memoirs on a rainy day

Mathmom recapitulates the ongoing Math Wars over at Mathnotations. I didn’t get involved either.

My semester is almost over. I’ve got one last homework to complete for next week. I plan on attending the final research project presentations next week.

Exams went well. Out of four, three went well. The last one was a bit hard. I don’t know. We’ll see how it turns out. I’m totally out of it yet again. However, I did finally get my care package from Camelbak. More on the unboxing tomorrow. I took some nice photos.

I’ve been studying intensely for the last few days. I’ve been concentrating on Numerical Analysis, the class in which I had the most work. Things are progressing well.

Tomorrow I have two exams. One in Analysis I and one in Numerical Linear Algebra. I have finished my classes and I have part of the day off. I have to head to school for my 1:30PM Analysis I class to see what the prof has to say about the exam. So until then, I’ll study Analysis I.

I did a little bit of art yesterday to relax. I had some of my class notes binded since my original notebook was falling apart. I created a cover for them. I also covered my course book in a cover and spent some time drawing a cover image. I used a combination of watercolors and china ink. I’m uploading pics as we speak.

Worked all day.

Taught four classes.

Was able to study for three hours.

I studied Numerical Analysis. I’m starting to get a good feel about the subject matter.

I have to go buy some  see-through post-it notes for my studying. I hate people who write in books. Books are meant to be kept pristine, especially school books. That’s true for all of my books.

I’m totally out of it. I went to bed at 2:30AM and got up at 6AM.

I did some paperblogging, but not the arty kind. I just wrote out a few posts on paper. Will posts those later this week, once the exams are done. I got about three original posts done today. I wrote another one last week. I’ll have to type them up at some point. Saturday or Friday. After my finals.

I was partially out of it today. I woke up at 5:30AM to finish typing up an assignment that was due. All of the programming was done. All that was left for me to do is to type my part. I completed it in about 40 minutes.

Then I went to school to assist to two hours worth of oral presentations. Out of the four, I really liked two. Actually I really liked one. The other one was done by Chloé and she is a funny, lanky girl. She presented it well, in my opinion.

The other presentation was done by David and he talked about music and math. It was a very good presentation. It made me wonder about math in electronic music.

I didn’t have to wear any proper pants today since I wasn’t working. So I wore some jeans. My Numerical Analysis professor finished his class 20 minutes early and I was off with Fannie. We usually take the bus together. She’s a third year math student. I like her. She wasn’t working either and was heading home. Contrary to usual, we were heading in opposite directions.

I was planning on going grocery shopping at the IGA. As usual, I got some great healthy foods. I bought some fennel, since I was planning on making a light fennel onion soup later today. I bought some pork as well. Two types actually. One to grill on the BBQ, another to make some green coconut curry.

I bought lots of oranges and bananas, 4L of milk, a red tuna steak which I planned on eating sashimi style later that today. I knew from experience that a 400g piece would be enough for two meals.

For once I didn’t forget the shaving cream. I’ve been forgetting it for weeks now. I tried to get the right type of deodorant, but ended up getting some clear gel deodorant from Gillette. I don’t like that one. I only realized which one it was when I arrived home. I like the antiperspirant sticks.

The bag was quite heavy, but manageable as usual. I arrived home at around 1PM.

I’ve been totally out of it ever since.

So.

Is it spring yet?

Yep.

Most definitely.

That doesn’t take away the snow that we still have on the ground. It’s been a record breaking winter, with about 500 cm of snow.

Today was the first day of nice and warm weather. Warm enough to walk around in a short sleeved shirt. Hormones are in the air at the university. Girls are coming out of their shells. I no longer need to wear any extra layers. That is amazing. I’ve been wearing thermal underwear until a few days ago. I finally put them aside.

End of term. Last week of school. Actually, there are still two more weeks left. Next week, I have got four exams in two days. The next week, I’ll have to finish my last homework that’s due on May 2nd. I’ll try finishing it this weekend, but things are not looking good for that.

It’s going to be raining all weekend. At least that will make me study. I was planning on running a bit in the neighborhood, but I’m not that well equipped. Actually, it should be too bad since I’ve got some shorts.

I cut my hair last night. It wasn’t the best idea, but given the tools that I had at the time, my hair’s looking good. I waited too long to cut it and ran into all sorts of problems. I think that there might be parts in the back that aren’t all that even, but I’ve always recently gone for a mini mohawk Beckham style. It doesn’t matter. Cutting your own hair, without a clipper, is kind of like a work in progress. It’s simple enough and I don’t do things like layering, but the end result is alright.

I finished a class today. I still have classes tomorrow. Next Wednesday, I usually have 6 hours worth of classes. In one class, people are presenting their projects. In the other two, the professors will be answering questions. Then on Thursday, I have two exams. I have two more on Friday. I’ve already started preparing. I think it will go well, but it’s going to be stressful.

I had a small test today in Mathematical Analysis I. It was about mathematical series. I’ve made a constant effort to stay on top of that class. Until now, I have an A average. I got 100% in the last mini-test. (PDF, French)

I’m pretty sure that I’ll do very well in the last exam next week. I know that I’m getting an A in that class. I’m a bit bummed by my lab partners. All four are in Economy. Of those guys, Remi is really good. If we were doing the Practical Homework by ourselves, we’d get high marks. But since we only have an hour to complete a few exercises, the group needs to work together in order to finish them and hand them in. For the last few months, all of the exercises that I’ve been handing in got 100%. The other ones, the ones that I couldn’t do myself, because of lack of time, had small errors. We ended up with an A- average on those. I’m a bit miffed. Especially since I usually did the hardest ones by myself. Anyways, we ended up with an 8.5/10 average. They are worth 10% of the final grade.

Three of the four mini-tests count for 20% of the final grade. I’ve got 17.33/20. I got 31.15/35 in the last exam. So I have 56.98/65 until now. There is one last exam next week. I need 33.02/35 (94%) in order to get an A+. It’s feasible, since the subject matter is pretty easy for me.

To get an A, I only need to get 81% in the last exam.

I like the way that we were graded in that exam. The mini-tests are great to review the subject matter and to see what you need to study for the exam. I’d like to get 100% in the last exam. It’s been a long time since I got an A+ in a class.

Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory, dies. (via god plays dice)

It’s gettting towards the end of the semester here in Quebec, and I’m getting antsy.

I’ve got an oral presentation tomorrow in one of my classes, but I’m getting nervous. I’m not that nervous, since I have taught groups of 30 4th graders, but still… I’m a bit nervous. This morning, I woke up at around 6AM, unable to sleep anymore. I think that I was tossing and turning since 5AM.

Part of the day was taken up by coding our last homework in Numerical Analysis. My partner was absent, so I coded for a few hours by myself. I’ve been told that he’s completed his part and I’m anxious to combine them. The assignment is due on Friday.

I’ve got a small test on Thursday in Analysis I. I want to take most of the evening to study. Since I only start classes at 10:30AM, I’ll have part of the morning as well. The test is on mathematical series. It’s perfect practice for the exam next

I’m still amazed at the whole CamelBak and Crystal Castles incidents on my blog. I’d like to say that the Crystal Castles isn’t really my business, though I commented on it and based my opinions from other sources. I’d just like to mention that I’ve been listening to Crystal Castles non-stop since I posted my blog, so maybe that means there is no bad promotion, right? (I really like their music too!)

I freaking hate that the Windows shortcuts aren’t emulated in Linux. WTF. It’s like a reflex to use them in Linux. I’m always surprised when I save a file with CTRL+S it doesn’t save. CTRL+X, CTRL+V don’t work either. WTF.

I must have wasted 10 minutes on shit like that this afternoon while I was programming some numerical integrals with the Simpson 1/3 method. This method is of the 4th [O(h^4)] order. We used a Richardson Extrapolation to gain two more magnitudes of order. Time matters when you are doing a 45 minute lab and that at the end of the lab, you have to hand in your programs.

We spent another 20-25 minutes trying to figure out what the problem was with our program. We had some syntax errors. The if statement had the semi-colon at the wrong place. Otherwise, I would have finished this lab in about 20 minutes flat.

My partner was sick, so I was stuck doing most of it myself. He was in class, but his frequent trips to the bathroom weren’t helping him do any coding.