Sorry for the lack of updates

I've been busy with work and to be honest I've just been too lazy to get around to updating this more often. As an update, I did pretty well in math and am currently awaiting my physics grade. The mean on the final was a 48 which is pretty low and leaves me feeling ok about maintaining my grade even though I didn't do stellar on it. Speaking of stellar, my project at lbl is going well. I'm a little stuck now but that's fine. I'm also getting paid 12.80 an hour to work up there which is just icing on the cake since I need to be doing this research anyway. I also had jury duty today and yesterday but thankfully got out of it. They never even asked me a question and I sat there for 2 days! Oh well I think I'll get $15 for it. I was mainly upset because the judge kept taking these huge breaks. If we had just gotten down to it, I could have been out of there in one day. I'm glad I didn't get picked because the case as especially boring about some homeowners whining about their architect. This is not the kind of thing juries should be for. These people are inconveniencing how many people just because they can't settle a squabble. This is the kind of thing a judge should do. O well. That's all for now. I have to go find some kind of dinner. Maybe I'll try chinese. The thing I hate about my current schedule is that I get off work at 6 and the last thing I want to do is anything but I have to go and eat quick if I hope to go running before it gets pitch dark and unfortunately until the days get a little longer I can't really do that. I could go running in the dark but I don't feel comfortable doing that. Berkeley isn't the friendliest place at night, so now I'm trying to figure something out. I can still do weights but I need to go running. I do go walking though. I can do that with a full stomach. I already learned the hard way I need like 2hours between eating and running. I got an ipod shuffle from Mel's dad because he had an extra one. It's pretty cool but it takes some getting used to. It's unbelievable light. It's like it has no weight at all. Also Mel had a birthday on sunday and on saturday night me and her parents went out to the thai place. Nothing else new except me being lazy. You shouldn't complain about me not updating this site, you don't know what it means for me to not update. ;) Prior to a few months ago I think I went 4 years without updating my Rexum page. (and people used to actually read that!) oh well I'm updating that again, although not at the rate I was hoping to (once a week with a vignette about some odd subject or another and a short description of a nation). We'll see. If I get some more time this week I might just meet my quota. That's all for now.

First Day of Work

Well, even though I slept in, I am quite tired and my eyes are aching. This is all I can write. I've been at a computer for far too long today.

That's All Folks

So I finished my finals. Want a report? Math was ok, I dunno exactly what I got but we'll see. I think I did pretty well. My math professor did a really good job of making the test. Even though it was multiple choice it didn't feel like it. He also decided at the last minute to not deduct points for wrong answers. It was basically a normal test except no partial credit which sucks. Physics was a whole other breed of cat. I went into the test with a pretty strong grade and I hope it carries me through. I don't know what I got, but I didn't do great and I'm banking on the curve to help me out. The way how physics tests are, I could still pull an A so we'll see. After that I've just been doing some chores. I was going to go running but it is really cold out there right now. Oh well, that's all folks.

PS: To mark the end of the semester, I have changed the name of the blog. I could change to url, but I just don't see the point right now.

Seeing the Finish Line

It's so close I can taste it. It tastes a little like chicken, but kinda saltier I guess. I just need to finish up a couple of things and I plan to relax for most of today (besides another physics review session). Finals are very taxing on me emotionally and physically. I just have a lot of trouble with receiving any kind of evaluation less than perfect. That is why I am so hung up on grades and have never accepted anything less than an A. I guess everyone has their own thing that makes them feel special. Other people have excellence in sports or some other talent, but I have grades. I've done pretty well so far and I anticipate a continuation of the past trend. We'll see in just a couple days... (In about 27 hours)

More studying

So I just got out of a 3-hour physics review session and right now I'm feeling pretty tired and lonely. I've been trying to get in contact with my family for the last 4 hours and have left several messages but they haven't returned my calls. I called them cuz I needed to talk to Paul about my essay and oh well. It just seems like everyone I call today doesn't want to talk to me. Oh well. I'll get back to work now.

Geography Final!!!

So today I got my geography final. I've already written drafts for 2 of the 3 essays. Ideally, I'll be finished by the end of today but that probably won't happen. I also went to physics office hours to check my lab grade and ask a few questions. I think the stuff I'm shaky on is the stuff everyone is, since the GSI couldn't fully answer my question. It's all good though. Just a few more days... BTW I feel good now about both Math and Physics for the first time. I've been playing on a see-saw with them for a while now. Oh well, that's it for now. I have more work to do.

update: make that 3 drafts out of 3. I also went out and got a pizza to eat today. That might have been a mistake but I was really craving it and I was very careful to only eat a moderate amount. My problem with pizza isnt so much that I should never eat it, it's that when I do eat it, I can't stop myself. I have a real problem telling when I'm full. If I don't keep count of the slices and stop after a set number, I am absolutely sure I could eat an entire extra large pizza. So today I looked up the pizza nutrition facts and calculated that I could have 4-5 pieces since I didn't have a chance to eat much else today because I've been running around so much (not literally unfortunately). I went running a few days ago and my stomach started really hurting because i had eaten too soon before (90 minutes). I thought I would have been ok, but I wasn't. Oh well. right now I'm finally getting a chance to relax. The reason I'm not running now is that my knee is bugging me (I think it's from running on the cement for so long) and I cannot afford to risk any kind of injury at all until after monday. After that I'll return to my cliff diving....

More Studying

4 hours of review session and maybe 4 more hours at home....

Studying for Finals

So I've been studying for finals, hence the lack of updates recently. I'm done on the 16th so after that it's just going to be working up at the lab which I am looking forward to. In case you weren't aware I study a lot differently than other people. Throughout the semseter I study and prepare so that when it comes to be about a week or two before the test, I try to relax and just listen to music while I run through the ideas and concepts in my head. If I get stuck I don't worry about it and come back to it later. Eventually I'll have gone through all the material and understood it. I don't really waste time doing practice problems, but I will read solutions to problems so I can get insights and strategies for general problem types. I feel good about physics but I am a little concerned about math since it is going to be multiple choice and we will lose points for an incorrect answer or an omitted answer. That means I could get a negative score! Oh well, I think I'll be able to do pretty well on it. In general I do pretty well on finals, at least I keep telling myself that to keep my spirits up.

On a completely unrealted note, last night I watched a movie called 'Domestic Disturbance' that starred Vince Vaughn and John Travolta. While some might consider the premise a little trite, I thought it was pretty good and it was neat to see Vince Vaughn outside of his normal funny man character. This appeared to perhaps be one of his earlier works but it still was quite good. I liked it. I won't bother with a rating system because I like all movies (including Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation if you were looking for some kind of standard candle). Oh well that's it for today.

Haven't been getting enough sleep...

So I haven't been getting enough sleep lately which means I may be a little bit insane. I feel pretty good about my upcoming physics exam and am right now a little more concerned about math. This summer is going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it. So not much new. I'm done with finals around 4 pm on the 15th.

So Today I Can Relax

I went up to the lab and talked over some stuff with my mentor. He seems moderately pleased with my work so far. At least it doesn't seem like he's displeased. I was going to do some more work but the computers over there are having problems so I can't really do that much. I've already fixed a few problems that I was having, but I'll have to check to make sure. Next week I'll go through all that again. Now that I have no hw and no lab work, I can just relax. Also it looks like I'm going to be working 30-40 hours a week this summer up at the lab and I'll be recieving a stipend which is quite nice. I don't know how much, but now that I have a job I'll probably finally get an ipod. We'll see, maybe not. I've been kicking around the idea of buying them for a year now...

Another Working Day

Today I did my last homework sets for math and physics and ironically after 3 semesters of webassign on this my last assignment using that crappy service there was a bizarre error that I had to send a report to my head ta about. Oh well, worst case scenario, I lose one point. I'm just preparing for finals right now. I spent a few hours working on my lbl project today. I think this summer will be a lot of fun. I've gotten a lot of the unexciting part out of the way. Now I'm just preparing for finals. Unfortunately today I heard that my math final might be multiple choice. That is terrible. What that translates to is easy mistakes, no partial credit, and a baseline curve score of 25% that screw up the curve. People will get points when not knowing the material and many will not recieve them when they do. I know that its 350 people but c'mon don't be that lazy. It's really terrible for the students and to be honest that's what the GSI's are paid for. I know its pennies on the hour but this is just going to translate to a very stressful test for me.... Also I have to decide which review session to go math or physics since they are both going to be on thursday. I can go to physics for its 2 hours and then do the last 2 hours of the math one but then I will miss the most important stuff. I don't know, I feel better about physics but then again physics is my major and is more important so I don't know. Plus if it is going to be multiple choice I'm going to have to study even more... I heard today that the physics test will have one problem on optics, one on relativity and 4 on quantum. That sounds ok, but quantum problems can be brutal. Probably there will be an alpha decay problem, a 3d infinite square well, some basic thing about Schroedingers (maybe a derivation), and maybe something heisenburg uncertainty principle related. It's going to be 6 questions choose 5 which is good because the midterms were 5 choose 4 and we get an extra hour for the final. That means we had 30 minutes a problem before and now we get 42 minutes a problem. That may not sound like a lot but that is a 40% increase. That's a lot. Oh well that's all for now. Time for me to actually relax. Just so you know, I wrote this post very quickly because I'm feeling kinda hyper. I didn't go running today because I had way too much other work to do. I also trying cooking today for the second time. It went better but not great. I think in 50 years I'll figure it out...

Another day, another dol....er... just another day

So not much happened today. I just did some work and went running all the up to Haas. It's been getting easier every time, but my legs are getting sore. Oh well sorry for being boring.

So far a productive day.

Well today I've been pretty productive. I did half my math homework due next monday and all my physics discussion work due wendesday. Right now I feel really ready for finishing off this year so that I can finally devote myself to my LBL project. Today I did a lot. Since I had an extra hour because my geography discussion was cancelled, I used that hour to go walking around. I ended up at Ross and was pleasantly surprised with their merchandise. I spent a long time on the phone trying to pick out some dvds for Paul because they were selling some history documentaries. I then took a walk over to the store and walked by a lot of the places my Cousin mentioned in his blog (Let's Be Real). So far my little cart has roused a couple of comments but they all are about how they wish they had one. It made the trip a lot easier. I also tried an asian chicken salad from McDonald's today to change things up a bit and it was pretty good. I'm going to go running shortly with my new watch and batteries for my radio. So I guess that's all folks.