My newly acquired habit of waking up early in the morning, which I haven’t been able to kickout yet, has started paying dividends. I have been working extremely hard for the past one month, starting early in the morning and finishing late in the afternoon. A typical day consists of waking up around 8 (without alarm), taking a quick light breakfast before getting ready to go the uni. I reach the place somewhere in the vicinity of 9, and go straight to the gym. A 40-minute run on the treadmill, cycling or any other cardio activity helps during the day ahead. At 10 I’m usually in the lab on my seat – which has been carefully selected. I set up my workspace by laying out my laptop, microcontroller dev kit and other accessories. On one computer I log in to my Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, MSN and any other means of communication (although these are also running on the mobile phone at the same time ). I hook up my N97 to the Nokia Communication Center so that I can get the notifications of incoming calls on the screen since my mobile is almost always silent. This computer is also used for viewing the tech documents. The other computer is solely for work. Things then take off slowly with a cup of coffee after which time flies by. I meet most of my friends after Zuhr at lunch where everyone talks about how (un)helpful his supervisor is or how his life is screwed because of the project. That’s a glimpse of how I’ve been spending time lately.

As far as my project goes, things have been great lately, by the grace of Almighty. I have been able to tackle problems easily and now I seem well on track on finishing my project/dissertation a week ahead of the deadline. This will be the first time that I will be finishing something before the last day. The question is, will it really happen? Judging from the history, I doubt that. New issues, unknown to me, will pop up, hinder my progress and take me to the last day again. It has always happened, so what’s different this time?

Anyway, the sole purpose of working hard lately has been to get a respite during the month of Ramadan. Since this will be my first Ramadan here, I have no idea how the days (which are longer than usual) will pass by. However, I will HAVE to get rid of waking up early in the morning to avoid feeling hungry

Today (Saturday), when I came to the uni on my usual timings, it was completely deserted, still is. All doors key-locked. I called up the security for access and the guy casually strolled up to me saying “don’t you enjoy your Saturdays?” I just smiled at him, to avoid having a long conversation. I knew the answer very well. Working on this project so far has been an utterly enjoyable experience. I wanted to tell him that I’m here in the uni to enjoy. But there was no point – they will never understand

Also, from the past couple of days, I’ve been WANTING to blog, so I guess the blackout is finally over. I will be pretty regular in the blogosphere now. I’m back!