Once again I am doing my entry before the sky has gotten dark. Things are beginning to get busy once again. Midterm number one is out of the way. The class fist was for was Computer Science. It was one of those tests where you know some of the stuff good, but then the prof throws in the obscure things that you remember reading once but you can't remember what is actually was. I think that the last 20 points on it went the best. I just had to write a little program that was similar to our last assignment. I had talked with a kid in my dorm that took the test the day before me and he said he had troubles with that part. I made sure I knew how to do that when I went in to take the test.
The next test on the horizon is astronomy. The class is going well. The material in class is interesting to me. The prof makes thing very interesting during his lectures. Things completely change though when the discussions start. What occurs is that the class gets boring and confusing all at the same time. I have noticed this trend with other TA's as well. The calculus TA has a habit of confusing me just when I think I have things figured out. The TA for English is the only TA that does not make things confusing. But come on, it's English, how confusing can a class be when all I have to do is read and say what is about. I still have found ways to mess that up. I have found out that I do not have the brain for analyzing literature. As the people who know me, they might be thinking, "Hey this guy loves to rip apart and analyze things." Literature is different kind of thinking. You have to be able to come up with a meaning of a passage. I can do the analyzing of why things happen. It is easy to say, "Well this happens because this and this happens."
Analyzing is something that I love to do because I'm into the logic thinking. That is why programming is something I'm considering going into. English on the other hand does not have the same logic behind it. In English when you analyze a passage you have to find out what the story on top is representing. That is what makes English difficult for me. I can't see through the top layer.
I am doomed to be unenlightened by English.
Life: October 1999 Archives
At first glance one may think, jeez, he's up late again. But upon closer inspection you will realize that 12:15 p.m. is in the afternoon. I must make amends with my last entry about my calculus TA. The day right after the entry I made saying about how my calculus TA was lagging behind the professor, she tells the class that the next two sections of the chapter are going to be collected in two days. Most of the people were complaining, because the class is two sections behind the lectures. She collected the sections and that brought the class up to date. Once again, the class has fallen behind the lectures by a section or two. This time I am keeping up with the lectures. The only problem that I have run into is I have a question about a problem, by the time the class gets to the section I have forgotten the question that I had. The class is still basically review based on what I know from last year in high school. It seems that they are teaching the same things but they are teaching it a way that is more difficult to understand. The professor is very big on proofs. He will spend the entire hour and fifteen minutes on three or four proofs of theorems that will be used in the assignment. I don't know if I should be able to figure out how to apply the theorems to the problems or should the prof give examples during the lecture. It does help that my roommate is in the same class but with a different prof, so I can ask him if I have any questions. His class is a section or two ahead of mine.
As for the 3 other classes. Things are going OK The midterms are coming up, I feel somewhat prepared for them. I have a Computer Science on Wednesday, that leaves me to cram today and tomorrow for it. The other two are English and astronomy. English isn't until November 3. The astronomy is on the 1 of November. Plenty of kids in the class have been complaining about the mid-term being the day after Halloween. My English prof changed the final to the 3 because students brought that to her attention. The astronomy prof could careless about what the mid-term is after. I would rather have the midterms spread out like I do. I have a chance to focus on one class at a time.
The delay in the recent journal entry has been the result of my experiencing college life. I think the college time system is something that I will always have a hard time dealing with. I think the reason is that my dorm room is way too much fun. There is a TV, computer, and people right across the hall. These distractions make it too easy to put off work that I could be doing. Instead of doing the work for school I get sucked into playing video games, watching TV, or even worse watching the guys across the hall play the video games on their TV. But I must say, when I do sit down to finally do my school work I am dedicated. I will stay up late at night and make sure that I get all my work done on time. My roommate has also had the same problem. He has dealt with these distractions of having an entertaining room, by going down to the basement of the dorm where there is a study hall. I would do that but I can study in the room when there is no one else around.
Something else I have found out is that if college kids are not giving due dates, nothing will get done. A prime example of this is my calculus class. How the class is set up is there is a hour and fifteen minute lecture on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then small discussions on Mondays and Wednesdays. The professor does the lectures that are made up of about 200 students. The discussion groups are lead by Teacher Assistants (TA's). In my discussion group, the class is three sections behind what the professor is lecturing on. The discussion is behind because the TA takes questions on sections and the other students are running that far behind and the TA hasn't told them to catch up. I must confess that I was like that too, until last week when I sat down and did calculus for 2 hours straight. Boy that was a fun night. Now that I am ahead of my discussion group, the challenge is keeping up with the professor.
