Midterms, Music and Computer Love
October 8th, 2010 • Academics, Student Life, Thoughts
I hope that everyone is managing to survive the inevitable onslaught both of midterms and rain- neither of which seem to stop until Christmas time! (Well… I suppose it’s fair to say that the rain continues right through to June, but I’m not complaining. Rain is my favourite.) My week, academic-wise, has consisted of a a rather hefty handful of assignments and two midterms- one for Math 223 (Honours Linear Algebra) and one for CS312 (Functional & Logic Programming). I was strangely calm for each of them… either I’m getting the hang of this midterm thing or my brain has reverted to some kind of Ritalin-like stupor as a defense mechanism. The CS312 midterm was actually a lot of fun, though in my experience, Professor Eiselt’s midterms are usually strangely delightful to do. Really. Last night at 2am, however, I did bolt up in bed thinking of some dumb mistake I made on the first question… argh! Perhaps if I send my TA $20 they’ll have a temporary moment of dyslexia and not even notice the error… I did draw a robot on the front page, so who knows.
A friend of mine actually had a brilliant idea that I strongly, strongly suggest any student should try- earplugs during exams! My Math 223 exam was marred by someone who, clearly oblivious to the concept of Kleenex, emitted a horribly wet, viscous sniffle every two seconds. So distracting. After lamenting about this to my friend, he was sweet enough to bring me a pair of obnoxiously orange, blessedly sound-cancelling earplugs for our CS312 midterm. Man, does it make a difference! So much easier to focus without listening to all of the various bodily noises that get amplified in a quiet room. Hilariously, though, the student beside me during the 312 midterm insisted on violently cracking his neck every five minutes, so I kept seeing him flail his head around periodically. As far as seat mates go, I just can’t win!
Anyways, earplugs. Try it.
Something equally auricular that I’d like to recommend is an amazing site: Stereomood. They describe themselves as “free emotional internet radio”. In other words, they have thousands of songs culled from blogs, websites and music sites like Pitchfork- everything from Radiohead to Royksopp to the Beatles to stuff you’ve never heard of- organized by the listeners into playlists suited to a particular mood or emotion. My favourites so far are the “Reading” playlist, and the “Melancholy” one really seems to fit autumn well (a little dark and morose but still beautiful). I have Stereomood on anytime I’m home and it’s great for studying, as well as discovering new music to fill up your iPhone.
Another thing I want to say briefly is…. I love my faculty. Seriously. Computer Science is full of the greatest people. I’ve been staying on campus from 8:30am to 10pm lately, working away in the labs after class since if I go home, I inevitably get nothing accomplished. Nine times out of ten, I’m not the only one tapping away on a computer into the wee hours of the night, and all nine of those nine times, the people also staying are great. It’s so awesome to be able to strike up a conversation with almost anyone and know that you share the same interests, the same love for computing… it’s great. The friends I’ve made at UBC so far are wonderful, deeply intelligent people and I feel really lucky to be able to surround myself with people that love what I love as much as I love it.
Plus, the other day when I was studying with a couple friends in the ICICS Reading Room, Bernice, the lovely lady of the library, let us know that there were free boxed lunches downstairs leftover from a conference earlier. We trooped down and grabbed one each, and lo and behold- gourmet sandwiches! They were soooo good and I attribute any success on my exam to the sugar boost that I got from the cute little Rice Krispie square included alongside the sandwich. Again- compsci rocks.
