It's waaay past my bedtime, but I have to say a few words in here. It feels like I am reporting to Big Brother, but as there is nobody really reading this, the Big Brother is myself. Tomorrow is a big day. If I do well on the in class linear algebra exam I get to skip the final. And well, of course, means A. My computer is here.. yay.. but I am not supposed to get it until Tuesday. It actually arrived by Fedex on Saturday, and apparently they tried to deliver it but the front desk worker must have not been there. However, I am glad I didn't get it before this test, because it would have been a powerful distraction. I can't wait to get it over with 2 of my classes tomorrow (LinAlg and Instrumental Analysis). On Thursday I will take the Film and Architecture finals.
Something not related to school that needs to be mentioned is the dream I had last night. Because U.S. controlled all the oil resources in the world, Russia decided to attack Alaska. A very convenient move because it was very easy to move the troops right accross the border, and the US was not using the Alaskan oil for environmental reasons anyway. In I don't know what circumstances I got drafted for this war with Russia over Alaska. And since the US didn't feel that strongly about defending such a cold undesirable place, they decided to spend the least and didn't equip us very well. So in a reeditting of a North Pole movie, we were striding northern and northern, marching for hundreds of miles in search of the enemy. I really lost track of the story afterward and I woke up with gallons of drule on my pillow. I have 2 explanations for this dream. First, last night I watched a panel discussion about the war in Iraq where 3 soldiers came back home to continue their student life after 1 year of service. They were descrbing the war scene from a very non-Holywood, non-mediatic perspective. The second explanation for my dream is that the AC blows right on my face, so instead of a dream in the hot Iraqi dessert, I was deployed in Alaska.
Enough about dreams, because I have an important mission to complete now. And who knows where I will end up going this time.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Apparently writing in this blog is a periodical function of period 2 days for me. Really quickly, the state of the matter is the following:
- Instrumental analysis test tomorrow. People already hate me because I have the highest grade with a 70. The course is truly ridiculous. The teaching is useless, the classes are at 7:30, boring as hell, and the exams are fairly hard, and involve a lot of numb memorization. Tonight I have done some studying with Ajax, one of my frisbee buddies, the captain actually. Everything makes sense, the problems are doable, but again, who know what little detail from the annotations of what page he's going to ask on the test. Although I put some 4-5 hours into this test already I am more worried that some people in the class will not be able to pass, and that would translate into not graduate.
-Linear Algebra test due on Friday. Unfortunately I got stuck on problem 9. I asked Dr. Vassilev about it today and he realized that we couldn't do the problem with our current knowledge so some changes have occured. Here is a copy of the test for those interested. After I get done with my day tomorrow at 9pm, I will have to start working on this algebra test, and I just hope it won't mean another all nighter.
- Instrumental analysis test tomorrow. People already hate me because I have the highest grade with a 70. The course is truly ridiculous. The teaching is useless, the classes are at 7:30, boring as hell, and the exams are fairly hard, and involve a lot of numb memorization. Tonight I have done some studying with Ajax, one of my frisbee buddies, the captain actually. Everything makes sense, the problems are doable, but again, who know what little detail from the annotations of what page he's going to ask on the test. Although I put some 4-5 hours into this test already I am more worried that some people in the class will not be able to pass, and that would translate into not graduate.
-Linear Algebra test due on Friday. Unfortunately I got stuck on problem 9. I asked Dr. Vassilev about it today and he realized that we couldn't do the problem with our current knowledge so some changes have occured. Here is a copy of the test for those interested. After I get done with my day tomorrow at 9pm, I will have to start working on this algebra test, and I just hope it won't mean another all nighter.
Monday, April 19, 2004
On the list
Monday night, a lot of stuff to do, but writing this blog seems a legitimate way to kill some time.
The events in the past 2 days haven't been too tumultous. First, I got half of the Linear Algebra test done. Although it is probably the most work intensive test I have taken here in US, I am very upset at myself when I work on it. I just realize how much ability I have lost and how much numbness and discipline I have gained. I used to look at a math problem for a couple of minutes and understand all its guts, but now it takes forever to get the Ahaaa! On one of the problems that was asking for a proof, although it had instructions and had broken the big proof into steps I still took a couple of wrong paths in a very noobish way.
Beside the struggle with myself at working on that math test, I finally ordered the laptop. Here's what I am going to get, if anybody's interested. There were some glitches with my credit card but I solved them today. The laptop is going to ship tomorrow, so for the next few days I will be checking the shipping status every couple of hours. I know it's not going to get here until Friday or so, but is human nature to have high hopes. Mike admired my self-control on not ordering the Next Day Shipping - extra $30 - but he doesn't realize how poor I am.
Because the name of this blog requires some fuel I will digress for a couple of sentences. I finally realized that this lame online journal can be actually very useful. In a month I will be taking the GRE and in there I have to write two essays, BS essays to be specific. A full month of BS on this blog can only help, so I'd better stick to it and post regularly, massive stinky amounts of Bovine Secretions. Just like this paragraph.
The events in the past 2 days haven't been too tumultous. First, I got half of the Linear Algebra test done. Although it is probably the most work intensive test I have taken here in US, I am very upset at myself when I work on it. I just realize how much ability I have lost and how much numbness and discipline I have gained. I used to look at a math problem for a couple of minutes and understand all its guts, but now it takes forever to get the Ahaaa! On one of the problems that was asking for a proof, although it had instructions and had broken the big proof into steps I still took a couple of wrong paths in a very noobish way.
Beside the struggle with myself at working on that math test, I finally ordered the laptop. Here's what I am going to get, if anybody's interested. There were some glitches with my credit card but I solved them today. The laptop is going to ship tomorrow, so for the next few days I will be checking the shipping status every couple of hours. I know it's not going to get here until Friday or so, but is human nature to have high hopes. Mike admired my self-control on not ordering the Next Day Shipping - extra $30 - but he doesn't realize how poor I am.
Because the name of this blog requires some fuel I will digress for a couple of sentences. I finally realized that this lame online journal can be actually very useful. In a month I will be taking the GRE and in there I have to write two essays, BS essays to be specific. A full month of BS on this blog can only help, so I'd better stick to it and post regularly, massive stinky amounts of Bovine Secretions. Just like this paragraph.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
GRE stupidity and laptop
It's time to go to bed and I feel compelled to say something on this Blog.
Well, today I laid in the sun for a couple of hours, reading some GRE words and getting down some tricks about the writing section. By the way, that test will suck. I have never been good at standardized testing because they are always simplified, or maybe I should say "stupidified". Take for example one of the analogy questions I was doing today. Electricity:wire:: and the answer was Fluid:Pipe:: For somebody with no common nerdy knowledge this would seem OK. Current flows through the wire like fluid through a pipe. Well one of the other options was transportation:highway:: Just basic knowledge about electricity should indicate that electriciy is a flow of electrons, the consequence of their movement, so it's more like a property rathern than being a thing like a fluid. Second of all electricity can exist only if there is a wire connecting the difference of potential. A fluid is by definition anything that can flow, but nobody says that it has to flow. Transportation is more like a property, not a thing and it's existence is conditioned by highways. Anyway, you can see my point: don't think too hard.
Another accomplishemnt was to finish 4 out of the 16 problems of my linear algebra test. This test seems by far the easiest because it doesn't consist of ONLY proofs. I love proofs, but everything has a limit. I will probably get most of the test done tomorrow and maybe get some good questions ready for some consultation during office hours.
Yet another big thing today is the decision to get a laptop. I found a sweet deal for an Averatec 3225h laptop. It's tiny (12") but it comes with all the goodies: 512RAM 2700 DDR, 30Gig HD, DVD/CD-RW, integrated wireless g and it weighs only 4 pounds (a little over 1kg). WOW, I know. And it costs only $800, brand new, 1 yr warranty. I decided that I need a computer for this summer's REU at South Carolina, so I will probably purchase it tomorrow after some more research.
Darn, this blog ate 10 minutes of my invaluable sleep time...
Well, today I laid in the sun for a couple of hours, reading some GRE words and getting down some tricks about the writing section. By the way, that test will suck. I have never been good at standardized testing because they are always simplified, or maybe I should say "stupidified". Take for example one of the analogy questions I was doing today. Electricity:wire:: and the answer was Fluid:Pipe:: For somebody with no common nerdy knowledge this would seem OK. Current flows through the wire like fluid through a pipe. Well one of the other options was transportation:highway:: Just basic knowledge about electricity should indicate that electriciy is a flow of electrons, the consequence of their movement, so it's more like a property rathern than being a thing like a fluid. Second of all electricity can exist only if there is a wire connecting the difference of potential. A fluid is by definition anything that can flow, but nobody says that it has to flow. Transportation is more like a property, not a thing and it's existence is conditioned by highways. Anyway, you can see my point: don't think too hard.
Another accomplishemnt was to finish 4 out of the 16 problems of my linear algebra test. This test seems by far the easiest because it doesn't consist of ONLY proofs. I love proofs, but everything has a limit. I will probably get most of the test done tomorrow and maybe get some good questions ready for some consultation during office hours.
Yet another big thing today is the decision to get a laptop. I found a sweet deal for an Averatec 3225h laptop. It's tiny (12") but it comes with all the goodies: 512RAM 2700 DDR, 30Gig HD, DVD/CD-RW, integrated wireless g and it weighs only 4 pounds (a little over 1kg). WOW, I know. And it costs only $800, brand new, 1 yr warranty. I decided that I need a computer for this summer's REU at South Carolina, so I will probably purchase it tomorrow after some more research.
Darn, this blog ate 10 minutes of my invaluable sleep time...
Friday, April 16, 2004
Good morning Vietnam!
I just got back from running. 5K in 21:10:50. Not very impressive, but considering that I haven't run that frequently lately and that my goal was 22 I think it's pretty good. Today it's probably the first day of summer, and deffinitely that didn't help too much with my running. It's 10:30 and the temperature is in the 70's already. Well, it's time for a shower, some brunch and then off to some linear algebra and GRE words. I have another take-home test that takes at least 10 hours to finish.
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