Monday

What a great day, some nice weather in contrast to the scorchers we've had in the past few weeks.
So, it looks like I've got the entire holidays right in front of me! My exams just ended last Friday, so I guess todays the official start :)

Time for my usual holiday wish-list, hope I don't blow it playing games again like I did last time...

• GSOC! This is very exciting, I get to work on a open-source games project. Having to write code that will be used by others... is kind of an honour. So far, I've only done personal stuff and school projects, which I assume they throw in the virtual bit bucket after grading.
• There's some friends who want to start a club in NTU to advocate open-source. Not sure if I'll be roped in the committee, but I wouldn't mind helping out in some of the activities.
• Study...? There's a lot of stuff that I want to learn before entering the working world, especially math which I've never been good at. I've some books on statistics and calculus, fundamental stuff which I've been neglecting for too long.
• Get some exercise...
• Get some more music and books
  

Marketing complete

Just finished the presentation, we got a B, which is decent for the effort which we put in :). Now, I'm left with the AI assignment, getting an attachment, exams and then I can start to enjoy the holidays!

Todo for holidays

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Game prototype
3. Upgrade hardware, for:
4. PC games (too many to list), but there's also some Wii games like:
5. Smash Bros., Fire Emblem, Mario Galaxy
6. Iain M. Banks novels
7. Plenty of movies
8. Try/Buy Sam n Max, Aquaria, Audiosurf, anything Indie
9. Get new music

So much to do, perhaps I should get started right away.

Exams are over!

Exams are finally over! Or at least, they will be after this next paper, in 2 hrs time. I can't help but think of the holidays now:

1. One-week school project, 9-to-5 daily
2. Practice for driving test
3. Train for IPPT

So much to look forward to!

Still not dead

What a great holiday. Gonna be over soon, but still, long enough for me.

Didn't work much. Very low on $. Finished 2 freelance projects, so I probably learned a bit about web development, even if the pay isn't too great.

Started driving lessons.

Now I'm working on a space-based game. I hope I can get enough motivation to actually finish a significant portion of it before the holidays end.

This holiday is too short! Argh.

Start of a new evening

Just submitted a prototype of the project to the client. This gives me a bit of breathing space at least until.. tomorrow when I meet with them again. I have a nagging feeling there will be a lot of changes requested.

I'm going to be taking a look at the mobile project again. So far, I've not really delved into J2ME yet, although I borrowed a book about it.

What else is new? I went for guitar class after skipping a few lessons already. We are learning "Sing" which is a well-known Carpenters song. You know: Sing... sing a song.. sing out loud... sing out strong..

Of course, there will be no actual singing while I'm playing it.

Mid-week

Gave the space demo a top-down perspective. I'm going to work on the controls next, so that moving the spaceship will 'feel' right. Hopefully. Having the camera follow the ship is another problem.

Installed Ubuntu Studio on my desktop PC.

Have to revise for tomorrow's quiz. The subject matter is interesting, but the lectures are pretty boring. Wonder if I can get through it by guesswork.

Accepted some freelance work. I have to do it in JSP, so now I have the chance to learn something new. I did some database accessing. XAMMP is very nice for this sort of project.

My friend already came up with a prototype for our mobile games project. I haven't done a thing at all. :(

I applied for a part-time job as an invigilator.

I wonder if there are part-time jobs for volunteers? I don't mind not getting paid, if the work is meaningful. But all the places I looked require at least 6 months commitment.

My thoughts are all over the place today. I can't concentrate on anything at all

Second post

I've decided not to go for UCLA Summer program. Too expensive, lah.

Driving lessons might have to wait.

I really want to start on the personal game project! I've downloaded python-ogre and can't wait to try it out. Previously, I wanted to use ruby as the language. Don't know why I'm going to use python now. More importantly, the game is going to be something in space, in my opinion there are too few space games out there. Independence War 2, and Escape Velocity:Nova being two of my very favourites.

It may tie in nicely with my special term too, which is about astronomy. :)

So, this makes two posts in quick succession. Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this blogging thing.

Been a little busy

I thought holidays would be easy... well it certainly has been fun. But I might have put a little too much on my plate at the moment.

I got into special term at NTU, that's like extra classes. I already missed a week, equivalent to two weeks in the normal semester. Hope to catch up by reading the lecture notes, and maybe finding the textbook.

Accepted some freelance work from a bunch of students who are doing their project. I didn't know it would be for someone's school project, but I'd feel bad backing out now.

I'm doing a mobile game project with a classmate. This one should be quite simple, we're doing it on our spare time only.

Time management has never been my strong suit. Hope that everything will work out well.

Went out with friends a couple of days ago. Everyone is working now... earning money and supporting themselves. Cool.

Yesterday,

I went to Aloha Loyang, and had fun there. Just sitting around and hanging out. We watched the sunrise together.
We recorded some songs too. I wonder if they could be uploaded here.

Back

University holidays are starting soon, so I've a few plans in mind:

1. Summer school at UCLA starts in July, ends August. Sounds pretty interesting... and expensive. Overseas studies are always tempting, as they offer once-in-a-lifetime experiences, but this one comes with a US$4500 price tag.

2. Driving lessons. It's about time, too.

3. Brush up on my language. Specifically, Chinese.

4. Build a HTPC for the living room.

5. Make a game. :)

Number 5 is a particularly sore point for me, as I've always wanted to code a game by myself, but put it off for later. Procastination could be my middle name. As a matter of fact, I should be studying for my last exam paper, which is this Monday. :)

Oh no.