Sunday, March 11, 2012

Bad Week

I usually post cheerful things, but not today. I'm not sure whether to organize this post by subject or by calendar, but let me start by subject.

Topology

We had an in-class midterm Thursday morning. I left 3 out of the 5 questions completely blank. This exam also has a take-home portion, originally due Tuesday but now technically due Thursday. I have answered three of the questions so far and I have worked several hours on each of the other two questions with no results.

One of those two was originally wrong, which I pointed out to our professor (gingerly, since I am usually mistaken about such things), and so he fixed it (hence the new due date). The new question is similar to a question we had in our last homework which I couldn't answer then, either. I can get 10 bonus points for turning in a counterexample to the original statement, which I have written up.

So basically I am up to 60/100 points for this exam, and the maximum I can get (considering the lost points from the in-class part) is 80/100. I have no reason to believe that low scores are OK in this class and I think most people will be able to get the problems I couldn't get.

Algebra

We had an in-class exam Friday afternoon. I wrote correct (I believe) answers for 2.5 out of 5 problems, and a woefully incomplete answer for 1/2 of another problem. I'm expecting around a 50% on this exam. We also have an assignment due Thursday which I haven't even looked at.

Probability

I would have had a meeting with my professor for this reading course on Thursday, but I asked him to postpone it, so we meet tomorrow morning instead. I have four assigned problems this week, of which I have completed 1.5. There is another question that I can tell is extremely easy but I can't find the math to express the question and so I can't possibly give an answer. I haven't even looked at the fourth question.

Normally we would meet again on Thursday by which time I would have read another section of our book and answered the questions for that section, but I can't see that happening at all. I have no idea how much of this the professor will tolerate; he doesn't have a particularly tolerant demeanor.

So basically I feel completely doomed right now. Everything I work on turns to shit. I should note that, unlike in most of my life so far, I am not in this position as a result of slacking off. I've been working hard the entire semester. I studied for both exams and felt reasonably well-prepared for each one. I've taken about three Sundays off this entire semester.

Anyway, that's my life at the moment.

1 comment:

Debbie said...

Sucks!

Especially the not actually slacking part not working. It reminds me of the first time I quit moving and still lost friends--when I wasn't even moving away. Not fair!

Once I was having real trouble on something like the 10th of 12 lessons in a math correspondence course, and I asked the instructor if anyone ever got this far and couldn't finish. I was assured that this never ever happened. And, in fact, I was able to finish the course after all. So, I like to think you're in a similar low spot, and things are about to get better.

You are studying with classmates, right? That's supposed to be a big help in, well, calculus classes, anyway.

Good luck, hang in there, and take care of yourself so your brain can work as well as possible. I'm rooting for you.