6-30-12

So this week hasn’t been super eventful. We took some tours of things, had class, I had to write a couple things. I should do a couple things this weekend, but there’s nothing hugely important. I wasn’t nearly as productive last weekend as I should have been. Oh, well. This week, the professor didn’t give us actual homework in the evenings. He did give us questions, but I didn’t do them, and he didn’t explain them. Maybe I should start at the beginning, though.

                So each week we have a different professor and then have a test at the end of the week. This week we were talking doing some rather complex stuff, and the professor evidently thought we had all had more background in the subject than we did. I was worse off than almost everyone in the class (me and one other girl (Jul) had no experience with quantum at all). Jul complained that she didn’t know what was going on, but the professor was very unsympathetic toward her and said she wasn’t going to make it far in life. I’m sorry we can’t teach ourselves quantum mechanics in a couple days. He was much nicer after Jus pointed out most people didn’t know what was going on a couple days later, leading to some speculation that there might have been a sexist element (the professor was kinda an older man). The professor didn’t really explain things, just go over equation after equation, without trying to give analogies and examples to explain them, or even explain the variables to any degree. I don’t know if you have experience with complex equation without having the variables explained, but it sucks. He would just drone on and on. He had a European accent too, which made his voice seem more monotone and that much more difficult to pay attention to. The professor was also terrible at answering questions, just kinda talking his way around everything but the answer, or even directly how to find it. I was never quite clear if that was intentional or not. At first I was struggling to pay attention, but I realized that I was going to be fucked no matter what I did, so I started tuning him out a bunch. I really didn’t learn much in class. I learned the most sitting down with St. T and Jus on Thursday evening to try and figure stuff out. I still didn’t have a super great idea what was going on, but I learned more with them than I did the entire week from the professor. This was also the first professor to use print out notes rather than writing on the whiteboard, which I didn’t like. However, before the test he told us that we’d already had the most important part of the exam: sitting down, trying problems, reviewing the material. He said that was the most beneficial part of a class. It really made me respect him a lot. I love professors who think like that (my Organic professor was a lot like that too. I don’t think he was unaware of the difficulty of his lectures. This was just his first year and he didn’t know what to expect from the kids here. I hope the course director has him back next year because I think he’d be a lot better his second time around (especially if he was more clear about answering questions).

                The people were kinda interesting this week. I actually talked with Jus for a while. I still think of him as a grade grubber, but he is nice and interesting to talk to. I also talked to St. C for a while as well, which was also more fun than I would have thought. I really need to go back to my viewpoint from high school that pretty much everyone is OK if you get them one-on-one. I also hung out with Cla last night since we were some of the few who didn’t go out with everyone else. We had moronic conversation, and he didn’t want to sit down and do anything for long periods after we started it (like movies). He also is very hard to escape from once you’ve had your fill (we’d already talked for an hour or two at that point). I’m going to continue avoiding him in the future. St. T is really racist against any other Asian group than the one he’s from it turns out. Asians are kinda racist (the ones I know at least. And they admit it, they just don’t care). He’s funny about it though, and we tease him about it. Sar is all enlightened and is like “that’s just not right.” Obviously she’s never heard “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” from Avenue Q. I also found out she’s an RA. I’m really glad I haven’t had one like her, the one’s who seem to think it’s possible to have a deep personal connection with anyone and everyone, no matter how little you actually know them. Forgive me for not opening right up to people. That’s not how I want to go through life. I want a couple really meaningful connections with people, not a bunch of shallow ones that I can’t differentiate from deeper ones. And finally in my list of character developments, there’s Ant. He’s managed to get on the program director’s bad side by complaining so much about this professor this week. Ant’s been complaining about how much this place sucks (it kinda does, there’s nothing to do and the internet’s terrible/super blocked) since we got here. Usually his complaints are amusing, and it’s not a big deal. But he’s also a really arrogant kid, and not afraid to get in people’s faces, and he feels the victim a lot. He was bitching about the program director (Let’s call him Dr. P) after Dr. P told him he had an attitude problem. He’s a super friendly kid, though, and has probably talked to by far the most people in the dorm than anyone.

                Last night, I mentioned, I stayed in and foolishly allowed myself to get snared by Cla. A bunch of people when to the beach, the movies, and back to the karaoke bar last night. I kinda wish I had gone, but I didn’t really feel like drinking, and they left pretty early in the evening and didn’t get back until really late. So I guess I’m sad I missed the company, not the activities. Though the beach would have been fun. There might be some drinking tonight, but I probably won’t do anything tonight either unless someone bothers to specifically stop at my door and invite me. It’s one of my faults, wanting to be specifically invited even if there’s a blanket/open invitation to everyone. I feel left out and exclude myself if I don’t feel wanted. It’s partially why I don’t have many friends. I don’t horn my way into a group’s activities and they bond without me to the point it would be awkward to go even if I was invited later. Oh, well. I realize I’m never going to be surrounded by a ton of friends, and I can be content with just a few closer ones. I am going to miss Barry when I go back to college this fall, since he’ll be off student teaching and then graduating. But back to my earlier point, I’ve been sort of slowly withdrawing from the other students since this program began. Jul accused me of being antisocial after I declined an invitation to play pool with the others. I am being antisocial. My depression hasn’t been bad at all the last couple days, but I haven’t been eating much which really makes me tired constantly, and I just haven’t been in the mood for people. Oh, well. I should start on my term paper tonight, but it’s not urgent, and there’s not a whole lot going on this week. We get a day off for the fourth of July, and there’s no test on Friday. Great, just what I need. Excuses to not feel pressured to do homework early. We’ll see how it goes. That’s it for now.