For the last few weeks I have been sick stressed out, feeling awful e.t.c., but fortunately this week things have been the complete opposite. My Physics assignment was surprisingly short, and I had a Psych midterm which I think went all right. Other than that I got some good marks back and I finally had time to go running, dancing and socializing. I have been to Yoga, went out to see a ballet with my friends and… a lot of things. School kind of went on the back burner which I think was a good thing because I feel ready to start this week (well first I have to finish my math assignment that is due tomorrow). With my first set of midterms behind me I have one week off  and then they all start once again. Blech…

Anyways even though it is my first week without a midterm I still have a busy schedule as the CLASS conference is going on (!!!!!), I have a bunch of meetings, and I have assignments/ quizzes due every single day of this week! Some how when I decided to go to University I didn’t think it I would get this much homework (actually I didn’t think I would get any). And I certainly didn’t expect quizzes! I thought we would just have quizzes, midterms, finals and papers. Surprise, surprise, the homework never ends!!!

Anyways food for thought, there are about 15 girls in my 80 student Physics class… that is 18.75% (Engineering courses are also at  20% females 80% guys). Us girls are completely outnumbered in this class! This seems really wrong to me.

That said, last time I checked I think slightly more girls go to UBC than guys. Why are girls who are so prevalent in other faculties so underrepresented in these types of courses??

Right now I am not in my Computer Science lab. I feel a little guilty. I should be there, but I’m not.

This morning I woke up after 3 hours of sleep. I was coughing all night and intermittently having nightmares about Lewis dot diagrams. For the past two weeks I have been sick and steadily getting worse and worse. At 8:00 this morning I decided to phone the student health centre to make an appointment with a doctor (which is why I am not in my CSPC lab right this moment). The doctor gave me some medicine and sent me on my way… I really hope that this cough disappears soon!

As much as I was looking forward to it, Thanksgiving weekend was kind of awful. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear (very well) and couldn’t taste anything, so much for family fun = (. Over the weekend light headedness and sleep took over half the time that I had set aside to study/ do assignments which was irritating. Now I have an insane week ahead of me (and I thought last week was challenging).

That brings me on to my next point: Chemistry. Tomorrow we have the Chem. 121 midterm. A.k.a the midterm of death. It seems like everywhere I go people have their Chirps (Chemistry Integrated Resource Packages) out and are staring at them, trying to make some sense out of the information at hand. Ah, Chemistry, the bane of my current existence. I was feeling good about the midterm until I took the practice midterm yesterday. I legitimately scored 31/60 on that… oh dear… must study more, it seems like a lot of the material on the practice midterm was never covered in class (hmmm… I forgot, this is university). I also have a chemistry lab to do this week, a Physics assessment, a scary looking Physics assignment (I mean scaaarrry looking), I am tutoring someone for math 12, I have my own math homework, and I need to complete the computer science lab that I missed. That lab in itself is supposed to take about 24 hours!! When oh, when in my schedule am I ever going to find time to go to the Demco Learning Centre?

Errr, learning, right. I have also (writing this feeling incredibly grown up) scheduled myself to go to a couple of conferences this year! I have never ever been to a conference before and am already signed up for ICE (Interuniversity Conference on Education) on Saturday (Oct 5^th, more info and sign up here) and CLASS (Conference for Learning and Academic Student Success)(Oct 25^th-28^th registration is now open more info and sign up here) and well as one later in the year. As a student and math tutor I am really interested in the way math is taught/ how people learn/ the use of technology in education (good and bad) so I think that the conferences will be quite interesting.

Ok, back to my own learning again… Chemistry, why do I have to understand you?<3

p.s. good luck to everyone else out there taking the Chem 121 midterm tomorrow

p.p.s If during the midterm, you happen to be sitting beside a girl with a terrible, loud and distracting cough, chances are that it is me. Sorry in advance!

After my last class today a friend and I were wandering around the ICCS after hearing that our CPSC 110 exams had been marked and that we could pick them up in room #????. Neither of us remembered the room number so we spent some time walking around, and finally gave up on getting our exams. Just as we were about to head back I saw one of those “really cool rooms” at the end of a hallway that I immediately wanted to show my friend. I dragged my friend down the hallway to look at it. While we were staring down through the large glass window, two people came out and asked us if we wanted to take a look at the lab. It was awesome! Inside there were quite a lot of people working on computers and about the same amount of large robots. We got to meet a couple of graduate students who told us about their research as well as a couple of robots named “Betty, Roger, PR2” and possibly Daisy (I really can’t remember the names properly…tough week). According to the researchers one of the robots can catch balls which I think is amazing! I want a robot that can play catch! Also they introduced us to the PR2. It had arrived a little while ago and they had just started having fun with it (teaching it how to dance e.t.c.). This robot can play pool, and can even bring you beer! .

Soooo, if anyone wants a really cool tour I’d recommend that you hang out in the ICCS, just past the DEMCO learning centre. Also, if you are interested you can sign up to become a research participant for a Human-Robot interaction study by emailing calisgan@interchange.ubc.ca , more information is posted on their door.

Better ways to study:

After this first bout of midterms I realized that my study habits might not cut it for university courses. I do study a lot, but here are some tips for those of you who still have midterms, err learn from my mistakes!:

-pay attention to when your midterms are coming up (possibly write them out somewhere visible so that you do not have that… oh… I have three midterms next week conendrum)

– stay on top of all the assignments that are due (do them during the weekend if the are due during the week e.t.c.)

– use cue cards (I never used them in high school, but now they are a life saver)

– find practice midterms/ exams online and do as many practice problems as you can (especially for computer science where everything we have been doing is in a programming environment, making the switch to writing things out is not all that easy, doing the practice midterms on paper was definitely useful)

– go get help if you need it… I am one of those people who likes to do things all by myself which can lead to a lot of precious time being wasted when I am stuck on a problem that I just don’t want to let go of =P

Note: Most departments have resource or learning centres where you can get help for free!!! This is amazing!!!

– talk about the material with a friend, chances are it will stick better

– do some simple practice problems right before the test, nothing too hard as that might get you freaked out, but just get your brain into math mode e.t.c.

– take short breaks if you start making small mistakes, go for a quick walk, run, stretch to destress

– do NOT open facebook!!!

– Also a really good one from a friend: She reviews all of her notes that she has taken during the day at night and condenses them… I will start doing this as of tomorrow (today I didn’t have class!)