Thesis Evaluation

That which is done

It is done, it is finished, it is history! That is right, the last exam for my MS is done. I am a free man now. The maturity test is over and now all that is left is to fix the software (if I want to) and fix the thesis(if I want to as well, it is done more or less) and that's about it.

I came to Tampere yesterday, stayed with Shehzad and woke him up in the morning because I was having a bad dream :/. This is the second nightmare that I had in the past 2 weeks. In the first one, Peshawar was nuked and in this one, I was running away from somemthing really sinister, did not know what.

anyway, after my test, I went and applied for my university degree and also went to get 2 courses corrected which had been marked as intermediate courses where as they were advance courses. Once that was done, I headed for some food and right now I am sitting in the university's study room writing my blog. Yawn! I am really sleepy at the moment, but I have to stay awake for a as Shehzad and Tayyab are going to meet me in 2 hours' time. What to do till then? I think I'll play a game and pass the time that way. Oh, btw, my suprevisor said himself today that he liked my work :D Yaaaaay!

12:45 pm

Thats the time when I started writing this post. I am just waiting for the Zohr time to hit so that I can pray and leave for Tampere. Tomorrow is the maturity test for my thesis and I have not read a thing. I will probably read about it on my way to Tampere. I cannot wait for this test to be over, so that I may apply for the graduation. It is good that all this is coming to a close finally. I will be so relaxed once its done and might even treat myself by buying GTA IV! Which also does not mean that I would not have bought it anyway, but this time around, its an excuse to buy it, otherwise I would feel guilty in doing so.

Nothing much is new however. Days are spent working on thesis and weekends are spent playing starcraft. I just applied to a place in Tampere for a job. Its high time that I find one and that too in time before I run out of finances.

Thesis Defence

Finally, the day has arrived when I am going to do my thesis's defense. It is called a Maturity Test here, which requires you to write an essay about your thesis. The idea is that, if you have done the thesis yourself, you can write about it. Apart from that, they also want to see if you can write good English which they check in their language center. If all goes well, then this is the last exam that I will need to take for my MS.

The thesis itself is under review by another professor and once he okays it, it will be sent for printing. This also requires that I apply for graduation as soon as possible, in order to get my degree by the end of May.

These have been the longest 2.5 years of my life, and it had its series of ups and downs but now it is all coming to a close. It is a nice warm feeling :).

More MS updates

I have been at home for a month now. The main reason for it was to finish my thesis. Writing a thesis and that too in less than 15 days is no easy task. It means that you need to write at least 3 pages a day, which is much difficult than it sounds. Anyway, i just finished writing 52 pages and sent the draft to my supervisor. If he approves of it, then i will apply for graduation at my university. This will bring a long chapter of my life to a close. A chapter worked on and completed all by myself and that too with good overall result.

Right now, I am completing a basic game so that I can display how my software really works. The game is really simple. You have a car and you have to move while avoiding obstacles. I know its really dry a concept, but my aim was not to make a good game, just a demo to show off what my software does. If you still do not know then look at this sample of a screenshot. The car in it looks too bland. If you want to make it look like Ferrari F1, all you got to do is open the in game editor and draw it yourself, no coding or recompiling involved. its that easy.

On the gaming front, I have been playing Starcraft and Supreme Commander on weekends and Call of Duty 4 almost daily. Speaking of which, I am about to gain Prestige a second time, which means that i am going to level up to 56, the second time. Prestige puts your name right on top of the leader boards for everyone to see. But to get that, you have to give up all the weapons and upgrades and start from scratch.

right now, I am about to get 10,000 kills and my kill to death ratio is 1.12 with accuracy of 17.38% oh and my longest killing streak has been 21.

thats it for now, more game talk later... I better get back to work

The Moon

Yesterday, when I was about to sleep, I saw the moon shining brightly in a clear sky. It hit me just at that moment that it had been some 3 months before I had a glimpse of moon in the night sky. The time that I spend inside the four walls of my room has been a bit too much and I should spend some time outside. Another reason for this absence of moon during the nights is the persistent cloudy weather of Finland.
It shone bright last night and it looked really beautiful with its light filtering through the clouds. Sometimes we remain so busy in our daily life that we miss up on some of the most striking sights in our lives.

Thesis update

My thesis has finally reached a stage where I can say that its 95% complete. What remains is XML reading and writing. The code is already there in the project, all i need to do is to make it work. The emulator that I am using for some reason is not running it. I think I will finish this last part in my office.

when this is done, i will go to my supervisor and ask him to accept the thesis as it is, and that being, not adding anything extra. If he agrees, then I will be on my way to writing this thesis and hopefully graduating by the end of May. so this means that I will have the month of April to complete the entire thesis writing procedure. It is going to be hard, but it is still manageable. 2 pages a day will hopefully get the thing done.

3 years in an MS is a long time, better finish it as soon as possible

Naruto: Rise of the ninja

I recenty got myself Naruto: Rise of the ninja. yes, I confess that I am a big fan of Naruto and follow its Manga (Comics) religiously. This game has been out for a while and I had heard good reviews about it. This game is part adventure and part versus action game. that is, you go around exploring and when you have battles, they are played out Street Fighter style. I must say that the animation is really fluid and its a treat to watch all the battles.

Speaking of visuals, the developers have created the entire leaf village, which looks absolutely gorgeous. Then, when you want to make those hand seals, you do a simple combination and fire up your jutsu (super power move).

The game has a story mode that follows the anime's story, but sadly it is not as engaging as the anime was. All the sounds in the game are in English, but i recently downloaded japanese sounds to play when i play the game.

Those who are a fan of this series, should try this game out and those who are not, should watch the anime because it has a great story. I collected a few screenshots and videos, which, you can watch below:

Here is the trailer:



and the review:



and some pictures to let you see how good it looks.

GIK's Parting Memories

One of the saddest things that happened in GIKI was that, I could never get a single graduation picture and the the convocation video made by my brother was skillfully overwritten without taking into account that the video might hold some value.

Anyway, as it turns out, mubeen had a video camera at that time, and even though I remember that he used it, I had already forgotten that I was the one who made the last video of GIKI with him with all of my comments and excellent photography :D. Here are a few videos that he recently uploaded. You can see me in the videos and then hear my commentary as my move around with Mubeen making the video.

Another good thing is that, you get to see Mandi, Kutts, Hammy, Nikka, Piracha, Bharam and a few other guys in the videos. So if you want to have some good GIKI nostalgia, see the videos right now.

Last day in GIKI Part 1:


Last day in GIKI Part 2:


The convocation

Thesis flows

In my last post, I was not too happy with the state of my thesis... now one day later, since I have fixed all the bugs, the thesis has finally started to take shape. The thing to do now is to get the XML parser working and once that is done, I think I will be on my way to completing the thesis real soon. Th problem is that, I need to convince my supervisor that the amount of work that I have done already is enough to count as thesis work. If he agrees, then all that will be left is going to be writing the 60+ page thesis and do the final touches on my code.

wish me luck!