Bapak lama gila tak blog.

Malay makes things sounds more legit lol. I've been pushing my updates for far too long that I feel like I should update y'all now so that my life kinda show its progress here instead of just a leap through all the coincidences before things start to happen.

I actually have 3 updates. And I shall start with the simplest one a.k.a the one I have the least thought on which is about my first semester of degree.

I know my last update was my first week of degree and now I'm already in my last! It's already study week... how time went by so quickly?!?

I did so many things yet so little this semester. I wasn't active in anything at my uni, but I did join a dance team to compete for a kpop dance cover contest. Which I have to say was a fun, yet disappointing experience in a way. I wished our team would be a little more hardworking and realistic about what we can and can't achieve at our state. It's our FIRST competition as a team anyway but they had such big 'angan' to go to finals all. While me and Mun felt like the other members were too off-sync with us to be going anywhere.

But back to the degree aspect of my life. As a direct entry student, I have never felt so burdened by course work. In my diploma days, it was normal to only have submissions on certain weeks and so those weeks were the only time everyone will be busy. However, this time, there was literally no break for me. Since the start of degree, every week was a submission week. Like it was all about progress and reports and assignments... There were FAR more things we had to submit on a weekly basis. 

Even though it felt normal to be receiving work for each classes, I guess I was slightly shocked by the way degree courses are carried out. Classes and schedules are pretty basic, the difference is the work load! Like I'm taking the same subject that I took literally last semester (for my diploma) again bcos I couldn't transfer my credits (bcos I reached the max count), and the lab work that I'm doing is making me regret not transferring the credit. 

I mean we're talking about the same subject here. The only difference is the level of education - diploma vs degree. Even my lecturer is the same! But God, the work I tell you, the requirements are on a different level. For diploma, we all were given the same websites to do testing on, but degree... we have to find/make our own websites for this subject, so every group are testing it differently. There were just more things to do and think about. And from being the easiest subject to score, to one of the hardest within just a semester.

I have missed multiple quiz and classes because I forgot about them throughout this entire semester. If you know me, I'm not the kind to be skipping those things bcos I value my participation and my marks for the class. But this time, I don't feel like I started degree on the right foot.

I think after diploma ended, I kinda wanted everything to stop for a moment. Like classes and work. But I ended up not getting enough break and the next semester proceeds so now it just felt too tiring to keep up. Not to mention, I have to take year 1, year 2 AND year 3's classes because I am from direct entry. Bruh, that is not easy. 

We're constantly receiving standards and expectations from lecturers knowing we're 2nd year or 3rd year degree students when in fact, we are no more than just 1st year degree students. We're still as clueless as how we were in diploma!

For the highlight of my concern, I have to take up a subject called Workshop 1. It is a project-based subject. There are 4 project-based subjects throughout degree for any courses in my faculty - Workshop 1, Workshop 2, Final Year Project 1 and Final Year Project 2. And since I became a 2nd year student on the February intake, I was forced to take up Workshop 1 this semester itself. The reason is that because Workshop 2 is only offered during the first semesters (September-January) which has Workshop 1 as the pre-requisite. Also, if I decided not to take Workshop 1 this semester, not only my Workshop 2 is gonna be delayed but also my FYP 1, FYP 2 and in the end, that'll risk my graduation bcos I had to extend another semester to finish them. In conclusion, we had to take up project-based subjects every semester til we graduate to be done in time. Sounds daunting... I know.

The problem with me is that the FYP I did for my diploma in my previous semester, was a HUGE failure. I felt myself freaking out every time I think about it. Like it brings so much remorse and disappointments. The fact that I had to face another project-based subject, really scares me. And I am not as brave as people think I am... I tend to run away from my worries. Which means I tend to avoid my supervisor like how I did during my diploma. I would make up excuses to not meet with them to show my progress, because in fact, I don't have any progress. I just never do it. Like I'm too scared to even start something. Up until mid-term, I haven't started anything and it gives me a slight anxiety when people talk about their Workshop 1. Like I know I have to do it, but I kept pushing it away and I don't know how to deal with it.

2 weeks before my final week, I finally am slapped by reality that I have to present something in 2 weeks because the schedule is out. I started thinking a lot about the logic and the progress so that I could calm myself a bit. Imagine having 2 weeks to do everything for a booking system almost from scratch, plus having your previous booking system being a failure does not help with the worry. 

*Note: I am an IT student. I make a website or a system using PHP, HTML, CSS and uses a database for my Workshop 1. It's an individual work.

Because I know my logic is not strong enough, it took me 3 days to think of one main thing to display on my system. For a last minute thing, 3 days is TOO MUCH of a risk. The next night, I talked to Ikha and I'm so thankful she's willing to help me think about this. Knowing Ikha, she is very good at solving problems using logic and I knew she could think of it within minutes, but I was just worried I was gonna bother her knowing she has been bothered a lot of times by other people. Bcos for sure, I'm not gonna be done with it after just one time.

I don't ask people simple stuff... it was a complex logic and I found out later from Aina (Ikha's roommate) that she passed out right after explaining to me how to go about it bcos she used up too much of her energy thinking of the solution. Only Ikha knew about my system and what I was tryna build, but one night I was looking for Ikha and she hasn't come home so I tried asking Aina. Aina is good too but her logic isn't so complex like Ikha's. I showed her my problem and literally explained everything about the system, we ended up thinking few hours yet still couldn't manage to solve it. Then Aina said that out of all the people she helped, my system is by far the most complicated one she had to face. I was honoured lol.

But the next day, Ikha came to my room and she helped me with few of my problems in one go. Truly a legend huhu. From then on, I managed to do A LOT because my main thing is done. But that was only 30% of it. The main purpose of the system is still 40% ahead, by then I had only a week left. It ended up being a sleepless week.

I wasn't eating and sleeping properly. There was 3 nights in a row where I slept for 3 hours and be awake for the entire day and night, going to classes and doing last minute submissions. During my workshop presentation, I was dead. I sounded like I was about to pass out. Because I literally felt so. I was late, but I didn't even have the energy to rush. I was ready to give up. The system is one thing, I needed to do the report and presentation slides... and this was only for one subject. I had 2 more presentations for the week. On top of that, my evaluator was questioning me so much. My system and logic was very much fine... Idk why she couldn't see my point of view ugh.

I presented in the morning, I have another presentation the next day. BUT I couldn't submit my report that morning bcos I haven't finish shit so I had to plead to send it later in the evening. Basically, I had to do my report for the next 3 hours and print them and submit them, then go for a group meeting. That night I could only sleep for an hour because we had to meet up at around 3am (during sahur) and slept for another 2 hours and almost woke up late for presentation.

My life was a mess. But all ended up ok... I FELT SO EMOTIONAL ON THE INSIDE BCOS MY WORKSHOP 1 SYSTEM WAS THE CLOSEST TO MY EXPECTATION AND I COULDN'T HAVE DONE ANY BETTER. I love you Ikha for helping out with my logic. I love you Aina for helping me do my interface design. Aina literally saved my system from looking like a noob's. I COULDN'T DO IT WITHOUT THEIR ENDLESS HELP. Aina literally sacrificed her report to do 3 different pages of CSS design for me. It wasn't a 'cikai' design. It was exactly how I wanted it to look and more!

Oh and the next day, because I was busy with the other presentation and had to submit some other pending work, I didn't get enough sleep but two of my friends saw me and they said my eye bag was sooo bad. I didn't even know I had an eye bag!

Overall, I couldn't be prouder of myself. I feel like I just gave myself a pat on the back for being able to pull everything off. My body still hates me for the lack of sleep though. I still have finals next week so this journey has still yet to end. But at least, a HUGE weight has been lifted and I am ready to move on.

P.S. I have 2 more updates. Keep your eyes out for them too! Click here.

Dropping by,

Melynn.