First day of lessons
One thing I don't like about U of C is the core requirement. Instead of focusing on my major and what I would like to do, we are forced to do courses which we might have very little interest in. This quarter, I have the misfortune of spending half my time in two such courses.
Firstly, I signed up for Music this quarter. I didn't really have to do music. However, it's a choice between drama, music and art. Sheesh. That's not much of a choice. I can't draw or comment on art pieces, and don't even start talking about plays. Maybe maybe if someone really good at art were here to help me I could probably survive the art course. But but.... Someone refused to be packed into a suitcase. Welleeee so out of those 3, I picked music. Now, music is not any better. We were greeted with a 'well, this course is trying to squeeze everything I learnt in 10 years into 1 quarter' by the instructor. We were introduced to the different elements of music, as well as given 4 different recordings of different time periods. The geogorian chant didn't even sound like God would have particularly enjoyed listening to it. It's like a monologue.
I'm also signed up for Greek thought literature, a carry over from last quarter. Admittingly, my teacher is rather interesting, knowledgable and good. But it's just me. I'm not interested in anything which doesn't follow pure logic. Actually, I love history and will probably enjoy the civ course later on, which I am planning to take on the history of China, Korea and Japanese. Maybe than I will find out why Korean and Japanese people seemed to be prettier and more handsome. Maybe they got the good genes.
Following those, I am in Econs 201 which is concerned with the supply side of microeconomics. I have a cute Thai teacher who is first time teaching(read: bullyable). However, she zoomed through like 5 pages of notes in about an hour. It probably would have taken 2-3 lessons in RJC to cover the material she covered. I dunno why I always end up in the Econs class with a grad student as a teacher. However, I rather enjoyed my previous teacher and I suspect I will like this teacher as well- particularly because we only have 3 pieces of homework in the whole quarter.
Finally, my favourite course, Mathematics. Interestingly, I hated mathematics a lot in JC and never planned to major in University. However, the Mathematics at U of C is really very interesting and they have impressive teachers. In fact, the only lesson I only look forward to now is Mathematics. For example, in the previous quarter I learnt about compact spaces and metric spaces; while this quarter I will be learning about lebesgue integrals and lebesgue measures. Lebesgue integrals is a really very interesting concept. The standard integration technique (Riemann integration) is practically useless since it requires really nice functions before the function is integratable, and this hardly happens in real life. Most of the functions we can use Riemann integration are continuous- and once again, continuous functions are very rare. As a simple example, how would you integrate a function which is 1 at every rational point and 0 otherwise using riemann integration? In fact, Lebesgue measure and integration is the foundation of modern probability theory, which is strongly related to what I will probably want to learn in my stats course. I particularly liked what my teacher said about grading: I want you guys to worry about lebesgue integration rather than your grades - as long as you are hardworking, you will do fine. I take the maximum combination possible (split between mid terms, finals and homework), but of course I can't spawn an A from nowhere.
I guess it is really important to take a course which I have an actual interest in otherwise it is easy to burn out.
Bought a new pair of earphones, http://www.headphone.com/products/headphones/in-ear-monitor/etymotic-er-4s.php
I love'em and highly recommend them. They are extremely sound proof and reproduce sound very well. My Tong Hua sounds even sadder with'em. Sigh. Anyway, I was really impressed that amazon.com got them shipped to me with 24 hours of my order and was surprised when I received the package the very next day.
Firstly, I signed up for Music this quarter. I didn't really have to do music. However, it's a choice between drama, music and art. Sheesh. That's not much of a choice. I can't draw or comment on art pieces, and don't even start talking about plays. Maybe maybe if someone really good at art were here to help me I could probably survive the art course. But but.... Someone refused to be packed into a suitcase. Welleeee so out of those 3, I picked music. Now, music is not any better. We were greeted with a 'well, this course is trying to squeeze everything I learnt in 10 years into 1 quarter' by the instructor. We were introduced to the different elements of music, as well as given 4 different recordings of different time periods. The geogorian chant didn't even sound like God would have particularly enjoyed listening to it. It's like a monologue.
I'm also signed up for Greek thought literature, a carry over from last quarter. Admittingly, my teacher is rather interesting, knowledgable and good. But it's just me. I'm not interested in anything which doesn't follow pure logic. Actually, I love history and will probably enjoy the civ course later on, which I am planning to take on the history of China, Korea and Japanese. Maybe than I will find out why Korean and Japanese people seemed to be prettier and more handsome. Maybe they got the good genes.
Following those, I am in Econs 201 which is concerned with the supply side of microeconomics. I have a cute Thai teacher who is first time teaching(read: bullyable). However, she zoomed through like 5 pages of notes in about an hour. It probably would have taken 2-3 lessons in RJC to cover the material she covered. I dunno why I always end up in the Econs class with a grad student as a teacher. However, I rather enjoyed my previous teacher and I suspect I will like this teacher as well- particularly because we only have 3 pieces of homework in the whole quarter.
Finally, my favourite course, Mathematics. Interestingly, I hated mathematics a lot in JC and never planned to major in University. However, the Mathematics at U of C is really very interesting and they have impressive teachers. In fact, the only lesson I only look forward to now is Mathematics. For example, in the previous quarter I learnt about compact spaces and metric spaces; while this quarter I will be learning about lebesgue integrals and lebesgue measures. Lebesgue integrals is a really very interesting concept. The standard integration technique (Riemann integration) is practically useless since it requires really nice functions before the function is integratable, and this hardly happens in real life. Most of the functions we can use Riemann integration are continuous- and once again, continuous functions are very rare. As a simple example, how would you integrate a function which is 1 at every rational point and 0 otherwise using riemann integration? In fact, Lebesgue measure and integration is the foundation of modern probability theory, which is strongly related to what I will probably want to learn in my stats course. I particularly liked what my teacher said about grading: I want you guys to worry about lebesgue integration rather than your grades - as long as you are hardworking, you will do fine. I take the maximum combination possible (split between mid terms, finals and homework), but of course I can't spawn an A from nowhere.
I guess it is really important to take a course which I have an actual interest in otherwise it is easy to burn out.
Bought a new pair of earphones, http://www.headphone.com/products/headphones/in-ear-monitor/etymotic-er-4s.php
I love'em and highly recommend them. They are extremely sound proof and reproduce sound very well. My Tong Hua sounds even sadder with'em. Sigh. Anyway, I was really impressed that amazon.com got them shipped to me with 24 hours of my order and was surprised when I received the package the very next day.
posted by Anonymous at 3:43 PM
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