1. What did you do this past week? Suffered (and still suffering) through one of the worst weeks of my undergraduate life. Turned in the final release for our iOS app, gave the presentation for that app, took the final exam in Security, took the final exam in HoR, and studied my ass off for this class only to get destroyed when taking Exam 2. During my time as a college student, I’ve never had to jump directly from one exam into another one, and I hope to never suffer anything like that again. I need a little time to decompress and let the adrenaline and cortisol levels go back to normal. Especially in the case of Exam 2, which was an awfully stressful experience.

1. What did you do this past week? This past week was spent wrapping up the last security project and hopefully the iOS semester project. Looking back on it, I don’t remember doing a whole lot during the week, but I know that I stayed busy. I held the last 439 discussion of the semester, which truly marks the end growing closer. We had our last quiz in this class, which is good and bad. It’s good because I no longer have to go through the adrenaline surge in trying to answer tricky questions in a short amount of time, but it’s also bad because I failed to accumlate enough perfect scores to replace quizzes I messed up on. It’s all good, I’ll wind up with a decent quiz score overall.

1. What did you do this past week? This week I put a bow on the Life project and started/finished the last security project. Other than that, not alot. Thankfully, this is the part of the semester where things start to wind down, and there are less hurdles to jump. I’ve started thinking about how to implement the last pieces of our iOS project. Also, registration was this week and I can’t express how stress free it was. Finally, some perks of being an upperclassman, but it will be the last time I select classes :( (Grad school might be an option someday).

1. What did you do this past week? Finished my implementation of AES, which can handle 128, 192, or 256 bit encryption. We started working on the Life project, but there are some particulars that are a little fuzzy. We have just begun discussing the techniques needed for this project, so there will be a lot of learning on our own. My productivity took a hit because my Mom was in town to celebrate being named College Scholar again, but I really enjoyed hanging with her and my family. It’s time to get focused for the final semester push.

1. What did you do this past week? What didn’t I do in the past week? Finished Darwin alone, which was a terrible idea to do in the first place. Deciding to take on the longest project solo added a level of unnecessary stress, but I learned a lot about designing class hierarchy without the crutches of getters and setters. It’s really easy to say getSomething or setSomething, but its much more elegant to write something which can be easily maintained and evolved without starting from scratch. I’m not certain I accomplished that, but whatever. I also delivered the Beta version of out iOS app. It’s ok, but it still needs some work. I don’t think it’s going to be something worth putting on the App Store. I also flew to Dallas to take care of my Mom, who is going through some health trouble at the moment.

2. What’s in your way? If it’s not one thing it’s another – I woke up with food poisoning this morning (I assume), which has debilitated my production more so than Shingles did earlier this semester. Hopefully it will subside by tomorrow. I don’t have any development related blockers at the moment.

1. What did you do this past week? This past week has been a shitshow. I’ve done what I preached not to do and have fallen behind. On top of that, I had to fly out of town unexpectedly Friday, for reasons which have further added to my stress level. The Cortisol is flowing freely throughout my being. I did not make as much progress on Darwin as I hoped. The design of that project is proving to be not intuitive at all. In addition, I did not actively seek a partner, so all the work is resting heavily on my shoulders.

1. What did you do this past week? This week was the most stressful I’ve had all semester. Due to my unwavering lack of motivation during Spring Break, I was deep in the weeds at the start of the week. The first half was spent frantically finishing the Alpha version of our iOS app and then Wednesday and Thrusday saw a crunch to finish the Allocator project. Thankfully, both projects were 100% finished and I feel pretty good about them. I then finished the last iOS HW due this week and can comfortably focus on other things.

1. What did you do this past week? This past week focused on the Security exam and project. It was the final push to Spring Break, where I can hopefully get some R&R. Unfortunately, I’ve been somewhat disabled by the bastard Shingles virus. I am dealing with a lot of constant pain, which makes concentrating on schoolwork difficult.

1. What did you do this past week? Besides prepare for and knock out Exam 1, I don’t recall much else. Thankfully my exam schedule has been kind to me thus far. The last week of classes will be awful though.

1. What did you do this past week? This past week was the first exam in 439. Every exam that I proctor makes me even more thankful that is over and done with. It also gives me wicked flashbacks for those anxious moments shared by everyone leading up to the exam. I then spent a fair amount of time grading those exams, which is always a fun and learning experience. I’m thankful for the chance to solidify my understanding of operating systems by TAing for that course. I also took a silly exam for my History of Rock class and began studying for the exam next week.

1. What did you do this past week? My partner and I finished up Project 2 with fairly good results. We are pretty certain the logic handles all valid input and that all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. I also finished another project with my partner in 361 that involved implementing a covert channel. I feel quite fortunate to know some talented and intelligent people who are willing to work with me. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to work with the same partner more than once in this class, so I will have to fan out and find another capable being.

1. What did you do this past week?

This week I was able to conquer Sphere mystery acceptance tests. I’m not sure if it was worth the extra credit, beacuse I spent a lot of hours flying blind since Sphere does not give any iota of hints for when the tests fail. It was a very frustrating experience! Imagine developing in this environment all the time – nightmare I tell you. Hopefully I was able to follow the stringent requirements for the rest of the project turnin steps. I hate to lose points over silly mistakes.

These question prompts remind me an awful lot of agile development… When I was at Amazon last summer, we had similar prompts during daily stand ups. It is a great way to organize and communicate the work being done.

This marks the start of another grinding semester at the University of Texas at Austin. As always, I feel jealously and sorrow for students with easier majors.