Periodic Update

[macmaxbh]

I apparently have issues with this whole "using LiveJournal regularly" thing. I do want to use LJ more frequently in shorter bursts instead of very infrequently in long bursts.

So, things of interest in no particular order:

• I'm currently up in McLean, Virginia (outside of Washington DC) staying with my grandmother for a week. I've been doing this

Comments

[macmaxbh]

Bryan, thanks for reading and offering good suggestions! I really appreciate it.

1) Sounds good, now that PHYS 116 is taught by "staff" instead of "Karwowski" I might switch it out to MATH 547 with Adalsteinsson, if you think he's decent. I've just had so many bad / acceptable math teachers that it makes me depressed, 'cause back in high school I actually really liked math, and now I don't.

2) Oh, I know it's going to be crazy. I'm deliberately only taking four "real" courses, as I was saying, because of that (the honors colloquium is only a one-credit-hour course). Still makes me a bit uncomfortable not to take all five.

3) Yeah, I've been avoiding physics like the plague because I hear bad things about the teachers and I don't want to take a 'real' science course. compsci is close enough for me. :)

4) Yeah, the reason I'm taking algorithms is because it's NOT with plaisted. I want to actually learn things in the course. If it switches out to plaisted I'm dropping.

And thanks again, and it's nice to meet you. Please say hey if you see me in Sitterson!

(been looking at your website. There's a lot of good info there, makes me want to make a real website and not my one-page jumping-off site that I currently have).

[clearthetape]

Shaddi and I both had David A. for 547. It was very easy, but I did not learn very much. That might be that class always. Also, some stats:
-I added that class 2 weeks late.
-I stopped showing up to class after Fall Break.
-I showed up to the final 15 minutes late (/this/ was an accident)

=> B for Maggie. Could I have done better w/o much more effort? Absolutely.

[macmaxbh]

It isn't to say that I didn't learn anything with Plaisted, it was just not very challenging with exams unless you didn't do the practice exams before or didn't attend class. You'll still learn everything you'll need to know: O(n) time, BSTs, sorting, etc. etc. His course page is here: http://cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/comp550/ In other words, an easy A if you show up. :)

But I didn't use the Algs book much either. Thankfully I bought it used... Everyone seems to recommend the book, but I didn't really like it. Especially since it is so big that I could kill someone with it.

Back to Physics: at least you don't *have* to take Physics 117 now (but I don't know if you'd rather take what the alternative classes are... bio, chem?). I thought it was much worse than 116. The only good prof I've heard of from the physics department is Rowan.

Sadly, you probably won't see me in Sitterson much, as I only have one final comp class to take (Prog. Lang. Concepts). I've been filling up the rest of my spare time with a history minor (mainly modern european history classes). Hard to believe I only have 30 days of classes left and I'm out of here!

Thanks about the website, it has been a work in progress for a long time. I've been mooching off the CS web server for as long as possible. You can do pretty much everything except mysql (the department is pretty strict about giving out mysql accounts/access), so I've been running my own mysql server on my desktop. So if you know some php, you should look into setting something up. Let me know if you need help, I suppose WWW programming is my poison since that is what I'm doing after I graduate. :)

[mandaria]

Opps, I wasn't logged in. ^^^ that is my post.

[macmaxbh]

w00t. More stuff to respond to:

I've heard pretty bad things about plaisted from others, so even if you learned things from him I'd rather learn more things from somebody else. And I don't mind a hard course if I'm really getting a lot out of it.

Yes, it was a very happy day when I knew I wouldn't have to take PHYS 117--I know 116 isn't that bad, but I just keep avoiding it anyway. I'm hoping that my AP credit for chem/bio will get me out of the second physics spot, but apparently it might not. I'll have to talk to jeffay before I can register, so I can ask him then.

re: not being in sitterson: total sacrilege. :) seriously, though, more power to you with modern european history, which is something I'm also pretty interested in.

Hey, I've studied two european languages (french and dutch) here for a current total including credit of nine courses, and I'm not stopping yet. :)
I was hoping to get into an honors intro euro history class but it conflicts with OS. OS > most everything else.

I've tinkered around with webpages, and have taken both intro www programming and am in advanced www programming. I host all my sites on the local mac users group webserver. In theory I could get a mysql server there, but when I did a small database-powered website I actually just had it sqlite-powered, which was a good learning opportunity + nicely portable.

[mandaria]

You sound like my roommate: classics major, now double major with french who has also taken some german and knows some basic spanish. He picks up on languages very easily. I was just happy to finish up spanish as quickly as possible.... I love learning languages, but not for a grade. :) I really would like to spend some time and learn sign language, have a friend at ASU who is taking a signing class.

If you are interested in Euro History, I can recommend:
Chad Bryant: I took Eastern Europe since 1780 and currently taking World since 1945 from him
Chris Browning: I took Holocaust from him. I would highly recommend this class to anyone, he also has a higher level class about the topic too (more focused?)
Jim Leloudis: NC History since 1875. Not European, but more relevant to me since I've lived in NC all my life. I've been learning a lot of interesting things about the state, plus a lot of it ties in with University history.