Edge cases

It's been a surreal couple of weeks, these past few. A few days back it was me trying to make a friend laugh as she was talking to a recruitment agent from Millennium IT (I am known for being a bastard like that). Today, it was me sitting almost alone in the canteen that the gang and I spent most of our first two years of uni at.

Metro is a different creature on weekends. The (four!) lifts are empty, the hallways are deserted, lecturers run about dressed in jeans and t-shirts, and the canteen shop is closed. A few awkward couples sit scattered around the place, sharing bath packets.

I'm in no mood for lunch, so quickly scavenge off the chicken and a few mouthfuls of rice before discarding everything into the bin. I know, I know. Bad. But I just can't. I haven't felt this alone in ages. My okay, yet distant new group-mates are upstairs git-merging a system that has and will never be completed. Our final year project supervisor is scheduled to meet us in fifteen minutes, so I hurry back upstairs.

Happier times at the canteen (pic by Meshak)

So, a year has been spent at Malabe, and I've only managed to visit Metro campus two or three times. Once  tried to unsuccessfully smuggle Himal and Raisa upstairs, but the security guards noticed. Hawkward. Malabe is huge, and free, and people sit for hours under trees happily gossiping and checking out potential mates. Metro is cosy, office-y, and located at the heart of Colombo, a stones throw away from every place you'd ever want to be (Galle Face? MC?). The life students here spend is pretty different to the life students in Malabe spend, and while I'm thankful about everything Metro had to offer, I think I might just like Malabe better. It's a camaraderie thing. Also the library is huge, awesome and has plug-points. :P

Our meeting with the supervisor is progressing with the usual hiccups. Ugly interfaces are berated, inconsistent button styles are pointed out, exceptions that only seem to occur when we show the system to someone pop up all over the face, and threats to fail everyone are made. A voice that sounds a lot like Miss A's (refer link at the beginning of the post) seems to waft in from an adjacent computer lab. Attempts made to locate her post-meeting are unsuccessful.

So, in a week, the lectures for this semester will end. And then a few more weeks will see the end of our final  examinations, and the conclusion of our degree programme. The last time I faced a life-changing event like this, I didn't even have this blog. It's been a while, and I do hope I've outgrown my panic attack days. :P

This sucks

Ohhh, I have a blog now? Whoa.

So my uni life's ending in a couple of weeks, and things have been hectic. Actually, that's an understatement. But yeah, you always manage to find some time to do the things that really matter, and that's what counts in the end, right? Unless I've been counting wrong all this time, and someone comes up to my deathbed and laughs his arse off at me.

Yeah, that's about it.

What?

Were you expecting something more? Coz I've got this for you:

Image of/by HootingAngie

Laters.

random post #62

Let's go back to one of the oldest tricks in my book of what to do when I have nothing to write about.

So, I'm going back to uni next week. Baller girl will be there, balling away. Here's a sketch of her that I drew one boring evening at the library:

And here's a story of how things will not work out between us:

"Fifty rupees. It'll make you feel better." said she. Reluctantly handing over the money, he went and sat by the window. The table hadn't been cleaned after its previous occupants had left. He had barely started playing with the straw (from a half-finished bottle of Pepsi) and the ketchup on the plate when she joined him, ice cream cone in hand. "But I have a cold!" he protested.

I found this in the drafts folder. Must've written it one one of those bad days when I was frustrated with everything. And just when you think of how she means nothing to you, and how you're sooooo over her, you see her sitting there at uni; her long hair waving in the breeze, her perfect pearl-white skin glowing in the morning sunlight, and her arms crossed like the total tomboy (yet elegant girl) that she is, and you're left doing this:

Blocked

It sucks, you know, not being able to sleep? I find myself awake at the most awkward of hours, staring blankly at the laptop screen. Three nights ago, I went to sleep at 3 AM. Two nights ago, I attempted to go to sleep earlier but was lying in bed unable to, and then I went into a sneezing frenzy and found it so difficult to breathe that tears were coming out of my eyes. This morning I awoke at around 2 AM, and I've been wide awake for the past 18 and a half hours.

Did I tell you how much I hate IDEs? I also hate languages that are no good without IDEs and import statements, like Java and C#. So this morning, 2 AM onwards, I was busily typing away everything in my mind inside a gedit window because I hate IDEs. And of course, once I'm done I open up the IDE to make sure all the imports are in place and everything is in a runnable state. 5 minutes to clean up all the code and make sure the imports are in place, and we're a go. Start up the SDK, wait for Android to boot up and eagerly unlock the screen on the old Gingerbread ROM. And then BAM, unexpected application error, force quit, and there goes hours of work.The exception thrown doesn't really help matters, and a solution seems out of reach.

So, spirit broken, I waste the rest of the day idly checking out what real programmers are up to on IRC, and switching tabs between that lethal mixture of facebook, gmail and reddit. Rinse, repeat. I swear I'm going to lose it one of these days.

Guys NEVER overreact. Ever.

It's been a while since I spent this much time doing something non-programming related. :) This comic was insanely hard to put together, though the end result is pretty simple. I have been doing some part-time relationship advice-giving in the last few days (I hear the loud "Oh-no!"s already! Haha) and this is stuff that this experience has brought back.

And yes, I do find it very ironic that me (and another friend of mine) are dishing out relationship advice when both of us have pretty much never actually been in a proper relationship, like ever. Awkward!

Anyway, the comic:

And that is how guys NEVER overreact. :D (And yes, that guy's using a MacBook! What has the world come to, no?)

Things left unsaid

I haven't even touched this thing in ages, have I? I miss the days when I could write something stupid and get a million comments. I miss being anonymous, being able to speak your mind, you know? There are so many things I want to shout out about, so many things that the blogosphere circa 2009 would've been able to help me with. Everything was so much better back then, and I'm not just saying that for nostalgia's sake. We were family, even though scattered around the world and never having met.

Getting back to the present, I've been done with the first semester of my last year for about 3 weeks now. The batch is all back home, de-stressing. Some of us (a tiny fraction, really) even went on a pretty awesome hike, more on that in another post. :)

By the way, I'm no fan of modern pop, but I rather like this "Call Me Maybe" tune. I'm even more of a fan of the memes that it has spawned.

There's even an epic one for the bronies (via Chathura):

Ah, on the topic of bronies, I don't think I mentioned this on the blog earlier, but I'm now a die-hard fan of the show. It's all Gehan's fault, really. :P And before you get into insults about my masculinity: the dark ages called, and they wanted their bigots back.

And in other news, I think that certain people need to be reminded that nothing pisses me off more than people who shove their religion in my face. See, I've avoided discussing topics of faith on this little blog of mine because I absolutely loathe discussing things like that in public. Nothing is more personal than your beliefs, and I respect people who understand that. Reminds me of this awesome SatW comic:

Anyway, I'm off for now. It was good to let all of that off. Hope I can continue this. :D

code

I've always admired artists. There's something magical in their ability, their gift to transform their innermost thoughts and feelings into something communicable, and in doing so convey and transmit those feelings to others. A painter packs emotion into every stroke of his brush, a poet into every syllable she writes, a bassist into every little quiver of his fingers. That is beauty, the conversion of something so abstract as a chain of thought into something tangible, something of substance.

I began this post with the word 'admire', but I feel now that it should've been 'envy' instead. You see, when one doesn't have such an ability to communicate his feelings with the world, one does tend to turn green.

And that's where code comes in. It is the simple building block with which I try to translate the workings of my mind into a form that others could experience. It is the brush with which I hope to paint out my dreams, my hopes, and my desires. It is the platform on which I try to explore the meaning of life and the universe.

Code is not art. It would be arrogant and dismissive of real artists to call it that. But code is simply what it is; a cane to support the rest of us non-artists in our search for a means by which to express ourselves. So be careful before you move that curly brace, you could be treading on someone's hopes and dreams. :)

Freedom of Religion - Level: Asian

CHAPTER III - FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

10. Every person is entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

– Constitution of Sri Lanka

Most countries attempt to guarantee freedom of religion (and freedom from religion) by taking the secularist approach: clear separation of church and state and the government's non-interference in religious matters (and the church's non-interference in matters of governance). Sri Lanka, as always, has a different way of dealing with things: by giving all of the "recognized" religions a very powerful lobby in the government.

According to the "Ministries" page of the Sri Lankan government's official web portal, the following Ministries and Departments are concerned with religion:

• Ministry of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs
• Department of Christian Religious Affairs
• Department of Buddhist Affairs
• Department of Hindu Religious and Cultural Affairs
• Department of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs

Now, that's a shitload of public money being spent for the promotion and "protection" of religion. "Protection of religion" usually involves going batshit insane when a bunch of kids write a rock song that has some "religious material" in it. I wish these were the regular government departments that waste public money and blow some hot air once in a while, but hell no, they usually end up infringing on my right to live and enjoy life.

Census: Atheists aren't Sri Lankans too

Recently, the census forms were causing a commotion among Sri Lankan atheists, because you only had the choice of picking between the four (or five) major religions and another box titled "other", with no space left to write what those "other" beliefs were. This is not a big deal in itself, but it's a symptom of a much bigger issue: Sri Lanka is in denial about its growing population of atheists, agnostics and apostates; and it's refusing to give them equal recognition, protection under the law, and perhaps their own department. ;)

In Conclusion

There's nothing much to be said on this matter that isn't common sense. Government should be about managing our tax money in a responsible manner and providing the general public with basic services and security, not about telling us what to believe and when to riot over Akon or a rock song. Oh fuck, wait, I forgot I was talking about Sri Lanka there. My bad.

The government should not have any religious affiliations, and while having a Ministry of Culture is cool with me, I don't see why we need a Ministry of religious affairs and departments for each major religion. That money would be better spent on, I don't know, doing something useful like giving kids better Science education so that they can evaluate, and make an informed choice, regarding their world view and belief system.

Perhaps, in the future, the traditional picture of kids from the four religions representing the concept of Sri Lankan-ness can be modified thus:

I'm not really kidding

Maybe

Sometimes you tend to forget.
All the interesting people you've met,
All the crazy things you've done,
All the memories.

And all you can see - the past, the present and the future - is the dull grey cubicle you spend your days slaving away.

But maybe there will be better days, days of sunshine and laughter, of cold rain and hot chocolate. Maybe there is still hope.

Delwala, 28/12/2011

Scumbag Blogposts

Yeah, writing a blog post these days involves waaaay too much work. :P

Blogging during long weekends

Regular readers of this blog know that long periods of silence are usually followed by a post where I tend to rant about stupid lecturers and having to write mindless assignments etc. This will not be the case this time around, since I don't have the energy to even write a rant anymore. Nothing describes the feeling of going from an awesome 7 week break where you grew in leaps and bounds as a programmer - to a grueling study course which involves about 2 hours of C programming a week, supplemented by 38 hours of reading reference books about the intricacies of dependable software design and time sharing operating systems.

For someone who's never been inside the library, like ever, it's a nice change to be spending so much time in there, faithfully reading the ebooks and typing notes on the laptop. (I don't take the physical book anymore because it involves scanning the bar code on my student ID - a student ID I lost 2 years ago and costs an arm and a leg to replace, hence me never bothering.) If year 1 and 2 were spent taking notes in class and treating the lecturer as god, then year 3 is trying to digest every reason Avi Silberschatz gives as to why Solaris was the greatest operating system ever built, and hoping that your Australian paper marker feels the same way Avi does. But hey, cheer up. Pass rates from previous years hover around the 40% mark, so it's all good! :P

It's not all bad, though. I'm actually managing to stay motivated and properly sit down and study, something I never managed to do, even during my A/L days. The Malabe campus is awesome, expansive and beautiful; and there's enough and more eye candy around. ;) I also met a bunch of awesome new friends, and it also helps that our old gang of five still remains pretty much intact, which is super cool. Maybe when we're done with this year, we could (hopefully pass and) go back to Galle Face and grab an isso wade, like we used to in the good old days. :)

:(

Releasing this picture of Kella to the public domain. Looking for ways to protest the plans by the Ministry of Health to reinstate the culling of stray dogs. :(

You can sign the petition against the cull here.