Tag Archives | life

A New Chapter Begins!

/ January 10, 2012 / Bahrain, Brazil, Life, University / Permalink

Just a couple of hours ago I bid farewell to my last class. It has been a long and somewhat tiring number of years. I slacked the first couple of years, but I partly blame that on the registration system we used to have (imagine everyone registering for classes in ONE day!). Then came the courses which were only offered during the summer, which I skipped in order to visit Brazil. The third year I picked up a bit, going on overdrive for a semester, which was not a good idea. I blame myself for taking courses intense in numbers… Final year, I got a chance to really pick myself up. I pledged to finish by taking whatever was offered, regardless of the psychological and physical cost it endured. I also worked on some papers that were published, attended a conference and learned from others. I guess everything happens for a reason.

Thoughts were running through my mind this morning. I thought about what I would do now? I now had time to do stuff I used to brush off since it made me feel counter productive (but I ended up being counter productive anyway). I came up with a list:

1. Start visiting the "office" which I have neglected for the past month or so. Probably "work" for at least 4 hours a day on whatever in there.



2. Educate myself. I have started Android apps development, and I am really enjoying. I should probably go deeper into it rather than just scrape the surface like all other languages.

3. Take care of my body. I am not exactly fit, I haven't exercised in only God knows how long. We've got a treadmill, I guess I should make good use of it with the running shoes I bought ages ago icon razz A New Chapter Begins! . Or maybe I should join the gym.

4. Go out more. My going out life has been mostly home, university, home, movie and dinner with friends on weekends and basically that's it. Maybe should I try the museum or spend the whole day walking around one of the malls. Basically socialize more.

5. Play music. I have abandoned my guitar and bass for at least a year. They are right in the middle of my house so I pass by it every time I visit the living room or kitchen. Yet for some reason that counter productive thought used to haunt me. Think I should change the strings first though, don't want to get tetanus!

6. Travel. Ever since I came back from Dubai for the first conference I attended I always wanted to go back and do stuff on my accord. Looks like that might be happening soon. I also would really like to visit Salalah again (closest you can get to a Brazilian in the GCC btw, minus erm, the beauties ;-P!).

7. Enjoy life! Can anything be that simple?

Noticed I haven't added anything career wise? Did that on purpose. It's in the list but too serious to be put here… I will be putting up a sort of online CV soon with the stuff I've accomplished and the skills I have (small or large).

Another chapter begins!

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My Worst Habit: Procrastination

/ December 26, 2011 / General, Life / Permalink

Let's face it, we are all humans, we do good we do bad and we are not perfect. We also all have habits. Good habits (in my case arriving early), in between habits (working under pressure, might not be healthy but needs to be done) and bad habits.

My worst habit is the all famous one known as "procrastination" which according to the Merriam Webster dictionary is "to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done". At some point, I can say with confidence, we all procrastinate somehow. Which reminds me, I used to hear the word "procrastinate" ever since I started to pick up English and at first I thought it was something to do with religion (don't ask me why!). Anyways (see what I did?), I've just started to realize how much I procrastinate.

Let's see what's on my to do list: finalize draft of a conference paper, work on a final year project and work on a math project. I have a week off to do all these things and I am someway through them progress wise. However, every morning I convince myself to finish them and enjoy my days off, but for some reason that never happens. What happens instead? At the time I "scheduled" to start I go online, check my emails, watch a bit of TV and worst of all, do nothing sometimes! Even my first Android app (update 2) suffered from delayed development (I thought about it for months, but only recently started to work on it!).

It's only recently that I realized what happens in mind during procrastination. You see, I see these things as tedious and boring and as a result I end up being lazy and putting it off. The result is whatever else I do is also boring (like doing nothing, watching TV, visiting the last page on the Internet). But I believe I have found the solution, it is simple, it is what they say you should do: just do it! If you got something to do, just do it, don't leave it regardless what your mind says.

I have applied "just do it" by scheduling right after I wake up (6am) what I need to do. I put down the time I will start (usually 10am), and until then I take my time with breakfast, play a bit of PS3, go online, basically have fun. Once the clock hits 10, I stop whatever I am doing, sit on my desk and start working. I let nothing interrupt me (I need the TV for the random noise, usually a news channel works). And for some reason, I end up enjoying whatever I am doing, surprisingly as it sounds.

So if you suffer from procrastination, try "just do it" and see if it works with you. It's sad I decided to try this out now after almost a 1/3 of the average lifespan of humans passing by…

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(Almost) End of the Year Updates

/ November 21, 2011 / Bahrain, Brazil, General, Life, Software, Technology, University / Permalink

Oh boy where to start?!

For some reason, to me, this year seemed to have passed real quick. I know its still November, but before I know it, it will probably be December 31. This year was probably the bumpiest one yet for me.

Firstly, there were (and still are) all these revolutions going on in the region. As far as the subject goes I will stop there, I like to keep a politically free atmosphere. After that I spent a lot of time writing papers on cloud computing, went to a university sponsored conference that took place in the UAE and then co-authored with one of my instructors another paper that is going to be published. With that semester over, I decided to (finally) take summer courses in university to speed up my graduation. To me each summer term felt more like a month each, plus Ramadan helped time move real quick (eat, sleep, uni, eat, sleep… icon razz (Almost) End of the Year Updates ). This has also been the first year I do not visit my family in Brazil, but I plan on going as soon as I graduate mostly for relaxing, or you never know, a job. Now I am on my final semester, a part of me really wants to graduate, another doesn't want to due to the responsibilites that lie ahead. Which comes to the "company" I am attempting to set up with a friend of mine. It has been really bumpy, I am still not certain what will happen, so I probably would start looking for a job once I'm done.

In the gaming side of life I have decided to stop buying games (yes I know Skyrim is out…) to focus on my more serious interests. I went through a more throrough crash course in Java programming, covering areas that we didn't take in university such as GUI building, communicating with web APIs etc… I ended up with two, decent in my opinion, applications: one gets movie names and timings from Bahrain Cinema Company, the other allows you to send cheap SMS from a VoIP provider named Call With Us (I highly recommend them). I am now (slowly) learning Android and have successfully ported my SMS sending application to Android. I have some more ideas for Android apps, but I still need to polish my skills a bit more. I am thinking of getting a developer account in the Market, even though Bahrain can't sell apps.

On the servers side of life, I went on an addictive buying spree of VPS (Virtual Private Servers). About 90% of them are low end VPS with on average 128MB of RAM that I would spend sometimes hours tweaking to use a fraction of that to run a dynamic website or a DNS server or an OpenVPN server or… or… Most of the low end deals I got from a cool site called Low End Box. I found good use of some of the low end VPSes: I built a low cost CDN (Content Delivery Network) which worked out quite well and I am using for my final year project in university. I have also moved this blog from BurstNET (very good budget VPS provider, take the reviews online with a pinch of salt) to a Linode VPS since I always wanted to try a more premium VPS. Cloudflare stands in front of this blog so the change might not have been obvious.

Regarding Internet in Bahrain, I have gone through some services which I plan on writing a few reviews on. Briefly, Menatelecom's myKey service is very good if you have coverage, Viva's 42Mbps obviously does not reach 42Mbps but is still the fastest I have seen and Menatelecom's myFi service is the only thing you can use from them that is portable AND works on Linux. That is the order in which I have gone ISP wise, the only Internet I will keep is a downgraded menaHome and their myFi service (the Viva review may reveal why).

This is all for now, I hope you all have a nice day icon smile (Almost) End of the Year Updates !

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