Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Engineering Dilemma
I am currently in the College of Arts & Sciences, undecided major. I applied to A&S undecided because I was…well…undecided. I was interested in physics, biology, and computer science, and didn’t know which to pick, so I picked the “wait and see” option.
My high school bio course was terrible, so I figured I’d withhold judgement until a college class. Well, I have. I judge: I do not like biology. Not that 1105 is a bad course — quite the opposite — it’s just too full of premeds for my comfort. I’ve decided that I am not that interested in biology in general. I am interested in some aspects, but they’re the chemistry/physics aspects of biology, so why not just study chemistry or physics? And I’m always so much more engaged and excited in my physics class than my bio class. So no more biology.
And physics and computer science can both be better studied in Engineering. I am not sure I would have enough room for electives in engineering, but that might be a price I’m willing to pay. I don’t know. It depends on how little room I have. Or maybe it doesn’t. What am I willing to give up?
I feel like either Arts & Sciences is a betrayal of my nature, or Engineering is, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which! I know I’ll be satisfied with either, but I’ll be happy with one. I need to do some serious thinking on this, along with research on course requirements and elective spaces and such. Right now I think engineering would be better, but I’m not sure how long that feeling will last. I’ve been oscillating too much lately to trust myself.
Blah.
Next Semester’s (Potential) Schedule
| M | T | W | R | F | ||
| 8:00am: | NES 1202 Discussion 201 | NES 1202 Discussion 201 | NES 1202 Discussion 201 | NES 1202 Discussion 201 | ||
| 9:00am: | ||||||
| MATH 2210 Lecture 1 | MATH 2210 Lecture 1 | MATH 2210 Lecture 1 | ||||
| 10:00am: | ||||||
| PHYS 1116 Lecture 1 | PHYS 1116 Lecture 1 | PHYS 1116 Lecture 1 | ||||
| 11:00am: | ||||||
| LING 1100 Seminar 105 | PHYS 1116 Discussion 202 | LING 1100 Seminar 105 | PHYS 1116 Discussion 202 | LING 1100 Seminar 105 | ||
| 12:00pm: | ||||||
| MATH 2220 Lecture 3 | NES 1202 Lecture 2 | MATH 2220 Lecture 3 | PHYS 1116 Laboratory 401 | MATH 2220 Lecture 3 | ||
| 1:00pm: | ||||||
| MATH 2210 Discussion 201 | ||||||
| 2:00pm: | ||||||
| MATH 2220 Discussion 202 | ||||||
| 3:00pm: | ||||||
| Course | Name | Credits |
| LING 1100 | Fws: Language, Thought, And Reality | 3.0 |
| MATH 2210 | Linear Algebra | 4.0 |
| MATH 2220 | Multivariable Calculus | 4.0 |
| NES 1202 | Elementary Arabic II | 4.0 |
| PHYS 1116 | Physics I: Mechanics And Special Relativity | 4.0 |
| Total Credits: | 19 | |
Even if I didn’t sign up for Linear Algebra (the course I’m least committed to taking), it doesn’t really improve things. It’d just leave big gaps in the middle of my schedule.
As is, Wednesdays look really fun, though…
Weee!
(by Schedulizer)
Some Photos
A cell phone is a poor substitute for a camera, but it’s all I’ve got right now.
Biology 1105
I don’t like lab reports. Especially when I thought I followed the lab report guidelines to the letter, and I received a 47 (yes, 47%). Especially when my rewrite, which was OK’d by the TA I talked with, only merited a 58. Especially when corrections receive a 20% reduction, and 0.8 * 58 is 46.
So by putting several afternoons into rewriting my lab report, I lost myself one point.
Oh well, next one’s due Friday! *grin*
Obama
It’s louder than a drunken weekend night here. Hordes of people running around the campus screaming and yelling “OBAMAAAAAAA!” It feels like we’re part of a revolution.
Piano
I played for over two hours this afternoon. It felt good. This and that by Schubert, Autumn Leaves, and whatever fragments came to mind. A good emotional cleansing.
Here are a few more random pictures from the past weeks, in no particular order:
I Guess It’s Autumn Now
The Blank Page
I have a new piano instructor here at Cornell: Blaise Bryski. He seems a very interesting fellow (read: he’s eccentric and sometimes incomprehensible, but he has good ideas and I like him). So far we’ve done more talking than playing, but it’s valuable talk. There is a lot I do not know.
One thing he said last week still stands out in my mind. “You’re looking for the blank page,” he said. That is how you interpret a score. You’re looking for the idea that the composer tried to write down. The writing is only an approximation of the idea, after all, and an anachronistic one at that: we don’t know exactly what those phrasing marks meant to Schubert in 1824!
Luckily, I only have to look for the blank page. I’m not expected to find it. Michelangelo: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” I am not there yet. More like here (also Michelangelo): “A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.”
Astronomy
Amy and I went to check out the Cornell astronomy club last night after she finished work. They have a pretty big telescope, actually, and a bunch of smaller ones. The big one was pointed at M13, and the manageably-small-but-still-powerful one was pointed at Jupiter, revealing 4 moons.
This picture has nothing to do with Cornell, but I liked it. It’s from Astronomy Picture of the Day, a wonderful NASA site that posts a new astronomy photograph each and every day and has archives stretching back more than ten years.
This image, also from APOD, makes a nice desktop background if you’re looking for something interesting but calm enough to stay in the background.
Arabic
After 3 classes on speaking and comprehension, all of a sudden we are expected to read. My total reading vocabulary? Four words. (I would type them here, but WordPress doesn’t seem to preserve the encoding.) I can understand and say many more words, and I can count to 20! I don’t remember nearly everything that’s been presented, though. So many words have been thrown at us. This class is intensely immersive. It’s difficult, but very good. And I’m taking it with Sara, so I have someone to commiserate/study with!