There's something about Monday that just makes it seem so incredibly long. Like, after stats today I couldn't convince myself that it was still Monday. I thought it was Tuesday.
Anyhow, this morning. I woke up at 5 this morning to study some more before my finance exam. Kimmy left this morning around 6, so she got to see my morning routine. I'm sure it was incredibly fascinating. Anyhow, after I got breakfast and made my lunch, I studied for a couple hours. A little before 7 I took a nice long shower. It definitely helped me wake up. I left for the exam around 7:15 and got there right around the same time as Timbo. So he and I walked to class and discussed some problems and all that nonsense. I looked over a couple problems that I hadn't quite figured out when Tim got there, and it turns out that I had figured them out properly. Mr. Frye got there a few minutes before 8 and we started the exam.
In talked with people afterwards, I know that I missed a couple. There was one that is bothering me quite a bit. I had to find a geometric sum and set up the entire thing properly (including the non-intuitive discounting)... but I had one number that was incorrect. And it was in my very last calculation. Hopefully her is generous. There were another one that was frustrating because we talked about spot rates and forward rates for maybe one day. I think that's something that just doesn't make sense to me. In my mind, spending more time on something means that it is more important. So spending almost a week on callable bonds (to me) implied that they were 4 times as important as spot rates or forward rates, which we spend a total of 1 day talking about both of them. And there was 1 callable bond problem on the exam and one spot rate/forward rate problem. Bleh.
Alas. The exam is over. Then it was off to life contingencies. We talked more about the portfolio premium price principle. Or something like that. There were a few times in class that I almost burst out laughing. You see, Tim and I do not have a statistics background. At all. And there are many times where a concept will get used that just appears to be common knowledge to everyone...except to two of us. So we usually play along, but have no idea why we can do what just happened. The case is especially true for variance. In some cases you can (apparently) square all the constants all willy nilly. But other times the constant just magically goes away! And we have no idea why either one happens. I'm starting to piece things together, but it apparently was supposed to be common knowledge far before my taking this class. It's really quite funny.
After class Timbo, Dustin and I went to the computer lab to do some stats. A few problems had to be done on a computer program. Woo hoo. I think I did them kind of right. Afterwards I went to Tim's office to finish the homework. And help him start it. He ended up getting most of it done. Then we went over to stats.
We got our exams back. She had written on the front the problems she was going to let us redo. She encouraged us to try again without looking in our book....we'll see. The main reason I did poorly was because I had no idea what was going on. But that hasn't changed.
So I'm going to start stats soon. When I got back I made some dinner and just relaxed the rest of the night. Did some cleaning. Laundry. And now I'm blogging and going to bed!
I don't have finance tomorrow because Mr. Fry has to proctor an MLC exam. But I forgot my lunch box earlier in stats, so I need to go to Dr. Begum's office to retrieve it. And I need to plan my lesson. So still an early morning for me. Oh well.
Oh! I have an interview a week from tomorrow with the Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance. So...we'll see how that goes! But for now it's bed time. Night!
11.06.2011
Day 169
I have been up for approximately 12 hours and plan on going to bed soon. It's been quite the day. Ish.
I got up this morning and began my Sunday morning routine of showering and heading off to go grocery shopping. For some reason I thought that I generally leave to go shopping around 9. But I must be mistaken. Or perhaps Aldi has changed their hours. Today I went to Meijer first, as I've realized that it is more efficient to do so (I can avoid the really nasty intersection by my apartment). Kimmy and I left around 9:15, got to Meijer around 9:20, and completed the visit by 9:30. I like Meijer because it doesn't take as long to shop there as it does at Wal-mart. Shopping at Wal-mart just seems to take so long, but my trips to Meijer can be very short. So we got to Aldi around...say....9:45. But they don't open until 10. So we waited for a few minutes. While doing so, I explained to Kimmy my financial plan for the following year. I've been explaining to her how I keep my finances, since she'll be starting her new job next August as co-chair of the Board of Trustees and Primary Stockholders for our family. Anyhow, in the Aldi parking lot I started verbalizing my plan for next year, trying to predict how much money we would need for rent and things, and then trying to determine how much money we would need before the semester started (since probably neither of us will be getting paid until the beginning of September, but will have two months of rent and a month of living expenses for which we must pay). Yeah. We talked about that and such. Then Aldi opened and I got my groceries. This week as more expensive than I would have liked, but I had to get some things like toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and soap that will last me a while, but I just happened to run out of all of them at the same time.
After shopping we went to church with Jessie and Richard. There was a guest speaker today. He was very good. He talked about generational problems and struggles and how they fit in with the growing issue of sin in our lives. He also talked about how sin isn't about making a mistake, it's about blatantly doing things that we know are wrong. He was very good.
After the service we went to noodles and company for lunch. I had some Chinese noodly thing. It was tasty. Then we came home and I started studying for my exam tomorrow. I also cleaned a little bit. Talked with Kimmy about wedding things. Did laundry. Then Timbo came over and we studied some more. I made hamburger helper for dinner. It made Kimmy not feel good :( I studied some more. There's just so much material that is covered on this exam. I think that's what makes me so nervous is that unlike my other two classes, this class just covers such a broad variety of topics quickly that it's difficult to keep up. My main focus this semester has been life contingencies, but I feel like I might have been spending too much time keeping up with that and not enough with the other classes. I don't know. We'll see. I'll definitely do my best, I just hope that I can think clearly enough. I'm going to be getting up early to start studying some more.
Kimmy isn't feeling well so she's just going to leave early tomorrow morning to go back to Mount Vernon instead of leaving tonight. Hopefully she feels better in the morning.
And now I'm going to be an old man and go to bed before 9:30. I don't remember the last time I did this. But I'm tired and have to get up early. So off I go. Good night!
I got up this morning and began my Sunday morning routine of showering and heading off to go grocery shopping. For some reason I thought that I generally leave to go shopping around 9. But I must be mistaken. Or perhaps Aldi has changed their hours. Today I went to Meijer first, as I've realized that it is more efficient to do so (I can avoid the really nasty intersection by my apartment). Kimmy and I left around 9:15, got to Meijer around 9:20, and completed the visit by 9:30. I like Meijer because it doesn't take as long to shop there as it does at Wal-mart. Shopping at Wal-mart just seems to take so long, but my trips to Meijer can be very short. So we got to Aldi around...say....9:45. But they don't open until 10. So we waited for a few minutes. While doing so, I explained to Kimmy my financial plan for the following year. I've been explaining to her how I keep my finances, since she'll be starting her new job next August as co-chair of the Board of Trustees and Primary Stockholders for our family. Anyhow, in the Aldi parking lot I started verbalizing my plan for next year, trying to predict how much money we would need for rent and things, and then trying to determine how much money we would need before the semester started (since probably neither of us will be getting paid until the beginning of September, but will have two months of rent and a month of living expenses for which we must pay). Yeah. We talked about that and such. Then Aldi opened and I got my groceries. This week as more expensive than I would have liked, but I had to get some things like toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and soap that will last me a while, but I just happened to run out of all of them at the same time.
After shopping we went to church with Jessie and Richard. There was a guest speaker today. He was very good. He talked about generational problems and struggles and how they fit in with the growing issue of sin in our lives. He also talked about how sin isn't about making a mistake, it's about blatantly doing things that we know are wrong. He was very good.
After the service we went to noodles and company for lunch. I had some Chinese noodly thing. It was tasty. Then we came home and I started studying for my exam tomorrow. I also cleaned a little bit. Talked with Kimmy about wedding things. Did laundry. Then Timbo came over and we studied some more. I made hamburger helper for dinner. It made Kimmy not feel good :( I studied some more. There's just so much material that is covered on this exam. I think that's what makes me so nervous is that unlike my other two classes, this class just covers such a broad variety of topics quickly that it's difficult to keep up. My main focus this semester has been life contingencies, but I feel like I might have been spending too much time keeping up with that and not enough with the other classes. I don't know. We'll see. I'll definitely do my best, I just hope that I can think clearly enough. I'm going to be getting up early to start studying some more.
Kimmy isn't feeling well so she's just going to leave early tomorrow morning to go back to Mount Vernon instead of leaving tonight. Hopefully she feels better in the morning.
And now I'm going to be an old man and go to bed before 9:30. I don't remember the last time I did this. But I'm tired and have to get up early. So off I go. Good night!
Day 168
Yesterday was an awesome day. I was hardly productive at all, but it was fun.
I woke up at my standard 8:30 on a Saturday... yay. I knew Kimmy didn't want to get up that early, so I took advantage of the time and did some studying. I feel like I get the general concepts pretty well, but I just need more time to solidify everything. Oh, and I made a really big omlette for breakfast. It was amazing.
A little bit after I got Kimmy up Jared called me. He was in Muncie but had no idea where he was going since he didn't really look for directions to get to my apartment. So I gave him direction as best as I could... and after making them turn around a few times because I was confused I got them here safely. We were going to take an adventure to Advanced Auto Parts to get Kimmy's oil changed, but apparently they don't do that there. And no matter how many times I told everyone that I hadn't taken my car anywhere to get it fixed, they kept asking me where else we could take her car. Oh well. After all that nonsense we went to Taco Bell for lunch. Then we stopped by Family Video to get a movie, but they didn't have the movie we wanted. Neither did Wal-mart. Or Best Buy. Blech.
When we got back to my apartment we watched V for Vendetta. Such a good movie. Kimmy had to work on her art project, I think Kanissa fell asleep, and Jared and I talked through most of it. But it really is a great movie. When it was over Kimmy and Jared fixed my oven. One of the oven racks had been put in backwards so that I couldn't get it out. So they did some magic and bending of the rack but were able to get it out. Then we made pizza and bread sticks! And by "make" I mean "put frozen pizza and bread sticks in the oven." During dinner we played Settlers of Catan. Jared almost won. We decided to quit at 9 and he could have gotten 10 points but he didn't see that he could have built a city. Oh well. After the game was over we tried to watch another movie online on a Hulu affiliate site, but it was being dumb. It had a commercial every 13 minutes and it would stop loading every 6 minutes, so we would have to refresh the page. Then after about an hour it just wouldn't load anymore. By this time it was around 11. I was tired and Jared had to work in the morning. So they left.
Overall it was an awesome day. And now I have to pay for it by studying all day long. But it was worth it.
I woke up at my standard 8:30 on a Saturday... yay. I knew Kimmy didn't want to get up that early, so I took advantage of the time and did some studying. I feel like I get the general concepts pretty well, but I just need more time to solidify everything. Oh, and I made a really big omlette for breakfast. It was amazing.
A little bit after I got Kimmy up Jared called me. He was in Muncie but had no idea where he was going since he didn't really look for directions to get to my apartment. So I gave him direction as best as I could... and after making them turn around a few times because I was confused I got them here safely. We were going to take an adventure to Advanced Auto Parts to get Kimmy's oil changed, but apparently they don't do that there. And no matter how many times I told everyone that I hadn't taken my car anywhere to get it fixed, they kept asking me where else we could take her car. Oh well. After all that nonsense we went to Taco Bell for lunch. Then we stopped by Family Video to get a movie, but they didn't have the movie we wanted. Neither did Wal-mart. Or Best Buy. Blech.
When we got back to my apartment we watched V for Vendetta. Such a good movie. Kimmy had to work on her art project, I think Kanissa fell asleep, and Jared and I talked through most of it. But it really is a great movie. When it was over Kimmy and Jared fixed my oven. One of the oven racks had been put in backwards so that I couldn't get it out. So they did some magic and bending of the rack but were able to get it out. Then we made pizza and bread sticks! And by "make" I mean "put frozen pizza and bread sticks in the oven." During dinner we played Settlers of Catan. Jared almost won. We decided to quit at 9 and he could have gotten 10 points but he didn't see that he could have built a city. Oh well. After the game was over we tried to watch another movie online on a Hulu affiliate site, but it was being dumb. It had a commercial every 13 minutes and it would stop loading every 6 minutes, so we would have to refresh the page. Then after about an hour it just wouldn't load anymore. By this time it was around 11. I was tired and Jared had to work in the morning. So they left.
Overall it was an awesome day. And now I have to pay for it by studying all day long. But it was worth it.
11.04.2011
Day 167
Today didn't feel like Friday at all. I'm glad it was, but it felt like a Saturday all day. But we had class, so I guess it was, in fact, a weekday. We had some review in finance this morning. We talked a little bit about duration. I'm still not completely sure what that means, but it's not on the exam on Monday... so I have some time to figure it out.
In between classes I had a meeting with the other G.A. instructors. We discussed some of the similarities and differences between our classes. One thing that Dr. Fischer mentioned that I really need to start doing is to get away from always using the same structure for the lectures. He recommended to not always explain a concept then give an example in that order. He instead suggested to sometimes go through an example, trying to make sense of it first. So, using the example as a way of "creating" the concept. I do something similar, usually using some sort of fundamental example to introduce a concept. But I think I could do better. So we'll see.
After the meeting I had life contingencies. We had another warm up problem. I got this one today. I was a little worried that I didn't use all of the information on the board, but I still got the right answer after I figured out what I was doing. He said that he'll probably do another review warm up question next Thursday or Friday. It's been helpful. After that we talked more about pricing policies. Specifically we talked about what to do with policy books. It's all quite fascinating. I realized how far my sense of humor has slipped into a weird morbid/math hybrid. I'll try to explain. In our classes, we use the symbol Tx to represent how much longer a person is going to live. So today in class we were discussing how each year an insurance company only pays the sum insured to the beneficiaries of the policy if Tx is between a certain time interval. He wrote on the board that Tx has to be greater than 0, but I asked if we had to be concerned about Tx being equal to 0 or whether that is an arbitrary example (because the probability of an event happening at one specific instance in time is 0). So he looks at me and goes "So.... you're suggesting that the policyholder dies at the very instant that he buys the policy? I don't really think we need to worry about that." For some reason we all that thought was really funny. Like, David and I almost started crying. Yeah. I'm going to keep going now.
After class I went to go work out. But I just really wasn't feeling it today. So I worked out for a little bit, but then left early. I just was not in the mood to work out. So instead I left after about half my workout was done and went to get Burger King. It was kind of like working out... So Kimmy and I had Burger King lunch and it was tasty.
When lunch was over Timbo came over and we studied finance for a while. We made some good progress but definitely still have more things to do. He left after a couple hours, then I just let my brain relax for a while by playing Team Fortress with Miles. Then around 6 Kimmy and I made chicken and yellow rice for dinner. It was yummy. We started watching Casino Royale over dinner. But they talked really quietly so neither of us really know what the story line was. Around 8:30 Kathryn suggested that the three of us all go get ice cream and Berry Winkle. Kimmy had yet to go there (and it was ice cream) so clearly we decided to go. And it was amazing. I had white chocolate and pumpkin ice creams with butterfinger topping. It was fantastic. So we had ice cream and talked about stuff. I'm sure it was super important. But we had fun. I think we did anyways. I had fun, so clearly Kimmy and Kathryn did as well. Obviously.
Then we came back, finished the movie and now I'm going to go to bed! Good night, all you lovely and wonderful people.
In between classes I had a meeting with the other G.A. instructors. We discussed some of the similarities and differences between our classes. One thing that Dr. Fischer mentioned that I really need to start doing is to get away from always using the same structure for the lectures. He recommended to not always explain a concept then give an example in that order. He instead suggested to sometimes go through an example, trying to make sense of it first. So, using the example as a way of "creating" the concept. I do something similar, usually using some sort of fundamental example to introduce a concept. But I think I could do better. So we'll see.
After the meeting I had life contingencies. We had another warm up problem. I got this one today. I was a little worried that I didn't use all of the information on the board, but I still got the right answer after I figured out what I was doing. He said that he'll probably do another review warm up question next Thursday or Friday. It's been helpful. After that we talked more about pricing policies. Specifically we talked about what to do with policy books. It's all quite fascinating. I realized how far my sense of humor has slipped into a weird morbid/math hybrid. I'll try to explain. In our classes, we use the symbol Tx to represent how much longer a person is going to live. So today in class we were discussing how each year an insurance company only pays the sum insured to the beneficiaries of the policy if Tx is between a certain time interval. He wrote on the board that Tx has to be greater than 0, but I asked if we had to be concerned about Tx being equal to 0 or whether that is an arbitrary example (because the probability of an event happening at one specific instance in time is 0). So he looks at me and goes "So.... you're suggesting that the policyholder dies at the very instant that he buys the policy? I don't really think we need to worry about that." For some reason we all that thought was really funny. Like, David and I almost started crying. Yeah. I'm going to keep going now.
After class I went to go work out. But I just really wasn't feeling it today. So I worked out for a little bit, but then left early. I just was not in the mood to work out. So instead I left after about half my workout was done and went to get Burger King. It was kind of like working out... So Kimmy and I had Burger King lunch and it was tasty.
When lunch was over Timbo came over and we studied finance for a while. We made some good progress but definitely still have more things to do. He left after a couple hours, then I just let my brain relax for a while by playing Team Fortress with Miles. Then around 6 Kimmy and I made chicken and yellow rice for dinner. It was yummy. We started watching Casino Royale over dinner. But they talked really quietly so neither of us really know what the story line was. Around 8:30 Kathryn suggested that the three of us all go get ice cream and Berry Winkle. Kimmy had yet to go there (and it was ice cream) so clearly we decided to go. And it was amazing. I had white chocolate and pumpkin ice creams with butterfinger topping. It was fantastic. So we had ice cream and talked about stuff. I'm sure it was super important. But we had fun. I think we did anyways. I had fun, so clearly Kimmy and Kathryn did as well. Obviously.
Then we came back, finished the movie and now I'm going to go to bed! Good night, all you lovely and wonderful people.
11.03.2011
Day 166
I officially spent more time on campus today than any other day thus far. I got to campus around 7:40. During finance we talked about some examples of bonds and such. I really have my work cut out for studying. But I have a few solid days to study, and I'm confident that it will be ok. I have plenty of things to use as study material.
In between classes I had to print some stuff off for my class, then I went to the Atrium. We talked about how good/bad we were as children. Apparently I was one of the only ones who didn't terrorize the entire world as a child. Go me.
During life contingencies we started off with a practice exercise. It was really frustrating because I knew what the question was asking... I just couldn't wrap my mind around how to solve it. And when he did solve it I totally understood. I just wasn't sure how to get to the solution from the question he asked. It was one of the few times where writing an equation out would have actually helped a lot.
After life con.... I went to go teach. I could tell the people that had already seen their exam grades. Aside from that I felt like it was a good class. We talked about normal distributions and how to find probabilities. I felt like at least a few of them understood. After class we talked about their exams. Only a couple people had questions. I'm afraid that some of them have given up... :(
I went to a math talk this afternoon. There was a guest lecturer who talked about some stuff that was statistics related. I really didn't follow. But I got bonus points in my stats class for being there.
Around 4 I had my last two students take the exam. They both got above average, so I was happy for them. I'm going to be really sad when I'm done teaching this class. I really like my students. Today in class we discussed the group projects and clearly the groups had to have group names. One of the group names was the "Junior Postmasters." I felt so special...
After I finished with the exam I came back, made some dinner (leftover Thai from last night), did some dishes, worked on some stuff for my class, and cleaned my room a little bit. Then Kimmy got here! Yay!
So we went to Wal-mart to get food for her. Then we came back, I updated my blog, and now I'm going to bed so I can go to class in the morning. So good night!
In between classes I had to print some stuff off for my class, then I went to the Atrium. We talked about how good/bad we were as children. Apparently I was one of the only ones who didn't terrorize the entire world as a child. Go me.
During life contingencies we started off with a practice exercise. It was really frustrating because I knew what the question was asking... I just couldn't wrap my mind around how to solve it. And when he did solve it I totally understood. I just wasn't sure how to get to the solution from the question he asked. It was one of the few times where writing an equation out would have actually helped a lot.
After life con.... I went to go teach. I could tell the people that had already seen their exam grades. Aside from that I felt like it was a good class. We talked about normal distributions and how to find probabilities. I felt like at least a few of them understood. After class we talked about their exams. Only a couple people had questions. I'm afraid that some of them have given up... :(
I went to a math talk this afternoon. There was a guest lecturer who talked about some stuff that was statistics related. I really didn't follow. But I got bonus points in my stats class for being there.
Around 4 I had my last two students take the exam. They both got above average, so I was happy for them. I'm going to be really sad when I'm done teaching this class. I really like my students. Today in class we discussed the group projects and clearly the groups had to have group names. One of the group names was the "Junior Postmasters." I felt so special...
After I finished with the exam I came back, made some dinner (leftover Thai from last night), did some dishes, worked on some stuff for my class, and cleaned my room a little bit. Then Kimmy got here! Yay!
So we went to Wal-mart to get food for her. Then we came back, I updated my blog, and now I'm going to bed so I can go to class in the morning. So good night!
Day 165
Wow. Today was simply all over the place.
I got up and made my lunch. This week when I cooked my chicken for my salad I cooked it with some onion and mexian spice. And it tastes amazing. So onion needs to become a regular occurrence.
I got to my office around...9:30 I think. And I did some grading. That was pretty depressing. The average test score was a 68. The highest was an 88. So.... I think I'm going to be offering a chance to earn bonus points. I think I'm going to assign the extra credit tomorrow and then give them a week to work on it. I really hope they do it. About a third of the class did it last time. I really want more of them to do it this time. I doubt that any of them will be happy with their exam scores. Even though small handful who got in the 80s I'm sure were hoping for higher with the amount of studying (I hope) they did. So we'll see.
After I finished grading the exams Timbo came to my office and we studied stats. That was a thrilling experience, for certain. I felt decently prepared for the exam. I knew all the basic concepts and how to do the problems, so I thought I should be good. I then went to go work out. That went pretty well. My shoulder is still bothering me when I do any sort of lifting from a lowered to raised position. So I had to get a little creative.
When I got back I did some more studying. Woo. Hoo.
Then...the exam. Oh my word. The first problem wasn't a huge deal. Then...the second was pretty hard. It took me a long time and I know I didn't do it correctly. I got to the third problem and was 100% clueless. So I wrote an equation down that was helpful only if I had information that wasn't provided...but that's the way I knew to solve for the thing in question. Then we moved onto a few proofs. There was one that involved finding the partial derivative of a general function with respect to both variables. And...then we moved onto a problem that (I think) used the Poisson distribution, but I had no idea what arguments to use. So I looked at the table she gave us...matched some numbers on the table with numbers in the problem... and hoped for the best! On the last problem I wrote some stuff down that got me absolutely no where. It was basically the same thing as what I had in the beginning except that I used Y's instead of X's. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was feeling pretty down afterwards. When I was out of things to write down I turned it in and she asked if I had answered every question. I said "Well... I have something written down for everything." I was not in a good mood after the exam. I tried to think of how I could have studied harder or prepared better. And I couldn't come up with anything.
So when I got back I had my little mope-fest for a while. Then I ate some celery. A little after 6 Kathryn called me. She, Erica, Dustin, and Jacob were all going to Thai Smile for dinner and wanted to see if I would like to join. I did. It was at this point that they informed me that no only was everyone at least as clueless as I was (including the smartest guy in our class), but that she decided to give us the exam to retake as a take home exam. I was more than over-joyed. So that made my day way better. And Thai Smile was very good.
After dinner I did some lesson planning. I'm trying really hard to make the lesson as applicable and understandable as possible. We'll see how it goes....
But for now it's bed time. Good night!
I got up and made my lunch. This week when I cooked my chicken for my salad I cooked it with some onion and mexian spice. And it tastes amazing. So onion needs to become a regular occurrence.
I got to my office around...9:30 I think. And I did some grading. That was pretty depressing. The average test score was a 68. The highest was an 88. So.... I think I'm going to be offering a chance to earn bonus points. I think I'm going to assign the extra credit tomorrow and then give them a week to work on it. I really hope they do it. About a third of the class did it last time. I really want more of them to do it this time. I doubt that any of them will be happy with their exam scores. Even though small handful who got in the 80s I'm sure were hoping for higher with the amount of studying (I hope) they did. So we'll see.
After I finished grading the exams Timbo came to my office and we studied stats. That was a thrilling experience, for certain. I felt decently prepared for the exam. I knew all the basic concepts and how to do the problems, so I thought I should be good. I then went to go work out. That went pretty well. My shoulder is still bothering me when I do any sort of lifting from a lowered to raised position. So I had to get a little creative.
When I got back I did some more studying. Woo. Hoo.
Then...the exam. Oh my word. The first problem wasn't a huge deal. Then...the second was pretty hard. It took me a long time and I know I didn't do it correctly. I got to the third problem and was 100% clueless. So I wrote an equation down that was helpful only if I had information that wasn't provided...but that's the way I knew to solve for the thing in question. Then we moved onto a few proofs. There was one that involved finding the partial derivative of a general function with respect to both variables. And...then we moved onto a problem that (I think) used the Poisson distribution, but I had no idea what arguments to use. So I looked at the table she gave us...matched some numbers on the table with numbers in the problem... and hoped for the best! On the last problem I wrote some stuff down that got me absolutely no where. It was basically the same thing as what I had in the beginning except that I used Y's instead of X's. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was feeling pretty down afterwards. When I was out of things to write down I turned it in and she asked if I had answered every question. I said "Well... I have something written down for everything." I was not in a good mood after the exam. I tried to think of how I could have studied harder or prepared better. And I couldn't come up with anything.
So when I got back I had my little mope-fest for a while. Then I ate some celery. A little after 6 Kathryn called me. She, Erica, Dustin, and Jacob were all going to Thai Smile for dinner and wanted to see if I would like to join. I did. It was at this point that they informed me that no only was everyone at least as clueless as I was (including the smartest guy in our class), but that she decided to give us the exam to retake as a take home exam. I was more than over-joyed. So that made my day way better. And Thai Smile was very good.
After dinner I did some lesson planning. I'm trying really hard to make the lesson as applicable and understandable as possible. We'll see how it goes....
But for now it's bed time. Good night!
11.02.2011
Day 164
Tuesday is completed. Woo hoo.
It started a bit unexpectedly. I spent the first half hour of being awake corresponding with a student via email to answer some questions before today's exam. I told them all that they could email me before 6:30am today and I would answer their questions. And she emailed me at 1:40 am. So gave her the best response that I could. She said it helped.
After that I went to finance. We talked about some....stuff. Starting tomorrow night I'm going to really have to get cracking on finance. I've just been focusing so much of life contingencies that I haven't had time to spend as much as I need to. So after my stats test tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm going to start studying for finance. Bleh... I don't want to have a test tomorrow.
Anyhow, after finance we had life contingencies. We started with a few warm up exercises. I felt really good that I knew how to do them really quickly. After that we started looking at making profit on insurance policies and how to view the expected value of multiple insurance payouts and such. So that was neat.
Then... the test. Oh the lovely test. No one cried during it, so that was good. But after I started looking at them...well... I need to finish grading them. Then we'll see how things go. Some of my students did dress up, though. They had some good costumes.
After class I came back to my apartment, had lunch, did some cleaning, then started working on stats. That class is really frustrating me. I feel like I get the basic concepts, but it's very difficult for me to put as much time into it as I do my other classes because a) I only have finite time and concentration and b) my other classes are much more practical to my field and the actuarial exams. So I try to get through the homework, but it doesn't feel like it prepares me for the exams. And neither do the lectures. And our professor doesn't really even know why we have to take this class because she fully admits that it's not designed to prepare us for exam P. And on top of that, unlike most of the people in my program, I don't have a stats background. So most of them have had a majority of this before... I've had only a tiny bit of it. It's been tough and it's very frustrating. So we'll see how the exam tomorrow goes. I'd much rather just focus on studying for finance....
Timbo and Dustin came over and we studied for most of the afternoon and evening. Timbo brought over a skillet dinner and I made some rice. It was all pretty good. Then after they left I talked with Clifton for a while about...everything. Just about life and everything that can be included in it. From morals to perception to video games and the internet to how we interact with our friends to zombies (I explained to him the social story that zombie media tells). It was good. I like talking with him.
In other news, Kimmy is coming to visit me on Friday, then Jared and Kanissa are coming up on Saturday. I'm quite excited!
And now I"m going to bed, an hour after I had anticipated. Oh well. Good night!
It started a bit unexpectedly. I spent the first half hour of being awake corresponding with a student via email to answer some questions before today's exam. I told them all that they could email me before 6:30am today and I would answer their questions. And she emailed me at 1:40 am. So gave her the best response that I could. She said it helped.
After that I went to finance. We talked about some....stuff. Starting tomorrow night I'm going to really have to get cracking on finance. I've just been focusing so much of life contingencies that I haven't had time to spend as much as I need to. So after my stats test tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm going to start studying for finance. Bleh... I don't want to have a test tomorrow.
Anyhow, after finance we had life contingencies. We started with a few warm up exercises. I felt really good that I knew how to do them really quickly. After that we started looking at making profit on insurance policies and how to view the expected value of multiple insurance payouts and such. So that was neat.
Then... the test. Oh the lovely test. No one cried during it, so that was good. But after I started looking at them...well... I need to finish grading them. Then we'll see how things go. Some of my students did dress up, though. They had some good costumes.
After class I came back to my apartment, had lunch, did some cleaning, then started working on stats. That class is really frustrating me. I feel like I get the basic concepts, but it's very difficult for me to put as much time into it as I do my other classes because a) I only have finite time and concentration and b) my other classes are much more practical to my field and the actuarial exams. So I try to get through the homework, but it doesn't feel like it prepares me for the exams. And neither do the lectures. And our professor doesn't really even know why we have to take this class because she fully admits that it's not designed to prepare us for exam P. And on top of that, unlike most of the people in my program, I don't have a stats background. So most of them have had a majority of this before... I've had only a tiny bit of it. It's been tough and it's very frustrating. So we'll see how the exam tomorrow goes. I'd much rather just focus on studying for finance....
Timbo and Dustin came over and we studied for most of the afternoon and evening. Timbo brought over a skillet dinner and I made some rice. It was all pretty good. Then after they left I talked with Clifton for a while about...everything. Just about life and everything that can be included in it. From morals to perception to video games and the internet to how we interact with our friends to zombies (I explained to him the social story that zombie media tells). It was good. I like talking with him.
In other news, Kimmy is coming to visit me on Friday, then Jared and Kanissa are coming up on Saturday. I'm quite excited!
And now I"m going to bed, an hour after I had anticipated. Oh well. Good night!
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