Marina (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} marinalives) wrote,@ 2004-09-28 20:28:00 |
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Is it strange that I love school?
The first two days of school have been absolutely wonderful. All my teachers seem above average and the course material is exciting.
Yesterday was very busy. I left the house a little before noon for circuit weight training. The teacher is this wirey blond woman who graduated from the high school next door and is so excited to be teaching at Cascade's new gym. We didn't do any actual working out, just filled out forms and talked about grades were based on attendance and doing an easy workout once in a while was fine. I ended up deciding to switch to a Tuesday Thursday morning class so I could have all day Monday, Wednesday and Friday free for potential jobs.
Before my math class at 6 I sold last spring's books and bought this quarter's books, and managed to save $300, thanks to student book sales and a friend with an unused graphing calculator. I had time to run a couple errands as well, and check out the career center, which didn't have any interesting job listings but does have a fax machine, which could come in very handy.
Math class was okay, for two hours of review. I now remember how to multiply and divide exponents, anyway. I am looking forward to learning new stuff in that class. Learning how to turn long strings of numbers and symbols into a simple binomial or a graph is downright energizing.
This morning when I got up at 6:30 for circuit weight training I couldn't believe I'd signed up for a 7am class. But I forgave myself on the bike ride there when I saw the full moon setting over the west hills, and decided I'd keep going when I got there and realized I'd see the sun rise through the huge east and south facing windows. Also, I can grab a protein bar on the way out the door and bike home with time for breakfast before my next class.
Said next class is Language And The Layout Of Argument. Mostly we talked about the meanings of the words "philosophy", "critical", "thinking", and "reasonable". The teacher, Shirlee, definitely got my attention when she said that Socrates led directly to Star Trek. It'll be a fun argumentative class, and an incredibly easy A for sure. If one gets a higher grade on the final than one gets cumulatively for homework and the final, the final grade is the class grade. Which means that theoretically a student who turned in no homework and never came to class could get an A. It also means that when I do the homework, I'll be doing it to learn and not for a grade. Which is good.
In between classes I dropped off a resume at Mississippi Pizza, which is a rockin' cool pizza place about ten blocks west of my house, and bought new tires for my bike. I really, really needed new tires. Liz looked at the shredding on Sunday and the words "exploding" and "soon" came up, which worried me a little. But for $19 I have spiffy semi-new tires and not a care in the world! Hurrah for the Community Cycling Center.
Physics class was wonderful. I got a little worried when the professor passed out an assesment test and I had no idea what the differences between the various kinds of forces and energies were. But that's why I'm there, right? Somehow the class seems to be full of funny brilliant people who're there because they think conceptual physics is interesting, not because it's a prerequisite for anything. We talked a little about the scientific method and a lot about how nothing can be proven, only disproven, and how no one knows exactly how gravity works. I asked a good question: how are things like atoms scientific if they're not observable? (Apparently in the case of atoms the hypothesis came first, and then the observation of atoms effects.) I also learned that atoms are three orders of magnitude smaller than light waves.
The best part when when I stayed a half an hour after class to talk to a guy who's also in my earlier class about the play he's writing based on the book "The User Illusion", which is a very obscure and abstract book about physics, neuroscience, religion, and everything else. I can't believe that 1) I actually had a conversation with a fellow student, and 2) said fellow student has not only read "The User Illusion" but is writing a play based on it. Spiffy stuff.
Then I biked home, and Liz said, "Marina! Don't take your helmet off!" The manager of Mississippi Pizza had just called and said I should come in for an interview sometime between 4 and 6. So I got right back on my bike and had a very, very short interview, which I'm not sure is good or bad. Apparently they call back five or six people out of about twenty interviewees for "working interviews" and then hire one or two of those. We'll see, I suppose.
I do have an interview at an AT&T retail store tomorrow at 8am (to which I say yuck, as waking up at 6:30 three days in a row is baaad) and then I'll have the rest of the day to bike around downtown and apply various places. I will get a job by the end of October. I will I will I will.
The first two days of school have been absolutely wonderful. All my teachers seem above average and the course material is exciting.
Yesterday was very busy. I left the house a little before noon for circuit weight training. The teacher is this wirey blond woman who graduated from the high school next door and is so excited to be teaching at Cascade's new gym. We didn't do any actual working out, just filled out forms and talked about grades were based on attendance and doing an easy workout once in a while was fine. I ended up deciding to switch to a Tuesday Thursday morning class so I could have all day Monday, Wednesday and Friday free for potential jobs.
Before my math class at 6 I sold last spring's books and bought this quarter's books, and managed to save $300, thanks to student book sales and a friend with an unused graphing calculator. I had time to run a couple errands as well, and check out the career center, which didn't have any interesting job listings but does have a fax machine, which could come in very handy.
Math class was okay, for two hours of review. I now remember how to multiply and divide exponents, anyway. I am looking forward to learning new stuff in that class. Learning how to turn long strings of numbers and symbols into a simple binomial or a graph is downright energizing.
This morning when I got up at 6:30 for circuit weight training I couldn't believe I'd signed up for a 7am class. But I forgave myself on the bike ride there when I saw the full moon setting over the west hills, and decided I'd keep going when I got there and realized I'd see the sun rise through the huge east and south facing windows. Also, I can grab a protein bar on the way out the door and bike home with time for breakfast before my next class.
Said next class is Language And The Layout Of Argument. Mostly we talked about the meanings of the words "philosophy", "critical", "thinking", and "reasonable". The teacher, Shirlee, definitely got my attention when she said that Socrates led directly to Star Trek. It'll be a fun argumentative class, and an incredibly easy A for sure. If one gets a higher grade on the final than one gets cumulatively for homework and the final, the final grade is the class grade. Which means that theoretically a student who turned in no homework and never came to class could get an A. It also means that when I do the homework, I'll be doing it to learn and not for a grade. Which is good.
In between classes I dropped off a resume at Mississippi Pizza, which is a rockin' cool pizza place about ten blocks west of my house, and bought new tires for my bike. I really, really needed new tires. Liz looked at the shredding on Sunday and the words "exploding" and "soon" came up, which worried me a little. But for $19 I have spiffy semi-new tires and not a care in the world! Hurrah for the Community Cycling Center.
Physics class was wonderful. I got a little worried when the professor passed out an assesment test and I had no idea what the differences between the various kinds of forces and energies were. But that's why I'm there, right? Somehow the class seems to be full of funny brilliant people who're there because they think conceptual physics is interesting, not because it's a prerequisite for anything. We talked a little about the scientific method and a lot about how nothing can be proven, only disproven, and how no one knows exactly how gravity works. I asked a good question: how are things like atoms scientific if they're not observable? (Apparently in the case of atoms the hypothesis came first, and then the observation of atoms effects.) I also learned that atoms are three orders of magnitude smaller than light waves.
The best part when when I stayed a half an hour after class to talk to a guy who's also in my earlier class about the play he's writing based on the book "The User Illusion", which is a very obscure and abstract book about physics, neuroscience, religion, and everything else. I can't believe that 1) I actually had a conversation with a fellow student, and 2) said fellow student has not only read "The User Illusion" but is writing a play based on it. Spiffy stuff.
Then I biked home, and Liz said, "Marina! Don't take your helmet off!" The manager of Mississippi Pizza had just called and said I should come in for an interview sometime between 4 and 6. So I got right back on my bike and had a very, very short interview, which I'm not sure is good or bad. Apparently they call back five or six people out of about twenty interviewees for "working interviews" and then hire one or two of those. We'll see, I suppose.
I do have an interview at an AT&T retail store tomorrow at 8am (to which I say yuck, as waking up at 6:30 three days in a row is baaad) and then I'll have the rest of the day to bike around downtown and apply various places. I will get a job by the end of October. I will I will I will.
