the programs again. WTF???

(bright) Yeah, at least your computer becomes a virgin again now, faster booting ('coz nothing's there), i have lotsa disk space, i can rearrange my folders nicely...Wonderful!!

(dark) Great, now I have to re-arrange all my songs and re-input them into iTunes! Shit! I can't sync my iPod 'coz there's nothing in my iTunes playlist

(bright) Well, now I can have one more thing to do, at least it will keep me busy after the freedom from fyp. I won't feel bored and I can re-arrange my playlists nicely. Fabulous!!!

(dark) Watttt? all my emos in MSN goneee!!! I can't chat with cute funny emos to express my feelings (instead of just typing those dull words over the msn w/o the arty fanciful emos, DULL!!)

(bright) Great!! I can re-organize my emos and gave them proper shortcuts, I can even 'steal' more emos from everyone. I think now I have more emos than I used to have before (all thanks to my lil' sis, her collections are insanely a lot...muach muach^_^)

So there was I, spending my whole night trying to recover my 'baby' to his acceptable state. I can't stand staring to a totally 'virgin' lappie. He'll be useless...hahaha *pardon my language here...

D-1 (Tue, 6 May 08) - still unfortunate

Yeah, one more day to the dreadful day, as well as the beginning of my free moments. I started rehearsing, I mean the real rehearsal, talking outloud in my own room and timing myself. However, I still wasn't very comfortable with my slides' arrangement. I wanted to change it (again??) but I procrastinated. I thought maybe I should find someone to hear me presenting it first. So at night, my roomie became my first and only victim to my dreadful rehearsal (thanks a million Shil for your constructive criticism!! I appreciated it and your words have actually banished my doubts about changing the arrangement of my slides and some contents *it turned out later that it was a correct decision, glad I changed them)

I edited (2nd editing) my slides again until around 4 am in the morning, so I succesfully slept my way through the next day. Anyway, my presentation wasn't up until 4.30 pm, so I still got the time to have more sleep. Lucky!!

By the way, I still went to a volleyball game with my vball friends before I received some feedback from my roomie, so I was energized after the game. Volleyball never fails to lift up my spirit!! Love you!!!! *now I have some bruises on my arm, guess not hitting the vball for almost two months, reduces my arms' resistance.

D-DAY (Wed, 7 May 08) - LUCKY!!!

My lucky day has finally arrived. After sleeping like a pig, I woke up fresh and ready to fight the final battle. I rehearsed for the last time and found myself even more confident with this new presentation slides. I could relate on what I want to talk about with the slides and also show my understanding throughout the presentation.

I took my shower, had my lunch, watched some videos on youtube and then headed off to the battlefield (TR 26), I was kiasu enough to arrive one and a half hour before my scheduled presentation time. Yeah well, I'm that kind of person who doesn't like rushing around, especially when I have an important appointment, interview, presentations and etc to attend. I'd prefer to give myself some extra time, to be relaxed and prepared.

I was confident and fortunately the confidence didn't wear out once I entered the TR, I sailed through the presentation with just one major error, one technical problem (now I kinda dislike technology). My stupid video didn't work on the big layer, so I had to show it using my small laptop's screen. And then Mr. SP (supported by my supervisor), interrupted and asked me to just skip the video part 'coz we don't have time for this. I was like *happy*

"Really? well, if you don't want to know, it's my pleasure to skip the video part. 'Coz I find it too detailed and troublesome to explain either. I was literally jumping with delight." (thinking by heart)

So then I finished on time, answered the not-so-tough Qs and that was it! I'm FREE!!! (these happened in only 30 minutes). I fighted well and came out victorious!! YATTA!!! I did get some compliments from my supervisor and moderator. I'm flattered! My hard-work paid-off.

"Good job"

"Some people tend to get too caught up with details that they forgot to mention the big picture, but your presentation was good, you mentioned the big pictures and gave out appropriate details, not too much, not too little. Good job!"

Well folks, that was the story of my last battle in NTU. It is now the time to CELEBRATE. I must celebrate enough to prepare myself for the next battlefield ("the working world"). I'm still trying to find the right battlefield and along the way, do wish me a very GOOD luck!! Merci...

Ciao!!

Bises,

Sien2

*tmolo--> KBOX session, let's sing our heart out!!!