Zut

At some point last week my very French math professor said "Zut!" which basically means "Damn it!"

Last Monday I got a jury summons. Luckily I got plenty of reassurance from my sisters and friends that you can definitely get out of it by proclaiming you are a full time student. So I logged onto Orange County's fancy eJuror site to see if I could escape - and by "fancy" I mean horrendously flawed. To make a long story short I hit a misleading button that effectively confirmed that I would serve on April 3. So I had to send a "whoops!" email to them and explain the situation and now I am basically guaranteed to have to serve sometime this summer. Zut!

The top three other things currently wracking my nerves:

1. The second Math 115A midterm, which is tomorrow night. I honestly considered studying this time only to discover again that I don't know how.
   
2. All of the classes I want to enroll in filling up before I even get my first pass. All of them.
3. An "experiment" for Psych 15 tomorrow morning which involves a "head brace" - sounds a little sketchy to me. But really the only problem is I have to find some obscure computer labs in the oh-so-ugly Franz hall.

My other classes just seem pitifully easy and unworthy of attention in comparison to Math 115A. Physics in particular - calculating things! Ha! I just can't take it seriously anymore. Remember in high school when we read All Quiet on the Western Front and talked about desensitization of soliders returning from the war? It's kind of like that. Not to diminish their struggle or anything, but this metaphor has been developing in my head for a while now. A great example: On Friday we had a review session, but our TA failed to reserve a classroom (I don't think she actually tried). The net result was about 20 of us huddled in a tiny office barely large enough to accomodate 5, for at least twice as long as the session was intended to last. And that office was deep in the bowels of Math Sciences, where the air is literally thinner. It was our trench.

The professor of the 2nd half of Psych 15 is frightening - he stands completely still, statue-like, yet he has a tremor in his right arm. And I love him for the irony. But he talks so quietly that I spend most of each class asleep, which is lamentable because he seems pretty interesting.

Stars: 18
Do dats: 45
Lies to Calpirg people: 3

Of course

Monday was my first upper division math midterm, for Math 115A, which as you might expect, was soulcrushingly difficult. The exam rendered me hopelessly desolate; my only consolation was a classmate telling me she "wanted to cry." All was repaired however, when we received the results:
My favorite midterm grade distribution ever - especially the part where I am rank 4 in the class with a 55%.

Unfortunately the professor decided that we should have another midterm to improve our scores - which would clearly have the exact opposite effect on mine unless I somehow manage to be 20% above the median again. To make matters worse the midterm takes place right when my first enrollment pass starts, so now I have to get someone to sign up for classes for me. Of course. Further proof that anytime something good happens, something irritating has to come along and ruin it. And whenever bad things happen they take advantage of as many unfortunate coincidences as possible.


Other recent thoughts:

I love rain. If you know only one thing about me, it's probably this. But what surprised me recently is how much more tolerable the cold is when it's not windy. Cold in itself doesn't bother me at all, but wind makes me miserable. I guess windchill is responsible, and I knew this intellectually, but it still is quite a shock to actually experience.

I will never pledge Calpirg. Over the past two weeks they have returned in full force, coming to classrooms, stopping you even late at night. One of them was dressed up as Batman (I don't know either.) As much as I probably agree with what they believe in, it's terrible how even people who have pledged are stopped by dozens of Calpirg people over the course of a week. This goes for all of you who solicit us on Bruinwalk: If you want money or something, that's fine, but don't waste our time making us fill our forms, don't make us give you contact info, don't make us dismiss you awkwardly.

You will be missed

"You" refers to my physics professor for the first 3 weeks of the quarter, who left us to write some proposal for the physics department. He was a welcome contrast from my Physics 1A professor last winter, who droned on and on and always managed to stand in such a way that we couldn't see what he had just written on the board.

Bruinsma was different - I felt I was actually learning, rather than just taking the equations and running with them, as we often get away with in physics classes. His most memorable quote occurred during the review session before the first midterm: "One thing I have learned as a European in the United States is that modesty gets you nowhere."

Alas, physics has regressed. Now I spend most of the time napping or counting how many times my new professor says "how you do dat." Farewell, Bruinsma; you will be missed. Even though I didn't understand 40% of your midterm at all.


Do dat: 9
Stars: 11