Done.

I'm done.

No more classes at parkland. No more tests. No more quizzes. No more homework.

I think I did pretty good on my chem final. Took about 45 minutes and most of it was pretty easy. Had fun in the section on nuclear chemistry: rather than memorize the cookbook formulae they spoonfed us to calculate stuff related to decay rates, I just tackled the bastards from a DiffEq perspective, rederiving the equations on the fly. Some of the rate law problems I just kinda eyeballed ("Eh, that looks to be about right." or "Hrm... if I half-ass it I get X which isn't listed, but (A) looks like... yup it's pretty much an even multiple. I'll pick that one.") and as usual I suck at oxidation states, but I wouldn't be surprised if I got an A on that.

So... yay! Thus ends the first half of the first half of my higher edumacation.

Now let's get drunk.

NYAAAAARRRRRRGH!

Ahhhh.... that's better. Spent ~5 hours straight today being mercilessly grilled over a semester's worth of physics and differential equations. I got out at 4 and now, nearly 5 hours later I'm finally starting to think in Language again. Swear to god, I spent all afternoon at Scott and Dawn's pretty much monosyllabic because I couldn't stop thinking in math.

I think I did ok. Nothing struck me as "Well, I hope this is right.". But yeah, the math test was a BASTARD! I'm really glad I brushed up on my linear algebra techniques, though. "Here's the equation for a plane through the origin: 2x-4y+3z=0. Find two vectors that form a basis for this plane." Woof. If I hadn't JUST been looking at those notes this morning, I'd have completely blanked. Similar in physics: "Given these quantum numbers, find this electron's semiclassical angle of orbital angular momentum." Which was mean, cause the equation for semiclassical angles wasn't on our equation sheet and we were expected to rederive it from first principles. Luckily, I had JSUT been staring at it can just whipped out "Oh, well, cos (THETA) = Lz/L, soooo.....".

I think I did.... good enough.

BLARGH. Tonight is fer drinkin'.

Ok, I'm done.

Gonna have another quick review before bed, but for now, I'm checking out.

This math final will be a bastard. The physics won't be kind either, but I'm more confident there.

But, anyway, this is it - the end of my parkland career. Heavy.

Brain... shut .... down....

overload..............

can't... study

anymore.... didn't get far enough in math tonight. will be hard tomorrow to catch up. but not enough done. *HARRRGHHLLGHR*

Studying continues apace. I shall finish initial comprehensive physics review around 3:00, then do initial comprehensive math review though the evening. Tomorrow, it's doing actual homework/practice test problems in both.

I promise, if I ever figure out a good way to travel to alternate universes, I'll bring back copies of Firefly seasons 2-8 for everyone (it got crappy in season 9). Likewise, I fully expect someday to confront a doppelganger of myself, dressed in strange clothing, hesitantly asking if "... they _really_ turned Lord of the Rings into an academy award winning trilogy, here!?". I'll take him to Best Buy ("Aw, no Farnsworth's Electronics? But what about Uncle Philo?!").

Math test went pretty well. Nothing jumped out at me as being something I didn't know how to do. I did have one 'fun' moment where I'd finished a tricky Laplace transform and decided to try an alternate, quick method of checking the answer. Came out fine. Triple checked it with an alternate alternate way and it came out wrong. Spent 45 minutes or so tracking down the problem: I made a sign error setting up the problem. BLEH! But I think I did pretty good on the rest of it. We'll see.

Tonight, it's time for my last chem test. Then it's just finals on monday and tuesday. Wow.

Welp, three hours til my last math exam. Power series methods, Laplace transforms, and homogeneous systems with all the gee-gaws and doo-dads that go with them. Then tonight I get my lab assessment for chem, which is worth half an exam and is curved.

Shooting for an 83+% on the math test. That's the fulcrum. Anything higher I can lose off the final, anything less I need to earn back there. Wish me luck.

Ok, I just crunched the numbers, had my calculator graph the results, and it looks like I can a 57 on the last chem test and will still need to only get a 50.63% on the final to get an A. Yeeeaaaahhhh..... Ok, I'm done studying chemistry for awhile.

For Math, the sweet spot is around 83% on the last exam and and final. That's more indicative of my chem teacher's grade weighting. Chem's got 1250 points, math only 750. The final alone is 40% of your grade and I don't think Omar's offered a single point of extra credit this semester. Physics, I have no idea what i need on the final. I wasn't as fastidious with my papers in that class. Have to ask chuck. But I think I'm doing pretty good.

But I've spent all weekend studying. I think it's time for some video games and a little bourbon. Yeah, that sounds right.

So.... what's been goin' on with me...

Tuesday I had my big chem poster presentation. ComPLETE waste of time. Spent two hours standing around like an idiot having no one ask me a single question. My teacher isn't even grading the finished product: he's going by the electronic draft (at least I won't get dinged for not citing my sources for my pictures). The ENTIRE point seems to be a pointsfest for people who can't do math; 'Here's half an exam + extra credit for showing the skills of a 5th grader and the time demands of same.'. Sigh. But I'm sure I got an A so at least I don't need to worry about it any more.

Wednesday, we hit the endgame in math and physics. In math, we're at the point where we're doing things like solving systems of non-homogeneous second order differential equations using Laplace transforms and eigenvectors. We're tying in EVERYTHING we've done plus a whole shitload more that we won't even be tested on. "Here's the summit, boys. Enjoy the view for a bit." kinda stuff. Everyone else seems totally lost and I'm just looking around going "OOOOOOooooo! THAT IS *SO* COOOOL!" I had a neat moment of honest-to-god mathematical/physical insight: we were examining the behaviour of a system of three springs linking two masses (like -------M------M-----------) set to oscillating. Omar had gotten as far as laying out a couple initial outlines before saying "But the rest of this gets REALLY complicated, sooooo--" "Excuse me," I say, "but wouldn't the amplitude look a LOT like diffraction? A superposition of long envelope waves and short maxima between?" *pause* *Omar looks at board for two minutes* "Huh.... I hadn't really thought of it like... Huh....... Yyyyyyyyyeaaaaahh... I guess it would. That's a really.... interesting way to think about it." Then he went on for five minutes explaining to the class what I had deduced. Then later, I had a question about the quiz I'm working on. "Sooo.... I know you probably wanted a partial fractions decomposition here but I noticed I could treat it as an S-shifting problem. I did it THAT way and got an answer that's... quite a bit different than the others in the class." "Oh, well you can't use *that* transform. We never studied that transform in class and we don't know it yet." "But.... But I _do_ know it! It's a hyperbolic cosine function." "....Wellllll..... yes. It is." "And you gave us this WHHHOOOOOLLLLE table of transforms...." "Yes. I know. It's just... Welllll....... Look: just do it the other way, ok?" "Sigh. Ohhhh-kaaaay." Classmate Rob says: "You're the only person I know who would bitch about not being able to use a cosh function." "....Yeah, probably."

In physics, we're doing semi-conductors and solid state physics. Had a cool moment there too, where I basically postulated a useful device without knowing that's what I was doing. "Well, what happens if you put [X] next to [Y]? Wouldn't you get.... an electric one-way valve?" "GOOD question! That's what we're doing next." "D'OH! It's a _DIODE_!" "ExACTly!"

Tonight I got... shanghaied by a bunch of chem students alternately demanding, cajoling, and begging me to get me to tutor them for the final. There's an extremely good chance that if I do a good job I'll get some boob out of it. :D

What else.... Night before last I woke up with a pain in my foot. Didn't think anything about it until I noticed the little pools of blood my left foot had left every step to the bathroom. Turns out I was missing a good half-inch diameter circle of skin between my third and fourth toes. I have no explanation. I don't even have a good hypothesis. If I had hurt myself earlier that night without noticing, I spose, but I hadn't gotten up for several hours before I awoke in the morning, so I couldn't have still been bleeding. Blood trail implies I cut myself in the moment when my foot was in the air coming off the stairs. All I can say is "You damned alien bastards could take a sample from some place less inconvenient, dammit!". Seriously: just ask. I'll let you take a blood sample or anything else, just... y'know... ask. I'm tired of limping.

Two movies to recommend: "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" is freakin' HILARIOUS. I don't care about "kids movies" or "family movies" but I DO care about "good movies". _THIS_ is a GOOD MOVIE. Tight writing, imPECable comedic timing, a gift for taking a cliche and turning it inside out, excellent voice acting, and superb direction. Bravo, guys. Good job! Laughed my ass off. Second movie: "Gamer". An independent sci-fi/action movie, this one has some truly classic moments. The premise is that people play "games" by remotely controlling living humans (usually from death row) in war games. Eerie, thought-provoking social criticism full of explosions, boobs, and one of the... manliest prison breaks I've ever seen. Check it out!

Next week and a half will be.... insane. Two exams and a quiz next week with finals after. ARGH! My BRAIN is FULL! I just CAN'T keep this up much longer. Sigh. Last mile. Gotta dig in. Gotta study study study study study.... Gotta STUDY! Crazy amounts of math, insane amounts of physics, and an annoyance of chemistry to memdump. Please, ghod/ess, let me get A's. And let me get over this cold I seem to be getting without incident.