Well, today I was back to worrying about the project. I was rather nervous about coming to software engineering class today, as Professor Whitehurst was going to be asking about the project status. We did finish the System Design Document yesterday, but I for some reason didn't feel like the project was really progressing. Anyway, we talked about the project today, and I think it was a very good thing that we did. I related my concerns about making the project a team effort, and I think that needed to come out. Preston mentioned that the main problem for him is that we launch into a stage with very little skill in that sort of thing, and that makes things tough. Professor Whitehurst mentioned that that's the way it has to be, though; you have to go on without knowing the times so that you can know the times from experience. Anyway, we made some progress on the System Design Document and realized what we need to do. On Saturday's meeting, we will refine the SDD a bit (assign classes to sub-systems) and I will refine the object model. I realized that I just need to be bold in making assignments because the participants will try them and then we will validate. We need to validate more! I need to validate more! That is key.

Well, I just got out of software engineering class. A week or so back, I was worrying a whole lot about making sure we met every deadline in the project and doing everything just so. I was adopting a like attitude in many aspects of my life. But, for some reason, I decided to take it easy and stop worrying. This didn't mean to stop working, but to stop working too hard. Today in software engineering class, we discussed a lot of what goes into making a requirements document. I came to realize, along with the rest of the team, that we probably were not going to meet our deadline for producing the requirements document in 1 week's time. I started to get sort of depressed at my lack of prowess as a software engineer. However, I was able to accept that I am not an expert and that moving a deadline up might be good and necessary. I am coming to understand how it's all going to fit together. I am anxious for the up-coming break during which I will work hard on the document.

It snowed yesterday, and it causes travelling problems. I don't have LILO working yet. I need some free time. I love NetHack.

I am writing in my /. journal for the first time today. Isn't that just great. Today I plan to get stinking LILO working on my computer. (Zenith Z-Station 510 Intel DX4 100 MHz processor, 36 MB RAM, one 3GB Hard Disk, One 428 MB Hard DIsk, 2x speed CD-ROM Drive, Tropez Classic Soundcard, U.S. Robotics sportster 28000 internal modem, Cirrus Logic 2MB internal Video Card, internal Ethernet adapter, BNC connector, Parallel port card, on-board parallel interface, Optiquest 1000S Monitor, on-board Joystick adapter, on-board serial adapter, and more) anyway. I want it to work, dang it! And that's all I have to say today.