Hi, everyone! Well, I figured it’s about time for an update, considering it’s halfway through March and I haven’t written for a month and a half. Then again, I haven’t been on campus for 2 and a half months, so I suppose there’s not much to say, but I’ll give it a try 
OK, well first off, one of the most important days in the Math calendar has come and gone. Those of you on 8-Stream or regular stream will soon know the glories of Pi Day at UW. Pi Day is March 14 (or 3/14 for those of you who don’t get the joke). Every Pi Day, at 1:59 pm (3/14 1:59 for those who don’t get the joke), MathSoc sets up booths somewhere around campus (Pi Day 2K6 was at the Davis Centre, a place many of you will become very good friends with when you need to go to the library, Pi Day 2K7 was in front of the Comfy Lounge/Math C&D, 2 places most of you will become very good friends with in the fall) and gives away free pi(e). It’s kind of like Christmas for Mathies, except without the “statutory holiday” bit and religious connotation attached (unless you consider Math a religion, but that gets into all kinds of questions I shouldn’t be dealing with here). Unfortunately, aside from UW (and, apparently, MIT…those Americans…), very few people know about Pi Day. So *sigh* I spent my Pi Day here at work, at my desk, doing what I usually do, and not eating pie. The magical hour went by and I didn’t even notice, while the lines extended as far as the eye could see (or to the 3rd floor elevators in the MC) for people picking up free MathSoc pie. I wished a couple of the people I work with “Happy Pi Day”, but they didn’t say any thing. It was kind of sad to be a Mathie on Pi Day this year for me…
In other news, my term is going well. I feel much better than I did in my last post. The term is almost over (well, a month and a half to go), and class selection is in 2 weeks for me, after which time I’ll have solidified my spot in CS 241 and JAPAN 102R, and then I’ll feel much better. I got accepted to the Digital Hardware option for CS (there are 15 spaces and there were only 15 applicants, for the reference of those of you thinking of taking it and want to know what enrollment has been like in previous years), and am taking MTE 120 (a Mechatronics Engineering class on circuits) next term as my first class in the option. It’ll be cool because I’ve been interested in digital circuit design for a while, but it’ll be kind of lame because the 8:30 am lectures are in DWE, which is a good 15-20 minute walk from res, 2 days a week (they’re in the MC on Fridays, which isn’t bad).
I also took a look at my schedule for next term (for those wondering what their classes are going to be timed like, Professor Case sent me this link a while back: http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/teaching/schedule.shtml). My schedule’s pretty screwed up. My Monday and Friday are OK (I have a half-day on Friday and my only afternoon class on Monday is an Algebra tutorial), but the other 3 days, well, quite frankly, suck. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have my MTE class at 8:30, then nothing till after noon, then 1 class, and a tutorial on Tuesdays. So I’ve gotta wake up early, then sit and do nothing for 3 1/2 hours. Not enough time to go have a nap, but too much time to play DDR. Oh well, I’ll find something. And my Wednesdays are going to be 12 hours of class solid from 9:30 am to 9:30 pm with 1 1/2 hours for lunch and 1 hour for dinner. Yeah. I lucksacked into that one big time. But my night class is JAPAN 102R, so I suppose I can’t complain too much.
On your first Co-Op term, you’re going to have to take a class called PD2. It’s apparently a new course, and there’s a lot of bugs in it. I wish for you that it’s better than it was for me. I’m going to use this section to rant about PD2, so be forewarned. It’s supposed to teach writing skills, however the course content is Grade 8 material, which you’re required to complete despite having likely learned it almost 5 years prior. The assignments are largely very simplistic as well. At the end, you have to write a report (this term we have to write a self-reflection on our writing skills…yeah, really cool, I know) without getting proper instruction as to formatting or help from the tutors (who are not allowed to look at your report prior to marking). But oh well, it’s gotta be done. There are 5 PD courses in total. You do one the school term before your first work term (yeah, I actually took 7 courses in my 1A term and did well in all of them), and then the next 4 during your first 4 work terms. Word is the other 3 probably won’t suck as much.
A couple of days ago, I started speaking with Professor Ragde about some Scheme-related things. We’ve been e-mailing back and forth for a couple of days, and PR (as he’s affectionately known on the message boards I’ll be plugging later on) has been teaching me a bit about Scheme. It’s really interesting, but not for the faint of heart (or faint of CS-skills). It’s completely unlike any language you’ve ever seen before, but I’d definitely advise looking into Java or C before trying to take Scheme on; not for the syntax, but for the analysis abilities. Scheme code is very difficult to read and understand, but it really gets you thinking once you get into it. Scheme has no For or While loops, and its If statements are kind of, well, iffy, but once you see a bit of code you understand why. Also, having taken a look at some CS 136 assignments PR pointed me to, it seems the assignments in the CS 135 and 136 courses are thinking-man assignments, not codemonkey-man assignments like CS 134 (the length of the assignments relative to the amount of thinking involved was one of my main complaints with CS 134). Without getting into the details (although I would be happy to answer any questions you have by e-mail), I would definitely advise taking CS 135 if you’re considering taking CS 134. It’s much more challenging and the language is almost useless outside of the course (Scheme is not used in any corporate setting), but the way you use the language really gets you thinking about other stuff you can apply to other things you do in CS, which is much more important in a 1st-year course. Plus CS 134 doesn’t teach GUI, and GUI is one of the most entertaining (albeit difficult, but entertaining nonetheless) things you can do with Java.
Rumour has it that the Forum for Admitted Students for 2007 has been created, and that people have joined. I would definitely advise anyone reading this to join the forum. It’s a great place to meet people, not only from your faculty but from other faculties as well, and to get questions answered if you have concerns about textbooks, buying a laptop, scholarships, or anything else like that. Additionally, yours truly will shortly be joining these boards himself to help answer your questions about class selection, course descriptions, or any other concerns you may have about the Math faculty, as well as to just meet some of next year’s frosh. But most important of all, if you want this job next year (and it’s a blast, even though it’s a volunteer job and there aren’t really any perks to it), you’ve gotta join the forums. That’s where The Man Upstairs (I’m not going to give you his name so you don’t all PM or E-mail him asking for the position) looks to find people for this position, and where he found me last year.
And for anyone wondering, I haven’t heard back from any of my other professors yet as to anything they would like me to add to this blog, so I’m presuming at this point that I’m doing a good job of it.
If anyone would like to reach me, as always, feel free to e-mail uwmathblogger@gmail.com. I’ll likely be using my classic moniker “Ertai87″ once I get my message board account (if I get to choose my own screenname), so you can contact me there as well.
Until next time,
Lyle Waldman
