Monthly Archive for October, 2003

“Okay, last time we…”

Welcome to Notes from Math Class, where I shall endeavour to talk about anything but Math class.

For a week with no midterms, it’s been damned busy – got IEEE stuff up to here (gestures to body part) and the assignments don’t make things any easier. Which would be bearable if not for the fact that I’ve got the theme to Beverly Hills Cop stuck in my head.

Do Do Do-do-do-do-do, Do Do Do-do-do-do-do do-Do-DO do-do-do-do do-dooooo….

Not that the non-Management guys don’t have it worse than I do – they’ve got a rather large midterm coming up at 8pm, at which point I should be out of the Microsoft product info session where I’ll be getting the most glorious of all on-campus in-lecture-hall enticements, Free Pizza and Pop™

This gives me several hours to finish a Materials assignment (due tomorrow, 5:00pm) and get the IEEE Annual Plan done and mailed in (due in New Jersey, Saturday) for which I have to meet with Dr. Davidson (should be fairly easy) and get the IEEE Member Numbers of my executive council (VERY difficult, it seems). I also need to try and track down the stuff from last year’s plan for recycling to make my life easier… and I need to check on the price of next-day mailing to New Jersey with Saturday delivery (or, send it Xpresspost and hope for the best). I’ll do better in the future… really, I will.

On a good note, things seem to be progressing on Getting Things Done in the IEEE Office, equipment-wise, due largely to the fact that Chris is driven to get that going. Yay, new toys that we won’t have to pay for all of!

On an insane note, as of last night’s Robotics Club meeting, I’m the secretary for the Robotics Club. When will I learn? Oh well, at least it’s an easy job.

So, in the next 24 hours, all I have to do is:

1. Finish the Materials assignment
2. Finish the Annual Plan
3. Get the PSpice course rolling
4. Attend the Microsoft seminar
5. Make sure everything is going well for AGM on Monday

Note that, as usual, less than 50% of the things I need to do aren’t IEEE related. Aaaargh.

A major corporate entity seems to be trying to subvert democracy in several US states, and seems to be meeting with some success.

There’s information available all over the place, yet there hasn’t been the uproar there should have been. This is people FUCKING WITH YOUR VOTE. There’s at least one massively suspect election so far. These assholes must be stopped.

Consider the following:

• There are Cauchy-Euler equations in Differential Equations
• There are Cauchy-Riemann equations in Complex Numbers
• The two, at first glance, seem unrelated
• Fed-up Engineering students realize this

Conclusion: Cauchy is the matematician’s Hamburlgar – he runs into the room whenever someone’s about to sign a paper, and instead of stealing it, writes his name on it, and darts from the room with a mischevious call of “haHa, I am Cauchy!”

After he’s gone, the mathematicians shake their heads, saying “Oh, that Cauchy, what a character”.

My textbook for my Materials class – Engineering 2E03 – is shit. Not because of how it covers the material, no – because of how much isn’t printed. Whole sections of the text (like section 3.16 on X-Ray Diffraction, which I need right now to work on this assignment) are available only on the CD - they’re not on paper. I, of course, don’t have the CD on me.

The publisher says that this stuff is available on the Web, but the PDF they posted, Acrobat sees as broken – and repairing it results in 111 blank pages.

Oh, and about this week being easier than last…

• Software midterm was fine
• Materials assignment due tomorrow
• Part of Commerce project due tomorrow
• Commerce midterm on Saturday
• Electrical Engineering midterm Monday
• Electrical Engineering Lab and Lab Report due Tuesday
• Software Engineering assignment due Wednesday

So I can’t actually see that I’m any better off this week than last. Fsck.

Okay, last week sucked. Royally. Like a Filter Queen.

(Hey, I just picked up on the Queen – Royal thing. Cool, I made a… textual thingy…)

• IEEE meeting went OK. Some action items assigned to me, most of which are done.
• Lab was easier than I thought, mostly because we deferred most of the work to the lab report. Which will make this week slightly more hellish.
• IEEE student branch meeting was slightly productive. Hope to accomplish more this week.
• Critical Drinking midterm went easy (I think…)
• After that midterm, much stressing (though little productivity) on the Math midterm the next day
• Wednesday, much studying for Math. Write Math. Shocked and awed at how damned easy it was (last year’s was damned hard).
• Software started 15 minutes after that midterm. The vast majority of us left at the halfway mark in that 3 hour class.
• Thursday felt like it should have been Friday or Saturday, given all the work we’d done thus far – but a Software assignment still needed to be BSed… er, written. Got that done and in on time.
• Friday was a complete and total write-off.

This brings us to the weekend – a long weekend in this country. Suzan came down, but we never got to meet up due to immense workload and various familial obligations, coupled with the fact that she had to make the trek back to Kingston in time to study for a midterm and finish a lab. Suzan: good luck, and next time we’ll get together for sure.

That brings us to now, as I lie here in my bed, typing at 3 in the morning, rembering to turn on my alarm, and check the radio statio it’s set to. (Damn – I wish I’d stop mistaking the tuning dial for the volume control in my just-awake stupor.)

This week goes something like this:

• Nothing major tomorrow – going in a bit late (where “late” is “getting to school on time rather than 2 hours early”) and still staying until ~9-10pm. Stupid evening course… Oh, and IEEE Student Branch meeting.
• Software midterm Wednesday. 6.5 hours continuous to study for Software midterm on Wednesday. I’ll be fine.
• Math assignment due Wednesday. Looked at it already – gonna finish it tomorrow. The only thing I need to remember about it is that Ux = Vy and Uy = -Vx – Cauchy-Riemann baby. Should take no more than an hour.
• Nothing due Thursday. Going home on time!
• Materials assignment due Friday. Going home on time!
• GODDAMN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR MIDTERM at 9:00 IN THE FUCKING MORNING ON SATURDAY. Goddamn, that makes me mad.

Aside from that, have to still sort out some IEEE financials, get the IEEE courses going, get signing authority changed over, get key clearance for those that need them, work on the IEEE website, get some stuff together from that conference I went to, and generally try not to kill anyone.

Le sigh… why is it that all of my “extra crap” is IEEE related?