The Seven Wonders

Before I begin this post, I would like to issue a warning, the following 6 paragraphs are part whining, part story-telling and part bo-liao morals, about my IA professor's visit today. So you can choose to skip it if you are more interested in the Seven Wonders.

Today my IA Professor came to my company for a visit, for the first time, so I really had no idea what to expect/prepare. I think if he could read my thoughts then, he'd probably see "???" and "!!!" and "-_-'" inside. Why? Cos I was blur and surprised by certain things he asked, shocked by certain things he did, and told me certain things that I only could react to with this -_-" expression (but not on the outside of course).

My IA Prof was supposed to come see me at 1530, but the first shocking thing he did in the morning was to send me an email saying "I may arrive earlier at about...*insert drumroll*...1130." Yup, he's so good to me. Actually he did send this email very early, around 0830, but the I only checked my email at 10! So it's partly my fault. Moral of the story: Check your school email frequently, especially near to or on important dates.

So, of course, I rushed to prepare for his impending arrival, which (surprise surprise), was an extra half hour early at 11! (!!!) So in total he was 5.5 hours early. Luckily, I had done a little preparation before hand so at least I was half ready. Moral of the story: Always start preparation for big days early.

So he came to my office and had a litte chit chat with my company supervisor, which gave me a little more time to type frantically away on my keyboard to get my stuff together. Then he came and saw my programs. It was more or less going along quite well until he started asking questions, to which I could only come up with a "???" look. Luckily, my IA supervisor came to my rescue a number of times with answers like "these things are outside of his project boundaries" or "those are actually classified" (Whew! I really need to give him a good farewell present to thank him). Moral of the story: It's always good to have someone more knowledgeable around.

The best part of all came when I was doing a clumsy demonstration my program halfway. My IA Prof said, "Actually, you don't have to show me so much, I only need to see your program run a bit, some source code, and the rest I can read from your report." (-_-") If he had mentioned that earlier, I'd probably have been much more relaxed. But on the flip side it was my fault for not asking him what he wanted to see, show I just prepared to show him everything. Moral of the story: Ask more questions to save more time.

So basically, that's more or less how it ended. I was really left wondering what's the impression he got, but all I know is that I tried my best. My fate now rests on the report...sigh...I hate typing reports...

Ok, on to the main topic. Yup, I was thinking, my blog is titled "I Wonder..." and yet I haven't done a post on some of the most famous 7 wonders of the world, or more correctly, the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Now I'm sure many of you have heard of them being mentioned, but how many of you can actually name all the 7 wonders off the top of your head. I know I couldn't, so I went to search for the list, and so I present to you the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World in chronological order:

1) The Great Pyramid of Giza

2) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

3) The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

4) The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

5) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

6) The Colossus of Rhodes

7) The Lighthouse of Alexandria

I think this post is long enough so I'll stop here and leave it to you to find out more, if you want. Click on the individual names for explanations of each of the wonders or here for the source site.