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Tuesday 11 April 2006

Accidental encounter with a former super

Last week, I ran into my former project supervisor at the library. Oh no, I thought. At first.

Please don't get me wrong. My supervisor is a great guy. But the project my partner and I did with him was, well, a tragedy of sorts. We wrote a software that crashed minutes before we presented it. And you know you've hit rock bottom when when the nicest, friendliest, most understanding lecturer in the department asks you conclude your presentation when you barely made it half way through. It was a major blow to our morale.

Fortunately, we got to present for a second time, this time for an even smaller audience. Our supervisor gave us the detailed walkthrough of our 'list of mistakes'. I almost swore at the time to never do any programming for as long as I live.

So I hope you see now why I'm a bit adamant about saying hi. However, through the unexplainable miracle of God, I went to him anyway and surprise him (and myself as well). He hasn't seen me in a year or so.

SV: So, what are doing here? Still not finished, eh?
Me: Ehehe... (nervous laugh)

Selamba orang tua ni, kata aku tak grad lagi...But that is his brand of humour.

Me: I'm doing my post graduate now, but over at the other department.
SV: Ah, I see. So now we're colleagues.

He said, "we're colleagues now!" I almost fainted when I heard that. He's also a post graduate student but he's attached as a teaching staff.

We talked for awhile about our personal lives and I realised how he used to advise me on things other than the project, like never spend more time with the PC than with the wife when you're married, and other pearls of wisdom.

Me: How's your post graduate thesis?
SV: Look at this. I don't know what they all mean. Headache.

He was actually referring to the equations used in ARMA or autoregressive moving average model. It's a very, very advanced method for digital signal processing. One of its possible application is for MRI in medical diagnostics.

I was actually surprised to see someone like him feeling challenged about something like this. I used to think that I was never smart enough to make sense of all these equations. All the integrations (pengamiran, if you still remember them from your Add Maths classes), all the variables and whatnots.

Lovely, isn't it?

After we ran out of topics, we decided to wish each other all the best and let him return to his library research so he can solve his current problem, finish his thesis and graduate.

On hindsight, I'm glad that I stopped by and said hi to him. I felt like things turned sour after our tragic project, but he assured me that it was all in the past and the best thing to do is to learn from the experience.

And to not do that would be a greater tragedy.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quoted: "never spend more time with the PC than with the wife when you're married"

Wakakakak rofl, did he really say that? Well, Sir... I doubt that even a computer geek would do that, at least not until later when the wife turned into a fat blabbering machine :P.

Although not really related, this somehow reminds me of the Korean's couple who left their kid(s?) unattended to death while they go gaming at CC. Well, at least the kid(s?) is going to heaven.
Certain things that happen in Korea in recent years (like in this case) makes me wonder, are they some sort of attempting to take the crown away from the Japanese as the weird and crazy inhabitants of the earth?

IeNa said...

hehe, no comment from me :)

but let say ler if i get married and my husband get sticked to his PC all the time, there you will see i'll make special dishes using all those PC components, cthnya mouse masak kari, keyboard masak panggang etc hehehe.

Anonymous said...

haha, tak ke kejam sangat tu, cik iena. Tapi nak buat camne, memang padan ngan muka dia la kalo die betul-betul buat camtu.

agaknya betul kata sesetengah orang, orang lelaki memang kalah kalau nak lawan ngan orang perempuan bab-bab cam ni. -_-

Hehe, kau bayangkan Rul, bila dia cedok isi kari tu keluar dia punya mouse "Logitech G5" yg pakai laser tu. ^_^;
Buleh nangis wo. Lagi mahal dari kari Nasi dagang yang masuk surat khabar ari tu.

Anonymous said...

dzul, iena,

I think the point my super was trying to make was that sometimes when you're working on the computer: writing, programming, designing, etc, (work basically, not leisurely activites like surfing or downloading the latest episodes of Lost), you can sometimes be too absorbed and end up being in front of the screen for too long. This upsets many wives, according to him.

Aku ada beli mouse Logitech dari Nizar (ingat lagi, dzul? Orang Alor Star, batch matrik kita tapi kelas aku). Dia dapat free tapi dia jual murah kat aku. Memang sedap pakai mouse Logitech, sebab dia berat sikit jadi dia tak mudah 'terlari' bila kita gerakkan dia.

IeNa said...

Faham Rollie, sajer jer mengusik and make fun kata nak buat mouse masak kari, dlm realiti belum tentu nak buat hehe.

Tapi kalau try buat, best gak,kan? Hehehe...

Anonymous said...

Ha ni kira kes bawak kerja balik ke rumah la. Agaknya academician la yg slalu buat cam ni kot? Haha.

ha aku ingat Nizar tu. Mouse logitech model ape ko beli dari die? Aku skang ni pakai mouse gaming A4Tech model X710. Alternatif murah utk mouse gaming Logitech. Bolehlah tahan tapi lain kali aku ingat memang aku nak beli yg Logitech punye. Padahal aku bukan guna pc aku main game pun tapi mouse gaming ni sedap pakai, tak sakit tangan.

Anonymous said...

Kalu dah kerja kat ofis tu berlambak..esok kena submit kat boss how? kena bawak balik juge...tp tunggu isteri tido dulu laa..

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