The complex analysis exam didn't go well per say; but I am pretty certain I passed, and I have heard rumours of a possible belling of marks, so I guess I'll wait and see.

The disadvantage of the late exam slot (7:30pm-10pm) is I end up too keyed up to go sleep, and hence why I am posting this rather past my usual bedtime (oh god, I am getting old, I have a usual bedtime, and it isn't 4am).

Tomorrow I start studying for my last exam on Friday morning.

Three exams written, two to go. Tomorrow is the one I have been worried about. My second show down with the beast known as Complex Analysis. It isn't till 7:30pm, so I relaxed this evening, and tomorrow the studying continues. I think it will go better this time; by which I mean I won't fail.  I studied with Wo this afternoon, and I think it was helpful.

I am very happy today for a completely unrelated reason. Alfy's Christmas presents have arrived in the mail! I was so worried it was going to be repeat of his last birthday when the present didn't arrive until after his Birthday.  :'-(

More politics related news, entering the results into computers found that the conservatives had only won by 43 votes, so a recount has been ordered for my riding. Fingers crossed!

I did nothing yesterday, and it felt wonderful. I am unburnt-out again, and back to work. Exam schedule came out yesterday, doesn't look too bad for me, except for having an exam on the last day.

This morning we went to the market with K. and restrained ourselves admirably. Maple syrup and squash! Tonight I am going to make more borscht for a friend, and hopefully finish another assignment. I and Alfy have started watching the Big Bang theory and finding it very funny.

The balcony garden is dying, with only 2 of the tomatoes and 2 of the peppers having successfully ripened, we are thinking of brining the pepper plant in to give a fighting shot for the remaining peppers.

Plane tickets booked for home, leaving on the 21st, return on the 3rd. The upside this year is I can escape to Calgary with my sister if things get to tense. There is stuff and places in Calgary, right? Well, more places than Grande Prairie anyway..... And I'll bring my gps and get OSM traces for the entire town of Hanna. That should burn a whole day right there.

I spent too much time wrestling with various distributed computing APIs yesterday. I think I am just going to write a straight report without any programs. Fortunately I have a good start, I just need to flesh out more sections and include more technical details. Still, it is going to be a long day of writing.

Alfy has been playing Okami for the Wii as close to continuously as he can get away with since he got it on Thursday. He has clocked about 25 hours. I remain mildly jealous. It looks like a beautiful game.

Also contributing to yesterday's relative lack of productivity was the discovery of indexed, and the resulting need to read the archives.

The day my last exam, the 25th, we are leaving for Montreal. Hotel and train tickets are booked. I'd be more excited if I wasn't still so preoccupied with my exams.

My Russian exam on Monday went really well, I felt I had over studied for it and had finished it in less than 30 minutes. It was the least formal exam I have ever written. There were 7 of us in the class, the professor was late because she couldn't find the room. No Watcards were checked, and the first person had finished and left in the first 20 minutes. It was also the lowest weighted final I have written at 15%.

Since then I haven't been as productive as I would have liked. Still, I have a good start on my project for Pmath 434, and I have done a little studying for that course as well. Tomorrow I'll be going to the library to pick up some more books for the project. I've heard back about some marks. I'd auto-passed cs 442 as it turns out, and I've done alright on cs 240. My assignment mark is up to 85% in cs 246, thanks to my actually doing the last two assignments. I remain optimistic about the term.

Tuesday was a especial nice day. I spent an exceedingly long time in Waterloo park enjoying the ducks.

Despite the stresses of the week, I think everything has gone well.

My worry about cs442 was well placed, all that studying yesterday was entirely necessary; but I think I managed to get an 80% on the final, so all is well. While waiting for the exam to start, I started writing up a table of contents on the front of my exam booklet, only to find the first question on the exam was 3 bonus marks for 'writing a table of contents on the front of your exam booklet'. Amused by this, I involved kittens in one of my definitions. Hopefully it cheers a marker up.

cs240 went very well, there were only 3 out of 20 questions I was uncertain about, and only one I had to outright guess on. Probably got it wrong. I tried to figure out the answer on my own for half an hour, and decided I wasn't really getting anywhere and passed in a good guess.

Of my three assignments, I know I got 100% on both my cs240 and cs442 ones.

I went to see The importance of being Earnest with Mark on Thursday night and quite enjoyed it. I really ought to do this whole going out to plays and other performances more often.

Last night we made bananas foster, although we made too much syrup, which made lighting it on fire difficult. It was still very, very tasty.

*sigh*

Right. To studying, all those Russian words aren't going to memorize themselves by Monday morning.

So far this week, I have had three assignments. What do I have left for the week? Two finals.

The cs442 review session has put fear into my heart. I want to start studying for it NOW; but I need to study for cs240. But truly I am ready for I know how to rotate an AVL tree!

*sigh*.

I can't wait for noon Monday, at which point I won't have another exam for 9 days, and I can lay down, and die, in peace.

I wish I didn't have two exams tomorrow. I want to be reading books on compilers and writing my essay for Russian literature. For once I feel like I actually have enough material to keep going for ten or more pages. My usual problem in writing essays is I strove to write concisely, so after six pages I have said everything I want to say, and then am left to try to fluff it up into the required minimum of 8, and then pass in 7 and half and hope the quality of the essay will excuse its quantity. This time though, I have *three* novels, and two subjects that I am going to examine in each.

I don't expect the exams to be hard, they are both in classes I have already passed; but such expectations can lead to unhappy results. I went to the cs 245 review session yesterday; but about the only thing I got out it was getting to watch a guy chug two cans of red rave one right after the other.

My mom sends me e-mails about being excited about my coming home, and I try not to think about it. She also sent me news my childhood best friend had a baby in high school, which child services took away because she continued to live with her violent drug-dealer boyfriend. Or something like that. I kind of didn't see that coming while trying to build a tree house together. If I get a third e-mail like this, I will be forced to conclude I spent my childhood with some pretty sketchy people.

This is the third day this week a package has arrived from Amazon for alfedenzo. My present for him seems to have finally arrived at AtticHaus.

I can't decided if this is the most awesome thing ever or the most depressing. Somehow though, either way, it seems right.

Ahhhh! So the estimator is a random variable. Wow. Suddenly this whole chapter seems a whole lot more straight-forward.

I am studying hard for stats. I am having good feelings about this exam; but then I thought I was ready to slaughter the midterm and proceeded to fail, so I remain wary.

I am having one of those good exam studying times where all this stuff that was scattered and non-intuitive all term just comes together and you start to really *dig* the subject. I remember a similar thing happening in grade 12 physics, just sitting there in class and suddenly being struck with the scope and sheer epic quality of the 'story' of physics that I had spent 10 months studying.

Too bad this euphoria of comprehension always wears off in the end.

I finally got some good solid studying in yesterday. I feel like I am getting a much better grasp on Gaussian response models and pivotal quantities now. And now the life in CS essay.

Thoughts on CS after a term

In short: I am still in the program, I am still enjoying the subject matter, and I am enjoying it despite a few...issues.

In long:

I think I am going to go for the double major. I determined that just taking the courses I want to take, I would be, under the 04/05 calender, only one fourth year PMath course away from graduation. Under the 05/06 calendar, I wouldn't even need that. Since my schedule is pretty full, and I want to have time to enjoy my courses, I think I will switch to the 05/06 calendar. If there was a 'trivial' 4th year Pmath course, I take it; but those really don't exist. They all fall into the categories of really hard, barely passable or suicidal. Next term, I am taking CS 240 (I've got reason to think it will be good), CS 246 (ugh), CS 442 (course override magic occurred), RUSS 202 (completion of my Russian minor! No breadth and depth for me!) and Pmath 434 (the prodigal daughter returns). I am kind of tossing around taking the graduate course on Chekhov and Pushkin my Russian prof wants me to take. I'll audit it anyway; but we'll see about actually taking it.

I find myself even more enthusiastic about the subject matter. I am reading textbooks. I am reading papers. I am going to profs and saying that was cool, where do I learn more? I am still poking around a bit with my own projects. This never happened in Pure Math.

In Pure Math, the program was so hard and so demanding, I didn't have time to learn on my own, to explore the topic on my own or to get enthusiastic, it was just struggle through, do a half assed job, hope to pass. I am getting enthusiastic about CS because it is 'easier'. It isn't necessarily that the subject as a whole is easier; but the program is, and that is giving me the breathing room I need to do my own thing. In second year CS, I look smart. I am doing really, really well. It makes me feel smart, it makes me feel like I am actually capable of mastering this stuff. I am getting much more encouragement from my professors in this program. Probably this is because I am now at the top of class instead of somewhere in the bottom middle.

Lowered expectations are probably a major contributor to my current happiness. I have come into CS expecting to be ground down by an uncaring and baroque bureaucracy, lousy classes and moronic classmates. Sadly it has not disappointed completely on all three fronts; but for the first two each instance has been isolated.

Now for the bad stuff.

So far the bureaucracy in CS has proven more incompetent than uncaring and more confused than baroque. My first set of 'sign-me-into-CS' forms got lost, so I had to go get them signed again. For some reason Quest decided it didn't want to let me sign up for CS 240 and CS 246 next term; but the advisor that signed my first set of forms got my in after my enrollment appointment (score 1 against uncaring). I found out about two and half months into the term I would need to petition to get my Russian minor recognized since it comprises a third area of study. In talking to the people at the undergrad office, I found out it will almost certainly be rubber stamped, however unless I want to petition twice, I should probably wait until after I have switched calenders.

I really can't complain about the bureaucracy. So far it has caused me only minor hassles and hasn't proven the obstacle I feared it would be. Maybe I just picked my advisor well; but it  hasn't lived it up to its fearsome reputation.

As for classes, both CS 241 and CS 245 have been really good. The material is good. The professors are good. I show up to them at 8:30am (well, not every day, I've missed a fair number of cs 245 classes; but no cs 241 classes). CS 251 I did not return after the first class. I consider going back for course evaluations; but I couldn't even bring myself to spend the time on that. I can't say much because I didn't go to the classes. No one I've talked to has given me any reason to consider going back. We don't appear to have covered any actual material in them and I don't think what material that got covered on the assignments, on the midterm and on the final is actually the curriculum. This makes me somewhat nervous for future classes that will depend on this material; but I'll read the textbook and ask FSM for help. The TA is saint. I feel so sorry for him and have sent him several e-mails through the term thanking him for his efforts to teach the course despite the professor. He really cares and fortunately this has been recognized and he will be teaching the course next term. It was kind of hilarious when he mentioned this in the final exam review session. The entire class went "awwwwww!" followed by applause.

So, only 1/3 classes have proven to be lousy. Meh.

My classmates, on the other hand, one very much in particular, fell even below my already low expectations. Those of you follow this space know about the assignment-snitching-weaselly-gnat-minded-bastard of whom I speak. He blew his slim chance of somehow claiming I let him copy my assignment by referring to me as 'he' during his interview. I shall say no more. As a general rule though, obviously my other classmates are nowhere near as bad. However, they have frequently proven themselves a rather pathetic lot.

Obviously my comments don't apply to every CS student. In particular they don't apply to any I am friends with. And onwards with the criticisms. This is all based on personal experience and anecdote. The earlier parts of this entry were too; but I wasn't making generalizations about my fellow students there.

I have found the guys in CS to be generally as arrogant as the ones in Pure Math. The main difference is that I have enough of a head start on them that I can hear how stupid they are. I was never good enough at Pure Math to tell if some one was spewing nonsense or wisdom, in CS I know. Or maybe Pure Math students know just enough to not make fools of themselves when they talk. Either way, I really wish CS students could be a bit more humble. Their vanity has never annoyed me, and I headed straight for pity.

I had a conversation with some guy where he kept bringing up the lambda calculus and how cs 245 was a waste of time since they didn't cover it. This would seem a acceptable argument to make. You could argue about the value of the lambda calculus and whether it belongs in cs 245 and so forth. Except, really he just came off an idiot. By his comments I can tell he has only the vaguest idea what the lambda calculus is, wouldn't be able to explain why it is of value for cs students to know, and in the mean time is not getting material already in cs 245. I am more sorry for this guy than anything else. Sooner or later he is going to say this to someone who will shoot him down. I am just too soft-hearted to do that to someone so obviously that insecure.

I was sitting in the lab and some people sitting behind me were working on a project, maybe OS. From the over heard conversation, I gather some change has been made and now the guy 'can't find his editor', and then gets nothing done for the whole hour I was there, constantly repeating "Where the fuck is my editor?" and variations on "I can't code without it!". Dude, you are in third year or the second half of second year, you shouldn't require some special editor to get anything done. Where the fuck is your brain? How the hell does this guy expect to, I don't know, make a living? I know the undergrad environment isn't, you know, nice; but seriously, if you honestly can't code outside this one editor, this implies you don't actually know how to. The only explanation I could come up with it maybe the editor saves the files in some sort of special format that only that editor can handle; but that would make it a bad editor, and this guy none too bright.

And more anecdotes ad-nausem

Two things bother me about this combination of ignorance and arrogance. First, if you think you know everything when in reality you have so for to go you don't even know you have things to learn, you are going to stay ignorant. Even if you do know you don't know what you are doing, if your ego is so fragile you can't stand admitting this, you are still staying dumb. I wonder if this kind of attitude is contributing to why most code written sucks. At least when someone acknowledges they have stuff to learn, they at least have taken the first step to not being stupid anymore. Second, this is the kind of attitude that scares people away form the field. If you are honest to yourself about how much you know; but don't know enough to spot how stupid most of what they say is, you are going to think you are stupid and you don't belong here and you aren't going to make it. Of course, this is a self-fulfilling attitude and unfortunately only bolsters the pride of the moron who scared you out in the first place.

I've got enough self-awareness to wonder if this is what happened to me in Pure Math. I have heard reports the majority of the people in the class are only scraping by, and maybe lots of the attitude I encountered that ultimately contributed to convincing me to quit was just being put up by people who were scared of failing too. Classic example of the differences between men and women? Maybe.

It is stressful and hard to be in a demanding academic program. I am willing to cut people some slack; but when your coping mechanism is sabotaging other people in the program, that isn't acceptable.

Of course, no one who needs to reads is going to, and even if they did, I am sure they would dismiss it.

So, that is my take on CS after a term.