Miscellanea

Vivid descriptions of recent happenings:

Tuesday morning I attended the first lecture of Asian Am 10: History of Asian Americans. I decided to drop it immediately afterwards. It wasn't so much that the professor was bad - he was just a bit too lively for my tastes. At least, that's the excuse I'd give if I were ashamed at all to admit the following: (1) I was still on the waitlist, (2) I don't want my professors to call on me, (3) I don't want to be forbidden to doze off, (4) I don't want to be in an 8 AM discussion on Thursdays, (5) I don't want a class in ugly ugly Bunche Hall, and (6) I don't want to read six novels.

Speaking of dozing off, I have decided to draw a star in my notebook upon awakening from each of my inadvertent classroom naps (It helps to keep track of when they occur). Plus the lectures of Psychology 15 are videotaped (Is that still the right word if no tape is involved?) so I can go back and review the spots I missed; I only hope now that my lethargy is not caught on film.

I entered MS 5147 on Wednesday just as the previous class was finishing up - and heard a familiar voice explaining something to a student. I looked up and saw that the professor of the previous class was none other than Shifty Ifti, looking just as he did before the incident. Needless to say, I avoided eye contact.

Houdayer used a smiley face to denote a set that were vector subspaces and unsmiley faces to denote set that were not. I am a math person and I like smiley faces, Weisbart does too, and now Houdayer. I thought to myself, "Math people like smiley faces." Then I felt immediately guilty because I was sititng in Math 115A, a class in which we have to explicitly prove virtually everything. Speaking of proving things, I hate it. It's one thing when you're proving something advanced and exciting. But when it takes 5 lines to show that if x + z = 0 then z = -x then it seems to me you are looking at things in a little too much detail. Proving things in this level of abstraction is like the math version of being politically correct - what you're used to saying is totally fine except in that it upsets the old math dudes. This is why my major is a variety of Applied Math - I'll leave this crap to the theorists. Alas, 115A is a prerequisite to most other upper division courses.

I previously mentioned PAB 1425, the large lecture hall in the Physics and Astronomy building, unquestionably the nicest building on campus. One of this building's perks is its amazing chairs, which swivel around in a way I can only describe as sitting like I've never sat before. Tragically, Wednesday's lecture left me conflicted upon the discovering a fatal flaw in this revolutionary chair design: if two people seated next to each other try to exit their seats simultaneously, legs will collide. And I don't mean just brushing up - it's more of an intersection.

Walking to lunch on Wednesday I saw a guy with a spiked backpack, which made him look as if he were Bowser. Or a stegosaurus. Laugh all you want, but you don't mess with someone with spikes on his back.

Day One, Winter 2009

The obligatory first impressions post:

Psychology 15 - Intro to Psychobiology: The syllabus says to read not for memorization, but for understanding. Online study questions, multiple choice, graded leniently. Only 3 hours of lecture per week, with no discussion. In other words, the perfect class for me.

Math 115A - Linear Algebra: My first upper-division math course, which has been worrying me. Even though the class has only 35 students, it feels as impersonal as ever (this is a good thing for me.) I'll have to wait for a few more classes before I can determine whether or not I like the pace. And I have to open that tiny but terrifying textbook to humble myself to mathematics once again.

Physics 1B: The professors name is Bruinsma - how perfect for a UCLA. I still hate the four-lectures-per-week setup the 1 series has, and how discussion is ALWAYS on Friday. But apart from that it's hard for me to worry about this class. All the homework is online, and I'm familiar with most of the material from high school. Plus it's in PAB 1425, which would make any class good.

And of course, 2009 has begun. Let's hope it's better than 2008. That year sucked.