HEY >:).

Sorry it’s been so long, I ended up missing the post on Wednesday and just kept having to push it back, both cause I was doing stuff and at the stuff that was getting thrown at me. But it’s all good now!

There’s so much stuff to talk about I honestly don’t even know where to start, but again ill just get academics out of the way first:

The exam was such a mixed bag (;n_n).

I think I did alright, it was a solid attempt, but its dawning on me now that Ive been taking things way too lightly. Even just two weeks of entirely just dedication doesnt really cut it, even if I was following along alright, I needed to follow along WELL, ESPECIALLY for 1860, computer hardware and architecture, and for the mark that I wanted, that being well over 70.

The good news in that is that of all 3 of the exams, it was probably the hardest one, and I say probably just because even though I have a lot more experience with and am familiar with the other two, math and programming, I still only have a week to study both simultaneously. It’s too much, to be honest.

The exam was hard, and as much as I did well there was just as much ambiguity there. There were tons of questions that just seemed to elude me by JUST a bit, or having some details that I just could not for the life of me remember.

There was also long form question 5, the question straight from hell, it takes the hardest part of semester 1, the one they had to DOWNGRADE the requirement for cause no one could do it, and makes it an EIGHT POINT QUESTION.

That, and it was 3 hours, the stamina required for this is insane I tell you :’).

I think the studying paid off, so its not like im going to get under 40, EVEN IF there wasnt already a 40 mark minimum cap for students who finished the worksheets, which is everyone, but I cant say im confident ill get a 70 or above on it, or maybe even the rest of them, though thats to be seen with how difficult programming will be, it really is an unknown factor for now.

Still though, the year has been passed cause of the grade cap, I cant fail, and I get to take all these exams for the first time. That, and its not weighed, so even if I did do poorly, it wont count towards my masters degree (which ill switch to before the third year). I still hope to get as high a mark as possible, itll probably be around 60 on this exam then god knows what for the other two, and ill keep pushing regardless, especially cause my family would not be happy with that low of a mark anyways.

Going into the next year, Ill study a lot more, both before the start of the year over the break, inbetween when I find it in me throughout the week, to read the material in the library, and earlier for the exams. All of this needs to be cranked up to 11 next year, not just because its gonna be harder and so I can switch to a masters degree, but also because id love to get an internship.

I didnt get to study over spring like I wanted to since my mom was here, but I can account for that next time knowing how difficult it’ll actually be.

And that’s all she wrote on that, honestly it won’t even deserve a passing remark when im done with the other two, you know all you need to know about the grades themselves ;).

More interestingly though right now, at least in my eyes, are the subjects themselves. Given I’ve been studying 1860 as much as I have been in preperation for the exam, I feel it ended up rekindling my interest in my degree as a whole, in a weird way. For as much as its been tiring, revisitng all the semester 1 content from front to back has been really cool!

I mean, you build a rudimentary pc, at least the basics stucture of the von neumann architecture, completely from scratch! It was really cool >:).

Looking back 1860 was taught much better than I remember at the time, I’ve gotta tell you that much at least.

So in the time since then Ive been tinkering with the laptop, since I was hoping after all of this that I’d be able to run things locally on my computer instead of the site like they made us do while we were studying, and I decided since I was gonna study for the programming exam that I might as well set up things locally so that my studies go smoothly.

If you dont already know, most all programmers nowadays use VSCode, its an online environment thats both the text edititor everyone uses to code, but also has a litany of other features, with plugins and all the AI they cram in your face.

Its nice, but slow, and more importantly, CAN be run locally, but is resource intensive, and not that fast in terms of actual programming.

By that I mean that the actually writing of the code can be pretty dull itself, not running it on the device. There’s a word for this, workflow, but I hate it, its fucking drab im not an stuck up guy in a suit and tie trying to be efficient so that I can generate the best sales numbers im a fucking PROGRAMMER, so im not gonna use it, its image has been tainted for me by all the grifters in compsci.

Lets just say, my runtime so to speak, is pretty ass as is. For as much as VSCode tries to be an all in one platform, it does everything okay, not to mention its setting are obtuse as hell, fuck the settings menu, and waiting for codespaces online just takes even more runtime.

Oh, and worst of all, its owned by microsoft, can you fucking imagine all the telemetry data theyre collecting on us?

All that being said, I wanted a way to edit code quicker, and since Id already tried learning neovim a while back I decided to go all in this time, and I think its payed off >:).

It started out with a youtube video breaking down how to install all the right plugins, and unknowingly following along with the keystrokes also making me more familiar using all the shortcuts that make using neovim so much faster than VSCode, and I did get carried away afterwards also decorating the PC to match the look of the wallpaper, since I thought I might as well go all the way, and…

Yea I ended up just decorating the whole system, even the app finder :p.

This, in short, is the main reason I was gone for so long, I ended up spending like two days on it and getting everything just how I like it, and it fucking paid off!

Just to give a perspective on it, normally to code I gotta log into github, with 2FA, choose the week I want to study and its associated codespace, have it load, use the terminal to navigate, THEN I can start coding.

Now? Open terminal, open neovim, and in like 30 seconds im in the task I want to be in. Navigating the files in neovim is WAY faster than on a terminal, and since I downloaded all my codespaces for this and labelled them, I can switch between them seamlessly, instead of opening a new codespace for each week if I need to.

The slides are also really easy to get open too, I have ranger, a different file manager, for that as well! Biggest difference is in that one you choose how to open the files, but with neovim it always tries to read and write directly like a text editor would. So for one, I can start coding the moment I touch the laptop.

But the RUNTIME? THE RUNTIME IS INSANE.

I was showing it off to some friends the other day, but I cant stress this enough, ITS SO FUN TO CODE IN NEOVIM.

In short, it comprises of 3 modes, normal insert and visual mode, they serve different functions and with different stuff you can do in them. Normal is mostly to manipulate without writing, so searching and copying and pasting, then visual to choose stuff, and insert to write.

You’d initially, like me, maybe think this kind of abstraction would slow you down a lot, but the POWER this gives you, especially with the fact that you can code in MORE shortcuts, is insane. You can copy specific or whole lines with a few key presses, insert above or below lines seamlessly, write to several lines instantly, search with a quick / like its nothing, ITS SO COOL.

It even automates line indentation! Forget indenting wrong, just click = over the text in visual mode and it corrects it for you!

Speaking of custom shortcuts too, the tutorial, from 0 to lsp by primeagen, teaches you how to make one so that you can take a chunk of text AND MOVE IT AROUND THE FILE LINE BY LINE. IT EVEN INDENTS BY ITSELF IF YOU GO UP OR DOWN IF STATEMENTS.

Then you have the plugins, O MY GOODNESS THE PLUGINS.

The same guy that made the tutorial made a plugin called harpoon, and it lets you jump between files. Seems inconsequential since VSCode can too, but with VSCode, at least the primary way to do it is that you click on it, and so you have to search for the file among all the other files youve opened. With harpoon?

You click leader a, leader being a shortcut you decide (for me its the space bar) to add a file to a list of files, then you can click between three shortcuts and go from file to file INSTANTLY. INSTANTLY!

YOU DONT EVEN FEEL IT! No searching or nothing its fucking FAST.

I can keep going on by the way, I havent even mentioned the biggest selling point, theres a plugin that lets you search for any word in a file or any file in your folder, ANY FILE, and go to it instantly too, a fuzzy finder, and another plugn called undo tree that lets you go to like a million different points within your past code points and change stuff, or the fact that I can run :%DB database.db to run a query in a database instead of going into the terminal, booting the query, then choosing the file.

How about the fully customizable color scheme, or the fully local autocomplete and manual that I can use to lookup any function as soon as I need more info for any reason? ITS, FUCKING, AWESOME.

(my current them is tokyodark if your wondering)

Safe to say, I would never code in VSCode again if given the chance. Lets be honest, I probably will cause of group work and other stuff that may come up, but holy shit I don’t want to ever go back. All of this has had me itching to code in a way that I just wasnt in VSCode, and already studying has been a lot easier and a lot faster, with tons of other shit that I just didnt have on windows or VSCode. I fucking love open source software man, a million thank you’s to the people who made all of this, may your days be accompanied with ceaseless bliss and serenity, and fuck you microsoft for not delivering all this shit despite our billions of dollars in revenue. Suck my dick.

I have to say, all of this has had me pretty excited to do stuff keep studying, even getting me out of bed early, which is insane for me cause I usually have to fight for an hour to wake up, thats nuts for me, im gonna keep that momentum up. Its genuinely just exciting to be able to tweak a laptop to this degree, the way I literally changed theme of the system on a dime to look nothing like it was before, down to stuff like the app borders, the different types of text and the app finder, the transparency of the terminal too, is just something I could never in any lifetime could have done on macOS and its so fucking cool ITS SO FUCKING COOL.

If this has taught you anything at all and your in a position to do so, do yourself a favor and learn Linux, please. You can even run games on it. Ive been playing bloons and minecraft HERE, ON THIS OS. I cant promise you it wont get exhausting to tweak stuff, and not everything runs on linux yet,to fix bugs and stuff, but its so worth it once you make the jump you wont regret it. 100%.

Alright now, how about a closer before I head off now, to continue exam work? I want to talk a bit about re:zero, spoiler free of course.

If you know me personally, especially from saudi arabia, you already know how much I love this show. I even made 1200 image google drive just gathering re:zero art from the subreddit over the years I was watching while I was in middle school and highschool.

And this was AFTER I culle most of the drive for all the horndogery :T.

I will be the first to admit to you now though, for as much awesome art is in there there’s also a plethora of just unabashedly horny shit, that subreddit is horny as hell and I obviously was not immune given when this took place. I havent revisited it yet but I’d be curious to check it out again and see whats in there, my only real regret now being that its a shame I didnt get credit for all the artwork.

Anyways, we’ve gotten a fourth season up and running, and catching up and revisitng the show has been genuinely blissful. At the time, even back when season 2 was coming out, I was obsessed with arc 6, the current arc we’re on in season 4, because it had such a distinct style. The desert and the tower, in all its mystery, the new outfits everyone had, the new girl shaula that we now know about, the only what IF route that I couldnt watch at the time due to spoilers.

It was so intruiging! It reminds me of season 2, or arc 4, a lot as well, the sanctuary and the tower both have so many moving pieces to them and they both serve as such fun settings with cool mechanics at play.

ANS NOW WERE THERE! Its unbelievable, to have gone from season 1 and waiting for arc 4 in the next season, supposedly the best arc in the series so far, experiencing that and being blown away only to now be in arguably ANOTHER one of the best arcs in the series is insane! And it isnt for show, the depth to the mystery that is subaru and his connection to satella, and the lore surrounding all the characters, not to mention the specific machinations of each arc are super captivating.

Even arc 5, which I initially thought threw me off the series, upon rewatch hits so much harder now. I think the translation I watched before may have been phooey, cuz the big climax of the season hit a lot harder the 2nd time around, and so did the rest of it. Even opened up a lot to the B-plot of arc 5 :p.

All in all, I love this series. Re:Zero without exception has been and will continue to be my favorite anime of all time, for a long long time. Now that I’m in the UK too, where its easier and cheaper to get my hands on books, I think I can finally start reading the light novel too. Its something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I finished season 2 back then as well, to start reading from start to finish with the books in hand (since I enjoy it in hand more, and I’d LOVE to have the illustrations, Scott pilgrim taught me that hard), but I just couldnt back then cause of the time and place.

The books were much more expensive at the time to get a hand on in saudi arabia, not to mention that not much had been translated compared to how much we have now, and my relatively poor allowance compare to the money ive got now. IVE GOT TO DO IT.

So I will. After the exams, ill figure out some way to get my hands on volume 1, and go from there. Ill let you know how it goes ;).

Anyways, that’s about all I’ve got this time around. Thanks for reading, and probably even sticking around while I got my bearings over the past couple of days, its really appreciated. I hope you all have a great rest of your week <3.

Bye for now.