7 posts tagged “me me me!”
Well, from Physics, at least. One Japanese final exam to go, but that's not until next week Monday.
I think the physics final went fairly well. It consisted of 45 multiple choice and 5 written problems. I don't believe that I got the 90% required to pull off that "A" but I think I at least did well enough to keep the "B." Good enough, I say...
Now, as for the list of things I want to do for my summer off:
- relearn (again-again) website coding and design
- continue learning Japanese
- clean the house (maybe this one should be number one on the list)
- organize the house (err... number two...)
- sew new costumes for DragonCon (probably not gonna happen...)
- at least sew something!
- waste a ton of time playing The Sims (I am fairly certain that this will happen)
- get out with the telescope at least once a week and spend some time stargazing with or without the telescope
- take more photos of things other than sleeping cats
- write... something... fiction-esque
- finish a book! (Two currently on hold: American Gods and a Dorothy Parker biography.)
Well, at least I'm ambitious. Let's see what actually happens!
So it is at long last the last week of Spring semester. I have three tests and a final paper due this week, then two final exams next week, and then... I'm done (for now). I'm taking the summer off, mostly, except for a web class, Advanced Expository Writing, which should be fairly easy.
I wasn't sure I'd survive this semester among the monster cold and the hospital visit and the homework load and the maniacal tests and the stress and the serious lack of sleep. But, here I am, with one week and a couple of days to go and I might just make it yet. I think I can just manage my "C" in physics. I've got a solid "B" on quizzes which are 45% of my grade, plus another 5% are labs and in-class quizzes, which are also at least a "B." My tests are averaging out to a middling "C," so far, so if I can just do decently on the final exam I should be safely in the "C" range.
So far my adventures in math and science have been more stressful than I originally anticipated, but I'm hoping that this will become less stressful as it goes and as I absorb more and more.
Wish me luck...
We are well recovered from the hospital incident now, but have been struggling to get back on top of the work and school that we missed while we were otherwise occupied. We also took a lovely weekend of our spring break from community college (UCF spring break was... well, actually, was the week I was in the hospital... fun!) to go to St. Augustine to visit with my Dad and stepmom, but also to chill and get romantical. We had a very, very good time.
Soooo.... the good news is that I may not have to repeat Physics over the summer after all. We finally got back test number two, on which I got a "D" (as expected), but The Best News Ever is that I actually managed a "B" on test number three. Cosmic balance, or something like that. This was largely due to a lovely bit of unexpected extra credit, but I actually successfully completed the problem that gave the extra credit - even though it was the type of problem that generally frustrates me to no end and makes me quit halfway through. So, now I must just survive one more test and a multiple choice final exam, which is to be drawn from a pool of the quiz questions we have been doing all of this time. Additionally I have not quite a week between my last UCF final exam and the Physics final to prepare. I just have to manage a "C" overall for it to count for my minor...whew!
Next I just have to find out if I will be allowed to take Astronomy and the lab at yet another community college instead of UCF. One of the frustrations of UCF, or at least the Astronomy minor at UCF, is that apparently no one is interested in teaching the lab part of AST 2002, even though it is one of the required choices for the minor. The other choice is to take the Physics II lab - and therefore Physics II. Not my first choice, naturally. Besides, I really want to take the Astronomy lab. At any rate, if I can, I'll take AST 2002 plus lab at Seminole Community College and have it transfer to UCF so that I can continue with the rest of the Astronomy minor. I hope.
Final note, tickets for another shuttle launch are going on sale soon... Monday, I believe. We are going to try to get tickets again, and this time it will be a daylight launch. It is very hard to get tickets for daytime launches though. They tend to sell out within a matter of seconds, probably because some scalper is buying up large blocks of tickets. We have yet to be fast enough over either internet or phone to score daytime launch tickets. Night launches are apparently much easier to acquire, probably because few people are mad enough to hang around until 3 or 4 am and then drive home in heavy traffic while exhausted. Wimps.
Well, I've had a little setback. I caught a nasty stomach flu that put me in the hospital for a couple of days. Not too serious, but I got a bit dehydrated and had very low blood pressure. I'm feeling much, much better now. Of course, I have now missed enough physics to be really, really behind.
And, I've got to admit that I wasn't doing all that well to begin with. I absolutely won't be dropping the class - even if I have to retake it, I want to stick it out until the end to learn as much as I can, which will hopefully make it easier next time. I'm going to be studying to catch up for the next few days and prepare to take the third test. Wish me luck!
I have been down with that nasty cold that's been going around. You'd think that with all of that time lying about on the couch I could have created a post or ten, but no... not so much. Very little reading of any kind was managed, as trying to seriously look at anything made my eyes pour out streams of water. Instead I had the joy of half watching and listening to endless TV. I think my brain is now officially mush... No wonder most people are half brain dead. I'd forgotten how bad TV really was after such a long time away.
However, having a cold again leads me to one of my favorite rants. Naturally I had to call in sick a couple of times, leading my boss to the inevitable "Go to the doctor, get an antibiotic..." crap. This, from the same person who fusses at me for not blow drying my hair because wet hair will cause me to "catch my death." Possibly from the cold plushy...
Lessee, what's the logical path here? Antibiotics fight bacterial infections, not viruses. The common cold is a virus. Therefore, antibiotics do not help colds. So, I can go to a doctor who will take my money to tell me to drink plenty of fluids and get some rest, perhaps give me a scrip for cough and congestion - and, because I am expecting one, a useless scrip for antibiotic. Or, I could in fact, save the cash on both the doctor and the scrips and hole up with some cheap Nyquil, a pillow, and a gallon or so of mint tea on my couch to have my mind crushed by American daytime television. Hey, I'd been wanting a vacation, right?
So, I missed three days of Physics class, and I hope I can recover from that more easily than the cold. Fortunately my beloved did not/has not caught this mess and was able to go to class. Today we are due for a Physics tutoring session. I was able to read and take my notes on Chapter 9 last night in preparation for tackling some of the homework today. This section is on linear momentum and collisions, which didn't seem too bad (despite the fact that I apparently cannot spell the word collision... it seems to need a superfluous 's' near the end...) If I can remember what equation to use for what situation, it seems straight forward enough.
When two objects collide, there's a transfer of kinetic energy. In some situations some of the kinetic energy escapes the system in the form of heat or noise or such. In some cases no kinetic energy is lost and all of it is distributed in some way between the two bodies, the projectile body and the target body. Newton's handy second law can be used to figure out how much kinetic energy went where.
Okay, enough for now. I'm hoping to be back to more regular posting now that I'm feeling better. Maybe I'll even manage a book review today...
Yikes! My very first Physics test will be this coming Monday morning. This weekend will be all about the Physics reviewing. So far the first four chapters are just the "easy" stuff, easy being very relative between, say, my Math major beloved and my linguaphile self. However, I will say that being married to a Math Brain is really handy when one needs a tutor. Not that I don't return the favor, mind you - he does have a research paper to write this semester...
I jokingly asked my teacher if I could just write an essay.
He did not agree.
Go figure...
I am an English Major at the University of Central Florida, but I also have always been very interested in space, astronomy, science, and well... science fiction. So, in addition to my Tech Writing major I am taking a minor in Astronomy. At heart I am a language geek, and don't have a strong background in science or math. In fact, I hadn't gone any farther than college Algebra when I got my English AA in the 90's. So, I spent the summer and fall of 2007 catching up on my math prerequisites - Trigonometry, Pre-calculus, and finally, Calculus I. It wasn't easy for me, but I managed to survive...
Now comes my first big science challenge. I decided to take on Physics before I jumped into any actual Astronomy classes, because, if I can't handle the Physics there isn't much point in continuing, is there? This blog is an effort to help me get through the science, to help me formulate the ideas in writing, as if I were explaining the lessons to someone else to help myself understand it more. Besides, if I want to write about science, how better to begin practicing, and what better time?
I hope that I can do the science justice; I'll certainly try my best to get the information right. However, I am still a language geek and not a scientist, so I'll probably screw things up as I go. And, like every other blogger in the world I do like to go on and on about other things that interest me, so I will more than likely drift away from science to other topics from time to time. Ya know, books, linguistics... cats, of course... soap box issues... sci fi and fantasy... well, geeky things, to be sure.
-Lala
