A brief realization…and news

First I’ll get the usual boring academic crap out of the way:

Nothing has really changed in any of my classes. As predicted, I destroyed the JAPAN 202 Quiz 1 (1st midterm, whatever). I beat the class average by about 10 marks (about 20%). I made a stupid mistake though; I forgot a grammar point from 102 and used the wrong verb tense in one place and lost a mark…it was kind of silly…otherwise, though, I did well.

I figured out I need to start working harder in CS240. I’m really upset at myself now. For Assignment 5, I only got about 50% on it, not because I didn’t know how to do it, but because I didn’t have enough time to debug. After the due “date”, I e-mailed Prof. Cormack and told him what my solution was *supposed* to be (obviously not what my solution *was* because as-is my solution didn’t work), and he e-mailed me back telling me I had the right solution, meaning if I’d spent more time debugging it, I would have got full marks. On one hand it means I know my stuff, but on the other it means I need to start working harder in that class to get my assignments done on time.

I have a bit of a problem with CS251 this week. It appears Prof. Morton (apparently he does have a PhD) posted the next assignment 2 days before Reading Week (yes, Reading Week, basically the University equivalent of March Break), and made it due at noon the day after Reading Week finishes, meaning it’s going to be nigh-impossible to get any help on it. He also decided to put a bashit-insane problem on it that I have no clue how to even begin, which makes the problem a bit worse. I tried asking about it on the newsgroup; they won’t give us extensions, but hopefully I can get some help. Other than this, I’m going to try to take it easy during Reading Week.

The EASIA250 problem has been resolved. MUO sent me to talk to the Associate Dean of Co-Operative Education for Math (don’t ask me why I had to talk to the Associate Dean of anything; it was supposed to be a simple problem, but whatever), and he was a really nice guy about it. He let me override into the class with no issues. The only problem he said would be that I couldn’t do JobMine this term (i.e. I can’t get a co-op job through UW, meaning I have to either find one on my own or I can’t get a co-op credit for the term). I knew this was going to happen though, so I’m not upset about it; I’d planned for this when I decided to do EASIA250 in the first place. I still don’t know why MUO were such bureaucrats about it though when it was such an easy problem.

LunarFest was a blast. I went to it on Wednesday night. Every year, the Alliance of Asian Clubs puts on this event. There’s generally a daytime and nighttime part to it, the nighttime being a fashion show and a party at a local club. Only one other person from KonJa was there (although one of the models was in KonJa, so technically 2). The fashion show was great; after working on a similar project in high school, I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of work that went into this. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. It wasn’t quite as elaborate as the stuff I did in high school, but I could still see how much work there was.

After the fashion show, me and the girl from KonJa went to East Campus Hall, a building way on the outskirts of campus where the Fine Arts classes are, where she and her friend changed for the nightclub party. I’d never been to East Campus Hall before, but it was quite a nice building. I couldn’t imagine spending 6 hours a day twice a week in there though like the Fine Arts people do though. Heck, I can’t even play video games for 6 hours straight!

The nightclub party was…well, a nightclub party. For those unlike myself who like that kind of thing, it was great. I, unfortunately, am one of those people who get uncomfortable in clubs, hence it wasn’t my cup of tea. I stayed there until about 1 am when I went home and slept for my midterm the following day (CS245).

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that. I had a CS245 midterm on Thursday that I wrote on about 6 hours of sleep and about 1 hour of studying. The test has yet to be returned, so I can’t say for sure yet, but all I know is that I answered every question, overanswered at least half of them, triple-checked my answers, and walked out an hour early. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but I’m confident to say that I did well. I think it’s reasonable to expect so though, since I saw at least 5 or 6 people walk out before me.

Basically the midterm consisted of “prove De Morgan’s Law 3 times in 3 different ways, draw 2 truth tables, and answer some true/false questions”. Since I had already proven De Morgan’s Law on Assignment 1, it was pretty much a breeze for me.

So that’s basically the story with academics for now. But I came to a realization while I was watching the fashion show at LunarFest that I’d like to share, which is really my reason for making a post at 1:30 am (aside from having nothing better to do):

University life is really different from highschool life, especially if you’re away from home like I am. In high school, you (or at least I) find that you do much of your socializing at the behest of some combination of parents, other relatives, and the local transit system. In university (or at least at UW), I find this is not quite true anymore. For example, I went to the LunarFest fashion show, something I wouldn’t normally do, by myself, mostly because I could. I mean to say that you don’t really get that kind of an opportunity in high school, where most people’s socializing consists mainly of alcohol, clubs, video games, malls, or some combination of the 4 (movie theatres are lumped in with malls). Unless you actively look for such things, there’s no way to really find out about weird and interesting things that go on outside of those 4 standbys. In University, you get exposed to a lot of different things because they’re widely advertised on campus. Things like LunarFest or CTRL-A shows.

Also, since so many people (at least of the people I know) live on or around campus, unlike in high school where your friends, like you, are at the behest of parents and/or local transit, you can kind of make your own social schedule in university. If you feel like staying up in the V1 caf playing cards till 1am like I did on Monday night, you can do it. You have a lot more freedom here, and that’s really cool.

Anyway, a brief YAY READING WEEK!!!! to all, and until next time,

Lyle Waldman