Day One! :D
Sep. 5th, 2007 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eponymous_roseYes, I'm overusing the LEARNINGS icon.
I had my stupid foot (as opposed to the clever one that doesn't die when walked on) bombarded with HIGH-FREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION!11one! today, which was much fun. I'll find out tomorrow whether further action is necessary - my doctor seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing, though. "If the films come back with nothing and if it still hurts in... say... two weeks, hey, I'll take another look at it." I can deal with this! Pain's going away but it's looking much less pretty. My poor footsie.
I got to school at ten to eight despite my shambling and somewhat... zombielike gait. I am convinced that I'm physically incapable of getting to class late - no matter how late I leave or how slowly I walk, I always make it. Another superpower! But I was feeling grumpy due to the foot and so avoided the confused-looking freshmen in the hopes of not freaking them out.
Chem
First off is the second part of the freshman inorganic chemistry course, which I am taking because: hey! Chemistry! Also because it's in the off-term, and so the class average is typically abysmal, which works to my advantage liek woah (though nothing can top the 59% = 3.3 (on the four-point scale) weirdness of Mechanics last term).
Dr. A is awesome - a bit quiet with a bit of an accent (something very cool and Eastern European), but generally very easy to understand. He showed several cartoons, one of which mocked his abysmal handwriting (thus the typewritten notes), and mentioned that his office hours are 9AM-4PM MWF (plus extensions if need be), which is pretty dang amazing. I had a professor who laughed in the face of office hours, and another who would pick a random (and different) hour each week to appear in his office as though magically summoned by some wacky and possibly deranged spirit. Dr. A has also mastered the INTARWEBS and has a lovely hi-tech website all set up for us. Huzzah!
In terms of homework, only lab reports are actually taken in for marks. Huzzah again!
Much cheered, I then wandered over to the nearest cafeteria and bought a terribly overpriced fruit cup. Because there isn't an hour's worth of fruit in that cup (though it would probably still be overpriced if there were), I decided to scout out the wonky sixth-floor Math classroom that's in a fairly unfamiliar building, which turned out to only be accessible via an elevator from the second floor. Right. But ten o'clock was fast approaching, so I scurried off and decided to hope for the best in retracing my steps.
Thermodynamics
Second course of the day: Atmospheric Physics, which I am taking because it's, y'know, required. Got off to a really awesome start when I stepped in the door and the TA (best-buddy-coworker from the summer's research job) jumped up from her seat and started waving madly - which gained her some odd looks, considering the classroom is tiny. And then someone snagged my arm and I was shuffled into a seat next to two of my Atmospheric Science geekery friends! Woohoo! We exchanged our summer storm-chasing anecdotes (one friend spotted a tornado, the other saw a funnel cloud. I tried to argue that my analysing and cataloguing hail reports over twenty-five years was much cooler.) before class began.
New professor, Dr. S, fresh from McGill and NASA and all sorts of European space programs. Leetle intimidating! All in all, a very nice guy, with a strong French accent that made me hearken back to the days of Immersion. He told us a bit about his research interests, did that I-will-bug-you-until-you-participate brand of ice-breaking, and discussed the different scales of atmospheric physics. He then left us with a dramatic question - since the tiny water droplets that make up clouds and the water in rain are the same density, why don't clouds fall out of the sky?
As soon as he'd left the room, I admitted my geekiness and answered the question: "Because of compensating updrafts greater than the weensy droplets' terminal velocity."
Homework? None in this class. W00t!
Since our next class was in the same room, we didn't bother doing anything so energetic as standing up. Instead, we sat in our seats and peered around, trying to pick out the people who were staying for the second course - and pounced on the girl behind us when she didn't leave, proclaiming her to be another atmospheric scientist. She was astounded at our deductive prowess and coveted our matching AtmosSci hoodies (which we plan to wear on Friday to freak people out). We are a small and very lonely department.
Fluid Dynamics
Third course of the day, second in a row: Atmospheric Fluid Dynamics, which I am also taking because it's required.
Dr. M has been teaching this class for the past fifteen years, and seems like a really decent sort of guy! He's an oceanographer, which means that we'll probably go into some detailed digressions on the subject, but I'm okay with that! He told us a bit about the atmosphere-ocean system and new modelling projects in effect, and admitted to being a total computer geek. Yes! He then broke the news that we'd have to give an oral presentation in our labs. Eek! But huzzah to getting practice on that...
Homework? Lab reports, and that's it!
I said my goodbyes and dashed off to try and find the Hidden Classroom of Doom, it being close to noon already. I had no trouble, actually, which was a surprise, and wandered into the classroom at the same time as my Physics buddy, who inexplicably went to sit at the very back of the lecture hall. Turns out there's only one leftie-desk in the whole place! Seriously, what, ten percent of the population is left-handed? What's up with the lack of leftie-desks? (Mind you, this particular building is old enough to have been originally built without women's washrooms, so it's not terribly surprising that it's lacking in other areas.)
Math
Fourth course of the day, third in a row: Ordinary Differential Equations, which I am taking as an elective because I'm absolutely insane.
Speaking of absolutely insane, Dr. K is that. In a wouldn't-want-to-meet-him-in-a-dark-alley way. He mumbles and gestures and blinks and slouches and is generally scruffy. He's also got the most hilarious deadpan sense of humour and told us about having been thrown out of several restaurants in Japan for being "unsavory" (and when he tried to tell them he was a renowned professor of Mathematics, they didn't believe him). His catch-phrase appears to be "No, it's the truth!". Well, that or "Sonuvabitch!", which he bellowed every time one of his diagrams got too cluttered. Woke us up in a hurry. And he loves Math History, which means that he has a store of awesome stories that will probably show up in my Doctor Who writings. (Did you know that Calculus wasn't invented by Newton as commonly thought - it was invented by pirates? No, it's the truth! Pirates, to help with their navigation! Of course, they couldn't figure out how to solve the equations they came up with, but it's still awfully cool.)
Homework? Freakin' none!
And then I had lunch. Phew.
Holy cow. This is the first year where I'll have no assignments. (A comparison: I had assignments in four classes last term. Long and frightening ones due each week.) This is unbelievably nice! Of course, I'll have quizzes galore, but those I can deal with. :D
Tomorrow? My lone Arts course, Issues in Human Geography, which I have at eleven tomorrow morning. And then I can go home at 12:30. A slacker am I! :D
I had my stupid foot (as opposed to the clever one that doesn't die when walked on) bombarded with HIGH-FREQUENCY ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION!11one! today, which was much fun. I'll find out tomorrow whether further action is necessary - my doctor seemed pretty relaxed about the whole thing, though. "If the films come back with nothing and if it still hurts in... say... two weeks, hey, I'll take another look at it." I can deal with this! Pain's going away but it's looking much less pretty. My poor footsie.
I got to school at ten to eight despite my shambling and somewhat... zombielike gait. I am convinced that I'm physically incapable of getting to class late - no matter how late I leave or how slowly I walk, I always make it. Another superpower! But I was feeling grumpy due to the foot and so avoided the confused-looking freshmen in the hopes of not freaking them out.
Chem
First off is the second part of the freshman inorganic chemistry course, which I am taking because: hey! Chemistry! Also because it's in the off-term, and so the class average is typically abysmal, which works to my advantage liek woah (though nothing can top the 59% = 3.3 (on the four-point scale) weirdness of Mechanics last term).
Dr. A is awesome - a bit quiet with a bit of an accent (something very cool and Eastern European), but generally very easy to understand. He showed several cartoons, one of which mocked his abysmal handwriting (thus the typewritten notes), and mentioned that his office hours are 9AM-4PM MWF (plus extensions if need be), which is pretty dang amazing. I had a professor who laughed in the face of office hours, and another who would pick a random (and different) hour each week to appear in his office as though magically summoned by some wacky and possibly deranged spirit. Dr. A has also mastered the INTARWEBS and has a lovely hi-tech website all set up for us. Huzzah!
In terms of homework, only lab reports are actually taken in for marks. Huzzah again!
Much cheered, I then wandered over to the nearest cafeteria and bought a terribly overpriced fruit cup. Because there isn't an hour's worth of fruit in that cup (though it would probably still be overpriced if there were), I decided to scout out the wonky sixth-floor Math classroom that's in a fairly unfamiliar building, which turned out to only be accessible via an elevator from the second floor. Right. But ten o'clock was fast approaching, so I scurried off and decided to hope for the best in retracing my steps.
Thermodynamics
Second course of the day: Atmospheric Physics, which I am taking because it's, y'know, required. Got off to a really awesome start when I stepped in the door and the TA (best-buddy-coworker from the summer's research job) jumped up from her seat and started waving madly - which gained her some odd looks, considering the classroom is tiny. And then someone snagged my arm and I was shuffled into a seat next to two of my Atmospheric Science geekery friends! Woohoo! We exchanged our summer storm-chasing anecdotes (one friend spotted a tornado, the other saw a funnel cloud. I tried to argue that my analysing and cataloguing hail reports over twenty-five years was much cooler.) before class began.
New professor, Dr. S, fresh from McGill and NASA and all sorts of European space programs. Leetle intimidating! All in all, a very nice guy, with a strong French accent that made me hearken back to the days of Immersion. He told us a bit about his research interests, did that I-will-bug-you-until-you-participate brand of ice-breaking, and discussed the different scales of atmospheric physics. He then left us with a dramatic question - since the tiny water droplets that make up clouds and the water in rain are the same density, why don't clouds fall out of the sky?
As soon as he'd left the room, I admitted my geekiness and answered the question: "Because of compensating updrafts greater than the weensy droplets' terminal velocity."
Homework? None in this class. W00t!
Since our next class was in the same room, we didn't bother doing anything so energetic as standing up. Instead, we sat in our seats and peered around, trying to pick out the people who were staying for the second course - and pounced on the girl behind us when she didn't leave, proclaiming her to be another atmospheric scientist. She was astounded at our deductive prowess and coveted our matching AtmosSci hoodies (which we plan to wear on Friday to freak people out). We are a small and very lonely department.
Fluid Dynamics
Third course of the day, second in a row: Atmospheric Fluid Dynamics, which I am also taking because it's required.
Dr. M has been teaching this class for the past fifteen years, and seems like a really decent sort of guy! He's an oceanographer, which means that we'll probably go into some detailed digressions on the subject, but I'm okay with that! He told us a bit about the atmosphere-ocean system and new modelling projects in effect, and admitted to being a total computer geek. Yes! He then broke the news that we'd have to give an oral presentation in our labs. Eek! But huzzah to getting practice on that...
Homework? Lab reports, and that's it!
I said my goodbyes and dashed off to try and find the Hidden Classroom of Doom, it being close to noon already. I had no trouble, actually, which was a surprise, and wandered into the classroom at the same time as my Physics buddy, who inexplicably went to sit at the very back of the lecture hall. Turns out there's only one leftie-desk in the whole place! Seriously, what, ten percent of the population is left-handed? What's up with the lack of leftie-desks? (Mind you, this particular building is old enough to have been originally built without women's washrooms, so it's not terribly surprising that it's lacking in other areas.)
Math
Fourth course of the day, third in a row: Ordinary Differential Equations, which I am taking as an elective because I'm absolutely insane.
Speaking of absolutely insane, Dr. K is that. In a wouldn't-want-to-meet-him-in-a-dark-alley way. He mumbles and gestures and blinks and slouches and is generally scruffy. He's also got the most hilarious deadpan sense of humour and told us about having been thrown out of several restaurants in Japan for being "unsavory" (and when he tried to tell them he was a renowned professor of Mathematics, they didn't believe him). His catch-phrase appears to be "No, it's the truth!". Well, that or "Sonuvabitch!", which he bellowed every time one of his diagrams got too cluttered. Woke us up in a hurry. And he loves Math History, which means that he has a store of awesome stories that will probably show up in my Doctor Who writings. (Did you know that Calculus wasn't invented by Newton as commonly thought - it was invented by pirates? No, it's the truth! Pirates, to help with their navigation! Of course, they couldn't figure out how to solve the equations they came up with, but it's still awfully cool.)
Homework? Freakin' none!
And then I had lunch. Phew.
Holy cow. This is the first year where I'll have no assignments. (A comparison: I had assignments in four classes last term. Long and frightening ones due each week.) This is unbelievably nice! Of course, I'll have quizzes galore, but those I can deal with. :D
Tomorrow? My lone Arts course, Issues in Human Geography, which I have at eleven tomorrow morning. And then I can go home at 12:30. A slacker am I! :D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-09-06 02:25 am (UTC)As it is, I'm still very much in envy of your lack of school work. (curse you, AP comp and lit!)
I hope there isn't anything actually broken in your foot. That could get messy.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-06 02:32 am (UTC)Really, I expect my coursework will be approximately the same as in previous years - I generally study from eight AM to nine PM (and beyond...) straight (with breaks for e-mail *whistles innocently*), regardless of actual assigned homework. I'll just have fewer last-minute race-to-the-drop-boxes this year! :D
That could get messy.
Ooh, it could. *winces* Too many little crunchy bones in there to worry about. I'm sort of hoping that if there's a break it'll be similar to a broken toe - they can't do much about it, and it usually heals fine on its own.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 01:34 pm (UTC)...How sad is it that I never learned that before?