Project completion & moral support

I dont exactly remember how I felt working with other people before. Today, it felt good working with these nice people, thus I think this team is one of the best teams I have ever worked with... despite having worked with them for only 3 days.

Really enjoyed working with them, it was kinda a perfect team. Me did programming, one of them did graphics, and the last one did programming, came up with algorithms and sounds. We didnt fight, disagree so strongly, compromise or did any other thing negatively. We just said OK and did it in one way or another together.

At this exact moment, I am back in my room after surprising Sachira with our Happy Birthday greetings (some of us knocked on her door soooooo loudly!). Yeah at midnight!

I'm glad we have done our best for that project. Although I'm something of a worrier.. we didnt meet one of the requirements but what the heck.. I worry too much, I guess. Anyway. We'll PASS! I learnt so much from doing that project, do you know doing that project gave me a little more self-confidence? Having used that software before, I recalled everything and put them into use... Felt good when I remembered most of the stuff that I've learnt in school previously (that was ages ago!)

Yesterday, got quite a lot of nice things from my youth expedition team (YEP), they are wonderful.. wanted to give me those stuff on the day they saw me off but for some reasons, they didnt. i'm happy to know this team is still close-knit so far. of coz, i didnt forget dear lydia who helped send useful stuff too. thanks lydia too!

"We will support you... " that's what Dominic (from YEP) said to me two nights ago. Those words woke me up. these YEP friends, good friends (handoko, lydia, eileen, and the rest) and my family have faith in me, and gives me non-stop moral support. that really made my night. just that i didnt realise how much moral support mean to me until that night. maybe i was "trying to live from day to day"...

Hmm, i dont really see how well i'm going to do in my studies but i know i gonna do my best. Yes, that's it!

Zzzz now starting to feel sleepy.. think, havent been sleeping well for a few days and i had to wake up early to do that project with my team.. alrighty.. bed time! Zzzzzzzz twinkle twinkle little stars... how i wonder what u are..... Zzzzzzz

Last Week

Last Tues, I remember, was a bad day. Was rushing the 3d project despite some really bad glitches... and I was about to present my project but the image couldnt load up. Then tried to render the image to a new file but the files also went awry... But I'm glad Steve gave me a chance to hand in the files the next day. There is a good thing about him: he gives chances to students who are shy or didnt present their projects - they can go see him in person. he also helped explain to me what went wrong.. *referring to my files which couldnt load up textures*

Wed.. got another project.. much like a part of the real world. about coming up with photo-real images of alien stuff for a magazine. learnt abit more on video editing too. managed to edit a bit of the video which we filmed guys climbing the rope in bondi.

hmm, did i mention the guys climbing the rope stuff? ok. daniel told me n jane the last time he made friends with some guys and the beefy guy-in-charge who was a russian who used to be in the army. showed us some photos of them and the location too. we went to that part of bondi beach.. where it has some cliffs and rocks. very beautiful. initially it was raining, thought the filming might be put on hold.

then it drizzled.. managed to go over there and saw some guys waiting for their turns to climb the rope. there was 1 guy who was bleeding on his leg.. can see blood dripping on his leg.. felt sorry for him immediately.. but he didnt show pain at all, he just waited for his turn patiently. there was a cool guy who looked like a star, he wore sunglasses. looked much like brad pitt. the rest looked like normal, fit & lean guys. personally, i think they are really cool, climbing the rope. although quite compeitive. anyway, managed to shoot daniel climbing rope and some other scenes.

that was one of the interesting activities that i have ever came across so far.

ok. thurs.. what did i do on that day? oh lectures! the video lecture.. actually i found it boring.. although sometimes interesting.. all you saw is some clouds moving.. flying over mountains, sands, NY buildings... lots lots lots of people walking all over the roads... the pace of people was very fast.. so were the cars.. no words at all, only music in the background. as if you are seeing moving pictures. didnt like sitting still throughout the movie... although it was only a 1 and a half hr! made u feel like sleeping anytime. seriously! i did doze off at some moments. wat's the name of the movie? let me check. the name is KOYAANISQATISI. that was 2nd movie. that 1st movie was more interesting although quite boring... was a russian film called "Man with a movie camera".. finally let me see what russia was like in the old days. looked like old europe..

actually i wanted to go to russia. remember that chat i had with leon on russia. leon told me alot on the communist stuff and all that in russia. yup he went there on a working trip which was really cool! someday i will see russia...

friday.. oh ah.. went to lab to do an interactive project with jocelyn and dom. did some lingo programing.. kinda missed those times i did lingo programming on director.

sat.. actually didnt do anything much.. :p slept most of the time..

today.. tidied my room, printed school notes.. made me realise i got a lot of things to catch up... :( was having dinner just now.. it struck me.. yeah loneliness.. but a bit. and i really missed those chats with dear good friends.. and i realise i never chatted with frens in sign language for a long time. although i have been here for 2 months.. did u know a few days ago, one night after my bath, i was reading the uni newletter, suddenly i realised how my sign language skills might suck.. so tried to sign every word i was reading in order to retain my skills. alright, i'll find some time to make new friends with oz deaf people..

alrighty, got to think of a few more ideas for my work now.

Waiting for Maya to load up..

Yea waiting for anyone to finish using Maya, so that I can use Maya. There was a licensing problem. :( Getting kinda worried about the unfinished project. I really really want to finish this project. Blame on my poor time management. Should have gone to lab to do this project instead of using crackeo software at home. Thought my files should be ok, didnt think the pirated files can leave a trace on the school server here.

Anyway. I'll stay here in the lab until it closes at 9pm, I think.

Just now, met Andy Polaine. Dunno why but I just found him nice. Actually was quite embarrassed meeting him in person cause he found my blog and read some comments about himself. :p Honestly, my impression of him is not so bad now - I find him more than just a head for Media Arts.. in fact, from that day which I read on the school forum onwards, my impression of him has changed (I wrote that comment cause I didnt want it to change overnight just after reading his articles). At that point, I knew he was not like some top people who didnt bother to interact with their students - they were far too occupied with their reputations. Anyway I think he's cool. Sharing his knowledge on interactive stuff.. (*Note: Andy, if u happen to read these words about u, hope u dont mind. Just wanted to share my thoughts with my friends. :) )

Ok managed to ask the guy next to me about using maya. His 3D stuff looked great! :)

Okay enuff about 3D and school work. Last 2 weeks ago, went to stay with Sis and visited the Royal Easter Show with her & Ben. At first it looked fun to visit but after hearing what Sis said about the show beforehand, I suddenly felt quite bad. Sis's a great animal lover and could be an animal right activist anytime. That's my cool big sister! Seriously I may consider going vegetarian cause i dont have to think and feel so bad after eating meat. In fact, when I go for lunch or dinner at Goldstein, I alway see the name cards of every dish. If any dish is purely vegs, I will most probably take it. I cant really take beef or pork, they taste awfully funny. Ok back to the Royal Easter show topic.

There were lots of cute farm animals.. it was quite fun to see what they look like in real life. Was quite happy to pet a few of them but everytime I saw Sis's face, I felt quite bad. Thus I told her we could go to other parts of the show, we didnt have to see some more farm animals. Yea, she was so upset, she didnt like the idea of having farm animals there, let alone know what'll happen to them afterwards. Yea, she made me realise how poor the farm animals are.. Sighs. Have uploaded some photos of the show but havent updated them with descriptions. Meanwhile u can have a look at these photos at http://andrexng.gfoto.com

Ok finally loaded Maya up now. Time to stop blogging... Will continue to blog after I finish this 3d project.

Till then!

Finally got rid of auto translation on this blogger & goggle sites

Just now, was trying to reset the Blogger and Google web pages in English cause I dont read Chinese.. yeah some of you may be surprised that i dunno any chinese at all although I'm Chinese. My primary school didnt teach us Chinese cause it would be lot difficult to teach us in chinese and it would be harder to pronounicate chinese words. Someday I gonna learn Chinese.. So that I can go visit my former colleagues in China!! Also visit my forefathers' birthplace and revel in the unique culture of the Chinese people!!

Anyway solved the problem by uninstalling the msn toolbar and checking US english for language on that toolbar. So, I have a total of 3 toolbars from 3 rival companies: microsoft, google and yahoo on the same IE. Yeah they are obviously competing for the best web service provider award. Which is a good thing!! Free services!!

Ok. Recaping on what I have done last week (week 5).

Mon-Tue: Managed to complete the 1st project (digital composite 2). Knew it might not be very good but at the least I tried my best.

Wed: Tried editing the video we have filmed at Bondi. Quite fun.

Thurs: Attended lectures as usual...

Fri: Went to lab to re-do the 3d modelling project. was feeling damn lousy after redoing the same images... it didnt look too good.. worse than the first images i started last sunday. :( maybe the slow RAM made it worse than expected.

Sat: erm. was supposed to do logbook (weekly journals) for that project but didnt. :p cant remember what i did exactly. oh ya did laundry, printed out karl's notes and some stuff.

Today: erm. havent still started doing log book and here i am still blogging. but i know i'll eventually start writing logbk tonight. jiayou, Andre!

Ok. I gonna buck up and start pushing myself to start all over again.. i mean, i'll re-do the 3d stuff tmr. hope i can pass.. yeah i'll be content enough if i can pass.

Ok (again). Gonna start jogging with my friend now. Till then!

Didnt know...

Just discovered that the 3D modelling project was due next week, not this week. Yeah kinda blur but I didnt know .. Its just that I was quite confused by the way the school schedule run.. Thought this week is Week 6 but actually it's Week 5. I was following the actual schedule.. which means I counted every week right from Week 1, even considering the last week's break was Week 5.

I'm glad that I didnt know, its a blessing in disguise. I was rushing to complete 3D modelling stuff and its about 60% done but not very perfect. Managed to grasp some basic modelling skills and be inspired by awesome 3D graphics that I came across while looking for approriate tutorials for 3D stuff. Come to think of it, I didnt like doing 3D stuff initially cause it was really frustrating following the tutor's tutorial instructions on carp and sailing boat. Did feel upset at 1 point last week .. that was when i was doing the sailing boat stuff halfway. Thank goodness, I have Jocelyn who is my new classmate.. she gave me encouragement when i told her a little that i was feeling down.. :) and I have a dear friend who strongly believes in me, it really made me do the work better. :)

Anyway, I still have to do another project that is still due on this Wed, did research on that one.. its complex and i dont really know how to put these stuff into comprehensive visual stuff for people to understand. well, somehow managed to get some stuff made though.. still 50% done. Hope I can make this stuff the best as it can be.

And in 2 weeks' time, my classmates and I have to submit an interactive program and video.. I really look forward to school.. really.. i'm in fact happy to be back in school, it kinda gives me the motivation to do something and continue my projects too..

In fact, last week was boring.. or i think i was rather boring. cooped in my room almost all the time, trying to self-discipline and starting projects at the same time. turned down my friend's invitation to go to the Blue Mountains and some interesting (i think) tourist spots. kinda regretted but not totally since i learnt new things from doing projects and i didnt have to impose on my friend's friends who drove her all the way to the tourist spots (well, it seemed so). and hey, she caught a spider! Eeeew...it looks like a spider which is ready to poision anyone.. freaky... yeah she's keeping it as a pet. hope it wont escape - i cant imagine what'll happen if it really escapes.

Anyway it really felt good seeing most of the Baxter pple come back from their holidays yesterday and Karl & my classmates in school today. :)

Ok, gonna go borrow photoshop stuff and catch shuttle bus soon. Till then!