Summer session

I wasn't writing here for much time, but I hope I will fix that soon :) At least today I've written posts to my software blog and here. This summer sessions seems to be the easiest of all that I've already had. I only have to pass two rather simple exams. So almost all summer is free from studying! And now I'm applying to study in Summer Scholl in OpenWay Group in Saint Petersburg. If I will succed then this will be a study course for a 6 weeks but studying seems to be very intersting and usefull there.

My Additional Work Experience As a Receptionist

I'm currently working as a network administrator in a small real estate agency. However during this financial crisis my agency encounters great difficulties and management need to cut salaries. There are also some positional movemevements between workspaces. During these movements I moved to the workplace of a receptionist. We have two workplaces for them but there is only one receptionist at a time. However she couldn't do all her work always alone so now I help out receptionist to do their because. That's not very hard for me, but is a great experience for me and help to the receptionist.

I'm in the Internet again!

Hurray! After moving to new flat I've finally connected to the Internet again. I have a lot of work now but hope soon I'll continue to write to my blog.

Relaxation day

Sometimes there are days when I don't do almost anything. I just read something for fun, play games. I want to do something but in fact can't make me to do anything. I think that's are relaxation days. One such day was today.

This week

Previous holidays was rather productive: I've made a lot of thing especially in programming and in study. That was a three good days. After that I've got not very good working week: I've studied a lot, made homework but that took a lot of time, I was tired and bored toward evening. As a result I haven't done much progress in my tasks.

So now are another holidays. This day wasn't rather productive, though I've made more than on workdays. And moreover my favorite football team FC Zenit became a champion of Russian Premier League!!! :)

Hope, next days (I haven't got study hours on Monday) will be more productive.

Winter session exams: Programming is already passed

It's not a secret that I love programming :). And I'm rather good at it. So I've decided not to wait end of semester to pass all laboratory works on programming and passed last this Saturday! 9 works in 8 weeks — good result I think. And I won't need to pass exam on it. Now I only need to make a documentation to my coursework. So now I'll have more free time. :)

Some major tasks for close period finished

During last week I've spent much time visiting hospital and passing some physical examinations. It took rather a lot of time especially because of long distance between my home and hospital.

During last weekend I've made a lot of study work and for now has lesser major tasks to do. I've done functionality of my coursework on programming and now need to make program look good and make report for it.

Coursework is one of big projects that lasts more than a few days. What other big projects do I have? At first it is reading books. Now I'm reading "Design Patterns" about programming. My programming projects got some attention on last week but on this week they have lacked it. Hope I'll correct this in next days.

Eh... No any ideas more for now, I'm going to sleep... I've slept rather a small time during last days.

I've found free time!

Yeah... During last days I've spent rather a lot of time doing non-university work. Although it was programming and nothing more. Not very good for psyche for now I have no ideas what to do else. Moreover I've broke up with girl friend a month ago, so I've even didn't meet any friend in September (in except of in university). Eh... Sp for mow I've only have the ability to sit behind my computer until 2 o'clock at night...

Some free time coming?

It's the end of September and I'm rising my study activity. On last Saturday I've passed two laboratory works in programming and today I've passed one work in physics. Badly only for 4 points from 5. But that was a result of that I didn't remember one formula, so I'll try in future to understand information better.

Also I've finished reading book "Pragmatic programmer". I think the next book will be "Design Patterns". It content looks rather good and was mentioned some times in PP.

Also at these days I'm collecting some medical documents for me to be approved as unsuitable to serve in Russian Army. It's makes some problems because I need to visit a lot of organizations only to be sent to organization of lower level.


Thought, I hope in close time I'll finally could make me give myself more free time from university study. Apparently writing this post is a result of that intention. :-)

Again and again: where is time?

So I've recently written that I have a lot of work and now I've realized that now I couldn't find time for my own activities, i.e. programming. I was constantly working during this week and made a lot of work, but it all was about university. And next week doesn't promise to be different. What to do? How to make all university staff and made something for yourself? Again I meet this problem. Of course "myself" isn't only programming, it is also other thing but this is the first about which I think. Tomorrow I will visit big book market with my friend. It is better than sitting at home all day.


What to do?

• Firstly, now I'm actively using Todoist to manage my tasks and time arrangement. I still couldn't use calendars or organizers but I found a good use for that simple webapp.
• On next week I'll try to find time to do something that is not-university. Surely it will be some programming (and what you awaited from me? :).
• May be found some non-computer activity? Or at least non-programming? I couldn't guess what it can be.

And also about my current activities: some of my time is spent on working with book for one of our professors. He has a book about his subject but it exists only in one instance. So I've scanned it and now make text recognition. Rather dull work because my OCR is rather simple (but free).

And idea of a day: Do something meaningful :)

A lot of work

Eh... I've started new studying year, and now have a lot of homework. And I'm trying to do it as soon as possible. Before new tasks will come. For a previous day I haven't found a time for programming, but hope soon I'll allocate my time better and find some time for my hobbies :). And I've bought book "Pragmatic programmer" by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas!

Update: add a link to http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ on book title.

University is coming

That was a long time since I've write last time. And my new study year is coming soon. Now I'm having a two-week vacation. And relax at home. Err.. relax means do some programming :). I've made something that is text editor. May be i near future I'll advance it be something like IDE for a computer language. But I don't know which language :(. Or may be I should better just use Eclipse and Visual Studio? All in all, if even my text editor will never be useful, I already have got some experience from it.

Moreover I've joined team of developers of computer game Battle for Wesnoth... not as a programmer, but as a Russian translator. Who knows... may be in future I'll help as a programmer. But future is in future and now is today :).

Hey! And soon is my birthday — 18 years!

"Old new" pace of life

Now when I'm working there are serious changes in my daily timetable. I'm at work for about 8 hours every day and I still haven't adopted to this. Of course I want to perform some programming as usual, but after the work I now haven't got enough energy for this. Today I've read two articles in Spectrum magazine and pieces from "The Republic" of Plato. That's not very much and moreover I've realized that I don't remember almost anything from most philosophic books I'd read... :-( I think I should reread some of them...

Furthermore as I've already mentioned I want to buy a book about C# and then about UML, but I still don't decided when to buy first of them.

And I want to sleep very strong for now..

Yeah... Relax...

Today I've passed physics exam on best mark. I'm really pleased with that. Now there is only exam in programming, but, to be honest, I know programming enough well to be sure that there won't be any problems with it. I'm rather tired after exams so need some rest... some programming... :) and play "Battle for Wesnoth"... :)

And what is more: Google has its Summer of Code, so why I can't have my own? That not be a contest (at least at first time) and in this year there will be only me, all in all this name will be much more symbolic than the representation of real matters... But why not have some fun with names? :)

Where time goes?

Not very original name for the post, but that is the question I've asked myself today. On Saturday I will have an exam in physics. So I had some plans on preparing to it... but there is evening now, but I still haven't made even half of planned work! And I couldn't understand what I was doing today that the all time went out without remarkable result...

Bad! Very bad! May be I need some rest?..

Mathematics exam

Today I've passed an exam in mathematics on best mark! I'm really pleased with that, and now I have only 2 exams left and one of them is programming and I haven't got any problems with it. Another is physics. I'm not so good in it as in programming but I think there will be nothing too difficult for me.

I now haven't got much time for my own activities and paused my programming work. Moreover I'm experiencing some internal conflict: I have a lot of things I want to do, but time goes as a sand from hands without any significant result... But I think exams are legitimate reason not to be enough productive.

Beggining of the summer

So it's a June 7, day of the first exam in this session. So good that lecturer gave me best mark without any exam! :)

During these days I can stay at home and make a lot of different stuff. At first I need to prepare to exam in mathematics. I think after it I will have an allergy on mathematics...

Secondly I'm programming between studying mathematics. I made some progress with my app CodeExplorer which works with source code and analyses it. Though now there is nothing interesting in these app. Just some stuff from a young programmer. But now I also made an app which should work with mathematical expressions and evaluate them. Now it can only perform addition on integer numbers, but it will be much easy to add another operations. Thought adding another types of data will be much harder and what is more I'm not pleased with code that was written. I think I'll add to it common arithmetic operations, some features, write tests and then will try to refactor this awful code. At least I'll try to think of approaches of how to represent in program different data types.

Furthermore I think now I'm giving too little time to my mental study (or how it better to name?..). I haven't read any book than tech books since January! In except of some periodic reading of Confucius. I should think of that and return to this reading. At least one non-tech book must be read by me during this summer!


What is more during these summer I sometimes play in computer game called "Battle for Wesnoth". It's a free strategy game with fantasy entourage. I like it.

Accidental thoughts...

1. Why I have a feeling that something is on the wrong place in my life?
2. I usually live with words "I'm on the way of war" in my mind. Sometimes this phrase is shaded by others by it always back to me. Now is the time when it backs.
   
3. Is there any link between first and second?
4. "On the way of war" — I think soon I'll write a post about this.
   

A lot of news...

Hello! I have a few news about me :)

Some days ago I finished reading "Code Complete". That was a fundamental reading for me. I get a lot of knowledge and wisdom from it. Of course I don't remember all interesting things I've read but I think my programming style will become better after reading. I think in future work while coming to different stages of work I'll get this book from shelf and review checkpoints for my theme, that are pointed in book. All in all I was delighted by "Code complete" and recommend it for all programmers. As for beginners to make a good basis of knowledge and form good habits, so for professionals to improve their skills.

Moreover I started to learn Java programming language. At the moment I'm on basic stages of learning: expressions, statements, etc. They almost like C/C++, so I have no significant problems.

To add more I finished developing first version of CodeExplorer. It works! Now I need to make a list of features to implement in next iteration of development. From first cycle of development I've experienced working with Python built-in PyUnit and distutils. Working with PyUnit was enough successful and in future I continue to write tests for Python software on it. "Communication" with distutils wasn't so good. However I get some knowledge and will make a functional distribution in next iteration. However now I don't understand how to include documentation for software in distribution. All in all I think my experience from this project will be much useful in future life.

In my study life session is coming... So now I pass labs and homeworks. In Engineering Graphics I have only one lab to pass. I think I'll try to make this on Tuesday. In Physics I have only last test to pass. And in programming I need to pass report on penultimate work. However now I'm finding some time not only to study but also for my computer interest. Besides working on CodeExplorer I'm studying Java and taking a breath look ob webbook about data structures. And moreover I'm planning to learn UML.

And I've decided to reread Confucius book while tripping subway.

All in all, life is good! Goodbye, until next post.
— Anthony

Software

Yes, I made it! Yesterday I made some progrees on CodeExplorer — sortware I'm writeing now. And I want to work more on it! However holidays finished, so there will be a problem of finding time for this. Soon I'll prepare first (not very usefull, to be honest) version of CodeExplorer.

And... Yesterday I felt myself as a normal man with life full of something interesting, not depressed one.