Surely You're Joking Mr Murphy! (Part II)

Happy Heritage Day people! I don't know what that really means, but for me it means tomorrow is a day off for me and all the other people of the beautiful country!

All focus has currently shifted to the big spreadsheet project we have for Computer Science. I've been psyched about it from the start and still am, even though I've been working on this project for two months now. Thursday is our first (softish) deadline and my team and I are not yet ready for it. But, I'm sure we can pull it off. My hands (and lower arms) are a bit sore though. It happens when I code a lot, but I haven't been coding that much relatively speaking. My duties does, however, include some administration work. If you are a programmer, your hands are your bread and butter; I'd hate to think what speech-to-text for C or Python must be like! Anyway, I'm going to have to go see a orthopaedic surgeon about my hands sometime and hear what they have to say. My mother had carpal tunnel syndrome and had to have surgery on both of her hands. *sigh* Growing up is fun.

A regional radio station (which has poor to no reception in Stellenbosch) had a competition for two weeks called “Find the Fugitive”. It's “the world's biggest game of Hide-and-Seek, because the world's biggest game of Ring-A-Ring-A-Rosie didn't quite make the grade”. Basically there was this guy who “hid” himself somewhere in the Cape and if you suspected that you found him, you have to ask him whether he is The Fugitive. If you were correct, you didn't look like a fool and won a variable (but sufficient) amount of money. Because I was home during the short holiday, I could listen to this radio station and started following the competition and the clues. I even thought to myself that I and someone else should take a day off and hunt this person, but that didn't happen. But one day I was lying on my bed about 75% asleep when I heard them discussing the location of The Fugitive on the radio. Obviously the prize had gotten too big (it grew every hour he remained unfound) and they basically gave away his location. He was in “Die Neelsie student centre”: Stellenbosch's student centre. I was practically asleep, but that familiar word brought me back. When I had regained conciousness, I grabbed my phone and SMS'ed two girl friends, the only people I could think of who might have a chance to get there before somebody else, about what they must do. Agonizing minutes passed and then came one reply: “Just missed him”! She told me the following day that she was in Die Neelsie when she received my SMS, but ran downstairs while he was upstairs (which I knew: the clues placed him by a cinema, but I couldn't include that detail in the SMS). She eventually did spot him, but couldn't get to him in time. The prize would have been R22000. The whole experience was... well, haunting afterwards. But, at least if something is that close, you know that it just wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, back in the real world I have a lot of work to do and shockingly little time to do it in. Best of luck to you for the upcoming week.

Near the Horizon

The sun rose today on another day on which yet another holiday starts for the students at the University of Stellenbosch. Yet another, but they are running out. When the sun rises on the first day of yet another quarter for the students at the University of Stellenbosch, it will be the last one for a small group of undergraduates (well, at least as undergraduates).

After last night's test a few friends and I went out for drinks. As we were driving home, one of them remarked “we're graduating at the end of the year”. I'm not that confident: I'd hate to say something like that and then be proven wrong. We are all fallible. But last night's test didn't go too bad, so we'll probably progress to the exams and then... well, if all goes well, pop the corks, baby!

Where has three years gone?

Last night we wrote Fluid Dynamics (in applied mathematics). It can be pretty hectic and for someone who is not familiar with the mathematics, the volume integrals and dyadic tensors can look pretty impressive, hehe. But our lecturer tries to shield us from the really hairy stuff. After many years (he's retiring after this one), he knows all too well how quickly fluid calculations can spin out of control. Like I said, the test shouldn't be a disaster.

The other test we've written so far is Optimization (also applied mathematics), which was on Monday. That wasn't too bad either. I still have two computer science papers to write after the holiday, but that's a few weeks off still.

The weather has changed dramatically over the past few days. For two or three days now it has been really humid. I can't stand humid weather. Some of the people I was out with last night really enjoyed it, but I only started liking it when some of the humidity was starting to dissipate. There is a big difference between a nice, warm summers evening and an evening which is chokingly humid. Anyway, today was my first going-out-in-a-T-shirt day in many months, so it would appear as if the winter is getting beat. Spring has been in the air for a few weeks already and I'm looking forward to summer, even if the winter seemed to pass very quickly.

It was also full moon last night. That was really nice. I enjoy it when it is full moon; not because it is magical or moods or tides or luck or whatever, but because it is simply a beautiful. Sometimes you need just that. I was sitting on the roof that covers some of the cars parked by our building having a sundowners and watching the clouds, because the sun had already sunk behind the mountain. I was thinking about how people, well, at least I, need simplicity. You need to be able to enjoy the moon as we all see it. Cynics will tell you it is just a cold, lifeless rock, but that's not what I see: the moon shines by it's own brilliance and for me it is calming, even if it is also a time piece showing you how the months fleet by. I could guess what forces hold clouds together in clumps or go read up about it, but I'm not going to, because I don't want it ruined by explanations and the human understanding of physics. I'm still a scientist, but I'm also a person who needs romance and mystery in life.

Today was awesome. I only had one class late in the morning, so I could take my time getting up. Afterwards I went for coffee and ice cream with a girl friend. We wandered a bit through the town I almost never go to and it was nice being away from campus. It felt like the “arts” part of town there are a few not-so-modestly-priced streets cafés and tourist traps scattered about it. It's weird to think of the place where you work and study everyday as a tourist attraction, but you don't have to walk far to see the people with the cameras walking to or from buses. Anyway, what I mean to say is that if you don't take a break every now and again and look for them, these things pass you by, not you them. Walking down Victoria street it was strange to see the blossoms on the branches of the trees that had been bare a few weeks earlier (and which had shed its dead leaves a short while before that). I also chatted with a few other people in the day, but now I'm alone again. But I really did enjoy the day.

I'm still not 100% recovered from whatever is wrong with me. I could manage a four-flight jog going to my only class this morning, but my throat is still a bit sore. Meh, maybe I'll recover when I'm back home. I'll probably leave tomorrow morning after a bit of cleaning. I have no real plans for next week, but I'm going to relax and enjoy myself.