Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupid
So.
Because I’m a stupid, worthless, hopeless piece of crap who is afraid of math, I decided to drop Linear Algebra.
Go ahead and laugh, I deserve it.
Yay, people!!
Woohoo!
4.0!
I’m so freaking happy right now. The stress at the end was totally worth it. Take that, 400-level stats classes! Take that, Symbolic Logic! Take that, all you people who didn’t think I could do it!
Yay.
Hellooooooooo Linear Algebra…
Haha, hooray for more school. Abnormal Psychology looks fun and interesting. Linear Algebra, on the other hand, does not.
I get it, I just don’t like it. And I’d forgotten how much I loathed the setup of math books.
Blah.
Ugh.
HOLY CRAP I SURVIVED.
Sorta.
Right now I’m dead, due to my frantically moving out of the dorm this afternoon.
Therefore I bid you goodnight. Or whatever.
Happy birthday, Rob!
Stress = stats ability?
Huh.
Um, wow.
You know that miracle that I was wishing for yesterday? Um, I think it happened. Either that or stress gives me incredible statistics abilities, ‘cause I swear that stats test was the easiest test I’ve ever taken.
What the hell.
Now to freak out about Symbolic Logic!
Sorry the blogs are short; I’m just in freaking-out mode.
The world! The world! The world is on fire!
Have you ever had a panic attack?
Have you ever had multiple panic attacks in a row?
Yeah. That’s fun.
Tonight I stood (or was curled up in the fetal position, rather) on the steps leading to the Statistics department for quite some time, due to the fact that I couldn’t really move. Or breathe, really. I have a big stats test tomorrow at 10, and I’m really, really freaking out over it, obviously. I’ve never felt so hopeless and utterly afraid in my life.
I need a miracle tomorrow, seriously. This 4.0 is desperately needed.
Indiana Jones and the 25 Credits of Doom
I’m sorry, Rob. I don’t mean to be so freaked out, but I’m under so much freaking stress right now I’m about to die.
Honestly, this 25 credit thing was basically a breeze up until dead week started. Seriously. Now it’s hell on earth.
Will that stop me from attempting to do 28 credits in the fall?
Of course not. You know me.
OOH! OOH! But guess what I found!
RICE UNIVERSITY.
Behold! This is one of the professors there:
Mark A. Kulstad
Emphases: LEIBNIZ, History of Modern Philosophy, Epistemology.
This man, I want him. If I can’t stalk Leibniz, I’ll stalk the guy who studies him.
Oh, and the school also held the first annual NORTH AMERICAN LEIBNIZ CONFERENCE back in January.
Amazing.
Yay Schedule!
Well, now that things have finally settled down, I think I’ve finally figured out my schedule for fall. But Flash is being dumb, so I can’t make a pretty picture for y’all.
And I’m really, really busy, you guys. Apologies if I cancel plans over the weekend. The grades come first, I’m sorry, but they do.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Super ANOVA!
Check this out:
That is pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.
Also, here are some random facts regarding the classes offered here at the U of I that I’m sure you don’t care about in the least:
Not counting classes offered by the College of Law (Law classes) and classes offered by the College of Graduate Studies (a few small things like genetics and such), the university offers a grand total of 4,526 classes (give or take a few due to Claudia’s inability to accurately count successively).
The smallest college in terms of classes offered is the College of Business and Economics, which is funny, ’cause Business is one of the more popular majors. There are 188 different classes offered under this college
The largest college in terms of classes offered is the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences (CLASS) with 1,419 classes offered. Cool, eh?
Oh, and did you know that the Environmental Science major falls under CLASS rather than the Agricultural and Life Sciences College? I thought that was interesting.
Anyway.
Welcome to Stress Town. Population: Claudia
Holy crap, today was the most stressful day of the entire semester. Let me tell you why.
So remember that stats test I took last Wednesday? We got that back today. What was the number on the top?
65.
Yeah.
You can imagine the flip out that ensued. It was all over. Goodbye GPA, goodbye Summa cum Laude, goodbye grad school.
In the midst of this panic, I realize two things. One, he’s going over the test, and then two, my answers on the first page that were marked wrong (all of them were) matched the correct answers he was giving us. I took this up with him after class and long story short, I didn’t get a 65, I got an 80. Yes, that does make me very, very happy, but DEAR GOD I ALMOST LOST IT in class when I saw that 65. If you ever wanted to see the visual display that would accompany someone’s dreams getting crushed, you probably should’ve seen my face when I got that test back. Plus, an 80 still sucks; I’ve given myself a small 15-point window of error for the remaining 150 points in the class. Can I pull it off?
That’s a good question. I’m certainly going to do my best. There’s no way in hell I’m letting a stats class ruin my 4.0.
Second stressor of the day: I get back to my dorm at about 4:30 after research and I chill out for a few minutes, waiting for registration at 7, and am just about to fall asleep in my chair when it dawns on me that I still haven’t turned in my petition to take 22 credits—my limit is set at 20. The registrar’s office closes at 5. I look at the clock. 4:55. I don’t think I’ve ever moved faster in my life. I got there in time (barely) and got that taken care of, so that was good.
Third stressor of the day: with my credit limit taken care of (at least for now, I still have to get that other petition in), nothing was left to do but wait for registration at 7. By 6:58 I had all my little CRN numbers typed in so that I could just hit “submit” at 7 and it would all go through. No problem, right?
Ha.
All my classes go through…all except one: my stats class. My graduate-level stats class. The one I was assured by my advisor that I would get into (“there are no undergraduate restrictions to get into graduate classes!”). Yeah, apparently there are. So that’s just one more thing I’m going to have to straighten out sometime soon. I’m not posting my schedule tonight ’cause it’s not complete; I’ll do it once stats works out (that is, if it does at all).
So how did I relieve all this stress? I talked to Sean and I made an album cover. Observe:
Pitchfork and little horns were added by yours truly. I can’t decide if I like this one or not.
If Godot falls in the forest and no one is around…
I took my Symbolic Logic test today. The first three pages were fine, just translations, truth tables, DeMorgan’s Laws, and a proof step proof (no subproofs). I finished in 15 minutes.
Then there were the proof method proofs (aka proofs with subproofs embedded).
There were four on the test; we had to choose two and prove them. I proved one relatively quickly (because it was essentially the definition of a biconditional), but then I literally sat there for 45 minutes just staring the other three down, racking my brain to try to figure out whether or not I could figure out how to prove one.
Finally, the lightbulb came on with one and I crapped out a proof in under 10 minutes (not easy, trust me).
So I got home and tried plugging my solution into Fitch, and if I did it the way I think I did on the test, I got that one right.
Observe:
Yay? Maybe? I hope I did okay.
New rule: “hyperbole” must always be written “HYPERBOLE!!!!!!!!!111!!1one!1”
Haha, hooray for jumping through way too many hoops to try and graduate next semester! I went to advising and all over campus today to get a myriad of different forms for next semester/graduation. I got forms to:
1. Add a philosophy minor
2. Get rid of the English: Creative Writing major that, for some reason, is still on there, despite my apparently taking it off last spring
3. File for an “area of emphasis” in statistics, seeing as how the one other stats class offered that’s not a business stats class isn’t offered next fall, and I’ll have the 18 credits needed for an emphasis
4. Apply to take 22 credits
5. Apply to take more than 22 credits
6. Apply for actual graduation (!!!)
And I have to do all this before the 14th. According to Dr. Craig, I’m all set for graduation in regards to credits/requirements. Sweet!
Now to wait for registration!
If you don’t understand the material conditional, then the humor of this sentence is lost
Ugh. I’m conflicted. Well, that’s nothing new—what’s different this time is the fact that I’m conflicted about my career choice. Shocking, I know!
I’m really, really, really into philosophy right now, and I’m really, really, really stressing out about the statistics part of my Psychometrician plan (which is essentially the entirety of the plan). Why are these two things occurring simultaneously? Two reasons:
1. Leibniz
2. Teetering on the border between an A and a B in Sample Survey Methods
So I’m basically chalking this confliction up to the fact that I’m really enthused about a specific philosopher we’re studying while being way too stressed out over one of my stats classes. I’m not going to give in to this confliction. I don’t think I could build a philosophy teaching career around a single man I’m obsessed with (though if a university would let me teach a class solely on Leibniz, that would be AMAZING), and I don’t think a single stats class should intimidate me to the point where I’m willing to give up the career that sounds like it was made for me.
So yeah. Just thought I needed to talk (or write) that out so I could put it in stone.
As much as Leibniz rocks my socks, I love psychometrics. It’s what I was born to do.
But if I could do both at some point in my life, that would be freaking awesome.
Oh yeah? Well screw you, too, U of I!
Alright, University of Idaho, you want to play rough, I’ll play rough.
Newly revised schedule for next fall:
As you can see, I revised quite a bit to fit Metaphysics in. I really, really want to take that class, obviously, because I eliminated what would have essentially been a “history of psychology” class, which is right up my alley. I figured I’ll just take either Psychology of Learning or Abnormal Psychology online during the fall (and the other one online during this coming summer, but I haven’t decided which to take when, obviously).
Take THAT, U of I, you piece of crap!
More U of I-related gripes:
~The one lower division class philosophy majors need, Belief and Reality 240, is apparently offered every four years. This is a problem, because it’s being offered right now, here in spring of ’08. That essentially means that there’s a .0001% chance that I’ll be able to get a degree in Philosophy next spring (yeah, I’ll have every class BUT that one, how much does THAT suck?!). And if this is the case, then I’m dumping Buddhism for Phil of Science (Buddhism fills the “Eastern” requirement for the major).
~Apparently, the U of I does have a class called Psychometrics (which I never saw because it’s listed under Counseling and School Psychology, or CASP, not PSYC). Unfortunately, it was last offered in 2005 and is not offered next fall (in fact, none of the CASP classes are offered next fall, which makes me worry that they dropped the whole thing).
I hate this place, I really do.
At least I’m almost freeeeeee!
You know what activity the U of I should sponsor? Battle of the Departments!
Wouldn’t that be awesome? We could combine all the departments and pit all the CLASS students against all the College of Science students and the Law students against the College of Education students and whatnot. We could just have an all-out war on the Admin lawn. Of course, it’d probably be a big failure…
The law students would probably sue you if you tried to fight with them.
All the Ag students would be trying to fight but then get distracted. “Ooh look, a field!”
The Philosophy students would be going around shouting “LOGICAL FALLACY!” at everything anyone said.
The Food Science students would set up a little booth and shout, “I’ve got cookies!”
The Computer Science students would die from their first exposure to the sun in two years.
The Interior Design students would be throwing swatches.
The Grad students would just be running around screaming “OMG MY THESIS!!”
The Theatre students would freaking love it.
The JAMM students would be interviewing everyone.
The Chem students would be making bombs.
The Sociology students would refuse to participate due to their witnessing of mob mentality, and would spend the whole time getting tans.
Depending on the type of English student, they’d either be reading or correcting everyone’s grammar.
The Business students…ah, screw the business students.
…why the hell did I blog about this?
…what on earth was my original blog?
…damn these tangents.
The Disaster of My Final (Necessary) Semester’s Schedule
So remember how I said the fall schedule was up and running?
Yeah, well, my schedule basically sucks for next fall.
Check it out:
(Wow, the blue’s really hard to read. Basically, they’re three philosophy classes).
Now if you know me and my schedule preferences at all, you know how I like to have all my classes in a big block, preferably as early in the day as possible. Yeah, I’m not getting that vibe from this schedule, are you?
Problems:
~I start with freaking Marching Band at 12:30. I’m usually 90% done with classes by that time in the day.
~That 8:00 class on T/R is going to kill me, since I won’t be getting up until 11 AM or so on M/W/F and thus will stay up ’till god knows when.
~Cognitive psych that late in the day for that long? That won’t be fun at all, I’m telling you that right now.
~I want to take Metaphysics…I mean, I REALLY want to take Metaphysics, but it runs from 3:30-5:50 on Mondays, which would cancel out History and Systems of Psychology, which I also really want to take.
Plus, what I’ve got listed there is 22 credits (like I was only going to take the 17 I need to graduate, come on, guys). That’s not counting the one research class (3 credits) I probably should do and the one research class (3 credits) that I really hope I can do (Stat 499: Statistics in the Social Sciences. Doesn’t that sound like it was made for me?!).
So I’m looking at a 28-credit semester next fall. After I promised myself that 25 was my upper limit.
Bad, bad, bad Claudia.
Please note: this schedule will change, I’m almost sure of it.
FINALLY, holy crap!
GUESS WHAT, GUYS?
The fall ’08 schedule is up—FINALLY—at www.uidaho.edu/schedule.
Haha…by the time these blogs get uploaded on to here you’ll probably have seen me and I will have ranted about my schedule (good or bad, I haven’t really worked anything out yet), so this blog will be past news.
Halfway through, still holding strong…
HA! Spring Break, baby! I didn’t think I was going to make it past this week…Monday-Thursday was incredibly stressful. But here I am, at the midpoint of a semester of 25 credits, and holding a 4.0 so far (with 4 out of 9 classes reporting). And the real surprising thing is the fact that I’m holding up surprisingly well. Haven’t crumpled under the stress yet (though I was close on Tuesday, not going to lie). I think I’ve hit my stride with this workload. Unfortunately, I’m very tempted to increase my credit load in the fall to something like 27, but I won’t do that. It’s silly and unnecessary, especially if 6 of my credits next semester are going to be coming from graduate-level statistics classes (which, if they’re both offered, will be the case). I just hope the 4.0 can last until the end of the semester…please, oh please…
Hmm…what else was I going to say in this thing today…
Oh yes! I was going to give you guys an example of a formal proof. This was one of our practice problems, one full of those delicious things we call subproofs! Observe (oh, and the little carat (^) is read as “and,” the little v is read as “or,” that little tilde-like thing at the beginning of the first premise is read as “not,” and _|_ is the symbol for a contradiction. Like that will help at all, but just thought you should know):
Oh, and the goal is to prove R.
This was done in Fitch, the program we use. It’s picky as hell. “Fitch” does not rhyme with “bitch” for no reason, as one person pointed out in our recitation session.
Oh, and an album cover! I like putting wings on things. I’d show you the original, but I’ve lost it (not it it, the picture, it…aw, nevermind).
Bless the Gods of Academia!
If, that is, there are such gods to be blessed.
Either way, I’m very happy that we got a snow day today. Why, you ask? Statistics homework. I’d done it all, of course, but I felt the need to redo it all again in preparation for the test on Monday.
I’m just that obsessive.
And I spent the whole day listening to disco music. Thank you, iTunes radio.
Good, productive day. Couldn’t ask for more.
Oh wait, except for this:
Status Upgrade!
I now have the official title of “researcher” on Sona Systems (the psychology experiment sign-up system for psychology majors/minors and communication studies people). This is for my 499 I/O research class. So far, I get to code data (which is freaking awesome, in my opinion) and sit around for two hours a week and log psych students onto the computers to do experiment credits and subsequently give them said credits.
I’m freaking excited. Plus, if we do further research, it could possibly get published in the future!
Hurrah!
Blog 620: Another Daily Log of Claudia’s Life Happenings (only 380 more to go until 1,000!)
Day two!
Introduction to Symbolic Logic: The first thing the professor says is, “welcome to symbolic logic. This class will be a lot like a math class.” Grr. I have a feeling this will be a difficult class. Why is it, in my experience, that 200-level classes are the toughest?
Concert Band: Hurrah! A class with people I know (even though you’re both in the back)! Torrey is switching me to clarinet, because all the other clarinetists from last year’s concert band died of the plague (I’m assuming) and I’m apparently the only one in the band who knows clarinet who is willing to switch instruments. Hurrah. Oh, well. I haven’t gotten to be loud and obnoxious on the clarinet in a concert band setting since junior year of high school.
History of Modern Philosophy: I love Joseph Cannon! I’m excited greatly for this class. The only downside is the fact that we’re only going up to Kant. But it’s all good.
Tonight consisted of: homework, dinking around on eBay for hours on end, working on my MFAW Flash (that’s “Millard Fillmore Appreciation Week, by the way), and making and subsequently drinking Nesquik chocolate milk. Yum.
Fillmore Fact:
“Econometrics: on average, people spend money” (thanks for the quote, Sean)
Holy crap, new semester! Here we go with my obligatory rundown of today’s classes:
Human Sexuality: oh man, is this gonna be a fun class. We get in there and he’s all “bring porno to class, we’ll watch it!” What a wonderful way to begin the semester and every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until May. The downside, though, is that our grades ride on only 100 points from two tests. Scary.
Statistical Analysis: I don’t think this is going to be the nightmare I thought it would be. However, I got my first droning professor of my college career. That’s going to be fun at 9:30 in the morning. But oh well—the tests are open book and open note!
Sample Survey Methods: I don’t think this one’ll be too bad, either. We’ll see.
Developmental Psychology: Hooray! I like Welch. I naturally study and absorb the same material she tests over, so it’s good.
Psychology of Emotion: Hooray! I have this class with Sean! And Welch teaches it, so it’s good. Plus, she says the tests are easy.
Well, it doesn’t sound like the tortuous 25 credits of death as I was expecting it would (at least today’s not—we’re not through tomorrow yet), so I’m pretty content.
Onward to Thursday!
Fillmore Fact: Did you know that it was under Millard Fillmore that California was admitted as a free state? Very cool, M. F., very cool.
Oh, and also…
First cartoon of the new semester. Concept thought up in Stats 401 (we weren’t talking about diagrams at all).
Heh. I’m awesome.
OH THANK GOD.
I seriously don’t know how or why the fates conspired in my favor in terms of math, but I’ve just gotten all my grades in and I’ve maintained my 4.0! YAY!
I am very, very happy and relieved right now.
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