The One With The Pending Decision.

In my previous entry, I wrote about how I was due for a meeting with the Faculty Student Committee for a hearing regarding an allegation of 'supposed' misconduct towards my group assignment for Business Statistics.

My group and another group were present at this meeting to discuss the issue of plagiarism towards our assignments. Prior to the meeting I was incredibly pumped to defend Derek and myself. I was pumped to prove that we did not copy other people's work. I was so pumped, if you had asked me to do something daring, like punch Tim in the face, I would have.

To reinforce my innocence, I brought along Adrian for some extra defence, and Derek brought in Darren. I was so optimistic that this whole situation would be sorted in one meeting, but unfortunately, the lack of evidence to prove that Derek and myself did not plagiarize was insufficient. I really wish I had said more things to the panel to truly convince them.

If there's one thing to be positive about, it's that Derek nor myself are facing expulsion or any time away from uni. Unfortunately, while we did not plagiarize, we may still endure a penalty of some sort. How this works is that the committee recommends a penalty to the Dean of the Business faculty, and then that person then reads their report and makes the final decision. The penalty that the committee has recommended is that Derek and myself receive a 0 grading for Parts B and C of the assignment. If that's the case, there's no way in hell I will pass this subject. I could not be more disappointed because none of this was our fault.

The only thing I can do now is send email to the Dean after he receives the recommendation and make an appeal.

Group assignment's can die. They really can.

The One Where It's Make Or Break.

I've just returned from a very quiet, yet enjoyable evening at work. The lack of customer's at work prompted Mary-Jane and myself to make some deep fried magnum ice-creams. When you work in a cafe that's lacking any financial activity, you kind of feel the need to conjure up something exciting to do. Prior to placing the battered magnum's in the deep fryer, I had all the confidence in the world that the experiment would fail, and that I would need to spend a heap of time cleaning out all the gunk from the fryer's as a result of the magnum's breaking down. To the benefit of our tummies, the cooking procedure was a success ! And yummy at that.

Later today I'm expected to present myself at a boardroom meeting at UTS Haymarkets to discuss this allegation of misconduct against my Business Statistics group members from last semester. For those who don't know, my group and myself have been accused of plagiarising another group's assignment. I received a copy of both our assignments which had the 'plagiarised' sections highlighted, and boy do they have a case. I was quite furious as to how similiar or 'exact' our assignments were, considering Derek and myself were up late many nights working on our respective contributions.

At the end of the day however, I know I did not plagiarise, or make any contact with the other group, so I am hoping my grade will not be affected in any way. More serious than that, I hope I do not face the expulsion card. I'll let you know what happens.

The One After The First Day Back.

9:30am start today. The smart thing to do would have been to sleep early the night before, but instead I was an internet whore and slept at 3 in the morning. I paid the ultimate price the next day. First class was my Business Law and Ethics tutorial which wasn't as bad as I originally expected. My tutor is quite easy going and does not grill you if you don't contribute, which works well for me. Interestingly enough, I'm the only second year student in the class, and am the only one from the FEIT faculty.

Next class was Business Requirements Modeling. No criticisms here. Here we formed our groups for the assignment, which is officially comprised of Jasmine, Tim, Nam, Gordon and myself. Looking forward to it. The lecturer is one part of the subject that really stands out. I'm sure the way in which the lecturer speaks is perfectly natural, but as a listener it really seems like he's yelling at you, which is great because your attention is immediately placed on him, and not the hot girl sitting across from you in the same row. Oh wait.

After my BRM class, I had my Finance lecture. This is where my lack of sleep from the night before came back to bite me. The first hour of the lecture consisted of me listening for 5 seconds, then slowly falling asleep for 10 seconds, then waking up realizing I should be listening, then repeat. I hate it when that happens. You really don't want to fall asleep, but you do so anyway because you can't help it. Again, we formed our groups for the assignment. My group for this one will be Andrew, Joseph, CJ and myself.

After my last class I met up with Adrian, Ivan and Xander and had a cheap dinner at Maccas and then went to the Glasshouse to play some pool.

And that's my life story today.

Now that I'm blogging, I'd like to make a special mention to a great band I recently came across, a band known as 'Dance Gavin Dance'. Yes, the fact that I'm even blogging about them should indicate how much I enjoy their music. Describing the style of music they play is tough. If I had to specific, I would label them as Experimental Post-Hardcore? I had heard about these guys before but never bothered to browse their catalog, simply because of their band name. I know, stupid reason not to check a band out. I finally came to my senses and decided to see what they have to offer ...

Don't let the fat guy in the middle fool you Tim. He's lost a lot of weight since then. :)

Starting with their myspace, I obviously listened to the songs with the highest play counts, them being 'And I Told Them I Invented Times New Roman' and 'Lemon Miringue Tie'. Upon hearing these tracks, the first thing that caught my attention was the singer's voice. It's just so ... beautiful. After being impressed with the songs, I checked out their 'Downtown Battle Mountain' album.


Such a great album. The singing is just so catchy and is probably the highlight. While there isn't loads of singing, when it does occur it's a great listening experience. As for the instruments, these musicians know their instruments really well. Some weird and complicated structures are something that caught my attention straight away. So many great guitar leads in this album too.

Recommended songs are:

• And I Invented Times New Roman
• Lemon Meringue Tie
• Turn Off The Lights, I'm Watching Back To The Future
  

The One Hundredth.

Wow. 100 blog posts. Quite a milestone in the online world even if I say so myself. Next milestone: 500 blog posts.

No more holidays ! I didn't really have much of a holiday anyway to be honest. Not in the fact that I was mostly working, but I really didn't get up to much outside of work. I guess I had a more conservative break from university. Also, my illness didn't help too much either !

Semester 2 of 2009 started today ! Well for me anyway. I slept super-duper early last night to avoid any chances of excessive sleep the next morning. I woke up at 6:30 and caught the 8:24 train for a 10am start ! :)

I got to my first lecture which was Business Law and Ethics. Unfortunately I could not get into any rhythm with this subject. There were interesting parts here and there, but I could not stay focused on the lecturer for the whole hour and a half. You know you're not completely interested in the subject if the only memorable part was the lecturer doing a voice impersonation of Homer and Marge from the Simpsons. Oh no ... it could be another repeat of Database Fundamentals where the lecturer bored me so much, I wanted to jump out of my skin to have something else to do.

After the lecture I headed to the union food court to eat some Butter Chicken from the Indian shop. While lining up, I spotted Denise sitting across the food court. You know those situations where you're waving vigorously at someone but they can't see you? Sometimes they even look at you, but they just don't notice you're waving. Well that's exactly what happened. Her friend's noticed me waving like a weirdo, and I finally got her attention.

Apart from Business Law and Ethics, I had my first taste of Applications Programming. The lecturer seems to be more appealing and attention grabbing and I hope that will help me succeed in this subject. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that he does not resemble a priest, as thought by Jasmine. Silly girl.

Okay, so that's my day of university. Just the two lectures !

After being capped on my internet a half month early, I am uncapped as of today and am going nuts on the downloads !!