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September 28, 2006
life is a highway / i wanna ride it all night long
Today we are going to discuss all the interesting things I have learned this week. My classes are so interesting. So much more interesting than quantum mechanics, though in realitity it and my stats course are all about the probability of things (electron locations, getting AIDs)
I just read an interesting paper for my Policital Economy course about car theft preventation precautions. Say you put a club on your car. It is big and visable. A theft comes along looking for a car to steal. He sees your club and moves on to the car behind you. Though you have increased the benefit to you, you have passed on the cost to the collective by increasing the probability their car will be stolen.
Say you put in a lojack, which is an unobservable tracking device. Your car may be stolen, but the recovery rate is higher. More over, the lojack tracking results in the break up of chop shops and arrests of professional theives. Becuase thieves don't know which car has a lojack, they decrease their car stealing. These are positive effects for everyone.
From the paper:
"Lojack appears to be one of the most cost-effective crime reduction approaches documented in the
literature, providing a greater return than increased police, prisons, jobs programs, or early educational interventions."
Because the lojack indivual cost is low, it will be undersupplied by the market, though it results in a large collective good. Therefore insitutions (govern'ts mostly) try to encourage lojack installation by law mandated insurance discounts.
Next on.....
The probability of getting AIDs through a single unprotected sex act. It is lower than you think.
Posted by christina at 10:13 AM | Comments (1)
September 26, 2006
rooftops and invitations
The sunrise is amazing, especially over the water, specifically this morning over Lake Michigan.
I couldn't do it.
I am a failure.
I couldn't give up my morning runs. I just love having them done and not looming over my whole day. I ended up getting a parking permit, which i was on the waiting list for and didn't expect for a while. So i don't have to worry about parking, and I have a nice spot in a nice gated lot. I pulled myself out of bed this morning in time to be running by 6:15. Yeah it was dark, but it was almost dawn and the sun rose half way through my run. It is a beautiful sight, coming up over the lake.
It was tight, but i made it out the door by 7:45 in time to get down here for my 8:30 class. I am NOT a fan of traffic. Stupid traffic. Though it is just bad trying to get on to lake shore drive and driving the 5 miles between my place and downtown.
The math exam saga continues. I did take it up with the dean of students. She seems open to my solution of throwing out the last problem. She has forwarded it along to other people in charge. It seems hopeful.
Posted by christina at 10:06 AM | Comments (1)
September 25, 2006
becuase you're mine i walk the line
I am so angry now about the calc exam. I finally got it back. My main issue with the exam (before i even saw the exam) was that in the getting started information that the school sent us they said:
"Part one of the exam covers college algebra, including topics such as factoring, solving single
equations and systems of equations, sequences and summations, and logarithmic and
exponential functions. Part two of the exam covers univariate calculus, including calculus with
functions of a single variable, limits, unconstrained maximization and indefinite integrals."
23% of the calc exam covered multi-variable calculus. This was the last problem. I know how to do implicit differentiation (which i did correctly on the exam), but the problem wanted critical points, etc, which is just a formula, which i didn't know (not just setting it equal to zero). I did not review this materials due to the above statement.
Even including that problem, i was 4 pts away from passing. The other pts that I got counted off were really picky stuff and at least 4 of them I totally disagree with them taking off. I hated being picky about grading (i hated undergrads who were picky about grading), but at least 4 pts were because i did not regurgitate a definition he had told the OPTIONAL review course. I knew the answer and concept. I point blankly asked the lecturer if my exam showed that i have an understanding of calculus, he said yes. To which I said why isn't this passing. He didn't have a good answer.
If you throw out the last question (which should be done), I got a 77% on the exam, 7% above passing. (I was told wrong that the passing grade was 60%.)
The lecturer told me that I was to take it up with the dean of students.
I am not that angry that I failed. I'll retake the damn test. I certainly don't care. I'll memorize the stupid equation and retake the test. But it isn't fair to anyone who didn't go to the OPTIONAL math camp. The expectations were laid out and then we were tested on something different. This is an exercise in advocacy, which is one of my weakness. I dislike confrontation, so I have a tendency to shy away from confrontational situations in which I have every reason to advocate for myself. This is good.
Posted by christina at 5:43 PM | Comments (2)
September 23, 2006
when you know the chorus you can sing along
Once you reach old almost married age, you think you are missing the thrill of new relationships. I guess you are, but i have found some almost as good - a new friend. Ever since leta moved to CA, I've been missing a good local female friend. One who thinks like me and is in the same stage of life. It has been a fabulous pass couple of days because of my new friend.
Have you ever met someone and thought, yes, we are going to be great friends.
I has happened very rarely in my life. And i am like a giddy school girl. Okay, not really, but it has made me so much happier is relation to school.
Thursday was a crazy busy day. As part of orientation, we did community service in the morning. I like the idea and would have really liked it if we did some valuable. We spent two hours spreading mulch around trees at a park on the west side. It is amazing what 100+ people can do, but what good did we really do? We saved (according to the park service foreman) his park crew a week's worth of work. That is not worth my time! I don't know why we couldn't have helped at a soup kitchen or sorted donations at a shelter. Those are jobs that need volunteers or they won't get done. I really didn't need to spend my morning saving the city of chicago time/money.
Thursday afternoon and Friday we participated in the "dean's challenge". We were broken down into commissions and then into stakeholder groups and we had to come up with a plan for rebuilding new orleans. It was an interesting exercise in policy. It was hard. The situation is so complicated, there is no good, or even adequate answer. It reminded me how much i do love policy analysis (even in none science arenas).
Posted by christina at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2006
sometimes you feel like a nut
so i failed the calculus part of the math exam. turns out that how to do the last problem was in the lecture notes, i just missed those pages and since a similar problem wasn't on the practice exam, i missed missing those pages. it just makes me laugh. the exam wasn't easy, i concentrated my studying on algebra and the calc test asked things that have nothing to do with applying math (which is what i thought it was going to do), but asked picky things. it is going to be interesting to go over the exam with the instructor. I have issues with how the exam was given. I have issues with notation on the test. Not that it matters at all. i just have to retake it in dec.
the best part of it was because of failing, i bonded with two girls. they are both engineers. and really they made me not hate being at orientation. and i was hating it. it was seeming all the people i was meeting where young, single, and way interested in going out to the bars. one of these girls is a smige older than me and married. We have a lot of the same issues with science and careers and family and not wanting to stay at parties until 3 in the morning (like the chick next to me this morning did). so as it is said, everything happens for a reason. if i got a cool friend out of failing the calc part of the math exam, then it was totally worth it.
Posted by christina at 5:19 PM | Comments (2)
September 19, 2006
half way there
ben and megan from pete's show in new york in july
I survived the math exam. It wasn't bad. Except for one problem on the calc part. I know that I probably knew how to do it is later calc course at GT, but it wasn't in the review packet, so I was clueless when faced with z=F(xy) where one needed to use implicit differentiation and find critical points and inflection points. Maybe the covered it is class..who know.
I have stepped into a world that is 180 degrees away from my last...well..not counting the math exam which was a little too much like my freshman year of college. The rest of the day was spent at a welcome picnic (best food at a department picnic award). In the afternoon we saw the President of the Dominion Republic speak. It is the PP's school big lecture for the quarter, and it was quite amazing that I got to see a president of a country speak (okay a small country, but STILL, who did you listen to in person yesterday?). It was an interesting talk. I came away with a couple points about latin america:
(1) social (economic) disparity leads to political unrest (see Mexico's current political problems)
(2) it is hard for latin american to compete trade-wise with asian countries due to the difference in work ethics
(3) for true economic growth, infrastructure matters a lot. If there is not dependable electricity, it is hard to attract companies.
After the talk, we had to stay in the room until the President + people had left in their cars. It was quite the event.
My registration and people worries were quelled yesterday. I got the class times I wanted. I met lots of people. And was reminded that I'm just not a fan of most people. i am nice and stuff, but at the end of the day I am so happy to be going home to my b/f and my kitty. I am just not in the place in my life anymore where going out to the bars and getting drunk in the early morning at parties interests me.
I did my first afternoon run in years yesterday. Due to class times + parking + traffic, it works out best if I leave at 7:30. so no running for me in the morning. (it is dark at 6 am.) I was apprehensive about my run just because in the morning I am just not awake enough to realize that i am running for an hour until it is almost done. Immediately upon leaving my apartment yesterday all i could think about is being done. In defense of my legs, it was day 3 in a row. They are always tired right before their off day. Though i hear two running stories on my NPR podcast, and that inspired me. One was on Thai Chi Running (or something like that). It is suppose to be less hard on your joints. I think i run like they were describing. I wear excellent shoes with excellent^2 support. I try to land soft and not push off with my toes (made easier due to excellent shoe support). I got through my 5.5 miles with little pain. Strangely, I do miss working out in the mornings. It was great to get me going for the day.
In theory, I am suppose to be using this time before orientations starts on my oxide publication. (one last thing from my science life.) obviously, i am not. but i am done early today (2:30) and it is my off day for running, so besides some core and weights, I have some time this afternoon before i meet ben for dinner.
Posted by christina at 8:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2006
nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time
my running route.
This has been the week of wedding and math. If i haven't been working on one, I have been working on the other.
I'm feeling pretty good about the math exam. I took the practice exam and checked what i could in maple/ti-85. I definitely got the 60% though i do need to brush up on using derivatives to graph complicated functions. One of the hardest things is to remember that you can't take the square root of a negative number. For a long time in my world you can. In math exam world, you cannot. I'm excited to be starting on Monday, though i could have used more of a break then the hour i spent waiting true hollywood story on kelly ripa. I'm starting to worry about stupid stuff like registration (getting a certain discussion section time) and the fact that pretty much my whole class has been down at school for 2-3 weeks at math camp. Why i am worried about this, I don't know. Sometimes I'm a Jr. High girl. I'm only interested in finding good people to work on groups with. I really need to just be patient. i always over worry things when things turn out better then great. I made friends with someone during orientation week at NU, and that turned into me not paying that much attention in class due to note writing (we were like jr. high girls). After a bit, I found great people. Moral of that story - the first person you meet (though a great person) isn't always the best-for-you person you'll meet. Time. Things like that take time. Like Jr. High, my apprehensiveness resides in the joining of groups where people already all know each other. The outsider worry. Group projects are way better if you have good group members.
I'm pretty tired of wedding stuff. The week we've gone to l.g. twice - once for tasting/event site stuff and once for the marriage license and flowers. (Marriage licenses are SO DUMB. i do not understand why the government gets involved. if two people sign a marriage contract, then why do they care?) we've met with ceremony music dude (quite cool). today i picked up my wedding dress. we've gotten so many present it is ridiculous. ben's parents friends are quite generous. I'm in love with our pattern and our flatware. I must admit that i found the whole registering for things tiring, but the plates and forks are awesome.
Posted by christina at 7:03 PM | Comments (0)
September 9, 2006
standing up for nothing
Well, it was a good week. I finally solved the block puzzle at Tom's. I've been trying forever, and last night while watching V for Vendetta, I finally got the thing back together correctly. It was awesome.
I've spent the day working math problems. Caedmon's Call came up on my playlist and i was quickly transported back to my first two years of college. I worked a lot of problems and listened to a lot of music that year. I'm reminded of weekends full of wholesome activities and lots of studying. I am not a good tester. It is a fact. And though it seems this week i have achieve the ultimate goal in engineering (education wise), i am lost in memories of classes I did not do great in. As i review my math, I love how the number slip around in my head. I love getting problems right. I love figuring out what I did wrong when I do not get it right. It is a new feeling. After 4 years of math which used a lot of "tricks" (fourier transforms of x-ray data, quantum physics), I find much joy in the simplicity of logarithms functions. They become straight forward. Quantum mechanics never did. In defense of quantum mechanics, I probably would do better now then then. A 2+ years break from classes make spending time on the concept of them more attractive. I would probably have a better time with quantum mechanics now that my life is settled. The quantum mechanics quarter was full of settling in to chicago and all the drama that came with it. (Oh boys. they distracted me.)
I look forward to starting classes. Some of them will be quite different, but the stats and econ classes that comprise the majority of my first quarter will be reminiscent of my undergrad (probably b/c i took those classes then. Though i was 18 when i took econ for engineers and i did not go to my stats class b/c well, i had stuff to do. i was the only class i ever skipped regularly. and i deserved the c i got in it. obviously, didn't cramp my further education.
Posted by christina at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)
September 7, 2006
done done doneish
i passed. my defense went as expected. they only questioned me for 45 minutes. i only have a couple of corrections that i'll get done today. the best thing was that my mom (with the help of ben and ben's parents) totally surprised me at my defense. i hadn't even asked them to come, since i'll see them in a month, but she totally was sitting in the conference room with ben's parents when i walked in. crazy! it was awesome
all it all i'm pretty much still in shock (numb) that i am done. it is just an unknown feeling. I do have a crazy amount of stuff to do before i start at the next school. but yeah, it feels good.
Posted by christina at 8:37 AM | Comments (3)
September 6, 2006
up, up and away
i've written, planned, practiced, and read.
here goes nothing...
Posted by christina at 7:36 AM | Comments (1)