The Life Of Steve

I can't believe there are only a couple weeks left in the term.  Where does the time go?

I'm currently trying to crank out my 12 page final for Japanese Cinema.  Couldn't we just watch a movie for the final and not write a paper about it?  That seems like a better plan.  

My japanese oral exam is monday as well, I should practice for that.  

 Woo, finally time to update.

This past week has been busy, much like the others.  Last night I had to finish my molecular thermodynamics homework where we did entropy calculations.  The damn equation to solve for it was longer than the sheet wide, and doing one calculation took nearly one page.  

I had two differiential equations homework, the online being matrices, not too bad, and the other eigenvalue/eigenvector calculations.  Start easy, get annoyingly hard to solve.  Boo.

Also did my Japanese listening assignment, wasn't terrible.  On a related note, according to them tuition is about 1.5-2 million yen per year.  

I went to see my sensei today for more practice with the lanuage before we submit our homework and take quizzes due to my low scores.  His suggestion was to do the homework and take the quizzes.  I'll wait while you re read that.  


Good?  Yeah that was my response too.  He said that the course cooridinator is extremely strict and teaches a variation of Japanese that is often more strict than taught at other schools.  What does that mean?  Most everywhere I could go for extra help is useless.  Time to start begging 2nd years for help.  At least its still fun.


Work has been going well.  Though I am sure I am going to die early.  In the last two weeks I have used chemicals which are beyond the norm for lethal.  Dimethyl sulfate.  That stuff methylates DNA, hence you get it on your skin, you probably more than double the chance for cancer.  Same reaction I also had to use 14.1 M NaOH and 14 M NH4OH, and later acidifty with 12 M HCl.  I am going to die an early painful death.

At least the homework is done for tonight.  I should probably get started on the hw for monday so I can study.  Blech.

 I fucking hate this university.  They just rejected me for a program that I was in last year.  

"We received amny more applications than we had positions for, and, unfortunately, have to deny many worthy applicats such as yourself."

So you give me a week to scrounge up an application and then deny me?  Great, just what I need.  First the Japan program with the professor who can't make up his mind and turns me down, now my last ditch effort.

 Finally a breather to do something not related to being due within 24 hours.

Lets  see, got Afro Samurai Vol 1 and Resurrection.  It is filled with katana and bloody goodness.  Also I have been watching Firefly, so many good things to watch, so little time.

Last night was my Molecular Thermodynamics midterm.  Does anyone remember from high school chemistry where the Pauli Principle was known as simply no pairing of electrons with the same spin?  Or in Mrs. Ochoa's case the Smelly Bus Seat Rule.  I miss those days of remembering easy chemistry.  Now it's all 

Pauli Principle: Inversion of particles with respect to one another that produce a symmetric wave function are called bosons and inversion of particles with respect to one another with antisymmetric wavefunctions are called fermions.

It doesn't roll off the tongue as well......

In other news I may be working with chlorine gas soon.  I wonder if I'll get a respiratior.  

Back to calculus and my film midterm.

 Classes are going well.  It feels wonderful not to be taking a lab course this term.  

So Dell sent my new computer with a 375 W Powersupply, which is fairly gimped when compared to most computers.  Well I contacted them today and said they would come out and replace it with a 425 W PSU that can run an Nvidia GTX 260, horray.  I know what I want for my bday.  

I am also applying for a research position in Japan over the summer.  Hopefully I will get it.  I would be staying for two months in Nagoya, Japan.  I could visit Tokyo or Kyoto or maybe even Osaka on the weekend.  

Also, today Holly and I have been dating for 4 years.  Man time flies.  Happy anniversary.

Lastly, The Last Samurai is surprisingly awesome for having Tom Cruise.  

 Well I am finally back in the swing of things.  I was pleased to not have any lab this term, however the lab I work for has stated I have to prove myself this term to be hired next term and get a letter of recommendation for grad school from my professor.  

My schedule is also finalized.

Chemistry 463 Molecular Thermodynamics
Asian Language 126 Japanese
Asian 480 Japanese Cinema
Math 216 Differiental Equations
Chemistry 399 Research

^17 credits, boo.  

It is terrible that I am already looking forward to having MLK day off.  

I got my score back on my quantum final.  I am going to allow guesses before  I give the actual response.  Leave comments for your guess.

Score is on 100 point scale.

 Well tomorrow is my last day of classes, horray.  

I have my japanese oral exam which hopefully will not be too difficult.  

Friday is my Quantum Mechanics exam.  That could theoretically suck.  

Monday is the japanese final, it will be difficult, I hope I do alright.

Tuesday is the Ancient Near East (which really isn't "ancient" as much as it is ALL of recorded history.)

Wednesday is my final computational chemistry presentation.  Blech.  



Next term will be better, I hope.  I will no longer be ACS president, horray.  Trying to keep it up was really wearing on me.  

Math 216 (Calculus IV)  Kinda funny that I have taken quantum mechanics BEFORE calc IV.  
Asian Language 126 Japanese year I semester II
Asian 480 Japanese Cinema.  <- Will be awesome
Chemistry 463 Thermodynamics.  
Chemistry 399 Research

17 credits, yum yum.

 Fuck it.  I wan't a PS3 now.  

My NEW xbox that I recieved a month ago from Microsoft just red ringed on me, like the last one.  That is two xbox's in one term of college.  15 weeks and TWO XBOXes die.  

Fuck it all.

 There are few times when reading history assignments that I am truly entertained, or at least amused.  The follow passage made my evening.

"In another source, it was claimed that the mid-nineteenth century caliph al-Mutawwakil had four thousand concubines and had sexual intercourse with every single one of them.  Given that the caliph was fourteen years old, roughly over fivethousand days (and nights), and a well established reputation as a heavy drinker, the figures suggest a stamina and determination most of us could hope to emulate."

I do not know how to respond to this other than sheer surprise and joy that someone finally found humor among the numberous annals of history and was smart enough to share their "discovery" with the world.

On a completely unrelated note, BURN-E the pixar short packaged with WALL-E is wonderful.  Watch it.

Well I narrowly scathed off an all nighter two Sunday's ago, and finally things seem to be lightening up.  I have no more midterms after Tuesday, however that midterm is Quantum Mechanics.  While the material is quite difficult, I actually enjoy it.  Being able to finally understand what is meant when professors or teachers say a particle is a wave and a wave is a particle, or even explaining why the model of an atom on par of the solarsystem is complete nonsense.  I could do with less of the math though.  Nothing like taking a triple integral over spherical space of a 2Pz orbital of Hydrogen O_o.

My Japanese final exam is actually part oral, part write an essay then read it in front of the class from memory.  I don't know how I feel about this.  If I truly know the language I could just make up my essay on the spot, but really, what are the odds of that happening.  Thus I feel like I will spend too much time trying to just memorize what I wrote than actually trying to understand the language.  Oh well, at least it should be too difficult.  

As for History, I don't know why I dislike it so much.  Perhaps it is because it is Middle Eastern history and I have no ambition to even try and pronounce most of the names.  I don't mean to be mean, but if I have to try and implement three apostriphies and create a layer of mucous just to say a name, I'll pass.

As for next term I am debating on if I should take Calculus IV and be at 17 credits with 20 hours of lab, or delay calc until next year.  Hm, in my writing of this update I have discovered a course I could take to help fufuil my Japanese Minor.  It is a 400 level course on Japanese Cinema where we basically spend time watching modern japanese movies and then discussing them in terms of society.  I am so taking that class.

In even more good news, my computer will be delivered tomorrow, meaning that I will hopefully have it this weekend.  

 So nearly everything is back in order around here.  Everything is getting fixed that has been broken over the last few weeks, the only thing I am waiting for now is my Fable II DLC and my desktop.  

Too bad today was ruined since the grad student I work for threatened to tell the professor that I am a good for nothing student and should fail my chem 399 class.  
Backstory- Chem 399 is just doing research with a grad student or professor for credit.  Simple, not too difficult.  You work 3 hours a week, get 1 credit, so in my case I work 6 hours and get 2 credits.  Hours are not specificly set, they can be changed as long as your grad student doesn't mind.  

Incident- I have moved my schedule around (argubaly too many times) due to various events, such as ACS, going home with dad after he gets off work, tech support phone calls, or studying for exams of doom.  I have moved my schedule multiple times (pertaining week by week) which I do understand is very annoying.  My grad student would simply say its fine, no worries, etc.  I go in today and suddenly what I have been doing is offensive to him.  He threatened me that I don't care about my project, am waisting his time, and that I could be the worst undergrad ever.  He said he should tell my professor that I don't deserve to pass chem 399 even.  Now I can understand him saying this to me if he had warned me before to not move my schedule.  Duly note that I am only short 3 hours of work from the time that I began and I don't have as much progress done since the grad student took a month's vacation back to Korea for all of september.

I guess I am trying to figure out if my grad student is being overly sensitive but justified, or am I a horrible student for not wanting to work in my lab all free hours of the day.  Perhaps if I were earning money I would be willing to work until 1 AM, however for 2 credits and 6 hours of work a week don't seem to pull me back into the lab.  

To top it off the reaction I have been working on since October completely failed today.  

Adding to the wonderfulness of today, it is open door night on my floor.  My room was invaded while I went and got dinner that I missed while trying to collect the non existant compound for the grad student that thinks I'm a failure at life now.  What this means is that my overzealous roommate has invited EVERYONE to come and play MY videogames.  Currently I am on my computer typing this, trying to do my japanese while 2 strangers my roommate and a friend are play my games.  The best part, my roommate stopped playing, so now it is just 2 strangers and a friend.  In my room.  Playing my games.  

I hate everything.

 Well I finally got my xbox back from the xbox hospital.  Works like a charm however I did have to redownload all 91 pieces of DLC I currently own in order to renew the license on them O_o.

In other electronics news, I bought a new computer today.  My laptop has been making beeping sounds from an internal card, which leads me to believe either A) my laptop is overheating (due to my processor working harder than an amsterdam prostitute), B) RAM failure (which would explain my inefficency in my RAM in general), or C) my computer is trying to speak to me through morse code.  

Either way it is being overworked to the point where the hardware is having far too much trouble.  Also a desktop would suit me better for my room, and perhaps my laptop could actually be used as a laptop.  Nifty thing about the computer, the model that was on sale had to come with a monitor, however if I were to buy the model without a monitor, it ended up costing me $72 more than taking the computer with a monitor.  So I just got a second 24" monitor and saved $72.  WOOT.  The only problem is that my desk is not large enough to support both monitors........

In school news I have a 10 page Chem 462 report due on monday about molecular dynamics, a quantum mechancs problem set due monday, and a paper for history.  I suppose I should be working on that instead of typing this........

 Ugh, this week is balls to the wall bad.

Computational Chemistry lab report oral presentation, 1 Hr duration, Thursday from 2-3 PM.

Peoples of the Near East 3200-0 B.C.E. midterm, Wednesday 12-1 PM

Japanese:
Grammar exam, 10-11 Tuesday
Listening exam, 10-11 Wednesday
Reading and Writing exam, 10-11 Thursday
Oral exam, 10:10-10:20 Friday

GUAHAhfuopehawuopvjhuioeraorjkle

Fall break cannot arrive fast enough.

 Does someone want to explain to me when the whole idea of having an opinion with cited facts mean you are completely wrong?

Since when has history become a field where interpretation is closed to newcomers?  Especially ones who cite facts to make their claim.  I understand that the idea may not be necessarily accurate to the letter, but who is to say the scholars of today are correct?  

I guess it just comes down to bitter people who fiddle their time away trying to show modern society the importance of the minute details between Egyptian and Mesopotamian theology.  I know I would be pretty bitter if I was forced to study that knowing somewhere, there were people solving the mysteries of the universe, life, etc.  

My ranking of importance:
Chemistry
American Chemical Society
Science
Japanese
Sleeping
Eating
Defecating
Carpet
Dust
Humanities


Yes, that is right, I find observing the collection of dust more interesting than humanities courses.  In fact, I'd enjoy having diarrhea more than listing to utter bullshit spewed by stuck up pricks telling me "This is the History of the Near East.  I am right, go fourth and copy what I say.  I am not wrong, this is exactly what happened in history."  

God I should have been an engineer........

Well I finally got my schedule setteled down.

Monday
10-11  にほんご (Japanese)
11-12 Quantum Mechanics
12-1 Peoples of the Near East (History of the MIddle East)

Tuesday
10-11 にほんご
1-5 Computational Chemistry

Wednesday
10-11 にほんご
11-12 Quantum Mechanics
12-1 Peoples of the Near East
1-5 Research Lab

Thursday
8-9 Quantum Mechanics
9-10 Peoples of the Near East
10-11 にほんご
1-5 Research Lab

Friday
10-11 にほんご
11-12 Quantum Mechanics
12-1 Peoples of the Near East

Saturday
8-10 けんど (Kendo)

The term isn't bad, aside thursday's, especially when you have ACS and Kendo practice after class.

Japanese is going really well.  I am heading to office hours in a few minutes.  My sensee totally serves tea during office hours.

Computational chem lab is pretty interesting, however it tends to be a tad annoying at times.

Quantum mechancs is interesting.  The math will suck, but I enjoy the topic.  I suppose as long as I am postive about it, it will be fine.

My history class is bland, the professor doesn't have much spirit yet about the topic.

Lastly Kendo is really fun.  Last night was a kata workshop where we began to learn the first "dance of the theatre" of swordsmanship.  

For this weekend I am working on the first problem set for quantum mechanics.  Looks like we have to solve for eigenvalues (boo that).  Have to work on my lab report for computational chem's first lab, The Monte Carlo Method.  Gotta read 20 pages of an article for history then write on if we can use the races of today to explain the ancient near east.  Finally I need to work on memorizing greetings and katakana for japanese.  That and we have our away game against Notre Dame.  

Busy weekend @_@.

Well I'm all moved into my dorm, but the term does not begin until next tuesday.  In the mean time I will be doing Move In Makers for the people moving in later this week.

I'm only at 13 credits this term, but it shall be a busy one.  Quantum Mechanics, Japanese, Synthesis, and my research position have me at 30 hours of in class time per week. 

I have been looking into purchasing Tales of Vesperia until I saw a little tid bit today about the DLC.  You can purchae Level Up's via Downloadable Content.  Yes, thats right, for a mere $5 you can level your character up 10 levels.  WTF!?  Since when have the days of level grinding gone away?  Now you can freely buy your way to victory, how cheap.

ACS will be getting underway, and my preparations are nearing completition for the beginning of the year. 

Huzzah, I finished my homework for the rest of the week.  Now I can go home and go to court on friday without worry. 

I was contemplating purchasing 3:10 to Yuma, the new one, today however I couldn't bring myself to pay $22 for it from Borders.  Its a good movie, but not that good. 

I guess that mastering physics is a bit "picky" when it comes to entering answers.  1.1=/=1.11.  Wow MP.  Way to go.

I also think I am getting sick.  Yay.

I should be getting to bed.  Good night.

So I just finish my marathon Exam run.  Last Wednesday was Chem 447, Thursday was Physics 260, and today was Chem 302.  Finally I can sort of relax.

I probably should be planning for my American Chemical Society meeting tomorrow night.  Alas, I'm far too tired to bother with it today.  What a president I am, o well.  It shall be done sooner or later.

In case you didn't know, I broke my foot last fall.  Well it healed, however more and more recently my foot has been feeling the weather.  And with this being such an odd winter, its acting up now. 

I now have two research positions, one in physics and one in chemistry.  I now work for Dr. Matzger in his lab synthesizing the zeolite MOF-5.  Its a pretty awesome project, however two jobs and only 1 paying kind of sucks. 

I applied to a summer position for 10 weeks that pays $3,500, untaxed, with that professor.  I really hope I get it, however I have no place to live for the summer.  I was going to move in with a friend, however I don't think I could handle living with 5 girls.  I think my other friend has an opening, and a 52" screen *drools*. 

It feels weird to be growing up.  This may sound strange, however this past year I have been so far accelerated in my classes I may be taking Graduate Level classes my senior year.  While I think the honors degree is out of reach (thank you Calculus II) I'm okay with that.  I remember meeting people last year, there were all sorts of different people that I befriended.

This year however is very different.  Nearly everyone I am in contact with is a hardcore science major.  That isn't bad per-se, but when the best jokes said involve the speed of light or shrodinger, it gets old.  Seriously though, they are cool people.  Rock Band is a favorite, among other games. 

I get to go to court on friday to fight the ticket I got for "totaling" my moms car at 13 mph.  Fun times.

I can't wait for spring break.  Daily homework for physics is a bit intense.

Later everyone