The Darker Side of Melbourne Uni

By the way I post I know that it seems that I have my head stuck in the heavens. That is not the case at all. I do have loads of work to do. It's just that I do not talk about how I go about my work, as it is just inane to do so.

If you do insist, just to make you feel better that I am not having fun ALL the time, I am currently neck high in assignments which I have to pass up next week. 4 to be exact. This week I just finished a mid-semester test that contributes 10% to my overall marks. I have finished around 8 or more assignments already, in total around 20% of my marks already being considered.

Hence the reason why I blog sporadically and a few at once. This is because I find that rare time when I actually have nothing to do (both good and bad things). In fact, I just got screwed over by one of my lecturers. This has been coming for me since a month ago...

For the first few assignments that I received, I thought it prudent to finish the assignments as quick as possible. With that, i actually finished it on the day I received it, and proceeded to the drop-off box in one of the buildings. Upon reaching the place I found out that there were like 20 slots, and no sign to show which one of them belonged to my subject. Thinking that inserting it into a random box would suffice I did so and felt glad that I was done.

Only afterwards did a friend mention that the labels are put up only a few days BEFORE the due date. And since I passed up WAY before the due date, I may have misplaced my assignment. Fearing for the worse, I sent an e-mail to my lecturer to clarify the issue and told him to help me check if my assignment reached him. After a curt reply that he'll look for it, I never heard from him again.

For a few weeks I forgot about the issue, and assumed that all was well. Then yesterday came. I received an e-mail from the lecturer warning me that if I do not pass up my assignment I would be failed. That was probably one of the most pissing off moment of my life. Immediately I sent an e-mail blasting them for not resolving the issue in the first place and for having an idiotic system in place, upon which they tried to blame ME for this debacle. Fuckers.

I'm going to fight all the way if I have to, and will get a legal advisor if I have to. So there you go. Not all rosy after all. Heh.. But hopefully it'll go off alright..

Anyways, let's get some levity into the post. Work is not all THAT bad. In fact, I had a really good time doing an assignment for my subject, Introduction to Civil Engineering. Basically, I had to build a bridge out of balsa wood and glue. Balsa wood is just about as thick as 10 A4 papers stuck together. Ridiculously thin.

So anyways, these pictures show my group mates and I working on our bridge.

Abraham working on the bridge. He's from Indonesia and would be able to click with Ian especially well, in terms of music. Lover of blues as well, he's a pretty wicked guitarist.

Our beautiful bridge on the brink of completion

My group, Group 8 posing with out bridge before load testing with a penetrometer. Starting from left : Kiew (Malaysia), Francis (Macao), Abraham (Indonesia), and fatty me (Jamaica).

Our bridge in place.

Unfortunately, I was the one who was on the penetrometer so I don't have the pictures during our testing. Might ask one of the others for it. And guess what? Daniel the genius (and his group of teammates, of course!) managed to pass the barrier of 800N and still be intact, and came in first in class! In fact, we beat the class before us as well, whose best performer had their bridge breaking at 800N.

WOOHOOOOO!

It was a great achievement, and received praises from the lecturer. He even told us that our bridge was to be displayed to the public during the Opening day of uni, which was only two days away from that day. Great day indeed. We then negotiated the day to bring our bridge to the lab for proper load testing, with the huge-ass machines connected to a computer recording all the data. Great times indeed!

Part of the lab where our bridge would be tested.

Posing before crunch time!

When our bridge finally failed.

A relatively panoramic view of the lab. Note the yellow crane at the top, used to carry down concrete and other materials from the top. It's in the basement after all.

Finally claiming the crown for best bridge of the semester, and possibly the year, heavy metal-aficionado Abraham proposed that we smash the bridge, as an emblem of triumph. And that we did! With gung-ho too!

Let's hope that my future projects will be as interesting as this! Signing out...