Life's Beautiful, Again

Lately I have been struggling to find time and words to post about the happenings in my life. The reason for this being the enormity and multitude of events that have transpired in the past week. It was a week extreme stress, effort and learning. The learning part is not only about the courses but also about different kinds of people. I can say that it was one helluva week. The tags for the week include deadlines, courseworks, in-fighting in project groups, late nights, sleep deprivation, sandwiches, sleep deprivation and fatigue. I’m not delving further on the past week at this point (I already have two requests to write about it but I guess two aren’t enough to touch the sensitive zones of my encephalon).

Anyway, the new term has kicked off. It officially began on last Monday but I had no time to attend those classes so effectively it starts this week for me. The week began with the submission of two reports early in the day. To celebrate this auspicious moment and to waste four free hours before the last lecture we decided to pay a visit to the Natural History Museum for the first time, which BTW is only a 5-min walk away from the campus. The visit turned out to be utterly boring. Actually there are two free museums. The other one is a science museum which sounds much better. But this guy said there are mummies in the History Museum. It turned out that he thought there were mummies :@ However there were dinosaur remains (lots of them), mammals, birds, volcanic rocks, crystals, stones, gems, etc etc. Who cares about them? The place was full though and there were many aspiring artists from art school sitting in the way trying to produce some great sketches. They were just sitting comfortably, unfazed by people moving around them. At that point I realized my life is much better (more…)

My Highs & Lows of 2008

What’s good about a new year? To be honest, nothing is good about it given the extra effort needed at the time of speech delivery to make sure you don’t say next year to things which are suddenly going to happen in this year and the added mental effort of making sure you jot the correct digit when writing down the date. However, the new year, or end of an year can serve as a benchmark to have a look at the things and events that happened in the past year. Looking back myself, I can say with certainty that this year had events that will remain ingrained in my memories forever.

The beginning of year 2008 was a good time for me. I was done with my final semester exams looking at various options to shape my career. As soon as the year started I knew the next two-and-a-half months would be extremely busy. Being the sole driver in my family (with my dad in UAE), only son, and only brother of my dear sister it was me who had to make sure all her wedding arrangements were meticulously handled. I didn’t apply for jobs at that time, hoping to secure an admission in some MSc course. I also knew the next few days would be spent shopping with my mom. This wasn’t all that bad: shopping at Tariq Road with ladies around (more…)

I Need Divine Help!

I always anticipated a situation like this before embarking on this masters course, but not so soon. I have already complained about lack of time because of the design and implementation of certain filters. But last week I got a cherry on top of my world of problems. The cherry is so heavy that everything below it crashed (whatever that means!). But yeah, that cherry is a new coursework of instrumentation. Now, incidentally this coursework was given on a day when I finalized all my plans about how to carry on for the next eight weeks. My plan was pretty flexible for some unforeseen work. But this coursework has rattled everything. The subject is named instrumentation. The content is related to signal processing and communication systems. The problems are that I don’t remember much of what I studied in those courses at undergrad level partly because of the way they were taught and partly due to my own negligence. The second problem is that I don’t even seem to find the answers to the questions, which are only 4 in number, after digging deep in the books. On the surface they seem pretty simple. Bit rate, bandwidth, etc. and probably the great Shannon will come in to play as well. But I’m just not able to being these bits and pieces together. And the deadline is 1st December. I’m in deep deep shit!!

Settling In…

My first ever class at Imperial was of an optional subject called Synthesis of Digital Architectures. It was sleep-inducing at first, but the professor managed to steer it on an unknown awesome track in the midst of two-hour slot. This is a subject which I’m unclear about, at least from the first class. Another class scheduled after a 4 hour gap was of Instrumentation. From these two, and other three of my subjects, and their teachers I’ve noticed that we’re studying the future of technology, not its history. The course contents include matter from the latest research in respective fields. The teachers, all of whom are highly respected in their fields and obviously experienced, combine humour to make it memorable for the students. Talking of students, there’s a nice blend of people from different countries (did I mention this in any earlier post?). Coming to the point of teachers, their profiles indicate their involvements in many of technologies we’re using today!!! So, the people teaching here are those who have invented or played a part in different inventions and innovations of our age. There’s a huge difference of teaching standard compared to what I’ve been used to. Naturally, there is a great amount of expectations from the students as well, due to which I’m drowned in shitload of work. I’ve been forced to reinforce some of my basic concepts which were covered perfunctorily or not covered at all!!

This week also included a career talk on the subject ‘What will you do at the end of your MSc?’ The focus was mainly on how to secure jobs, when to apply, and introduce other services from the Career Advisory Office of Imperial. Honestly, I was dreaming after 10 minutes of its start.

Out of the 5 (4 mandatory and 1 optional) subjects in this term, my favourite so far has been VHDL and Logic Synthesis.

This week is probably the settling stage of my life in London. I got my bank account details, the debit card will take another week (arghh!), got my student travel card (Oyster 18+) and I’m loving the new residence, despite the sound of Circular Line train which runs just at the back of this building and I’m able to recognize the monetary worth of numerous annoying coins.

The new neighbourhood is fantastic. The previous one was dominated by desis, but there is large concentration of Arabs here which means easy availibility of eatables like Shawarma, Falafel and Hummus

The weather is unpredictable, but that is exactly what makes it good, although the majority hates that.

The only thing yet to settle is a study routine, which I hope to devise tonight and implement for the next few days/weeks. Wish me luck!