Backlog

zanglang@gmail.com (Jerry) — Sat, 19 May 2007 14:51:44 +1000

Thesis seminar – We had to do a seminar for our thesis topics over the past week. Prepared slide drafts, rehearsed 2 times or so at home (by myself, in an empty living room… which was a bad idea!), went to uni as usual with shiny new NICTA laptop (loaned temporarily), was worried Ubuntu wouldn’t work with overhead projector so betrayed myself and decided to present on Windows using Adobe Acrobat (non-continuous full-screen PDF presentation). Presentation turned out only passable, got good marks (81/100) but pretty unsatisfied with my speech: the opening was a disaster as I pretty much panicked and slurred heavily, settled down on following slides, but turned out I was still speaking too fast (I know I tend to speak fast, so I consciously made sure I pronounced each word loud and clear to sort of slow down my talking… not enough! Reminder to self: practise pausing), and not enough eye contact (relied too much on laptop). Lesson: more rehearsing!
Assignments – Load of work due in the following weeks. Thesis research is lagging behind. Possible crisis?
Code – Started discovering Python, and liking it! Realized I never grew attached to Ruby because of heavy Perl-isms, Python’s cleanliness is great. Next on learning list: Code exercises, Django and Pylons!
Life – Perhaps my reputation as ‘the other Web Information Systems tutor’ was better than I thought. Looking forward to passing out TEVALs (tutor evaluation forms) next week. :)

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