Academic Bunkers Sieging

"I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed 'em what I've got."

I chose this piece of lyric to be my QQ signature, just before I "moved like Harlow in" the homework done by "Monte Carlo" method.

There is a famous idiom in the profound Chinese language, "Fuck time and time again, and love will eventually be generated". That's just what Monte Carlo did to me. When I began to learn it, I never considered it anything practical, and thought that the more determinstic methods are preferable and would converge at a far higher rate. However, after learning it for so long and doing so many problem with it, I've learned to enjoy this kind of thing.

However, the problem this time is that: the midterm and the deadline for this assignment just knock into each other, which, needless to say, means a ultimately arduous battle due to the lack of time. This turned out to be absolutely true.

There are four problems, each of which was estimated to require 5 to 6 hours on average to be completely done. Almost all I had were Tuesday and Wednesday, so I have to work 10 to 12 hours per day. It seemed to be a relatively small number, but studying problems is definitely different from lying on the lawn reading. I compare the former to an academic "Bunker Sieging".

I've seen sieging Bunkers with Hydralisks or Dragoons, and I know how bloody the scene is. However, I thought I had a few "academic Guardians and Reavers", and, above all, determination of blasting it to the ground. Hence, I had some confidence.

The full assault began at the night of Monday. Before that, I've done almost all the analytical work during the last weekend as preparation. The first two problems are essentially identical, i.e. finishing one means being able to finish the other in a matter of minutes. However, there are some subtle technical problems lying in front of me.

I've only slept for hardly 3 hours-- I stayed up until 5 a.m. and fell to the bed. However, it must be that I'm way too tired to ever sleep! I lay on the bed idly until I can no longer stand the sun out of the window, and determined to wake up and continue my work. However, I made little progress. I suddenly remembered that I told Bill I'll "kick into Chen's office and ask him about it", and I just set out.

It was not so easy to find Chen's office but I eventually made it. I told him that I've only slept for 3 hours last night but apparently he showed no sympathy so I determined to focus on the problems. He provided little help and told me that he cannot found where the problem lies until he see my code--that's the most ridiculous part--I assume that a professor should be familiar with all sorts of common mistakes students frequently make! Hence, I left his office disappointedly. Before my depart, he said, "Goodbye and have fun!", to which I reply, "Thanks if I can learn to consider it to be funny!"

I had my lunch (which is sold as "breakfast" by Mc'Donald) and returned to the dorm. After 1 or 2 hours of working, I cannot stand any longer, and fell to the bed...

When I opened my eyes again, I struggled to recall what was the last time I was conscious and tried to guess when it's most likely to be. I finally figured out it's probably early evening of Wednesday. I picked up my cellphone and was simply frighten out. 16 calls! Most of them from Haobo! Another of his SMS said that he'll have supper with a PG graduated from SYSU and asked me whether I will be there, I agreed without hesitation.

That PG turned out to be majoring in physics in SYSU (thus my direct major-mate), and he's just so kind and nice! However, I was still way too sleepy and had to leave pretty early. When I arrived at the dorm, however, I feel not a bit sleepy, and had this intense desire to finish it before dawn.

Now lemme make a brief report of my progress by then. The professor said one of my results in the third problem was wrong, but by the time I paced out of his office, I suddenly came up with the whereabout of the mistake, and fixed it immediately to reach the correct result. However, it was much, much more time consuming to run the program than to code it. I'd no mood to re-consider the first two problem, and had not begun with the fourth.

A figure of the third problem is also very hard to plot, and I didn't finish it until midnight. By that time, very surprising, Kaihan was online! I told him about my story and he was astonished, too.