AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALONGTITLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
So…fall semester?
Scaring the hell out of me right now. I’ve come to the realization that this will be my last “important” semester here, and if I screw things up now I’ll lose my 4.0 in the final stretch.
That’s more terrifying than it sounds, trust me.
Enter freak-out mode.
Tra-la-la! Life is great in No Pants Land!
Remember how I said I was conflicted over majors a couple of weeks ago?
Yeah, that’s not happening anymore. Philosophy is freaking AMAZING, don’t get me wrong. But when I’m removed from the philosophy stimuli, I’m right back to the “Psychometrics is the way to go, totally” case.
Of course, I’ll probably be conflicted even more than I was last semester when Metaphysics starts up in the fall.
Yay.
So many more things to do…
Remember that schedule for next fall I said that I had figured out? If you thought I wouldn’t be able to hold on to that schedule for the whole semester without changing it…
Well, you’d be right.
So here’s the thing: I don’t need to take Buddhism in the fall due to the fact that I’m taking it this summer in the late session (any jokes like “aren’t you going to drop it like you dropped Linear Algebra?” will not be a good idea), and I don’t really need to take Fiction, even though I really, really want to. So I’ve decided to be a good student and take a class that actually pertains to one of my majors (or minors…who knows, it’s all twisted at the moment). I’m dropping Fiction and replacing it with Philosophy of Science, which certainly sounds interesting, but is at 8:00-9:15 in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Oh, and I’m also going to try to persuade several people (Torrey, Dr. Craig, the CASP department, and the Psychometrics teacher) to let me audit Marching Band and take the Psychometrics class offered for five Tuesdays up in Coeur d’Alene. I’m so desperate to take that class.
Sigh.
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.
Action Leibniz!
Apologies, all. I’m really, really, really busy. Dead week sucks, but the weekend between dead week and finals week REALLY SUCKS.
I’m about ready to die. And the one thing I have to blog about tonight is the one thing that saved me.
So I was dinking around on the internet in between study sessions today—it was necessary to save my sanity—and I found these comics called Action Philosophers!
I bought them after I read the first preview (the one on Descartes). This looks like the funniest comic in existence.
Yay. Here’s hoping I can survive long enough to read them.
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 good thing I enjoy this.
So it’s like 3 in the morning and I’m finally done with that damn Stat 422 project. So I shall now show you the basic results, minus all the fancy math and such.
Go!
The Number of Classes Offered by Each College
Agricultural and Life Sciences: 522
Art and Architecture: 209
Business and Economics: 188
Education: 606
Engineering: 647
Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences: 1,419
Natural Resources: 344
Science: 591
TOTAL: 4,526 classes offered
Percentage of Classes that Require Prerequisites, by College (estimated and actual, respectively)
Agricultural and Life Sciences: 25%, 21.6%
Art and Architecture: 25%, 24.9% (holy crap, I was so close!)
Business and Economics: 57.1%, 53.2%
Education: 21.7%, 15%
Engineering: 33%, 32.8% (pretty close here)
Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences: 16.7%, 11.7%
Natural Resources: 15.4%, 11.9%
Science: 36%, 36.5%
TOTAL: 25.1%, 21.8%
Percentage of Classes that Require Prerequisites Outside of the Department, by College (estimated and actual, respectively)
Agricultural and Life Sciences: 5%, 9%
Art and Architecture: 12.5%, 1.9% (haha, wow, that’s way off)
Business and Economics: 0%, 17% (this is even worse!)
Education: 8.7%, 3%
Engineering: 20.8%, 14.8%
Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences: 1.9%, 1%
Natural Resources: 7.7%, 7%
Science: 13.6%, 11.2%
TOTAL: 10%, 6.7%
So here are the final results!
The proportion of University of Idaho courses that require prerequisites was estimated to be 25.14% with a variance of .000858935 and a bound of .0586, or 5.86%.
The proportion of University of Idaho courses that require prerequisites outside of the field of the course in question was estimated to be 10.04% with a variance of .000960987 and a bound of .0619 or 6.19%.
With the bounds in place, the results of these estimates basically tell us that a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of courses offered by the University of Idaho that require prerequisites is between 19.28% and 31%, and that a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of courses offered by the University of Idaho that require prerequisites outside of the field of the course in question is between 3.85% and 16.23%.
Yay!
Gimme an S! Gimme a T! Gimme an R! Gimme an E! Gimme two S’s! What does that spell?!
Ugh.
I’m apologizing to you all. Some of you, I’m apologizing to for things I’ve already done, the rest of you, I’m apologizing for things that I may do in the coming few weeks. Here’s why:
As you all have read (hopefully), a while back I blogged about how much I’ve changed since getting off the meds…how my outlook on life has changed, how my attitudes have changed, all that good stuff. Well, since the “I stared academic failure in the face” incident with my stat 401 test, I’ve been really, really stressed out. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself reverting to my old coping mechanisms and my old frame of mind. And if you knew me at all prior to last December, you know how bad I was.
I’m just scared as hell that I’m reverting back to my old self. I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO THAT, I really, really don’t. So if I’m bitchy, if I snap at you, if I’m self depreciating (I mean, worse than I have been in the past few months), if I’m depressing to be around, it’s because I’m stressed and because I’m so damn afraid of going back to what I was. ‘Cause honestly, if I go back to that after these five or so months of being so much better, I really don’t know what I’m going to do…
So if you guys could be understanding till finals are over, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.
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.
ZOMG!
Guys, I think hell just froze over…the U of I is actually doing something conducive to the implementation of my plans!
Yes, that’s right! I went up to the philosophy department today to speak to an advisor (who will also be my teacher for Metaphysics next semester) about my plan for fall/spring.
Have I told you this plan? Probably, but I’ll explain it again: my plan is to graduate in the fall with my psych degree (and philosophy minor and statistics emphasis), right? Well, since grad school programs (assuming I get into one) don’t start until the fall, so I’ve essentially a semester where I won’t be doing anything. So I figured, why not do something productive and get a philosophy degree then, since with the minor I’ll only need 4 classes anyway. Well, the thing is, a philosophy major also requires 20 additional credits from another “approved field.” My question was this: could I use 20 of the credits I earned getting my psychology degree to fulfill this requirement (keep in mind I’d have already graduated with these)?
So today I get in there and explain my situation, and he said something to the effect of, “as long as the Registrar doesn’t have any restrictions, it will work fine.”
I checked with the Registrar. They don’t have any restrictions.
Translation: yes, I CAN graduate in the fall, and I CAN come back and get my second B.S. in the spring.
How incredibly awesome is that?
It nearly almost trumps my incredible worrying over the results of my two tests today.
Waiter! Why the hell do you always bring me crappy puns?
Did I tell you we’re on the fetish chapter in Human Sexuality?
We’re on the fetish chapter in Human Sexuality.
Haha, and we actually talked about yours, Matt. And yours too, Maggie. We didn’t talk about mine, which I found strange…surely that’s a fairly common fetish as far as fetishes go.
So I decided to check it out on good old Wikipedia, to see exactly what their article said. I was surprised at the range of the article, actually. Haha, it’s kind of interesting to see your fetish put into “this is an informative article” style. The “Criticism” section could use some editing, though; I don’t think they captured all the reasons people justify the fetish or why they think it’s okay and not harmful to the other person involved.
Yeah. Anyway, if you haven’t yet and you get a chance, check out the Wikipedia article on your fetish. Quite fun.
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.
Optimism restored!
Woohoo!
So remember how I was complaining about the fact that Belief and Reality, a class I’d have to take to get a philosophy degree, appears to be offered every four years or so, thus significantly reducing my odds of getting my degree next spring due to the fact that it’s being offered now?
Well, I went in to talk to my logic teacher today (damn you, biconditionals!) and we got to talking about my plans. Turns out, he’s actually teaching that class in the spring, which means that I can totally get the philosophy degree!
YAY! Optimism regarding school has reemerged!
Plus, I think I’m finally getting a handle on these proofs.
Is the logic lightbulb on?
No.
Is it flickering?
Yes.
Now to read some Leibniz!
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.
HOLY FREAKING CRAP!
Guys, there is a best of all possible worlds, and this is what it looks like:
This is from Tarsky’s World, my Symbolic Logic’s virtual world where we can validate/invalidate sentences. Today I (barely) started working on my logic homework. So I get to this one problem and read this: Launch Tarsky’s World and open Leibniz’ World…
Of course, if you have been listening to me at all these past few weeks, you can imagine the ruckus this caused. Well actually, it caused virtually no ruckus, as I was in the recitation session at the time so I couldn’t jump up and down and scream “HOLY CRAP!” like I wanted to. So I just sat there giggling to myself and reveling in my little joke for about ten minutes.
Seriously guys. Leibniz claims there is a “best of all possible worlds.” There is a Leibniz’ World in LPL’s files. I have got to think the writers of Tarsky’s World had to understand the little joke they made. This is almost better than the cookies.
Haha, I’m sorry, this is probably a really boring blog, but it’s funny as hell to me.
The Leibniz jokes will subside in due time, perhaps after I get my chocolates in the mail, or perhaps after I read some of his other writings. But as of now, you guys’ll just have to deal with them. At least I’ve refrained from the statistics jokes for awhile, right?
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