Aaaaaand we’re back

It’s been awhile, has it not?

School last quarter was incredibly hectic, and this quarter shows signs of being just as bad. I managed to pass all of my classes for fall quarter, something i hadn’t entirely expected. I ended up with a C in math: unpleasant but far better than i had feared. None of my grades were as good as they should have been, due mainly to two factors:

1. I had a math final. The course 22a, linear algebra, is listed as a 3-unit class. In a 4-unit class, the expectation is for about 10 hours of study/homework time a week outside of class (so, between 1-2 hours a day). For a three-unit class, the workload is (theoretically) more along the lines of 5 hours a week. Judging by the average amount of time and work put in by the members of the class, this particular one should have been 5 units. It was my first final, so i used all the time up until then to study for it…. and got 68/149. The class average? around 80/149. Because of the time spent studying for that final, i had to study for each of the others essentially the day before they happened. I would feel a lot more guilty about it if the effort put in for the math final hadn’t been quite clearly necessary.

2. I got sick. I went home over thanksgiving break to be a good kid and visit my family, and picked up a cold from my father. Since thanksgiving break occurs about a week before finals, you can imagine the effect this had on my ability to study.

end result: I passed.  My GPA dropped, but i’ll be working my butt off this quarter to try and salvage it.

 

I’m currently taking the continuations of last quarter’s courses (essentially, each is a year long, but split into three quarters):  MAT22b (differential equations), CHE118b (organic chemistry), PHY9B (general physics), BIS2B (general biology), and of course tae kwon do. Since my spleen is no longer in danger of exploding, i’ll be doing club tkd as well, so i expect chronically sore muscles. XD

So far, the most frustrating class promises to be chemistry. My teacher likes to run class in a Socratic seminar style, where problems are solved by discussion and only finished when the class as a whole has come up with an answer and agrees (he won’t give us the correct answers). This would work beautifully if it were not 1. a class with too much material and too little time to learn in the normal fashion, and 2. not a 422-person lecture class. His midterms are also reputedly impossible and far more difficult than any of the problems presented during class (unsurprising, since we only seem to get through one problem a lecture).

Physics has weekly quizzes, and hopefully won’t be too bad if i manage to stay on top of things.

Biology is a bit of a blind shot. So far, the teacher seems good and i’m not feeling overwhelmed with detail, but i’m not sure how the rest of the quarter will go.

Math….. well, it isn’t my strong point. I’ve been lost since the first day of class, but my textbook and solutions manual recently arrived in the mail, so hopefully once I’ve buried myself in those for a bit, it will start to make more sense. So far, the steps he’s taking to solve problems seem fairly logical and straightforward: no proofs, no ridiculous leaps of intuition comprehensible only to those who already understand, and no matrices. There is one little catch, though: he’s a graduate-level professor. The grade for the class comes 60% from the final and 40% from the single midterm. One midterm. No homework. No tests. So far, he seems to expect a very strong background, and a single-minded obsession with mathematics. I’m expecting really, really nasty midterm and final, with little or no leniency in grading. Interestingly enough, this is another “3-unit course.” Yeah right.

 

In order to try and do better with chemistry this quarter, i’ve started going to the free workshop offered by the tutoring center on-campus. It’s before my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This week, after i got out, i went to the lecture hall for my next class and walked in to find an anatomy class. The sheer amount of detail flying around in that single hour was incredibly frightening. I’m thinking of sitting in on it (well, standing: all the seats are filled and the back wall is lined with people) at least thursday and maybe tuesday and fridays if I”m not too busy. I’m not required to take it (*sigh of relief*) but it seems fascinating and i have a feeling that having at least heard it may be useful in the future.

 

The apartment is still working out, though things can be a little tense at times. I get along quite well with my roomate. We will probably be living together again next year, though we’re looking (ok, she’s looking, since she’s the one that actually talks to people) at a few different options. Personally, i’d really like to be closer to school, and closer to Alex. Right now, it’s a twenty-minute ride to either one (and the same in between). Since i get out late at least three days a week, and go in relatively early often, any lessening of the chilly ride would be lovely.

 

At taekwondo on Thursday, the club officers announced that there was a meet on Saturday, and anyone interested in learning how the new electronic scoring system worked should show up and learn. I thought it might be interesting, so i signed up as of 7pm friday evening (i had thought i was going to be busy, but something got cancelled), and showed up at the uncomfortable hour of 7:50am in front of the ARC (uncomfortable because it was probably around or under 30 degrees out, and everything opened at 8). When we arrived at the event (about 5 Davis people had come to learn the system, and we joined a couple other people, one of whom (from Berkely) stuck around), they began showing us how to use the system. It seemed pretty straightforward. Flip a little switch on the electronic box, open the program, type in the number on the box, type in the numbers of the judge controllers, plug it into the hogu (the chest protector: these ones are specially made so that they can register hits and automatically send that data to award points). Once everything is plugged in, type in thresholds (how hard someone needs to hit to score), and click the appropriate buttons. We watched the process, asked some questions, nodded wisely, and then got mentally punched in the gut by a very simple question: “So, which of you guys is running this thing?”

o.o *gulp*

Apparently, ‘learn the system’ meant ‘run the system.’ Since no one seemed to want to do the clicking, i volunteered myself. We divided up into teams of three (one to each ring): one person on the computer, two people finding people, hogus, and electronics, and putting them together. Immediately before the first match started, we got a crash course on the rules (no, we didn’t know them yet. Oh, and the judges? They give commands and penalties in korean). The first two matches were a little rough, but the head judge was fairly patient and i didn’t mess up too much. By the end of the day (nine matches), i was working pretty smoothly with the system. It was both nerve-wracking and a little exhilarating.

Overall, i’m very apprehensive about this quarter, mostly because of classes. The B set of classes is usually the hardest, at least for the ones i’m taking, and most people don’t take them all at the same time. Hopefully, with a lot of hard work and a lack of social life, i’ll make it through with my grades intact or (in case of miracles) improved.

As usual, i’d love to hear from all of you… is it as cold out there as it is around here (between 25 and 45 Farenheit generally) ?

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