10 Years After: 01.11.2004

March The Mad Scientist

Bio lecture was okay. The instructor began class by wasting a good 5 or so minutes setting up his videocamera to record his lecture. The first day of class he told us how he received a $4,000 grant that netted him the videocamera and a large screen monite- not a television, he noted, but a monitor. If we missed class for a good reason we could talk to him and watch the video for the session in his office where the large screen monitor resides. The videocamera is odd in that he commented that he records in high definition, but it looks like a huge clunky videocamera from the mid 80s. It's gigantic. The lecture itself was another day of odd comments and tangents that resulted in about 5 minutes of actual nuts-and-bolts science. This from a 55 minute long class. It's agrravating.

History of the Holocaust was neat. We talked about some of the early Christian views of Judaism and the roots of anti-sematism. Also, the instructor laid out three golden eras of Judaism. The first was under the Moorish control of Spain. The second was after the reconquista of Spain and the crusades, when Jews fled and were invited to the Polish kingdom. The last was in the late 19th and early 20th century in Germany.

(My car is still in the shop. The verdict on repairs needed was that it required a new transmission. For $300 more than the rebuilt transmission I could get a brand new one with a 3 year or 75,000 mile warranty. I went with the new transmission and goals to keep it for several years now that I've put almost $4,000 in repairs into the car in nearly a month. I should be getting it back Monday- when I called the shop today they said they had just received the transmission to install it.)

posted by Hiro # 1/16/2004 01:27:00 PM | 0 comments

1.15.2004

The Science Of Selling Yourself Short

I actually got up and made it to my bio lab this morning. It's only one day a week, Thursdays, at 9:15 and It's suppose to last until 11:05, right before my History of the West; which I won't have today due to the instructor going to New Orleans for a confrence.

Class was strange. The instructor is a grad student and someone I noticed yesterday sitting off to the side in the Bio lecture. He looks to be in his mid 30s- sort of scruffy looking with a goatee and a short ponytail. He mentioned that he was interestedin botany.

Anyways, that's not the strange part. In class we had to form groups to start with the experiments. First was one where we will grow seeds and note the impact of fertilizer on their growth. Four seeds receive fertilizer and four, the control, do not.

The second experiment was where we measured biceps and then entered the data (bicep size and gender) into a spreadsheet in excel. The point was suppose to be that we would look at the standard deviation and be amazed that male and female sizes are not all that different. However, and this is the strange part, the instructor didn't know how to get excel to compute the standard deviation.

Instead of being in class for 2 hours it lasted about 30 minutes. He said that he'd figure out how to do it before the next class session. (Which is fine, I still need to pick up a lab manual.)

I'm over in the library. After checking mail I checked to see what I need to do for my online World Civ class. The previous post on the message board by the instructor asking us what world history meant to our education has disappeared. There is, though, an online quiz that I need to complete before Sunday night.

These online quizes are a bit strange in that one can take them over and over again (each time it'll generate different questions) until one is satisfied with the grade for that quiz. Plus, you get to use your book, whatever notes, etc. while you take the quiz (or test) since you are doing them from your homepc or where ever.

Also, I have the same instructor for World Civ that I do for East Asian history and, strangely, the module for the first two chapters of the World Civilization class read as if they were lecture notes from yesterday's East Asian History class.

Now I'm off to the bookstore to see if I can find a lab manual. (Or, perhaps, I can borrow one from someone in my group and just make some photocopies :)

posted by Hiro # 1/15/2004 10:32:00 AM | 1 comments

1.14.2004

Crushing Day

Today was my long day at school. I had Bio and History of the Holocaust. Plus, I had 2 hours of East Asian History since 1900. Despite being a bit long, classes went well. I'm a bit anxious over all the reading that I'll have to get done this semester. Oh, and I have a 10 page paper to write in my East Asian history. My first thought for a topic was to build up a paper based on a off the cuff comment by my holocaust instructor about flair ups of anti-sematism in Japan in the 1990's despite practically no Jews living in Japan. Later in class I thought some sort of thesis about Polpot's destruction of Cambodia's history to transform it into a first world country would be interesting.

posted by Hiro # 1/14/2004 11:36:00 PM | 0 comments

Faaip de Oiad

Rather than go through the hassle of arguing with Burgess about getting into his class I took the easy way out and decided not to take the class. Not only do I get to avoid a conversation with him but I also get to split up the final requirement, which I had sought to consolidate with History of Rome, so that I can help pull up my GPA a bit more. Still, I need to get cracking on references to grad school. The office that does the Using Information Technology tests said to come back next Friday. I also need to enroll for the GRE and exit exam. I think I'll have to give up a Saturday afternoon for the exit exam as all of the other times are when I have class. Also, one weekend in March will have to be set aside for my Orienteering class- either the weekend of the 13th or the 20th.

Otherwise classes are going well. The only thing to report is that my bio lecture instructor reminds me of Milton from Office Space. It's not just his appearance but also his voice. It's quite distracting. Also, he makes weird sound effects and inane jokes and Star Trek references. Two classes periods and only 5 minutes worth of actual science. I hope I can make it through Biology for Non-science Majors. It's so remedial I want to read ahead, only since the book costs $80 used, and this will be the last semester they're using it, I'm tempted to forgo buying the book or picking up a used older edition.

Car problem update: my car needs to have the transmission replaced. After all the money I've dumped into repairs I can't walk away now. The price? $2,000 with a 3 year or 75,000 mile warranty. *groan*

posted by Hiro # 1/14/2004 12:09:00 PM | 0 comments

10 Years After