Lived Through First Test
Last night was Test#1, which was really more like a quiz in reality. I was freaking out about it, because that is my flash-card-making, pencil-chewing, OMGodding nature.
Even though I am sure it will happen someday, I did NOT look down at the test, clutch my head and start screaming, OH GO OH GOD WHAT IS THIS!? IT'S IN GREEK! IS THAT A PHI? I CAN'T EVEN READ THIS AAAARGGHH!!!!! Then slalom out the door into the hallway, broken-pattern running like a PTSD vet, still clutching my head and screaming, my shrieks disappearing gradually as the rest of the class looks around at each other, not sure if they should laugh. Then someone says, "Crap. There went our anchor girl."
I don't think Prof Martin ...
(Bob Martin - yeah right, can you say "witness protection program," class? I knew you could. Or maybe someone named John Martin or Matt Martin had a son and thought, "Ah, Robert, that's a nice normal name.")
... will curve the grades, but if so, I think I have spotted the anchor girl and she is not me. Phew! By the P.T. Barnum theory, it is hopeful that I can spot the sucker, because then it lessens the probability it is I. That I am she. Whatever. (Anchor girl is a lovely woman who needs this class for her teacher re-cert, so she will stay, even though she asked the prof if we could use a "formula sheet" on the test#1. Hence my assumption that the poor lady is the anchor.)
In any case, I have spoken up in class, being unable not to. What did comedian Ron White say, "Oh, I had the right to remain silent, I just didn't have the ability"? Something like that. You know how when there is one Monstrously Tricky Problem in the problem set, and two students actually got it right and the rest of us have a grubby sheet of scribbled over calculations, all wrong, in our homework? If no one asks about it, I end up doing the asking.
Thank god for the cute Persian (?) to my right who yells out wrong answers to professorial prompting and who will ask him to do #71 Monster Tricky Problem on the board. He's friendly, but possibly the son of someone rich and important. I bet he beds the American girls way too easily.
Ethnically, the class is mostly far asian dudes (two nguyens, for instance), middle eastern guys with beautiful dark eyes, a few north africans, some white girls, and a few from the Indian subcontinent.
The guy to my North East, in front the pretty persian dude, is european stock American-born and very young with rosy cheeks. He is genial and talks a bit and when I yell out a wrong answer in class he corrects me in a cute way. *quiet aside* "No, not cross, that's the dot product" It's so sweet, like the viewer at home coaching a character in a television show - No, turn the other way, he'll cut you off! I get the impression he thinks that I am willing to yell out the wrong answer is amusing. He is also taking an electrical engineering course this semester, he informs me.
The man behind me is truculent and puts his feet on my books, the guy right in front is a black guy with a full beard and black glasses, very friendly, as well.
Test #1: 5 questions, the trickier of which included Work (i.e. W=force*distance) in pushing a mass 50 feet at an angle of 20 degrees with 25 lbs of force. I got something like 1174.6 from both the
FdotPQ and
|| ProjPQF || ||PQ||
formulae, but couldn't for the life of me think what Work units were - ft-lbs? That sounds like force. I dunno. lb-feet?
Other one that looked tricky was about writing the parametric equation of a line that was normal to a given plane through a point (1,2,3). After I looked at it for a bit, I decided that since we knew the normal vector with initial point of (0,0,0), that acted as a direction vector. (I hope.) I then wrote out the parametric with (x1, y1, z1) as (1,2,3) and the normal as the direction vector ai + bj + ck. I hope it was that easy. Otherwise, I munged up the entire 20 points for that question.
Anyway, I was so keyed up I didn't get to bed until 11:30. *yawn* This class is fun, though, so far. Next chapter looks less geometric and more about vector functions and limits. Bleh. I have until 10/27 to drop without grade penalty.
Even though I am sure it will happen someday, I did NOT look down at the test, clutch my head and start screaming, OH GO OH GOD WHAT IS THIS!? IT'S IN GREEK! IS THAT A PHI? I CAN'T EVEN READ THIS AAAARGGHH!!!!! Then slalom out the door into the hallway, broken-pattern running like a PTSD vet, still clutching my head and screaming, my shrieks disappearing gradually as the rest of the class looks around at each other, not sure if they should laugh. Then someone says, "Crap. There went our anchor girl."
I don't think Prof Martin ...
(Bob Martin - yeah right, can you say "witness protection program," class? I knew you could. Or maybe someone named John Martin or Matt Martin had a son and thought, "Ah, Robert, that's a nice normal name.")
... will curve the grades, but if so, I think I have spotted the anchor girl and she is not me. Phew! By the P.T. Barnum theory, it is hopeful that I can spot the sucker, because then it lessens the probability it is I. That I am she. Whatever. (Anchor girl is a lovely woman who needs this class for her teacher re-cert, so she will stay, even though she asked the prof if we could use a "formula sheet" on the test#1. Hence my assumption that the poor lady is the anchor.)
In any case, I have spoken up in class, being unable not to. What did comedian Ron White say, "Oh, I had the right to remain silent, I just didn't have the ability"? Something like that. You know how when there is one Monstrously Tricky Problem in the problem set, and two students actually got it right and the rest of us have a grubby sheet of scribbled over calculations, all wrong, in our homework? If no one asks about it, I end up doing the asking.
Thank god for the cute Persian (?) to my right who yells out wrong answers to professorial prompting and who will ask him to do #71 Monster Tricky Problem on the board. He's friendly, but possibly the son of someone rich and important. I bet he beds the American girls way too easily.
Ethnically, the class is mostly far asian dudes (two nguyens, for instance), middle eastern guys with beautiful dark eyes, a few north africans, some white girls, and a few from the Indian subcontinent.
The guy to my North East, in front the pretty persian dude, is european stock American-born and very young with rosy cheeks. He is genial and talks a bit and when I yell out a wrong answer in class he corrects me in a cute way. *quiet aside* "No, not cross, that's the dot product" It's so sweet, like the viewer at home coaching a character in a television show - No, turn the other way, he'll cut you off! I get the impression he thinks that I am willing to yell out the wrong answer is amusing. He is also taking an electrical engineering course this semester, he informs me.
The man behind me is truculent and puts his feet on my books, the guy right in front is a black guy with a full beard and black glasses, very friendly, as well.
Test #1: 5 questions, the trickier of which included Work (i.e. W=force*distance) in pushing a mass 50 feet at an angle of 20 degrees with 25 lbs of force. I got something like 1174.6 from both the
FdotPQ and
|| ProjPQF || ||PQ||
formulae, but couldn't for the life of me think what Work units were - ft-lbs? That sounds like force. I dunno. lb-feet?
Other one that looked tricky was about writing the parametric equation of a line that was normal to a given plane through a point (1,2,3). After I looked at it for a bit, I decided that since we knew the normal vector with initial point of (0,0,0), that acted as a direction vector. (I hope.) I then wrote out the parametric with (x1, y1, z1) as (1,2,3) and the normal as the direction vector ai + bj + ck. I hope it was that easy. Otherwise, I munged up the entire 20 points for that question.
Anyway, I was so keyed up I didn't get to bed until 11:30. *yawn* This class is fun, though, so far. Next chapter looks less geometric and more about vector functions and limits. Bleh. I have until 10/27 to drop without grade penalty.