range of emotions..

Yes, all in one day can one go through a range of emotions. Indifference to Anger to Excitement to Exaustion. Fucking third year nano.

In the hours before the midterm I was fed up. Three days of stress for 50 mins, it's BS. The timing ratio is totally out of whack. So of course I just wanted to get it all over with. I was done trying to figure out his horrbile class notes and make sense of all the quantum numbers. Try reading through a quantum book with not being able to tell the difference between S (the operator), S (the coupled spin eignevalue) and S (the single electron eigenvalue) and you just might end up killing yourself.

So, during and after the midterm I was pissed. It did not at all reflect what we had supposedly learned over the term. The questions were very specific to some obscure concepts he talked about in lecture and did not test much of our understanding. I honestly could've studied the night before and done better. I hate not having the bell, I've gotten so comfortable to riding it that I've forgotten my perfectionist ways of high school. DAMN!! I probably got destroyed on the midterm so I'm gonna have to look forward to another 100% final.

It is of course still Monday so there's always 24 to get me hyped up. It was a farily eventful episode tonight. They finally got to the override and were able to prevent the last power plants from melting down, Driskles daughter committed suicide and they are hot on the heels of the terrorist leader.

Lastly, I'm tired... g'nite.

Third year bitching...

oh no.... don't you just hate it when you're so sick of studying that you start wondering about the whole damn university system. Actually no, it's just another form of proccrastination, and I love that.

Soooo, what are the ways to be successful in third year?
a) Be a genius, not just your run of the mill definition which would probably encompass all of those who get above class average in n sci.
b) Work like a MOFO and I don't mean go to class do your homework go to sleep and repeat. I mean cut sleep out of the equation go to every office hour you can, sit next to the geniuses from part a) and become addicted to crack.
c) There is no c)... shit.. I'm fucked!

Third year is such a bitch. So much worse than first and second year. We're learning difficult meaningless crap with horrbile teaching and textbooks. And it feels like I'm still a complete dumbass. I remember quite clearly in grade 10 how I was pissed of at my teacher for giving us some crap about ionization energy trends on the periodic table. "Shielding" was what she told us.. sure that's just total BS. Well, it turns out it isn't!! We can't solve crap. We take such horrible approximations for Helium. Helium goddamnit!! We can't even touch the hyperfine splitting of Hydrogen (fucking Z=1) because it's too complicated and we need Born and Oppenheimer for H2. Man .. that deeper meaning I was looking for does not exist. I definitely don't want to go into physics... good luck jesterhat, I saw what you need to take next year, quantum II, relativity I... you're going to get smoked.

Screw it all.. I'm going to bed.

champagne supernova.... (not biting hornyhamster)

As I was sprawled out on my bed very much annoyed with atoms I began to hear my roomate singing along to champagne supernova.. this of course reminded me (thanks to hornyhamster) that there's always procrastination and it's available in the form of blogging.

Actually a pretty uneventful day thanks to atoms. Besides wasting two and half of hours watching as good as it gets I've been trying to study. While watching the movie a bunch of random cheesy commercials were aired. I guess TBS has lowered its standards. I've actually always been a fan of the infomercial genre. It's absolutely great. You can lie, make up corny puns and invent random payment plans that will somehow can get a lazy ass coach potato to pick up the phone and buy your garbage. It's an art form really. Whenever there was an option of doing a presentation in high school we would somehow try to spin it towards an infomercial. It's so easy and fun. All you need is a scientific type guy who is willing to lie through his teeth, a complete idiot who will buy the scientific guys crap, a deep voice over that continually adds on the stupidest products as an additional incentive and the famous payment plan.

I'm not sure how effective the infomercials are but there has to be better way. I remember from the movie the Truman Show they went completely commerical free by advertising IN THE SHOW. It doesn't even need to be that obvious. For instance, I'm sure that bagel consumption is on the rise in no small part due to the OC. Also, if you look closely most of the computers on TV are macs. Perhaps in the near future we'll see seth cohen lace up some nikes, throw on levis jeans and drink some cold pepsi instead of hearing about in the break. As long as the end product is less commericals and more OC I don't mind at all.

Anyways, that's all for me...

Burgess to the rescue...

I just checked my e-mail and to my surprise it turns out I still have a decent shot of recieving a chem nserc (I know... we got notifications of denile but professor Walker informed me that I was on some sort of wait list). Normally, I would regress and regret my decision to take a pey position .... BUT.. Burgess to the rescue. YES that same old man from first year chem!

I think I need to clarify. Tonight was the night of the N Sci "industry dinner". It's actually just an excuse to get companies to pay for dinner but nonetheless it was an interesting night. The guest speaker was not your typical N Sci.. a successful wealthy businessman. I normally don't pay much attention to guest speakers but this guy seemed to help put things in perspective. He reitarted many times that we are a product of our experiences and that we must ensure that these are vast and wideranging. Ideas change, industries change but someone with a solid base and good experiences will always be in demand and sought after. Success should not be measured by how many years it takes you to get a phd but how many challenges you've overcome along the way. I have the opportunity to learn about business and get paid in the process, PEY is the right decision for me.

Following the guest speaker was a presentation of a lifetime contribution award to Prof. Burgess. Here was a man who has been teaching for FIFTY years. After he stopped teaching he TAed and after he stopped TAing he gave extra-help sessions. A man who truly loves his work. After recieving his award he slowly made his way to the podium and mumbled just one sentence "I got from more you then you got from me". WTF... I need to find something like that for me... I can only be so glad to end up like him in my old age, reflecting on my life and realizing that I made a difference. A new experience and a new environment will help me find my path.

No more doubts!!!

I gotta get back to atoms...

Prof mad, MSEasy, New Polymer Man, Atoms trouble and OC insanity..

A normal crazy thursday.

So..
Prof Mad
The prof who I was supposed to work for in the summer sent me back an e-mail and sounded a bit upset that I was declining the NSERC. He supposedly was in close contact with the undergrad office and helped my application along. Honestly, I don't give a crap. I told him at the very beginning that I could not make any sort of commitment and he told me in clear plain english that I was allowed at anytime to walk away from the project. He claims that he could've found another student. Again, that's complete BS. There's no one else who approached him before the nserc deadline, he's just bitter. I normally don't like to piss off people as you never know when it might come back and haunt you but I guess it's too late with him. Ah well....

MSEasy
I called it, the midterm was easy. The calculation section was a joke. The characterization stuff was alright but overall I expect a pretty high average. Damn Nogami doesn't know what nsci's are capable of. I predict he'll come after us in the final to prove that the stuff we're learning isn't mickey mouse, some sort of ego thing I'm sure.

New Polymer Man
Bye Bye Kai, hello manners. The materials lecture was pretty informative and interesting today, a MILLION times better than Kai. There's still a bunch to memorize but at least I'll have a good understanding which I hope will make studying a bit more bearable.

Atoms Trouble
I'm in trouble for atoms, plain and simple. I've got a ton to read and no motivation. DAMN!!!!!

OC insanity
I knew it.. Seth and Summer are back together. It was pretty corny with the whole spiderman rip off but whatever that's OC. I'm glad to see Sandy has dropped Rebecca but not that we may be headed for Marissa and Ryan hooking up again. We're going to end up right where we started!!! They'll be introducing new characters.. blah blah and possibly some more teen pregnancy crap.. more blah blah.... OC needs to build some good storylines if they want to compete with OTH.

Maybe I should go read some atoms....

Day before MSE.. I should be studying!!

but I cannot miss a post... I must keep the streak alive!

It has actually been quite an eventful day.

Following a bunch of MSE studying of XPS, AES, XRD, SEM, TEM, STEM, CBED, SAM, TED, OIM... ( I just wanna show off all the acronyms I now know!!), I had to present for the second time in ESC.

It really sucked. I practiced at least three times... and every time I came in at about 6-6.5 mins but I somehow ended up at 5 (with the alotted time at 6 mins). I was dying at the end. After the realization that I was going to be way under time I started stretching my crap information which put me into a downwards spiral of stumbling and akward pauses. DAMN!!! Normally I wouldn't care too much but the TA is a real bitch for time. BASTARD!!!

The day got even worse when I found out I was awarded an MIE nserc, which is complete BS because I cannot accept it due to PEY. At least I didn't get the chem nserc that would've really pissed me off... those are much more prestigous and difficult to get.

There's a bunch more for me to talk about, but I don't have the time.

I'll write more after Monday (Atoms mmidterm)

Leroy Wells

Leroy Wells.. can you dig it.. too bad he got arrested.. he could've been famous!

Second day.. more randomness.

ahhhhh... life stinks right now.. I hate studying for materials. There's too much information and I don't seem to be taking any of it in. So many damn characterization techniques that all seem the same to me. Electrons going in and electons coming out.... Sometimes there are ions and x-rays involved but how the hell am I supposed to remember that. I hope nogami takes it easy on us... he probably will which will send the class average very high and then he'll come after us on the final... damn... I don't want to think about finals, I know it's going to be a very tough time. Last term was pure insanity around exam time it took me the whole chirstmas break to get back to my usually lazy self.

hmmmm.. what else... we sort of blew off the physics lab today as it's the first one of a new experiment and no one really cares unless you're on the few keeners. Again, after some more nano grad school talk I am even more certain that I want to go away for grad school, as far away as I can get from UT. It's so damn competitive and impresonal here and if I have to walk through SF or Bahen one more day than I need to I'm seriously going to shoot myself. I hope all the third nanos get into good grad schools and hook me up when I get back from pey. It'd be absoloutley amazing if a bunch of us ended up at the same school. I guess I'm always looking for that light at the end of the tunnel. I recall an upper year comparing Eng Sci to the Shawshank Redemption, I don't think he could more right. But the thing is they actually escaped from the prison at the end and wound up on a nice beach.. to truly complete the story I need to get out UT and go down to UC Berkley or Stanford or somewhere else.

I hope my undergrad has an ending like the movie....... a happy one.

I know.. two times in a day..

Okay.. so we got our midterm and assignment back.

We got railed on the assignment and I did surpisingly decent on the midterm. Imagine if I had that old midterm.... I would've DESTROYED that exam. I HATE THE PROF!!

However, a bunch of people I know got nailed on the midterm. Which would be okay normally.. but with a 77% class average.. not a good thing. I imagine the biomeds had the goods and didn't share with nanos. DAMN BIOMEDS!!!

That is all..

First Posting.. cue cheesy music and opening credits

It's my first posting..

I'm with hornyhaster in the ecf lab waiting for economics to start, so I decided to start a web blog. I was thinking about going in late to the early class but it's always so damn packed. Lazy ass nanos and phys can't wait an hour.

We're getting back our midterm and project back today... I don't think I did well in either. I hate the prof, he's such a bastard. He does a good job on lecturing but he reused the midterm from the previous semester, so unless you somehow luckily looked at that specific midterm you're kind of screwed. I HATE HIM!!! Why do we need to memorize such worthless crap, like what goes on a balance sheet.... MAN.. I hate it when they expect you to understand and learn for soooo long and then expect us to memorize like a life science student whenever they feel like it. ECON and MATERIALS... HORRIBLE courses.

Hornyhamster also told me that Kai our Materials prof only marked half of the midterms and somehow came up with a mark for the other half. BS holistic marking. I can't complain too much though, I didn't study much for that midterm and still ended up with a decent mark. That was some week with all those PEY interviews and that materials chem exam, I'm glad I came out alive...

Which brings me on to the whole idea that I always feel the situation I am in at the current moment was way worse than what it was before. As it stands now I feel more screwed that I've ever been, but I seem to recall thinking that a few weeks ago and a few weeks before that... etc.. This sort of reminds me of the guy in office space who told his shrink that each day in his life got progressively worse, so in fact each day he lived was the worst day of his life. I don't think I can honestly say that each subsequent day is tougher than the last but it sometimes feel like that. I sometimes wonder when it will get easier.. if it ever will!!! When will all the hard work pay off?!?!? It probably never will in the sense that things will be easier, knowing the type person I am I will always take on that new challenge, the harder job, the harder assignment... Eng sci is pretty much the story of my life....

Sooo.. what else... I guess I have 24 to look forward too tonight. Jack has to save Beruz in order to get his mom to talk about the where the remote controlling device is. I just hope they bring back Michelle and hopefully Kim. I'm not a big fan of Erin Driskel or Edgar Stiles...

Okay, that's enough for my first post.

See ya.