I hate exams. That goes without saying. But what I really hate is having four full fledged exams in one year of studies, that too complete with practical exams and internal assesment. Thankfully, I have covered a lot of ground in math and I’m more comfortable with chemistry now than last time. This time I might get slightly better marks, but as usual I’m prepared for the worst.

The problem is not getting low marks, the problem is that every time we have an exam, I waste an entire month on coursework that is going to be tested in March. This in itself is not a bad thing, as I would be prepared for what’s coming in March. But I also have to revise what I have done last year in standard 11 so that I can be prepared for the IIT and AIEEE examinations that are coming in April. If it wasn’t for these exams, I could have covered a lot of ground in December since all major festivals and holidays had already gone past and no pesky relatives were lurking around my house. I guess that’s not what my school has planned for me. Bleh. I hate the damned place. Incompetence personified.

So now the plan is to get cranking as soon as these exams are over. I already surrenderred my modem to keep myself away from Slashdot and OSNews (must … not … open … new … tab), so the task would be very easy. Moreover, I have a school project to make (in C++) so I’ll have something else to keep me busy when I’m bored.

About this computer project. It’s a BASIC interpreter written in C++. Or will be. Right now I’ve only written all the data structures I’m going to need. Since this has to work under that old Turbo C++ compiler as well, I’m having to write classes for things like strings as well, which sucks balls.

I have adopted a new way of coding. When I  write code directly into the computer, I get distracted by all sorts of things (in fact, this article is a result of a major distraction). So now I write stuff on paper instead. The best thing about this approach is that I spot all errors as I make them, and I can correct them there and then. That saves me from the problem of bug hunting. Believe it or not, most of my data structures compiled the first time when I wrote them on paper and transferred the code to my IDE. Compare this with the fact that I spent 2 hours trying to find errors in my linked list class when I entered the code directly into the computer. I think it was Djikstra who refused to buy a computer his entire life. He was so damn right.

I’m still looking for freedom from school and exams. I want to get a life.