Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Back To Studying

A lot of things have happened since I last blogged. I was practically in the lab everyday until it closed (8am to 6pm), then my team mates and I worked with some other guys who had a microcontroller programmer and they were so nice to us, letting us borrow it. Sometimes you think people are bad, but then when you're in dire need, they actually help you, and you realise that not everyone is as bad as you think they are.

However, I have been backstabbed. What happened was that I had two "friends" in my team, right? And you know how I went on and on about how much easier the project was going to be because I had my friends with me? Well, I was so wrong. Somehow, living in Australia, is really teaching me lessons I never would have learnt, were I still living in Malaysia. It's just such huge, eye-opening lessons that you feel as though someone pulled the rug off your feet when you were not looking? And you fall flat on your face.

One "friend" really worked hard. He hates engineering but he put in so much effort, despite complaining, grumbling, and even yelling at me (No, I didn't yell back. Didn't want to make a scene. Yeah, I was actually patient that one time...but my fist was clenched in agitation.) ...but he did the job. So I cannot fault him. However, the other "friend", let's just call him LazyBum.

See LazyBum got all the code from me. I gave him Java stuff. I gave him programs he would require - like a serial port monitor which can monitor the data that is being sent from the computer to the device, installers, executable creators and all that. I also printed out notes that he would require. However, LazyBum did nothing for three months. I found that out when I stayed overnight at Uni on Sunday night (23rd October). He dumped his work on me, telling me that he had to fix another part. So, me bein the usual scapegoat of the year, I finished up his work. I cleaned up his code, only to find that ALL THE CODE I gave him, was just there. He had not built anything extra. I admit, I am very particular about things like these. I take my projects very seriously, and I work really, really hard because it's my ambition to be an engineer. I want that paper saying I have a Bachelor in Engineering. That's the only reason I'm still here despite how hard things are sometimes. I refuse to leave. It's like having someone slap you in the face repeatedly, yet you still stand there, rooted to the ground.

Okay, LazyBum did not build almost anything from the code I passed him during the middle of the semester. I was so disappointed in him. Somehow, I am always calm when I know what I'm doing. So with my iPod on, and my fingers typing Java non-stop, I looked free. Like I wasn't really stressed. And LazyBum, whom I'm very sure knew what he had done, as in he'd messed up, he went and told the non-friend team member (4 ppl in team, myself, two "friends", and non-friend), something along the lines as "What do you think she's doing?" You see in a team, when you ask another team mate, if another team mate is not doing any work, it goes to show that you're implanting doubts in that team mate whom you asked. So, when LazyBum asked non-friend-team-mate if I was actually doing anything, he got mad at me. I guess I just looked happy, doing Java. Java makes me happy, because it's one of the things I know very well.

I didn't know all this. I was lost in my iPod and Java. But non-friend-team-mate was kinda mean to me that night. I didn't really mind it because people like venting out their stress at me. Then, I stayed overnight, got even more annoyed with LazyBum because as the night wore on, he knew less and less of what he was supposed to know. He had three months to fix everything, but from the looks of it, he had done almost nothing. It's just that when you program a lot, and you teach people programming, you can tell how much of attention they paid to that code, when they were programming. LazyBum's code looked so bad even some of my online friends laughed at it. I felt bad, but they were right - it was so bad-looking.

Then, I was really annoyed with LazyBum. So, I came back at 9am, when my team was testing and about to hand in the final product (which only works 40%), because I wanted to attend my final Stats lecture and there was not much I could do to help the team anymore. So I came home, showered, changed, went back to uni. The lecture was cancelled due to chemical spill in the building. I came home, called mom, ate some lunch, and fell asleep. I switched off my phone before that. When I woke up in the evening, I showered, had dinner and logged online. Non-friend-team-mate called me, asking me one question, "Did you give LazyBum all the code he has?" and I said "yeah, with hope that he'd build more, but he didn't." and Non-friend-team-mate was really surprised. Then he said that for peer-assessment (where you assess how much work someone put into the project), we should give LazyBum bad marks. I was a bit reluctant because I don't like taking revenge on people. Then, non-friend-team-mate told me what LazyBum had asked him, about me - If I actually did any work. I was so mad, I couldn't believe my own friend would do that to me. It was so disappointing.

To cut the long story short, we gave LazyBum quite bad peer assessments.

We had a demonstration day today. We scraped through and passed the project --> 26/50. I'm relieved, but non-friend-team-mate tore and threw LazyBum's peer assessment, filled a new one with almost all 0s, because LazyBum made a big fool of himself in the demonstration. He knew nothing, he was compiling the wrong code, and he could answer no questions. We were all really mad at him. My only question is, how can my own "friend" do this to me? He knew I'm in his team. I've always helped him - always. I give him answers, I help him, I try to bug him to do his work. I try really hard to help all my friends. But really, I cannot believe he did this. I'm so disappointed that he made no effort in this project. So he deserves a bad peer assessment. I had no choice. Some people need to fall, to realise how much they actually had, wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, I finished one three thousand word article. I'm relived. I was so surprised the lecturer, JW was so nice to us. He's usually so picky about stuff. I guess he was really nice today and I relaiseed that he isn't as bad as I thought he was. I'm so glad he passed us.

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