all things me

I celebrated too early. It was this morning that there was really snow. Everything was white and still is (pretty much) — at least outside the city centre.

Last night, 8 pm — 2 am, I drew a GUI picture series of a search function. It’s for the ‘introduction to application design’ course. There’s a zoo database which we’ve designed through 3 group projects so far. (It’s going to develop step by step, but we aren’t going to program it. This is just a course on designing.) It was a lot of fun. It would’ve been more fun to design the basic layout for the interface (I would’ve done an html page with frames and forms and then taken a screen shot of it) but it wasn’t my turn — last week I drew use case diagrams and context diagrams, wrote use cases based on Alistair Cockburn’s template…

If you know a program for *drawing* windows (not an MS Visual Basic type of thing that codes the interface), I’d be very interested in hearing about it.

Ah, finally. I managed to fill a whole 2 pages (probably too little but I was working at my limits) with an analysis of bureaucratic language in a sequence of 5 letters (not as in character, but the ones you send to people). The deadline was “at the end of October” and it’s October 31st at 23:55 (5 minutes before midnight). Talk about close call.
I don’t care, as long as I pass. It was a stupid course anyway.

I’m writing a unification-based parser grammar and am faced with a problem with adjectives. Professor proposed a model where adjectives of a same “type” (size, colour, etc etc) should be restricted in a way that they can’t modify the same word. Is this a good rule? Seems so, it would be a bit silly to talk about “rough smooth surface” (or “smooth rough”) but is it absolutely wrong? What about the game title “Little Big Adventure”? On the other hand, that’s creative writing and the parser will be working in a relatively restricted domain (not meaning ‘restricted by relations’, well… in a way). Also, the parser is supposed to be “permissive” and last summer I had to throw my perfectionism in the trash bin and allow plural subjects and predicates to mix freely
Well, the *biggest* problem is probably how I am going to restrict the adjectives if it comes to that…

I’ve been making the parser more permissive by allowing nouns to be articleless (and of course, sometimes they’re supposed to be). Hmmm… what to tackle next?

I’ve been searching for the proper meaning of CPD (domain: printers etc.), and during my journey I found this (the site is a mess, there are better acronym sites): CPD — Cubicle Prairie Dogging (people popping up in their cubicles when something happens)

It’s not exactly what I was looking for… I could also be looking for CDP…

I can’t stand group projects. In a group I can’t be an oppressing dictator who has a complete control over the outcome (by myself, I can, and I am). I can, at best, check that the text isn’t horribly spelled and commas all over the place but I can’t go erasing things saying “no no, that’s silly”. That makes me feel so vulnerable. My grade is in the hands of other people — what a thought. I do know that other people have better ideas and the more there is people the more points of view there are and thus the work’s better. Still, that doesn’t make me feel any more at ease.

I offered to make the slide show for our database project. This way I know it’s going to be good. No, I’m not that self-confident. What I am is a perfectionist-freak. The others said, “I don’t have a Power Point”, “I don’t know how to do that stuff, I haven’t taken the basics course yet. I can do that when I’m almost graduating”, or “we can whip up a few transparencies in class before our turn”…

I do get along with people and at work it’s great to have others working on the same project, but work isn’t graded. When my FUTURE depends on the work I’m doing and I have to allow others meddle… that makes my heart skip a few beats.

First day at work — again. This time I’m hired for 3 months’ worth of hours but I do them when I can (I have course-duty). Only 444½ to go…

I’m dead-tired!! I don’t know why. I was still up around 2 am and I got up at 7:50 am so I probably got about 5 hours of sleep. Not that much.

At work, one of my tasks is to populate an ontology whose topic is not confirmed yet. That’s why I twiddled my thumbs for the majority of the day. I also have to continue my work with the parser/parser lexicon/parser grammar I familiarized myself with last summer.

Yesterday I downloaded Movable Type. No, I’m not changing to that but I gotta see what the hype is all about. And who knows, maybe I’ll think of something new to do with the help of MT…

I added a new category: WWW. It’s going to include posts that have links, test results (the web kind…) or other net stuff. I haven’t put many posts in it yet — I have a lazy moment. I would’ve made a big category Computer which would’ve had Site, Games and WWW as subcats and then Site would have Updates, Tweaks, and Fanlistings but they wouldn’t show on the write/edit post screen…

The university term of autumn, 2004 has slowly begun. I don’t have much to choose from because my major seems very scroogy in offering courses. I have found some however, from minors:
In translation studies I’m taking localisation, computer aided translation exercises (we’re learning to use Trados, basically), terminology, and translating bureau language. In computer studies there’re introduction to databases and application/program planning (whatever that is). In British and Irish Studies (not my minor or anything) I’m going to take introduction to British literature.

Spring is going to be hectic, but I hope I can take as many of the courses as I possibly can. I don’t want to do any of them independently so if I can’t go to the lectures, I’m going to wait for another term.

Firstly, Happy Birthday, Mariela!

How many times can I mess up one single thing: bachelor’s thesis. I sent my professor a message way back in June saying “Here’s the final version of my thesis, I’ll come by to bring the paper version too when it finishes printing.” Well, I never did — go by to bring the paper version — because it printed mess (symbols). Well, now I’d gotten an email from my professor asking if there was supposed to be an attachment with the email because he needed the final version for binding (binding!!). Oi oi oi. I had also forgotten to update the files on my homepage!

I’m always forgetting to attach things, especially when it comes to very important university courses…

Oh yeah, and now it won’t make a pdf from the tex file. I don’t know what I did back in… May. Luckily I had converted it already.

Updates At TGWLSK — a few new book titles in Russian, Albanian, Persian, Estonian, Spanish, Croatian, and Turkish (what I could find in the library system of the capital city area)

I bought Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah today. Unfortunately I could only find Hodder & Stoughton’s copy. My sister got me the Grant copy of DT V for Christmas so I would’ve wanted to get a similar looking book. Oh well, H&S’s version is more beautiful (and it’s the same series than my DT I-IV box set).

That means I updated TGWLSK: there’s a picture of the spine of SoS in the Bookshelf.

Tomorrow is the enrolling to computer studies courses. I have to wake up before 9 am for that. Luckily I have to go no further than my computer because the enrolling is done via their website. Also, on Monday I have to enrol to Monako (translation stuff) courses and that too is computerized nowadays.

This autumn is very bad course-wise. There’s really not much to take. The spring however is packed and I probably have to give up on some of the courses I’m drooling over now. Oh well, I’ll do some book exams, and a silly computer course (mandatory) at home.

I don’t understand why there has to be so many courses to be done by book exams. I don’t want to read books and answer questions about them, I want to attend lectures!! That’s why I am at the university — for the lectures!

Last night (after being scared s***less by a moth that bumped into my bed lamp and flew crazily around only to be crushed between my sheet (ewww) and a magazine) I finished reading Douglas Adams’s The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. I started it gawd knows how long ago so I’ll probably read the Finnish version soon. The Ultimate guide includes the Hitchhiker trilogy (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy + The Restaurant at the End of the Universe + Life, the Universe, and Everything) and three other stories (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish + Young Zaphod Plays It Safe + Mostly Harmless). I enjoyed the book because of it’s crazy humour (nutty names) and of course the wonderful, and surprising, playing with language. I don’t know how on earth the Finnish translator has been able to transport the word plays to the translation — but I will find out soon.

I had removed the month abbreviation from the calendar (template-functions-general.php, line 385 fwd) but now it turned out that the long word ‘September’ causes the arrows (») to go to the next line. So, I put the abbreviation back. I still will have ‘June’ and ‘July’ in their full form cause I’m just used to it. Why abbreviate words that are so short already? (A bit like b for ‘be’, u for ‘you’, 4 for ‘for’ etc. etc. etc.)

Yesterday I noticed that my hostess Shirasade had changed from Movable Type to WordPress. YAY!

Wheeee!!! I know it’s only 0:10 and I have to wake up for work in about 7 hours, but still! Last day at work!! I get to start my summer holidays!!

@ 9:53
Ok, have to remember to return the key [check] and the grammar book [check] I still have borrowed from the library, take my coffee mug and my slippers/sandals and clear the desk… I wonder if I have to carry this computer back to where it was. I don’t have a key to the room (anymore) and I don’t know if the door will be open when I finish at 16.

Just my luck. I bought 7 jelly doughnuts (and there’s one extra just in case) for the people here at work and there’s only one person here besides me! Oh well, Dad and sister are no doubt glad about my misfortune.
[edit @ 15:20] OK, good. The bag is down to 3 donuts. Just perfect. Now, NOBODY COME TO WORK ANYMORE! Shoo! [/edit]

Gosh, last night I had trouble sleeping cause I started getting ideas what to do to the blog I didn’t have my notepad on the bedside table (yes, I have a notepad on my bedside table — the best programming ideas, all the best ideas for that matter, appear on the notepad on my bedside table) so I had to scribble on some tiny piece of paper. Have to try out my ideas ASAP. There was one that I was too close to sleep to wake up and write down… what was it? Or maybe I did write it down.

Sheesh… I just realised I forgot to take/buy lunch. *bang bang bang* (that’s my head and this desk, hitting on each other )

When I went to return the key to the janitor he said “Well, this was a short story [referring to my period of employment]. You’ll probably be back some day.” Yeah, I probably will. Did he mean that all us innocent short-time employees are sucked into the evil vortex that is the University?

Wondering: Who plays Bolero here?! I’ve heard it almost every day at work. (And all kinds of other music, but I recognise Ravel’s Bolero…)