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I’ve been missing in action for quite sometimes… mainly due to my final year and what I expect to be a “toy” suddenly become part of my professor’s research.

Many seniors once told me that final year is really “no play play” and I always doubted that. “What on Earth in this final year that can be worse than being in the Robocon team?”

I mean I’ve been used to staying up late for 2 years, rushing this and that, working under pressure, bla bla bla… so final year should be quite relaxing… that’s what I thought… (aw… I’m damn cocky)

Unfortunately, this year the whole batch of students have started their final year project quite late. A few of my friends from other uni have been asking bout my progress and to their surprise, I always come up with, “Sorry, I still haven’t started anything yet…”. This is already the end of the 5th week and most students have not even started anything (including me =P). Instead, most of the time we’re struggling to keep up with our weekly homeworks, small projects, lab works and assignments.

As adviced by one of my seniors, I wanted to do something simple for my project. I don’t wanna spend too much time on it as I realise most of the things that I’ve been studying and working on are more to self-interest and will not be of any great help in my future career. If possible, I wish to complete at least 70% of it by the end of this semester. With this, next semester I can have time to get myself prepared and start searching for job.

But things are not as easy as I thought. Instead of doing a hobbyist’s “toy”, which in my case is simply a self balancing robot using gyro and accelerometer, I am now more like doing research. We are required to do it in a more “academic” way and that’s where the pressure lies. We have choices, but sometimes it is not up to us to make the decision (I can’t believe I am saying this, which is so contrary to my previous post.).

Nevertheless, I’m still very optimistic with my current life. I will survive.

p/s: If anyone come across any shop in Malaysia selling “Sparkfun IMU 5 degree of freedom” cheaper than RM450, kindly contact me.

What would you do when things are urgent and you have no solution to them… yet?

What would you do when you feel so helpless knowing you do not have the ability to accomplish certain things?

What would you do when life deals you a cruel hand?

What would you do when your mind is overloaded with information, scattered all around and you can’t seems to combine them?

What would you do when people around keep on bombarding you with advices, ideas, stories, just for the sake to weaken you?

What would you do when you wanted something done so badly but you do not know where to start?

I have been through these, many of us have been through these, and all of us have different thoughts and ways to deal with these.

Most of the time, you feel so stressed up, having to complete certain tasks before due date, not having single idea of where to start, being pissed of by people around you who “big talk” when you’re already in that bad situation, etc…

But hey, is life really that bad? Have you ever tried to pull yourself out and view the situation as a “third person”?

Have you ever done something on impulse, only to feel regret later?

Sometimes, we tend to get so focused on the thing in front of our eyes that we often fail to realize what lies behind.

An obstacle is right in front of your eyes, you know you must get through it, you tried to find solutions to overcome it, you seek for advice from people around you… but in the end, you found nothing. After all the hard works, you are still standing at the same point before you started off.

Then you start blaming everybody, everything, even yourself…

But come to think of it, is there really no other alternative available? Have you ever thought of:

Are you already in the incorrect first step before you started?

Are you being too focused on the obstacle that you neglected things happening around it?

Are those information from people around you usable?

Is the situation really that bad, as what you have heard from others, but never witness it by yourself before?

How about starting from several choices that you have in mind, slowly and carefully considering each of them, then filter them one by one. At the end of the day, the combination of the left over might be the best solution!

There are always choices and alternatives in life. It is just that sometimes we are too tensed up and being blinded by the current situation that we are unable get a hold of them. Our emotion is disrupted and we lose our cool so easily.

No one can predict the future. Most of the time, we try to predict our future based on the past experience of the others. Can we be sure that we will be walking the same path as well? Is the outcome of our trial will be exactly the same as the others? No one can tell.

More importantly, we must realize what is the best for ourselves. What is our goal in life? What we want to achieve through the process? What is the expected outcome and what elements are required in between? Again, no one can tell, we know ourselves the best.