Winter hit Waterloo on All Saint's Day. It started snowing in the morning and left a trail of people crying that they weren't dressed for it. In the meantime, I had been studying for a "midterm." How can it be a midterm, when we already had one? How can there be two middles of the term? I actually think I did reasonably well on it. Maybe even better than first one.
I'm starting to miss programming. So here's a couple of links: Operating Systems Development for Dummies and Sigop's Roll Your Own Operating System Adventure. I'm trying to use them to write my own operating system. Just for the fun of it. It's a pet project, and I don't expect it to really go anywhere, but I've wanted to explore the world of OS development for some time. The operating systems class I took in my first undergraduate whetted my appetite.
So I got a few midterms of the second set back. And the results are, drum roll please, pretty much the same as the first set. Greek and Hebrew descended slightly, but I wasn't really expecting to get perfect again on those. My Medieval History midterms have the exact same mark! The distribution of mark changed a bit, but the sum did not. Here, I thought I had an idea of what he was after this time. Nope, the mode (the mark that was most common) went down, even if the median and the mean didn't change.
It's really rather depressing in a way, that I'm stuck in some rut with my history midterms, while my language marks are starting to descend as the amount of information that I need to remmember get greater and everything gets more complex. I really do expect to be struggling with these languages next fall.
What's even more depressing is that I have a 7-10 page essay due next Thursday. I've written some six hundred words so far, and I'm afraid I won't be able to finish the thing in time. You'd think, because I have a week and I'm maybe a quarter or so done that I'm laughing. But I had hoped to finish the thing today, then pass it on to a friend to proof and mark up for me so I could go back and edit and get rid of the run-on sentences like this one and the much worse grammatical errors and whatnot. I'm not sure I'll be giving my friend enough time to read it and mark it up.
I think I'm also hitting a sugar low. Not having had a coke, chocolate in any form, or any other caffiene for pretty much four and a half weeks, I think I might have a handle on that addiction. Unfortunately, I'm starting to crave the sugar that I got with those things. I think I'll go have some lemon and honey drink to boost my blood's sugar content.
went my computer speakers. I wanted to watch a DVD on rorimac. Because when I listen to movies I can't hear them very well, I wanted to give some power to the speakers. So I unplugged my network switch, and plugged the power cord into the speakers. Pppopp! 'What was that?' When smoke started rising out of the speaker, I knew what it was. Well, I guess it's off to the store to find a nice speaker system. Maybe an amp and some larger speakers than what I had, though I always liked the fact that I didn't have to power my speakers. If I have larger ones, they won't get powered by the soundcard. :(
In other news, I finished a draft of my essay. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a reader so I can find what I did wrong and correct some grammar.
So, I figure my old computer speakers are gone now. The smoke was my main clue. Last night, I walked over to Future Shop and checked out what they had. I found a rather nice set of 4 speakers with sub for $50CDN. I thought that sounded like a good deal, but decided to sleep on it. Pretty much as soon as Future Shop opened this morning, I was over there and bouth the set. I stuck in The Matrix to see what that would be like, and I was wowwed. In the showdown scene in the subway, I could hear the individual sheets of paper blowing by, just before they go at it. I don't remember being able to hear that before.
I got a midterm back Wednesday. 96%! On a course that I got 81% on the previous midterm. That's seems weird. I knew the midterm was easier, but I didn't realise it was that much easier.
I wrote my English midterm (Arthurian Legends) yesterday. I have no idea how well I did. It had me scared silly, and I'm still afraid of it, 24 hours after finishing it.
The ten page essay that I handed in last night was long, but I think I did better than my last essay. Hopefully, I can do as well on the essay due on Tuesday.
So, I know I haven't posted anything for almost a week. And I have a good reason. The last week, I've been overwhelmed with essays. One of my essays was highly uninteresting, but, the other one, I think I'll share. It's actually a poem, based on a Middle English poem that was written in alliterative verse, with something called a Bob and Wheel at the end of each verse. Check out
Google to get an idea of the poem I'm basing this work on.
Only one more week left of lectures. The fun part, of course, is that, for two of my classes, the profs have decided to have only in class tests, so I have two tests later this week. One worth 25% and the other 20%. So it's study, study, study. Then I can relax for two weeks until my first final in the exam period.
I'm wondering if I look jewish. This week in my Hebrew class, a classmate asked me if I was Jewish. When I said no, he told me if I had been he'd wanted to mention the Jewish Student Association to me, since apparently he is. Well, I didn't think I could pass myself off as Jewish, but it provides interesting possiblities in life.
Two of my classes are done as far as testing goes. One still has a small homework assignment, but nothing very hard. That leaves three exams, which, if they're like the tests, they'll be reasonably easy.
Hmm, my first post mentioned tall stories. I'll have to scratch a bit.
Winter
by alan on Tue 5th Nov 2002 4:07PM
Winter hit Waterloo on All Saint's Day. It started snowing in the morning and left a trail of people crying that they weren't dressed for it. In the meantime, I had been studying for a "midterm." How can it be a midterm, when we already had one? How can there be two middles of the term? I actually think I did reasonably well on it. Maybe even better than first one.
I'm starting to miss programming. So here's a couple of links: Operating Systems Development for Dummies and Sigop's Roll Your Own Operating System Adventure. I'm trying to use them to write my own operating system. Just for the fun of it. It's a pet project, and I don't expect it to really go anywhere, but I've wanted to explore the world of OS development for some time. The operating systems class I took in my first undergraduate whetted my appetite.
Midterms coming back.
by alan on Fri 8th Nov 2002 4:08AM
So I got a few midterms of the second set back. And the results are, drum roll please, pretty much the same as the first set. Greek and Hebrew descended slightly, but I wasn't really expecting to get perfect again on those. My Medieval History midterms have the exact same mark! The distribution of mark changed a bit, but the sum did not. Here, I thought I had an idea of what he was after this time. Nope, the mode (the mark that was most common) went down, even if the median and the mean didn't change.
It's really rather depressing in a way, that I'm stuck in some rut with my history midterms, while my language marks are starting to descend as the amount of information that I need to remmember get greater and everything gets more complex. I really do expect to be struggling with these languages next fall.
What's even more depressing is that I have a 7-10 page essay due next Thursday. I've written some six hundred words so far, and I'm afraid I won't be able to finish the thing in time. You'd think, because I have a week and I'm maybe a quarter or so done that I'm laughing. But I had hoped to finish the thing today, then pass it on to a friend to proof and mark up for me so I could go back and edit and get rid of the run-on sentences like this one and the much worse grammatical errors and whatnot. I'm not sure I'll be giving my friend enough time to read it and mark it up.
I think I'm also hitting a sugar low. Not having had a coke, chocolate in any form, or any other caffiene for pretty much four and a half weeks, I think I might have a handle on that addiction. Unfortunately, I'm starting to crave the sugar that I got with those things. I think I'll go have some lemon and honey drink to boost my blood's sugar content.
PPopp!
by alan on Tue 12th Nov 2002 1:13AM
went my computer speakers. I wanted to watch a DVD on rorimac. Because when I listen to movies I can't hear them very well, I wanted to give some power to the speakers. So I unplugged my network switch, and plugged the power cord into the speakers. Pppopp! 'What was that?' When smoke started rising out of the speaker, I knew what it was. Well, I guess it's off to the store to find a nice speaker system. Maybe an amp and some larger speakers than what I had, though I always liked the fact that I didn't have to power my speakers. If I have larger ones, they won't get powered by the soundcard. :(
In other news, I finished a draft of my essay. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a reader so I can find what I did wrong and correct some grammar.
Sub.
by alan on Wed 13th Nov 2002 3:59AM
So, I figure my old computer speakers are gone now. The smoke was my main clue. Last night, I walked over to Future Shop and checked out what they had. I found a rather nice set of 4 speakers with sub for $50CDN. I thought that sounded like a good deal, but decided to sleep on it. Pretty much as soon as Future Shop opened this morning, I was over there and bouth the set. I stuck in The Matrix to see what that would be like, and I was wowwed. In the showdown scene in the subway, I could hear the individual sheets of paper blowing by, just before they go at it. I don't remember being able to hear that before.
This is suprising
by alan on Fri 15th Nov 2002 9:49PM
I got a midterm back Wednesday. 96%! On a course that I got 81% on the previous midterm. That's seems weird. I knew the midterm was easier, but I didn't realise it was that much easier.
I wrote my English midterm (Arthurian Legends) yesterday. I have no idea how well I did. It had me scared silly, and I'm still afraid of it, 24 hours after finishing it.
The ten page essay that I handed in last night was long, but I think I did better than my last essay. Hopefully, I can do as well on the essay due on Tuesday.
my essay
by alan on Mon 25th Nov 2002 12:32AM
So, I know I haven't posted anything for almost a week. And I have a good reason. The last week, I've been overwhelmed with essays. One of my essays was highly uninteresting, but, the other one, I think I'll share. It's actually a poem, based on a Middle English poem that was written in alliterative verse, with something called a Bob and Wheel at the end of each verse. Check out Google to get an idea of the poem I'm basing this work on.
One week.
by alan on Tue 26th Nov 2002 3:57PM
Only one more week left of lectures. The fun part, of course, is that, for two of my classes, the profs have decided to have only in class tests, so I have two tests later this week. One worth 25% and the other 20%. So it's study, study, study. Then I can relax for two weeks until my first final in the exam period.
Jewish?
by alan on Sat 30th Nov 2002 6:13AM
I'm wondering if I look jewish. This week in my Hebrew class, a classmate asked me if I was Jewish. When I said no, he told me if I had been he'd wanted to mention the Jewish Student Association to me, since apparently he is. Well, I didn't think I could pass myself off as Jewish, but it provides interesting possiblities in life.
Two of my classes are done as far as testing goes. One still has a small homework assignment, but nothing very hard. That leaves three exams, which, if they're like the tests, they'll be reasonably easy.
Hmm, my first post mentioned tall stories. I'll have to scratch a bit.