/whine
Blah blah blah So Tired blah blah blah Feel like I need to buy my friends sometimes blah blah blah Don't care that much about money but blah blah blah Still feel like sometimes I'm unappreciated blah blah blah People other than those I call my closest friends here seem to care more about me blah blah blah I spend too much moneyz blah blah blah I need scarves blah blah blah I miss the nice Lamont parties blah blah blah I still love my friends but I'm tired and feeling a little sad inside blah blah blah I'm watching Big Bang Theory (by myself) so I'm distracted blah blah blah Uncoherent blah blah blah I miss friends at home too cause watching Big Bang Theory does that blah blah blah Halloween coming up soon bought candy hope kids like it blah blah blah THANKSGIVING BREAK NEEDS TO COME SOONER blah blah blah wish my friends here cared more about me blah blah blah I'm too whiny.
/endrant
On a happier note (somewhat, as it was also the spark for this post) I made good wonderful chocolate-iness today. The cookies were a hot mess, but the cupcakes were SO GOOD. The flat thing of "cookie" tasted alright, but it looked ridiculous. Oh well. :P
I'm also a little worried that the not-microwave-safe measuring cup (which we killed) will give us all cancer someday, but that's a little far off to really care about. Haha. :P
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Midterm Season
Just one left.
So far, I've gone through two midterm exams and turned in one paper (that counts for 1/3 of my final grade in that class). Results have not exactly been as I would have hoped.
Let's reassess.
So I come into Harvard, knowing that these are the top students of their respective high schools, knowing that it means lots of competition, lots of hard work, lots of new challenges. Despite that, I still came here expecting to be the exact same student I was--straight As, putting work over play, and doing as much studying as I felt was necessary but no more than that. In fact, even though I knew that it was a new environment with higher standards, I felt up to them. Everyone talks about how classes are easy, how there are curves and tons of grade inflation, so I felt like I didn't need to stress out or worry exceedingly.
How that has come to bite me in the ass.
My first midterm was Econ. It's an intro class, probably taken by roughly half the Freshman body. The class has been easy, with sections just repeating and rarely supplementing material from the readings. It doesn't seem like we're covering that much material in the midterm either; just really basic supply and demand analysis, with some taxes and subsidies involved, plus a bit of international trade. No biggie. I do some review, and score about 80% on the practice. Seeing that most of my mistakes are just small, stupid errors, I'm just like "Oh well, I'll just be a little more careful on the actual test since I'll have more time." So I leave it at that.
Result: I get 94 points out of 120. 4 points above a 75%. 2 points above an "A/A-", with the curve in place.
So much for "this will be a piece of cake."
The test wasn't even difficult; I missed 4 MC questions, which put my MC right on the 75% mark, but I felt my success on the long responses would have made up for it. I even caught a few errors that would have lost me quite a few points in the last few minutes of the test. But rather than passing with flying colors as I'd expected, I'd just scraped by. As of now, I have yet to actually look over the exam to see what exactly it is that I missed. Planning on doing that soon.
Impact: I'm going to study so much harder next time. Darn you midterm.
Midterm number two is linguistics. At this point, I hadn't gotten my results from my Econ test yet, so I'm still pretty confident about my abilities. My study group has a little pre-midterm review session that lasts for 2 hours, and by the end of it we're all feeling exceptionally prepared and really confident. I set my alarm that night for 9:00 so that I can wake up, shower, and eat breakfast before class.
Doesn't work that way; I woke up at 9:30, and had about just enough time to shower before I had to walk over to the classroom. Only had a few minutes to do some last minute studying, and I spend most of that time reviewing phonetics. Then I hastily flip through everything else, catching a few key terms here and there. Test arrives, notes go into the bag. Test begins.
It was much more painful than expected, and a little harder than previous reviews of the class had suggested. 1st section was strange and difficult to maneuver, but then the next few sections went by pretty smoothly. I committed a small, stupid mistake in the middle because I overthought the question. And then there's this wall that everyone hits: What the hell is "scope ambiguity?" I struggle over it for a few minutes, then skip it to finish everything else. Nothing bad for the last two problems (although I get marked off 2 points for the last one--this I need to ask about) and then go back to the crazy semantics problem. Think about it some more, and then there's only 5 minutes left so I put down something that's semi-plausible but doesn't seem to have anything to do with the "scope" part of "scope ambiguity." I don't have time to put anything for part (b) of that question.
Result: 89. 89 on a test with a high score of 98. How ironic. Each of my 3 small errors were marked off 2 points, and part (b) of that semantics question was a -5,. They decided to give the points for part (a) if an attempt was made, and so I got that, luckily. I'm hoping that with the curve, this turns out to be an A-.
It's not. B+.
Not to be a grades-bitch, but I'm going to ask about the last 2 points taken off. It's the difference between a B+ and an A-. In my book, anything under than an A- is an F. In some peoples' books, anything under an A is an F, so my standards are already quite low. Harvard or not, I am not getting a Ken-F.
Essay 1: In my Contemporary Immigrant Fiction class, we had to analyze one of two short stories and write an essay about them. My essay wasn't exceptionally good, but it at least got me an A. A nice pick-me-up after finding about about my F. Gotta keep up the hard work.
Midterm 3: I just have Chinese left, and that's tomorrow in class. It's only an hour long, so it shouldn't be too bad. Just in case, though, I'm reviewing all the vocab and phrase-constructions that we've learned so far. Sometimes it's a little disheartening when I just completely blank out, other times it's really rewarding. Gotta get a move on it, though. Otherwise I'll be up all night--as always.
Overall, I'll just have to work harder. Doesn't mean I have to freak out every time I have an exam or an essay, but I definitely need a bit of an attitude change. Can't be so happy-go-lucky, let-it-be, things-will-be-fine anymore. Gotta get down and do work.
My friend, the one who's always telling me how scared he is about the tests and how much smarter I am than he, got higher scores on both midterms, and he's consistently getting better scores on his linguistics homework than I am. Sure, his Econ homework grades are slightly lower than mine, but he works really hard (and parties a lot harder), so I have to take a page from his book. Hopefully by the time finals roll around, I'll be more prepared.
So far, I've gone through two midterm exams and turned in one paper (that counts for 1/3 of my final grade in that class). Results have not exactly been as I would have hoped.
Let's reassess.
So I come into Harvard, knowing that these are the top students of their respective high schools, knowing that it means lots of competition, lots of hard work, lots of new challenges. Despite that, I still came here expecting to be the exact same student I was--straight As, putting work over play, and doing as much studying as I felt was necessary but no more than that. In fact, even though I knew that it was a new environment with higher standards, I felt up to them. Everyone talks about how classes are easy, how there are curves and tons of grade inflation, so I felt like I didn't need to stress out or worry exceedingly.
How that has come to bite me in the ass.
My first midterm was Econ. It's an intro class, probably taken by roughly half the Freshman body. The class has been easy, with sections just repeating and rarely supplementing material from the readings. It doesn't seem like we're covering that much material in the midterm either; just really basic supply and demand analysis, with some taxes and subsidies involved, plus a bit of international trade. No biggie. I do some review, and score about 80% on the practice. Seeing that most of my mistakes are just small, stupid errors, I'm just like "Oh well, I'll just be a little more careful on the actual test since I'll have more time." So I leave it at that.
Result: I get 94 points out of 120. 4 points above a 75%. 2 points above an "A/A-", with the curve in place.
So much for "this will be a piece of cake."
The test wasn't even difficult; I missed 4 MC questions, which put my MC right on the 75% mark, but I felt my success on the long responses would have made up for it. I even caught a few errors that would have lost me quite a few points in the last few minutes of the test. But rather than passing with flying colors as I'd expected, I'd just scraped by. As of now, I have yet to actually look over the exam to see what exactly it is that I missed. Planning on doing that soon.
Impact: I'm going to study so much harder next time. Darn you midterm.
Midterm number two is linguistics. At this point, I hadn't gotten my results from my Econ test yet, so I'm still pretty confident about my abilities. My study group has a little pre-midterm review session that lasts for 2 hours, and by the end of it we're all feeling exceptionally prepared and really confident. I set my alarm that night for 9:00 so that I can wake up, shower, and eat breakfast before class.
Doesn't work that way; I woke up at 9:30, and had about just enough time to shower before I had to walk over to the classroom. Only had a few minutes to do some last minute studying, and I spend most of that time reviewing phonetics. Then I hastily flip through everything else, catching a few key terms here and there. Test arrives, notes go into the bag. Test begins.
It was much more painful than expected, and a little harder than previous reviews of the class had suggested. 1st section was strange and difficult to maneuver, but then the next few sections went by pretty smoothly. I committed a small, stupid mistake in the middle because I overthought the question. And then there's this wall that everyone hits: What the hell is "scope ambiguity?" I struggle over it for a few minutes, then skip it to finish everything else. Nothing bad for the last two problems (although I get marked off 2 points for the last one--this I need to ask about) and then go back to the crazy semantics problem. Think about it some more, and then there's only 5 minutes left so I put down something that's semi-plausible but doesn't seem to have anything to do with the "scope" part of "scope ambiguity." I don't have time to put anything for part (b) of that question.
Result: 89. 89 on a test with a high score of 98. How ironic. Each of my 3 small errors were marked off 2 points, and part (b) of that semantics question was a -5,. They decided to give the points for part (a) if an attempt was made, and so I got that, luckily. I'm hoping that with the curve, this turns out to be an A-.
It's not. B+.
Not to be a grades-bitch, but I'm going to ask about the last 2 points taken off. It's the difference between a B+ and an A-. In my book, anything under than an A- is an F. In some peoples' books, anything under an A is an F, so my standards are already quite low. Harvard or not, I am not getting a Ken-F.
Essay 1: In my Contemporary Immigrant Fiction class, we had to analyze one of two short stories and write an essay about them. My essay wasn't exceptionally good, but it at least got me an A. A nice pick-me-up after finding about about my F. Gotta keep up the hard work.
Midterm 3: I just have Chinese left, and that's tomorrow in class. It's only an hour long, so it shouldn't be too bad. Just in case, though, I'm reviewing all the vocab and phrase-constructions that we've learned so far. Sometimes it's a little disheartening when I just completely blank out, other times it's really rewarding. Gotta get a move on it, though. Otherwise I'll be up all night--as always.
Overall, I'll just have to work harder. Doesn't mean I have to freak out every time I have an exam or an essay, but I definitely need a bit of an attitude change. Can't be so happy-go-lucky, let-it-be, things-will-be-fine anymore. Gotta get down and do work.
My friend, the one who's always telling me how scared he is about the tests and how much smarter I am than he, got higher scores on both midterms, and he's consistently getting better scores on his linguistics homework than I am. Sure, his Econ homework grades are slightly lower than mine, but he works really hard (and parties a lot harder), so I have to take a page from his book. Hopefully by the time finals roll around, I'll be more prepared.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Food with Friends
I love my friends here. Such awesome people. Going on food adventures on 3-day weekends is always nice.
Saturday, 10/8/11
After teaching my ESL and Citizenship classes, Sarah, Audrey, Jon, Stef, and I all go out to have a little journey in Cambridge, from Harvard territory over to MIT territory in Kendall Square. There's a really nice independent coffee shop there called 'Voltage' and Sarah had heard really good things about their lattes. So it was time for us to find out!
We were far from disappointed.
After coffee-adventures, we went to the beach (we arrived around 6:30, but it was quite worth it. :])
Sidenote: Revere Beach (where we were at) is one stop away on the T from Wonderland--in fact, it's basically a 7 minute walk away. Pictures of "Wonderland" weren't exactly promising, though, so we decided not to go, for our safety.
Our final stop that night was Quincy Market. At first, I didn't recognize it because it was dark, but then I realized that I had been there with People to People in 2008. We were starving, and the food there was nice, so everything worked out perfectly. :)
Great night. :D
Saturday, 10/9/11 & Sunday, 10/10/11
Around 8pm, I received an email informing me that this local waffle place was offering coupons for 50% off; that is, when we buy a $10 voucher, they'd email us 2 of them. Great deal; AND, 5% of proceeds were supposed to go to the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter fund. Good food + altruism = Yay! At once, Sarah was aboard, and with a little persuasion, so was her roommate Stef. Then, soon after we received our vouchers, Sarah has this great idea of going to get waffles immediately. So we pack up and go, and meet up with Melanie on the way. The four of us enter this small but warmly-lit store that's above ground level, and I'm just swept with a feeling of Europeanism [they serve Belgian waffles]. We sit down and figure out a way to make it so that our orders total up to $40 so that we can use the vouchers most effectively [we don't get change.] 10 minutes later, we approach the cashier and put down our orders, and proudly hand him our vouchers. That's when we discover that they're not valid until the next day, so that the system has verification that the vouchers are real. Ooops. But, the allure of waffles at 9:30 is so great that we just whip out the money for our orders anyway, Sarah and Stef's without the coffees they ordered. Melanie and I decided that, what-the-heck, we might as well enjoy the experience, and so we kept ours; I ordered a mocha for $3.75, and Melanie got a macchiato (European-style) for $2. This is what the drinks turned out to be like:
Mocha was quite large--probably a Starbucks tall (which is actually a lot when placed into a cup). The macchiato was in a shot glass. :<
Post-waffles, I go to Lamont to do some actual work. I manage a little bit, but by 1am, Audrey, Ben, and I decide that it's time for some IHOP. And so we went. Jon joined us a little later.
This month, it seems that IHOP is doing an All-You-Can-Eat Pancakes promotion, so any order of pancakes can be refilled free-of-charge. Unfortunately, our stomachs are too small to take full advantage of the promotion, but we still went through 15 pancakes, 2 servings of scrambled eggs, and 2 servings of hash browns. :)
But now I'm stuffed and the coffee has long worn off. I'll just listen to some music for a little longer and then head to bed. Columbus Day, though I disagree with its implications, is loved because it means that I don't have classes today. :D
Time to study for some more midterms.
Saturday, 10/8/11
After teaching my ESL and Citizenship classes, Sarah, Audrey, Jon, Stef, and I all go out to have a little journey in Cambridge, from Harvard territory over to MIT territory in Kendall Square. There's a really nice independent coffee shop there called 'Voltage' and Sarah had heard really good things about their lattes. So it was time for us to find out!
We were far from disappointed.
After coffee-adventures, we went to the beach (we arrived around 6:30, but it was quite worth it. :])
Sidenote: Revere Beach (where we were at) is one stop away on the T from Wonderland--in fact, it's basically a 7 minute walk away. Pictures of "Wonderland" weren't exactly promising, though, so we decided not to go, for our safety.
Our final stop that night was Quincy Market. At first, I didn't recognize it because it was dark, but then I realized that I had been there with People to People in 2008. We were starving, and the food there was nice, so everything worked out perfectly. :)
Great night. :D
Saturday, 10/9/11 & Sunday, 10/10/11
Around 8pm, I received an email informing me that this local waffle place was offering coupons for 50% off; that is, when we buy a $10 voucher, they'd email us 2 of them. Great deal; AND, 5% of proceeds were supposed to go to the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter fund. Good food + altruism = Yay! At once, Sarah was aboard, and with a little persuasion, so was her roommate Stef. Then, soon after we received our vouchers, Sarah has this great idea of going to get waffles immediately. So we pack up and go, and meet up with Melanie on the way. The four of us enter this small but warmly-lit store that's above ground level, and I'm just swept with a feeling of Europeanism [they serve Belgian waffles]. We sit down and figure out a way to make it so that our orders total up to $40 so that we can use the vouchers most effectively [we don't get change.] 10 minutes later, we approach the cashier and put down our orders, and proudly hand him our vouchers. That's when we discover that they're not valid until the next day, so that the system has verification that the vouchers are real. Ooops. But, the allure of waffles at 9:30 is so great that we just whip out the money for our orders anyway, Sarah and Stef's without the coffees they ordered. Melanie and I decided that, what-the-heck, we might as well enjoy the experience, and so we kept ours; I ordered a mocha for $3.75, and Melanie got a macchiato (European-style) for $2. This is what the drinks turned out to be like:
Post-waffles, I go to Lamont to do some actual work. I manage a little bit, but by 1am, Audrey, Ben, and I decide that it's time for some IHOP. And so we went. Jon joined us a little later.
This month, it seems that IHOP is doing an All-You-Can-Eat Pancakes promotion, so any order of pancakes can be refilled free-of-charge. Unfortunately, our stomachs are too small to take full advantage of the promotion, but we still went through 15 pancakes, 2 servings of scrambled eggs, and 2 servings of hash browns. :)
But now I'm stuffed and the coffee has long worn off. I'll just listen to some music for a little longer and then head to bed. Columbus Day, though I disagree with its implications, is loved because it means that I don't have classes today. :D
Time to study for some more midterms.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Reminded of Summer
This past spring/summer was definitely one of the most life-changing period of my life.
The Harry Potter midnight premier has been a bonding point with at least two people, and I get to feel really awesome when I tell them about how all my cool and amazing friends dressed up for it.
Starbucks is just pure love. It's something I share with so much of the college population, and it's nice because there are 3 different Starbucks in the Square, 1 that's just a little bit to the north of the Yard, and sort of 2 in the academic-y buildings with cafes [the Science Center and the Northwest Labs both brew Starbucks' coffee. :) ]
Big Bang and other nerdy-but-still-pop-culture-y stuff gives me material (other than Glee) to hype about with people. I wish I had the patience to get aboard the Doctor Who fanboat and the webcomics fanship, but I think I'll just admire them from the side.
And all those dance parties with friends has made it a bit easier for me to let loose and just chairdance and shoulderdance; it's so great. It's a skill that's applicable to other fields--just like the skills my Harvard degree will (hopefully) give me!
So yeah. Good times. I miss my friends dearly, but at the same time I'm glad that I've found new friends, a new place, and a new start. It's invigorating and empowering, especially since I know that my friends from Mesa will still be there, ready to respark our bond this Chrismas and summer. :)
It's so good to have friends.
- I was exposed to tons of Indie music.
- I attended my second Midnight-premier of a movie, except this one was actually legit, and I went with friends!
- I had tons of Starbucks~ <3
- I experienced Big Bang Theory for the first time.
- I became a better dancer. :D
The Harry Potter midnight premier has been a bonding point with at least two people, and I get to feel really awesome when I tell them about how all my cool and amazing friends dressed up for it.
Starbucks is just pure love. It's something I share with so much of the college population, and it's nice because there are 3 different Starbucks in the Square, 1 that's just a little bit to the north of the Yard, and sort of 2 in the academic-y buildings with cafes [the Science Center and the Northwest Labs both brew Starbucks' coffee. :) ]
Big Bang and other nerdy-but-still-pop-culture-y stuff gives me material (other than Glee) to hype about with people. I wish I had the patience to get aboard the Doctor Who fanboat and the webcomics fanship, but I think I'll just admire them from the side.
And all those dance parties with friends has made it a bit easier for me to let loose and just chairdance and shoulderdance; it's so great. It's a skill that's applicable to other fields--just like the skills my Harvard degree will (hopefully) give me!
So yeah. Good times. I miss my friends dearly, but at the same time I'm glad that I've found new friends, a new place, and a new start. It's invigorating and empowering, especially since I know that my friends from Mesa will still be there, ready to respark our bond this Chrismas and summer. :)
It's so good to have friends.
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