Two down, Two to go! Plus other stuff…

Well, I haven’t written for about a week, but now I’m going to try to cover as much stuff as possible. So let’s begin:

Last week, I picked up my Assignment 1 from CS 134 (the day it was returned was Yom Kippur and I’m Jewish, although I don’t do religious debates, so don’t try to start one). Upon getting it back, I note the 69% I recieved on it. Considering my mark on Assignment 2 is on the order of 97%, I was, well, appalled, really, by the horrible mark. So I did what anyone would do in my position. I looked over the errors, since they were spelled out on the marking sheet. I got 54/60 on the theory part (commenting, proper use of variable names, that kind of stuff), meaning I got 28/60 on the testing (the total was out of 120). I failed the testing? What? The program worked fine on my computer as I wrote it, so this was shocking for me. So I looked over the errors. 15 compile errors? For the uninitated, a “compile error” is what happens when there’s an error in the code, generally syntax (i.e. variable/type names not spelled properly, trying to call a method that doesn’t exist, stuff like that). The program worked perfectly on my computer, so why it wouldn’t compile for the testers just didn’t click for me. So I proceeded to be upset for the next week while I was unsure of how to proceed with this problem. On Monday, I recieved Assignment 3 back, and I once again felt cheated out of a significant number of marks, so I decided it was time to see the tutors. I went to see the tutors yesterday, and spent about half an hour in the tutorial centre while the tutor told me (essentially) that I got cheated out of at least 13 marks on Assignment 1 and at least 10 on Assignment 3 (I wasn’t counting, but those were the larger chunks) because their compiler didn’t work properly (as I had suspected). I have yet to reclaim those marks, but I plan on doing so in the immediate future. So my 69% on Assignment 1 quickly became an 80%, and I noticed a number of silly mistakes that I did make on both assignments 1 and 3, so I’m happy with my marks now (although I’m still convinced I should have gotten higher on Assignment 1, it’s no longer worth my effort since I got most of it back anyway and the program wasn’t written properly in the first place; the tutor explained what I did wrong and I was satisfied).

I have yet to recieve my MATH 145 midterm back. Professor Willard claims it will be returned on Monday. I assure an update afterwards.

My Japanese test was returned, well, I presume last week since I haven’t written about it yet, but honestly the weeks are beginning to run together already, so I’m not quite sure. Of the people in my study group, we all got comparable marks, but I got the lowest, being a low-80. However, as it turned out, I lost 1 mark due to my illegible handwriting, which I quickly reclaimed, so I ended up with a high-80, slthough still lower than the rest of my study group, but not by much. I’m probably riding a mid-80 in Japanese right now, which is my goal. Let’s hope I can keep it after my midterm next week 😛

Speaking of Japanese, I finally feel like I can hold some semblance of a conversation. Today was the lesson I’ve been waiting for all term and the one I expected to come much earlier than today; we finally learned non-existence verbs. Up till now, we’ve only learned how to use the verbs “to be” and “to exist”, but today we finally learned something more useful. To compare to French, I guess I could say I’m up to about grade 4 level now, but still in preschool as English goes. That’s ok, though; it’s like they say: it takes longer to learn a new language the older you get, so Japanese will take me a while. But if you out there know how to speak and read Japanese to a fair extent, I wouldn’t recommend Japan 101R, although it’s perfect for me.

The new issue of MathNews came out last Friday. Of the 2 pages-ish of ProfQuotes I compiled on Professors Willard and Zorzitto, about 7 or 8 of them got printed, which I think is kinda cool. Some examples:

“You know those wax pads you pull off your legs to take the hair off? The faster you do it, the less it hurts. Proofs are kinda like that” – Zorzitto

“How many of you are actually awake and listening as I’m talking?” – Willard

The rest of them are either not funny outside of context or not appropriate for presentation on a completely public forum (although one comment from Professor Willard is particularly amusing). I’m collecting ProfQuotes for the next issue of MathNews. I have about a page and a half from Professor Zorzitto, about half a page from Professor Willard, and I’ve begun collecting from Professor Tremblay (Philosophy) as well and have a page and a half from him.

I’ve recently found a new TV show to become addicted to. A friend of mine from Japanese hooked me up with some anime, and I’ve become addicted to the show Bleach. For the anime fans out there, I recommend it if you found InuYasha an interesting concept with a boring execution. And yes, I’m watching it in Japanese (with English subs). But back to the academics this blog is supposed to be about:

Well, not quite. Yesterday was my don’s birthday, so we threw her a surprise party. Everyone in the building pitched in a couple of dollars and we got a cake and some flowers for our don. She really appreciated it. It was really nice to see the whole house (plus another one of the dons helped) come together and do that for our don.

Now REALLY back to the academics:

Since my last post, I’ve been in contact with Professor Ragde, one of the professors for CS 135, who commented on my blog. In particular, he commented on my constant complaints about the lack of complexity in CS 134. I didn’t ask him if I could put this in, but hopefully he won’t mind, and I think it’s important. He said that (and keep in mind he’s a prof for CS 135, so take this as you will) if you are considering taking CS 134 in your first term, to consider 135 instead. 135, he says, is much more interesting than 134 in that it’s a language you won’t have learned yet, and it’s not Object-Oriented Programming so it’s completely different from Java. Also, because the language is so different, everyone will be learning at the same level, so no one will get bored. He said that CS 135 (and the followup 136) also prepares you better for CS 241 (the next CS course after 134 and 136) better than 134. He also said he was disappointed that, in 3 years, They ((c), (R), TM) haven’t picked a Math Blogger from CS 135, so I figured I should probably address his points, since it would probably be of importance to many of you reading this.

Speaking of CS 134, the midterm was on Monday. The Tale of The CS 134 Midterm actually begins this past weekend. I was confident (probably overconfident) about my skills in CS 134, and, instead of studying myself, decided to play video games and help my rez-mates in CS’s 125 and 133 with their problems. I called it “actively not studying”. This practise of active indifference to an exam worth 25% of my final grade continued all the way until 5 minutes before the exam, by which time it was too late to do anything. So I went to the MC knowing only what tidbits I picked up through the term, plus the knowledge I had from ICS4M (in other words, I knew pretty much everything we’ve learned so far). The one thing I didn’t know was that my exam wasn’t even in the MC. At 6:58 (I looked at my watch; the exam started at 7 pm) I took out my laptop and checked the schedule (w00t to UW-Wireless!). As it turned out, my exam was in a building called DWE (Douglas Wright Engineering Hall, or something of the sort), about a 7-minute trek at full sprinting speed from where I sat on the 4th floor of the MC. Why they would have the class and tutorial in one building and the exam in another escapes me, almost as much as why they would have the exam in the Engineering Quad, which escapes me almost as much as why the exam wasn’t in the building called “Mathematics and Computers” (that’s what MC stands for). Oh well. So I went to DWE as fast as I could, arriving there at about 7:10. I sat down at my seat and took a look through the exam. My first reaction was: “Holy garbage, this is easy!” And it was. Having arrived at the exam 10 miuntes late, tired, short on breath, and somewhat stressed out, having to catch up on 10 minutes of time and worried more about not finishing than about the algorithms I was writing, I managed to finish the entire exam, check it over twice, and have 10 minutes to spare. I think I did well (and I’m not afraid to say it this time). The midterms were being marked today, so I should *hopefully* have it back on Monday, and I’ll write an update when I do.

Until next time,

Lyle Waldman