Threads in the pattern

I finished tonight what may be my last university homework assignment ever. It's hard to say because I don't know if Cambia will offer me employment at the conclusion of my internship this summer. But it's possible. It's a weird feeling, really. My last homework assignment may have been on the definition of a derivative. Not sure how I feel about that. It hasn't been the most interesting topic, so it's not much of a bang to go out with.

Though, I do remember emailing McKay while he was in Florida serving as a missionary. I was in high school, studying calculus. I asked him if he still knew how to find the derivative of a certain function. He confessed he did not. (McKay went on to get both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in math.)

So it is that I [possibly] end where I [kind of] began. The wheel of time certainly does turn.

Wednesday, Friday, happy days

Yesterday was the first day of school after spring break. During my analysis class, Dr. Heal asked if there were any questions on the homework due Wednesday. Of course, no one worked on the homework during spring break—and I think he declared something to that effect because he knew it must be true. No one said anything. After a moment of silence...

DR. HEAL: Okay, well let’s talk more about sequences then.

(more silence as he readies his lecture notes)

ME: I have a question about the homework, actually.

DR. HEAL: Okay.

ME: Can we turn it in Friday so we can ask questions about it on Wednesday?

DR. HEAL: Well, Tyler, I don’t know.

He considered it for a moment...and went with it! I was very happy about this, as were my classmates (as you can imagine). The great thing about Dr. Heal though is that he’s always flexible and willing to help his students. This is just one example I happened to contribute to.

Thanksgiving, a.k.a. Independence Day

In taking time to study for Exam P last week, I had to sacrifice precious time to do homework. Hence, I started an important stats assignment yesterday and worked on it all yesterday and today. It was due by 11:59 tonight, and I think I finished my online submission just after 11:30. Close call, I know. I had to call it quits on a few things that I wasn’t too certain of, but hopefully I can just do my best.

Oh, and I should mention. I’m free! As soon as I submitted my assignment this evening, I became a free man. I have the entire Thanksgiving break with my family now. Every day, I work hard so that I can spend some ounce of time with them, and now I can spend time with them for several days. We are all very excited.

Good study things

Some good things are happening in my studies. So far, I’ve stayed on top of my hour study of Exam P every day this week (and, I’m ahead of schedule overall, so at this point I’m studying stuff that I have scheduled for next week). Additionally, I’ve been getting to bed earlier than I have all semester, which means I rise earlier and somehow get more things done throughout the day. AND I created a study schedule for my classes, which helps me to maintain my coursework rather than try to catch up and get things done quickly right before an assignment is due.

Economics exam tomorrow. More later.

"Until the job is completed successfully"

I have a spreadsheet on my computer with a list of 57 goals that I am working on right now. Each day, I open the sheet and the program randomly generates one daily goal, which I then try to make a part of my life for 24 hours.

I smiled when I opened it last night and saw that today’s would be “I work hard until the job is completed successfully.” Today was exam study day, and I spent nearly the entirety of my waking hours working through homework problems and pouring over pages and pages and pages and pages of study material. Even then, I only got a little more than halfway through the material, so I’m going to have to get up really early Monday morning and get more done before my 11:30 am calculus exam.

So, while the job is not "completed successfully" at this point, I am confident that "I work hard" is basically an understatement.

Appendicitis is one of the best reasons to cancel your appointments

I dub this officially the best day of the semester to date. Yes, that’s only five actual days of class, but today worked out the best for me.

It started rough what with Matt Lewis, my differential equations teacher, having appendicitis. So, while I had an appointment to go over a significant number of homework problems with him this morning, he was out of commission. Surprisingly though, he did show up for class. About halfway through he said, “And I’m gonna stop there. We’ll pick up tomorrow when I feel better.” Since he was in the hospital last night, none of us could blame him. He said at the start of class, “My wife thinks I’m a stud for being here.” Truth.

But that was the only shakeup that happened—the whole morning appointment thing. I successfully completed both homework problems for that class AND got into some calculus problems with full force for the first time this semester. In fact, I already prepared half of the calculus homework that is due Friday.

All I have time for nowadays

I woke up at five o'clock this morning and calculated the position of a parachutist after 20 seconds of free fall from 10,000 feet given a certain air resistance. And that basically tells you what I'm doing after my first week of this crazygonuts seven week summer term.

Each problem takes me about 30-60 minutes to complete. I studied all Friday until about 5:00 pm and all Saturday until about 10:00 pm. Sunday was my first moment of relaxation (aside from date night on Friday and an insistence that we watch a movie Saturday night before bed).

Matt Lewis, my differential equations teacher, makes sense to me. He's down-to-earth, friendly, and pretty easy to follow. It's LOADS of homework, but it's mostly making sense.

My multivariable calculus teacher is harder to follow, but for that class I have a tutor named James Odei, who is from Ghana. I met with James for the first time on Friday and I can already tell he's going to clear up this semester of calculus for me.

Who knows when I'll be able to blog again, so I'll stand by that for now.

Maybe the end of economics

The first half of the third economics exam was a breeze. I sat there in class and went through the first 20-ish questions so quickly and so confidently that I was looking forward to getting out of there very early. But of course an easy first half meant an overwhelming second half, and I finished right at the very end of our allotted time. (I still think I must have done fairly well overall if the first half was that simple.)

Dr. Findley paused us about ten minutes into the test to make a few announcements, which included...the final is optional! He will soon post our grades up to this point in the semester and give us the option of individually bowing out of the final if we are satisfied with our grades. Considering I have about a 98% average on the homework and always have an above average grade on the exams, I hope this means eliminating the final and ending this class early for me. (Also, it helps that he double counts our highest exam grade, bringing up our average.)

My plot to take over Calculus 2

I’m in Janice’s office several times a week—almost daily—checking my calculus homework solutions for accuracy. We’ve had a few conversations here and there about anything from Joseph Smith to course material, and I believe she’s come to respect me more as a peer than a student. This morning I told her that I thought section 9.3 of our textbook should have been split into two parts and that section 9.4’s two parts should have been combined (as far as homework goes), and I shared my reasons why. She stopped what she was doing and reasoned it out with me. She agreed that something needs to change in how she covers chapter 9’s material, and she admitted that my idea was worth considering. I appreciate that.

Me vs. The Bus, part 2

Missing the first bus this morning presented a minor temptation. I could probably justify skipping one class and sparing Karen the inconvenience of driving me to campus, but after walking about half a block home I realized I could still make it to the transit center if I ran a stretch of the way. So I took off. And made it in time to catch the second bus.

And you know what? Dr. Findley announced a bonus assignment that is due right after spring break, and he noted that those who took spring break early are missing out. (This comes from a professor who doesn't believe in extra credit, so that's saying something.) I’ve missed maybe 5 points overall on my homework assignments, but the bonus is worth 20, so I can bring my homework score above 100%, which may make up for whatever I’m lacking in my test scores by the end of the semester.

Take that, bus.

Me vs. The Bus, part 1 was a few years ago when my car slid on an icy road in Provo and put me a little too far out on the main street. A bus drove by and swiped off my front license plate, sending it through the air and landing it in the gutter about 15 or 20 yards away. 

Why take notes when the teacher does it for you?

I texted my calculus instructor, Janice. At the beginning of the semester she gave us her cell number and personal email and said we could contact her with questions. On the first day of class I called her to ask for advice on buying the right calculator. And since then I have only texted her twice. What I said this evening:

Janice, Tyler Heasley here. Just wondering if tonight you’ll be posting today’s class notes on 8.7 for your section 007 class.

About 45 minutes later, her response:

Just posted them. Sorry for the delay.

Me:

No prob. Thanks for all you do.

Because she posts her lecture notes every day, I never take notes in class. It's a perfect setup.

My broken record of arrogance

I keep running a conversation through my head.

Almost every weekday I stop by Janice’s office to look through her homework solutions manual. (I’d rather correct my mistakes on my own than be told after grading that I did something wrong. And I only have a limited solutions manual at home.) I looked through her manual for maybe three minutes. One of her officemates (another grad student) spoke up almost as soon as I closed the book.

HIM: Do you ever get any problems wrong?

ME: Oh, yeah. I just look through this [the solutions manual] and then make note of what I messed up, and then I go and correct it later.

HIM: Well you just usually sit here for a few minutes and then you’re done and I’m like, “That guy never does any problems wrong!”

ME: Well...it’s all pretty intuitive.

HIM: I guess my intuition’s broken, then!

ME: Oh I mean, you do six problems that are all pretty similar and you are able to make sure you did them correctly, and then when you check on some of the other ones, it’s kind of like, “Oh, I see what I did wrong,” and then you just correct it.

I must have sounded so arrogant. Intuitive? That’s not necessarily the right word to use for what I was talking about, and I think that made me seem smarter at calculus than I actually am. I mean, this guy is a grad student! So...what do I have on him? Nothing. But it’s one of those conversations where you replay it over and over in your head, wishing things had gone a little better.

I'm not a good test taker

The calculus exam is a week from today, which makes me nervous. Janice said yesterday in class, “If you’ve done the homework problems, then you should be fine on the test. It’s nothing too weird or out-there.”

That’s reassuring, because yes, I have done every homework problem so far and have missed only one point in the class in three weeks. I just worry about being able to do the exam in a reasonable amount of time, because I’m quite slow and very precise and careful when I do calculus problems.

Calculus is fun...if you do it

One of the most rewarding feelings every week is submitting my calculus homework. It happens every Friday, and I’ve been excited all three times now because I work so hard all week and then hand over a polished draft of pages and pages of solutions on subjects I didn’t know how to do the week before. We learn so much in one week, and it’s just an incredible thing to put it to practice in a matter of days.

Look at my effort, not my work

14 out of 15 points. That’s what I received for the homework assignment I submitted this afternoon in calculus. After what was probably about 12 hours and 10 submitted pages of homework (spread over three days at about 4 hours a day), I got 14/15, earning me about a 93% for the assignment. If assignments were graded on effort, I would have a 15/15, but I can understand that in 12 hours of calculus I must have done at least something wrong.

I’m okay with it. We’ve had two assignments graded so far this semester and my point total is 29/30 to date, so I’m feeling good about this whole calculus thing. I was nervous that I would fall on my face because it’s been so long since I took a full semester of calculus, but now I’m pretty confident that, with the Lord’s help—which, I’m convinced, I am receiving an immense portion of—I can do this with an A. Not an A-, an A. My end goal after three years of school is a job, of course, but it is also a higher GPA than what I had with my first bachelor’s. I want to show employers an improvement from my first degree, that I have made progress, and that I am capable of doing amazing things. And since I won’t be taking a full load any semester I am here (except one, I think), I’m pretty certain this is a worthy, reasonable goal. I mean, right now things are going well in all of my classes, calculus included.