Sanity Or Insanity?

Today was an interesting day. Someone approached me and this was how it all began:

[Glass Cookie (GC) walks past a coursemate just before the a*rospace materials lecture]

A*rospace coursemate [AC, and this has nothing to do with GC's junior college, nor a crappy friend that GC knows]: Hi!

GC (stopped in his tracks, though not too abruptly): Oh, Hi!

AC: So, may I know your first name?

GC (surprised, and wondering what's wrong with him): Oh, it's [GC's first name].

AC: And your last name?

GC: Well, it's [GC's last name].

AC: Oh, ok. Hi [GC's full name]. How are you?

GC: Well, not too bad.

GC's thoughts: Erm, don't you know me? Say, are you ok? Although I'm personally bad with names... I do know you well enough to remember your name what...?

AC (eagerly, with formality): Oh, that's good. Nice to meet you!

GC (sensing that he's gone crappy): Oh, nice to meet you too! So, have you managed to preserve your sanity?

AC: Well, not exactly.

GC (agreeing, as if he could empathise with him. Yup, it's empathy, not sympathy): Oh yea, with all the projects right?

AC (smiling): Definitely.

Well, although the above seemed like nothing much, and the phrase 'all the projects' merely sounded like the normal homework just like the kind everyone is exposed to, allow me to elaborate on what kind of stuff the lecturers here are doing/giving. In fact, it's so bad, all one could do (or perhaps it's only me and a handful in where I am) is to try his or her best to preserve one's sanity. And, trust me, it's not easy to retain one's sanity. In fact, I almost feel as if it doesn't matter if I lose more of my sanity or not, because... because... there's nothing much of my sanity left to be lost.

Well, for one of the sanity-consuming projects that caused my entire team of 5 people to work through the night from 8 p.m. till 7 a.m. (although the lack of sleep was definitely a contributing factors to all the frenzies and craziness, it's but a teeny weeny bit, really) in the morning, here was what the project looked like:

Well, you might ask: So what's the big deal? It's only some bunch of seats and a toilet arranged just like in the floor plan of the A380. Well, maybe you might also want to take a look at this:

Yup. It's a normal chair and a wheelchair. It's nothing impressive. It's merely two of those chairs that you see in the assembly. So, let's take a closer look at a small component of the wheelchair:

Just in case you're wondering what this is, it's the part at the base of the wheelchair, to lock the wheelchair in place. Hmmm... if by now, you're still thinking that the project was still simple, maybe this picture would elaborate more:

If you're wondering where this fits into, see the holes at the bottom of the locking mechanism? Yup, this little nut and bolt goes in there. And just in case you're also wondering, yup, the entire wheelchair is made up of blocks, rods, cushions, wheels and pieces, all created and assembled together. If you thought that was all, after I've gone down 4 levels, nah - that's not all. I mean, how simple could life possibly get in engineering in my case? In fact, there's one more level:

Yup, even this cute (well, if it's cute to you in the first place) little nut is part of an assembly. Sadly/tragically/horrifically/[whichever-3-words-first-mentioned]-which-is-an-understatement/I-can't-think-of-a-worse-word-or-phrase, there's one more level down after the above mentioned "one more level" - the most basic of all levels:

Firstly, we have to draw a shape, set all the dimensions properly, make sure all the lines are connected, and then create a block. Then, we draw a circle, set all the dimensions so that it's exactly in the middle of the block, then cut a hole through. That's how we got the nut. So, all you see in this all-but-one-out-of-7-other-projects (though the 7 are of varying magnitudes of difficulty and commitment required) were created from scratch. It's no wonder why I have to come online to rant about stuff in order to keep my sanity, or rather, whatever sanity that's left.

And it's interesting how history just loves to repeat itself just like an old grandmother/grandfather. In fact, it's more cheong hei than an old grandmother/grandfather considering that history enjoyed repeated itself all the way from Adam up till now, and would continue to do so till the end of time. Doesn't it get tired or something? Oh, just in case I drift away from the main topic about history having to go for some memory booster programme to remind itself that it has repeated itself several times (erm, pardon me for getting crappier... it's 1:40 a.m. now, you see)...

[some time after the initial spontaneous, yet formal greeting from AC]

AC: Hey, since you like IT so much, why are you in a*rospace engineering?

GC (sigh, once again, history has repeated itself for the as-countless-as-the-computer-engineering-question-plus-one time): Well, beats me.

Since it's been a crazy 2 weeks that I've gone through, yup. I shall declare a holiday (Hmmm, come to think about it, since it's at night, it should be a declared holinight rather than a holiday. It's dark outside...) for today and simply rest. I'll probably start work only later today, considering it's past midnight =)

Conclusion: With a burning passion, I dare say... ... nah... better not be cheong hei lest I should rival some grandfather of some sort in the art of repetition.

Thought: I need to preserve my sanity...