With any luck (as in, assuming I passed all my courses), I’ll be back in Waterloo again next term for another school term. Peace. :)

I have a CS midterm and a history paper due on Thursday so I’m putting blog entries on low gears for now. The usual program will resume after the fact. A review of episode four of 『灼眼のシャナ II』 will probably go up tomorrow though. In the meantime, you should check out Mami Kawada’s new single, JOINT. Both it and triangle are awesome tracks.

How despicable, the same course that mandated such unreasonable terms are placing assignments up on UW-ACE as Microsoft Word .doc files. I’m in the process of downloading OpenOffice.org to rectify this minor technicality but I’m still going to complain to the professor today about this. Don’t they realize that we students are on a tight budget and may not be able to fork out the dough to purchase Microsoft Office?

By popular demand (which actually translates into getting nagged by Jacky), I present to you, my schedule for this fall 2007 term.

Monday:
0830-0930 - STAT 220
1130-1230 - MATH 128
1430-1530 - CLAS 105
1630-1830 - MATH 128

Tuesday:
0830-1000 - CS 234
1130-1300 - HIST 110

Wednesday:
0830-0930 - STAT 220
1130-1230 - MATH 128
1430-1630 - CLAS 105
1630-1730 - STAT 220

Thursday:
0830-1000 - CS 234
1130-1300 - HIST 110

Friday:
0830-0930 - STAT 220
1130-1230 - MATH 128
1430-1530 - CLAS 105

So if you can’t find me online, now you know why. I will be online in some odd cases (as I take notes on my notebook for some classes here and there), but just don’t go online expecting to find me if you get on during one of the times listed above. I welcome emails though, if you’re looking for a swift response and I happen to not be online.

Electronic Gadgets: Cellphones and laptops are not permitted out during class. Turn all cellphones off for the duration of the lecture.

That’s ridiculous. I’m pretty sure I’ve read every syllabus that I’ve gotten at UW thus far and I don’t think I’ve ever seen these instructions drafted out in such an explicit manner. I don’t see what’s the big deal if you’re not bothering anyone, really.

Well, the ECON 102 marks have finally gone up, so I finally have all of my grades from this term at my disposal. Of course, these are “unofficial” grades, but I don’t think mine have ever changed after they became “official”. Whatever, if they do I’ll blog again then. I’ve always been pretty open about my grades minus my 2A ones since they were real bad. I find it an “important” process to publicly post my grades so that people are well aware of what to expect when they take the course, in a way.

• ACTSCI 221 - 67 - I didn’t know anything going into this final. This course was basically MSCI 261…but easier…which of course is no help because I was utterly clueless about MSCI 261 (along with most of 2A). I finished the final in about half the time and just upped and left. It gave me a feeling that I was underestimating the questions (naturally), but it really was that easy.
• ANTH 102 - 60 - Wow, this final was hard. Like…really hard. He threw more curveballs on the final than he did on the midterm. I got around the 68 area on the midterm, I think it was (it being worth 40% of the final grade). He asks really specific questions. Watch out if you’re considering this one.
• ECON 102 - 64 - With two midterms worth 20% each scoring 18/26 and 28/36 respectively, I needed ike a 31% or a 32% to pass the course. I guess I pulled through. After my first run of the final, I think I filled in sixty bubbles (out of a hundred). There was no math on the final, so it wasn’t bad at all. The last thirty questions or so was really easy since it was pretty much all memorization, something I am very good at since I can remember spoken words after only hearing them once. Case in point, back when I performed in plays back in grades five and six, I literally knew everyone’s lines because I heard them so often.
• MATH 125 - 61 - I thought I did quite well on the final, but I suppose not. I don’t really have much to say about this course, it was essentially like MATH 115, so I didn’t really pay much attention. I guess I should’ve. ;) I failed one quiz but he drops the lowest one and takes the other five out of the six attempted, so in essence, I passed them all, har har.
• STV 205 - 70 - This course sucked hard. The final was tough though…or maybe not, if I got a seventy on the course. I lost five percent from the get-go per se (because I skipped one lecture/discussion for the Extreme Blue thingamajig they were doing in the DC fish bowl), but I guess that wasn’t enough to not make this lame course my highest grade for this term.

My average comes out to be a 64.40%. That is all for now, good bye.

I have just returned from my ECON 102 final. There were some tough questions lurking around, but I think I did okay. I’m hoping to blog more now that I’ve got more free time, and of course, to appease all my readers of varying interests, be on the look out for recent ECF-related development, blog entries for StrikerS and possibly sola, and the chronicles of me packing things up as I move out of Waterloo to my brother’s place in North York.

Well, I’ve got my last final for this term tomorrow for ECON 102 at 1930 - 2200. There are actually five sections of ECON 102, but only Larry Smith’s sections’ final is going to be two and a half hours long, the other three sections’ finals will only be two hours long.

This is actually kind of funny because ever since the examination schedule for this term was posted, he has been hounding us every single class to write his final and his final only because we are not writing a common final. So technically, you might get kicked out at two hours when you might’ve been under the assumption that the final was two and a half hours.

Not having all ECON 102 students take a common final makes perfect sense if you’ve had him because I doubt the other professors would be able to replicate his lectures. This isn’t to say that these other ECON 102 professors “sucks” (since I doubt I’ve ever had them), I’m just trying to say that Larry’s material and lectures is unlikely to be reproduced in any form unless he was the one that presented it. So, they don’t, and they present the material differently, and so we don’t take a common final. Don’t believe me? Take his course and find out (oh, there I go recommending you all take his course again).

Well, I wasn’t expecting MATH 125 to be a killer or anything, but I was expecting something a little bit harder. Regardless, I totally didn’t know what Cramer’s rule was, so that’s a big one-oh loss right there out of 80 points. I think I did alright on the rest, though the second of two proofs was a little odd and I guess I probably should’ve asked for clarifications instead of just going at it. The proof ended up being about two-thirds of the allotted space, which sounds a bit much since this ain’t no “real” math course like say MATH 135 (for the people in the honours program).

At the end of the final I actually said “Thank you” to the professor as I handed it in since I felt that he did a good job presenting the material. He didn’t really read that right and actually asked me “Too easy?” in response. Oh well.

To celebrate the successful completion of this examination (with what I believe to be a “decent score”), I shall rewatch the raw for StrikerS ep. 02 for the fourth time begin studying for ACTSCI 221. If I’m going to be failing any courses this term, it’s going to be that one.

And there was no rejoicing. At least…certainly not on my part, anyway, that’s for sure. Once again, I would like to recommend to all my readers from the University of Waterloo to take his economics class if you get a chance. He is no ordinary instructor and will be unlike anything you have ever seen. I’ve been taught in three different countries in my brief lifespan of close to 21 years (will be 21 in May) and Larry Smith is really something extraordinary.

One thing I found most unsettling today was the amount of people that refused to “stand” today. As Larry drew the lectures to a close, an applause began to come into fruition. However, it was no standing ovation. I had really expected people to be standing from the get go, but to be honest, I think I only saw one other person besides myself that stood up. I felt a little embarassed by this but I refused to just give up and sit back down. Needless to say, others eventually joined and I’m glad Larry got what he deserved tonight at around 2200 in the DC. He deserves a lot more than that, but it’s the least that we as his students could give him.

I would like to note that he announced today that he will be starting a website at www.uwlarry.com. The website will go live in the September of this year, so don’t click it now because if you do you will get hit by pop-ups.