A week of work by Jessie L. '07
Last week was one of those weeks where I had either a test or something due every day of the week.
Monday: 18.310 test corrections were due. 18.310 is Principles of Applied Mathematics, the discrete version (18.311 is the continuous version). In this class, the tests are deliberately made very difficult, but we can earn back up to half the points we lost if by correcting our mistakes. It’s a nice feature.
Tuesday: I had a 7-10 page (it ended up being 8 pages) paper due in 17.405, which is Politics and Conflict in the Middle East. My paper was on the relationship between religion and politics in Lebanon and Iraq. It was an interesting topic. Lebanese politics are really confusing, in case anyone was wondering.
Wednesday: The weekly 18.310 problem set was due. It had a lot of implementing Euclid’s algorithm, which at first glance seems more like number theory than applied math. Well, it is number theory. But it’s useful in creating codes, which is why we’re learning about it. A lot of 18.310 has something to do with codes.
Thursday: 9.71 midterm. I was pretty happy about it. 9.71 is fMRI and High-Level Vision. When I say this, unless I’m talking to another course 9 major, the usual response is “What?”, so I’ll explain that fMRI is functional magnetic resonance imaging. It’s kind of like an MRI, except that it takes lots of pictures instead of just one, and instead of just showing the anatomy of your brain, it shows which parts are being activated. So the class is about the use of fMRI to study vision.
Friday: The weekly 18.440 problem set was due. 18.440 is Probability and Random Variables. This problem set was on chapter 5, which is Continuous Random Variables.
For all that, though…I felt a little bogged down, but not overwhelmed with work. Having been in both situations, I can say that I’d rather have my due dates for my classes be spread throughout the week than have all of them due on the same day.
One of my major extracurricular activities was my part of the UA Committee on Orientation’s report on Orientation 2006 and the state of Orientation. More on that in a soon-to-be-written entry.
What did you do last week?
apply to MIT woohoo! cross your fingers everyone!
Midterm, two psets, 6 page paper.
Apply to MIT.
DO 6 chapters of physics, Chem and Bio
Do 1000+ Multiple Choice Questions
Sleep b/w 3-5 hours a night and a glorious 2-3 hours every 2 afternoons.
In all, have a load of fun
Wow, sounds quite busy indeed! Lets see.. Well, I suppose the highlight was teaching myself to “differentiate under the integral sign”, an integration technique that Feynman talks a lot about in his autobiography. If you haven’t read “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”, you’re missing out. Its an excellent book. Oh, and Feynman went to MIT.
I also learned that if you were to take a stretched spring and dissolve it in acid, the stored potential energy of the spring ends up as heat. It’s pretty obvious if you think about it, but I still think that it is very cool.
Hum. Other than that, just the typical schoolwork. I had a HORRIBLY DIFFICULT (note the sarcastic tone..) Calc III test on partial derivivatives and limits of 3D and 4D functions. I’m also reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, a very good book by George Orwell, and required reading for anyone that wishes to call themselves a geek. Yep, right up there with Hitchhiker’s guide..
I’ve also been making great strides in creating an Real Time Strategy game in C++ using OpenGL. Its some 4500 lines now. I’m very happy with it so far.
We started work on our teams FIRST robotics team robot!
Held my first Science Club meeting as President.
Finally.. SHOCKING FLASH CARDS! Woohoo! This week, I took apart one of those joke shocking pens, did some stuff on the computer, and added some electronics on the outside. Now the computer asks questions, and if you get them wrong, you get shocked! Theoretically you should learn a lot faster if you are punished for getting the questions wrong.. right?
As you can see, I had a lot of excess time on my hands. Schoolwork hasn’t been very challenging lately, so I like to learn things on my own.
I really enjoyed last week, sorry that yours was so busy. Chances are, you’ll have a fairly easy week now. If all of your classes had you do so much this week, there should be less work next week.
Good luck!
-Adam, class of ’11 hopeful.
Wow, that was LOOONG! Apparently I need my own blog.
Three cheers for FIRST!
I… went to school, applied to MIT, made my guidance counselor send out my school stuff for MIT, took a Science Olympiad test, played Zelda: Link to the Past and DDR, slept a lot, passed a Government test, and donated quilts at the Ronald McDonald house… Among other things, of course.
Hmm…lets see, I pulled quiet a few all nighters last week, thanks to my senioritis…
Monday I stayed up until five writing The Heart of Darkness study guide, a 40 questions essay response packet assigned about 3 weeks ago for Comp/Lit. Man, I should’ve started earlier.
Tuesday I went to the lab and took an NMR spectrum and turns out my compound was 85% pure!!!
Wednesday I applied to MIT, yay! And then I finished This Side of Paradise by Fitzgerald, an awesome read by the way.
Thursday I prograstinated on another English essay with a catch…it has to be under 500 words!!! That word limit abuse made me stay up all night again.
Friday: Finished MIT essays and went to a Halloween party…what’s life without some partying?!!?
Hopefully next week will be better, I mean, no more apps!
monday: electronic circuits exam, finished the light detector.
tuesday: informations and communications exam, alternative energy sources lecture after school
wednesday: math exam
thursday: physics exam, digital electronics exam
friday: croatian exam, rage against the machine vs. system of a down at a club
saturday: overslept programming, played path of neo whole day
sunday: watched a couple of movies, went out with some friends
that was a pretty weird week :D
Monday- Law and legal systems test
Tuesday- all district solo practice
Wednesday WH test I got a 100 yay!!! Her tests are so hard
Thursday- Rewrite thesis
Friday- States, worry about calc quiz that was Monday instead of Friday, catch up on MIT blogs I missed.
monday – absent – yay sleep!
)
tuesday -physics test (which I got a 5 out of 5 on and raised my average to an A – wohoo!)
wednesday -thursday – band practice
friday – calc test, then a football game which we got rained out of
saturday- band practice
today – band competition – (cheers to WOHS – NJ Group 5 state champs!
And This Side of Paradise is inherently awesome –
Kudos to yin!
What did I do last week?
Went to school every day with a migraine.
Got about half as much as I was supposed to finished for my AP Chemistry class, while I felt horrible and could not concentrate very well.
Attempted to at least slightly plan for the ACT and SAT.
Had a spill of hand sanitizer all over my Nintendo DS. I cleaned it up, but if anyone touches the R key it shorts out.
Had major fights with my two younger sisters.
Had an even more major fight with my mother.
Had no Internet Thursday because this is how much my mother and step-father care about my future (they cut it after the fight).
Refused to come home over the weekend. Had to find a place to stay for the weekend.
Stayed at my friend’s house.
Ended up maybe five minutes late when coming to retake the ACT and could not be admitted. This is causing a bit of trouble for my application now as my previous test did not include the writing portion and I hardly managed to get the fee waiver for the subject tests on the SAT much less the reasoning test.
Spent all weekend trying to get ahold of a couple people and figure out where I was going to stay this week.
Sunday finally got ahold of someone so that I could get keys to move somwhere other than with my mother and stepfather.
Once again did not managed to have enough time to finish the essays for this application.
…. Hmm, I guess I wasn’t too busy, just too stressed with the whole I-need-to-move-out thing.
Went to school, got home, conked out, got up and wrote apps. Of course.
Also throw in a bit of Law and Order and plenty of indie/emo music. =P Yesss. Because life is awesome that way.
Happy halloween! (It is Halloween here. :D)
Sunday; Finished up AP Physics problem set,and finished an AP Psychology packet, and went to work from 5 pm to 10 pm CST.
Monday; Took the brutal AP Calculus quiz, Finished a college application, did other homework. Worked on ethnography for a college level class
Tuesday; Did a timeline of my life for AP Psychology, took the multiple choice section of my AP Chemistry exam, did AP Calculus book assignment.
Wednesday; Studied for AP Psychology exam, did a writer’s log for the college class, studied for AP Physics exam. Took short answer portion of AP Chemistry exam.
Thursday; Took AP Physics exam, took AP Psychology exam, went over AP Chemistry exam. Did more AP Calculus homework.
Friday; Loads of homework. No pending exams
Saturday; Retook the ACT exam, studied for brutal AP Calculus exam, worked on my ethnography paper for my college class, then went to work from 5 pm to 10 pm CST.
Whew!
Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat: Physics!!
…just kidding. I knew you were jealous though.
Reality: there was a lot of slipping on the wet floors at work… and almost crushing a cake <-I did not tell you this.
I try not to think about all the homework. It’s too depressing. All I know is that I was doing some thinking and writing with words and numbers from 930pm-12/1am after work every night.
Best part of the week: making Physics C project (“Scrambler”) for Science Olympiad
Hmm, reading this reminded me of MY last week… A-levels (including Math and Physics), SATII’s…it was one thing after another, no time to breathe. Even after feeling that I’d done extremely well on my Statistics exam, there was no time to sit back and enjoy the feeling…more SATII preparation, and working Physics past papers….ah well, only 5 more days to go.