Week 5

"Quick! What's the number for 911?" ~ Ross Bagley as Buckwheat, Little Rascals

Week 5!! Woot!!

So OK, this week was by far better than previous weeks. The lecture wasn't dull at all this time. Maybe it was because it had complete relevance to our Assignment 1a, but yea, it wasn't boring or anything like that either. I especially liked how Mr. Yeap took his time to patiently explain the lecture and how to build these event tables and class diagrams even though it was pretty obvious hardly anyone was paying attention and that the size of our class has been in steady decline over the past weeks. I admire the fact that he kept on explaining even though the class wasn't responding to his "See the point or not?". Some of us, *ahem ahem* are a little bit shy when it comes to voicing out our questions and such. And I think his years of experience has taught him that too. Maybe that was why he just kept trying to make it clearer. It definitely did me good =D And I'm sure the rest of us who was paying attention understand this topic better now too. Good on ya' Mr. Yeap!!

Tutorial was good too. We had an exercise on building event tables for a lift system. Not as straight forward as you think. I never realised how much of things you actually do just to take the lift! First you step up to the lift and press a button. It could be up, or it could be down. Or, you could've pressed a button and then realise you never really wanted to take the lift in the first place. Silly you. Anyway, then the lift has to travel either up to your current floor, or down depending on where it was originally. Then you'll have to wait for the doors to open and you make your grand entrance in. Once inside, you press another button. To go to the floor you want. Again, a possible scenario is that you may have pressed the wrong button. Silly you. After all that commotion, the lift will travel either upwards or downwards, depending on where the destination floor is. At that floor, it will open it's doors and you exit the lift. Unless of course, you realise only at that floor that its the wrong floor and that you actually wanted to go to a different floor. In which case, the whole process repeats itself. Silly you. And if this isn't complicated enough, imagine all those giant systems we'll have to analyse and design in the very near future. Goodness gracious. Bottom line is, don't take anything for granted and don't complain too much about how some things are too difficult to manoeuvre. Try building it and see just how simplified it already is. So yea, tutorial went on good. We discussed as a group about this lift system, and after all the confusions, we finished and managed to hand it in on time too. And oh, it looks like Mr. Sylvester is making an attempt to socialize with the class. Nice =D Makes it a little easier to relax more in our tutorials.

On that note, I'll take my leave. School hols are next week, so try not to miss me. =D

Happy Easter everyone!!

=D

Week 4

"Read the directions, and directly, you'll be directed in the right direction." ~ The doorknob, Alice in Wonderland

Well, well, well. I've made it thus far and I'm still standing =D And now, the question on everyone's lips, "How was this week?" =D As I saw it based on the tutorial, it was about getting the right information to produce your system *correctically =D

Truth be told, this week was in fact, an improvement from last week's. Although, I still think the lectures need a little work. I mean, I must admit, they are rather boring. OK, you tell me. Would you like it if you had to get up early on a MONDAY morning just to attend a lecture about building systems. I know its important and all for us in the future but there's just got to be a better way to present it to us. That early in the morning when every one's having the Monday Blues. But I have to give Mr. Yeap credit though. You really can see that he is putting in the effort to get the class more attentive and interested. This week he also discussed a little bit of our assignment with us and gave us a few pointers here and there about what's needed and what it should look like, relating all of it to the day's lecture. He gave us the break in between, which I thought was well needed to take in all the information given, and also more importantly to freshen up a little bit before we get back to work. So, that was that. Lecture.

The tutorial this week was a lot better that it was last week, with the half an hour video and all. This week, we had to interview our tutor, pretending that he was a 'client' of ours and that we were building them a system. What system exactly? A Table =D Yes, you heard me. A Table =D Don't laugh. I know we're in Uni and yes, we were asking questions about how a table looks like. Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot of issues to clear before we actually build a table. How it should look like, whether or not it should have wheels for mobility, drawers maybe? And the list just went on and on. So, OK. We came up with our questions, narrowed it to only the important ones and assigned 'positions' for each one of us. Guess which one I got? =D Hehheh.. I got the position of 'Secretary' =D I just had to sit and write down the points and answers from the interview, and the best part was, no interaction with the "Interviewee" required. It was all good! Until of course, *there's always a but or until* our Interviewee decided to ask me whether or not I had any questions too.

Bang! I was shot dead.

I explained to him my role and escaped for a little while but I knew I had to come up with a question fast. For integrity's sake =D Not that it was a problem or anything. So anywho, we finished the interview, got our comments and was given a task. That we were to summarize the interview and produce a report for our 'Boss'. Also, our tutor. Hahah.. I know.. Very busy man =D So, without delay, OK fine, after a little bit of delaying, we got down to work. Since I wrote down the points from the interview, I summarized them into a table and then with a little help from my fellow team mates, we finished our report. YAY! No homework =D Then I handed it in and got a response from the tutor. And it was a fast one too. So overall, I think this week went on just fine. I'd give it an 8 out of 10 =D

I do want to make a suggestion though. It would be really nice if someone commented on our blog entries every week. It will give us a bit of a motivation to write more. As of now, it just seems like we writing out to ourselves. If no one's gonna read it, then why write? So I guess a small comment at least would be quite encouraging. And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. So if there's someone reading this now, please, give me your thoughts on my thoughts =D

=D

*Correctically - Correctly ~ Absalom, Alice in Wonderland

PS: I think you can see by now that I'm obsessed with movie and song quotes =D Hopefully you find the relations to the week's topic =D

Week 3

"Where is it? Where is the thump-thump?" ~ Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

Wow. Week 3 already. And already the assignments are piling up. Anywho, how was lecture this week? Well, I have to say that it was pretty much like it was last week. With the chart drawings, adequate explanations and the occasional joke or two, I can't say I loved it, but.. it was bearable =D On the bright side, I am starting to like this subject. It seems very relevant to our field of study and to the world today. Without System Analysts, I don't think any company will be able to meet the corporate demands of today. Without a good system, they will all be slow in producing reports, error prone and more importantly, slow in going through their daily transactions. And when that happens, who knows what the state of our economy will be.

Tutorial on the other hand, was a completely different experience. And surprise surprise, Mr. Orimaye likes the class to be interactive.. -.- He's quite informative, has an awesome memory for names and overall, I think very enthusiastic about the session. We discussed podcasts today and he showed us a few sites that could help us create a podcast (which I will be later inserting into this post =D). We also got to watch a video today. I know it beats having to answer tutorial questions, but this was an extremely long video. It just kept going on and on and on. The speaker just didn't stop! Because it was soo long, and also because it was 2.30 in the afternoon and I had a stomach full of lunch, I started getting fidgety and my mind wondered off. All I managed to catch from the video was a couple of things about chairs and a Pepsi experiment-like-thing. I just couldn't concentrate after that. I think in the future, if we're going to have to watch more videos, please, please, please make it shorter =D Seriously, a lot of people were dozing off.

All in all, if I had to grade this week, I'd give it a 6 out of 10. Mainly because of the video. Otherwise, it was good (probably an 8/10).

=D

Week 2

"Take a look through my eyes." ~ Phil Collins

So, week 2. I found the lecture a little more interesting this time. During the lecture, it was not just all talk by the lecturer at the podium, he also drew charts and such on the board to help tie the things we were learning about together. This helped me understand more because I saw the relationships between the various subtopics. We were learning about the various methods used to develop systems like Waterfall and RAD. After the charts he drew, I managed to distinguish between them, find their similarities, differences and more, a lot quicker. So yea, I'm grateful Mr. Yeap took the trouble to make an improvement from the previous week's lecture. And thank goodness too. I'm more awake now. =D

Unfortunately though, I was unable to attend the tutorial due to some unforeseen circumstances. It was a pity because it would have been the first tutorial with our new tutor, Mr. Orimaye. Now I don't know whether he's strict or lenient, whether he's fun or dull or whether he makes the tutorials sessions interactive or not. You see, I don't do too well in interactive sessions. =D All I know is that the last tutorial with Mr. Ramesh was fun, and yes, even though I was in the hot-seat to do a presentation..... -.- It was all good in the end. Let's just wait and see how next week goes. *crosses fingers*

=D

Week 1

"What we do in life echoes in eternity." ~ Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator

So, week 1 and we're off. To a good start, I hope =D So far, everything has been good, the first lecture has been easy to follow and to cope with and the tutorial was.. interesting. To me, breaking us up into groups and already assigning us to a group presentation was a quick way to break the ice.

Up to now, it seems like this is going to be another all-theory kind of subject. Not that its a bad thing or anything, but its just that I don't really do well in this kind of units. I'm more of a hands-on, practical kinda person. But anyway, we'll see how this one goes. The lecturer seems enthusiastic enough, don't really know how the tutor's gonna be though. We had a replacement for last week and for a week 1 tutorial he was quite OK, I guess.

Bottom line is, I'm just hoping the lectures get a little more interesting. I mean for both the study material and how its presented. And that the tutorials come less lengthy..

=D