[Day +24] One day before the last…

#MORNINFG (7:30)

I feel the weirdest since a very long time. When they say that Piscine is intense, it really is in all senses. There is too much going on. Contrary to the first day when I felt overwhelmed and lost, today’s mix of feelings is more of overwhelming and devastating. The overall atmosphere feels like a slow down mode. There are some last minute validations going on but, all in all, it’s slow and feels like the end.

The plan for today is to validate my day10 with the 6th exo included and the redo all the exercises from previous exams to prepare for the final one.

_START DOING: 0 entries (the geeks for “no inspiration)

_KEEP ON DOING: 0 entries (the geeks for “no inspiration)

#EVENING (17:20)

_OVERALL:

The evening is rather an afternoon today. I just can’t put my head around and to concentrate on the work. So here I am procrastinating with the blog writing.

The justification I found for myself is that it plays the role of the “switch-activity” that is supposed to recharge my mental batteries before the exam. And I’m trying to find some scientific proofs on google of how the last minute revisions are less impactful than an enjoyable procrastination when it comes to exams.  The scientific proof does really hide well in the countless Google results pages, but I know it must there! So the conclusion I made (and that has absolutely no ground haha) is that decompressing procrastination before the exam is an essential element that will help me feel fresh and relaxed tomorrow. And more so, I decided to be convinced that it’s more important than trying to catch up with the every last bit of knowledge that I haven’t had time to integrate by now.

EXAM REVISION

This one is not a real topic, but I decided that it will be mine for today.  Normally it should be the Day13 on the Binary trees, but as I have only gone so far as to validate my Day10 I can’t even register for the Day13. So for my part I decided to redo all the exercises I had during the exam01 and exam02, to make sure I do not stuck on the stupid things like display “a” on the screen and count arguments.

One more thing for today is the post I was counting to write for a while now. The one that will be around all the weird, eccentric and great stuff about the STAFF.

I have posted some things here and there before and if you read my previous posts you must know that for my part I had only positive experience with the Staff. And as I have a very particular sense of humour I did kinda enjoy the pranks and animations the Bocal land people showered the Swimmers with.

AUDIO ART (version 42)

To be fair though It worth mentioning that I don’t live at school and thus I don’t perceive the 5 a.m. as a disciplinary measure for “you didn’t clean your sh..t so you will wake up 1h earlier today” the same way as those who live at 42. Same goes for the “3 a.m. porn movie on air” and “pokemon go song” before the exam.

MAILS

Charly (the official communications guru @ 42) is an artist of the pen and paper (or keyboard and screen) and he does manage to turn disciplinary emails into a one-man-show script. If they weren’t in French I would post those here. So I guess you will have to trust me on my word for this part.

EXAMS WELCOME AUDIO

As stressful of an experience as exams were the STAFF always manages to take the pressure off with a little welcome audio. My favourite piece was the Plane security instruction sequence that was adapted to the context. I would try to get it from the staff and share with you. But if I don’t succeed, again you will have to trust me on my word haha (or go do the Piscine in 2017).

RANDOMINETTE

The daily drawing at 23:42 with the lucky winner who gets all his data wiped out! 42’s version of a lottery haha (did I mention that I love their sense of humour?). And as mean as it may seem it,  in fact, teaches everyone an essential skill every coder must have (and from personal experience, any person really) – BACK UP YOUR DATA! Daily!

And as upsetting as it normally is not to win a lottery, in this case being unlucky actually means, being lucky. Sacré 42!

MOVIES

There was also the movie essential program and there were 2 pop-up cinema sessions organised by the STAFF. One 2 days after the start of the Piscine – the legendary “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” that is to be thanked for the school’s name (in case you don’t know why – HERE are the details).

And one more the 1 day before the end – The Matrix – that I would definitely go see if it wasn’t at 9 p.m. on the Final exam’s eve…

GAMES

And one more are the evening games like Blind music test. Which was a competition between clusters to guess the music name or the movie where the music was a soundtrack.

And many other little things and jokes that I won’t have merely enough place to list here.

And in the spirit of giving back, I decided to play the Staff for the Staff for a day. I will clarify haha. I figured it might be nice to return the favour and create do some reverse animation activity for the lovely Bocalian team. So

So I figured it might be nice to return the favour and do some reverse animation activity for the lovely Bocalian team. So couple days, 2 brainstorms and one line of code later I came up with a HINTHUNT idea what was to set up a little scenario in place. The idea is simple – there are several HINTS hidden around the school. Each hint has the puzzle to be solved and the answer to the puzzle will lead to the next hint. All the way till the final prize, which for my game was just 3 hints away.

Yet another procrast… switch activity that I did allow myself to dive in and that took my time and attention from what I’m supposed to do during the Piscine. But as I set a goal to enjoy the overall experience of the Piscine to its fullest, this falls perfectly in place. Plus the first part of the game did involve coding it in C (well, truth be told I didn’t do it all by myself, but it did involve coding haha). And if you want to solve the first puzzle – here is the link.

And one other part did involve sending pictures with the accomplished puzzle, so here are the happy faces of 2 members of the fantastic dozen (it was supposed to be a witty reference to the Fantastic Four, but I’m not sure I did get it right haha).

  

And to finish this looong article I just want to once again say thank you to everyone who contributed to making this August such an amazing experience. You are awesome guys! @42STAFF forever!

_CHALLENGES: 0 entries (the geeks’ for “no inspiration”)