State of the Hazel
Monday, 19 July 2010 12:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelSo I just realized that there's a bunch going on in my life that I haven't updated on. No, it's not (all) exams.
My parents and brother are in Barcelona for one of of my mother's conferences. My dad specifically asked me to stay in the house to deter burglary, and since the weather is fairly boiling and they have air-conditioning, I didn't object much. So since last Tuesday, I'm house-sitting. Basically I sit in the living room for hours and hours studying or goofing off, and not budging from the air-conditioning unless I must.
This also means taking care of my grandmother. Now, I love my grandma like burning, but she's 97 years old and having a conversation with her can be very difficult. Most of the time she has a caretaker who is very adept at making sure she does everything she needs to, but of course she gets Sundays off, starting late Saturday afternoon. So there was some angst about me not being able to visit while A wasn't there, because the buses on Saturday don't start until after dark, which was about 9:30 this week. By this time of night my grandma is usually too tired to have visitors.
Sunday morning was easier, she had a friend who cleans for her (long story) over for most of the morning, and I showed up and stayed for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and by six PM A was supposed to be back. Next week perhaps I will ask a family friend to walk over, because my cab fare budget is limited and I have to take a cab back from Friday night dinner, which is also my responsibility. She has also become a fussier eater.
Last week I got two packages from eBay, because I'd ordered two video games. One was The Sims 3: Ambitions which I am overall very pleased with. My main problem with it is that it makes my laptop overheat even more than it did before, up to the point where the heat management system basically makes the computer go into hibernation mode. I've also had some patching problems. After I get the computer properly cleaned it should be much improved. Nonetheless, I ended up playing the same character in the same town three times, with a fourth (likely) yet to come. At least I keep getting better at it. Fourth time's a charm?
The second game was supposed to be Dragon Age: Origins because I wanted to try something new and you can't go wrong with a high fantasy loving parody with a little queer on the side. Only I got the expansion pack by accident, and this is after angsting and waffling over the best deal for two weeks or so. Whatever, I ordered the basegame for a decent deal and I will play it when it comes, by then I should have had my fill of ghost hunting, at least a little. Should be hilarious.
Friday was my genetics test. I studied hard and I hope I did well. Once I had studied myself to a frenzy and I could do no more, I actually had some whiskey to calm down before I went to sleep. I hardly ever do this, but it pretty much worked and I slept decently. The format of the test sucked: the multiple choice questions, all of which I was 98% certain I aced, were 36% of the grade, and 64% was taken up by T/F questions, where you get +4 if you answer right and -4 if you answer wrong. The answer sheet had only one square for each question, which means you didn't even get the option of skipping a question you were uncertain of. The only margin of error was, if you only make one mistake, they won't dock points for wrong answers. It was 16 questions, and I was totally certain about 10 of the answers, but the others are making me pretty anxious. I think even open questions would leave me calmer, although I definitely don't know Drosophila embryogenesis as well as I could.
Thursday is physics, where I'm pretty much counting on taking the second test. I'll still sit the test though, to get a better idea of the questions and the crunch time. And I'll study, because spreading studying over time makes it stick better, theoretically. There's just a lot of material and it's completely nonintuitive. The only good news is, even though I absolutely have to pass the course, I won't need the actual material for next year.
In other exciting university news, whoever takes care of the schedule made some alterations which make next year's psychology classes a big fat nightmare, and I have to redo all my plans. I did expect that the schedule I drew up wouldn't stick, but I wasn't expecting them to switch classes between semesters in a way that pushes back one of my classes to year 3. You can't take neuropsychology without, oh, cognitive processes or somesuch? IDK. I still have this week's test, and then at least two after that, to worry about before I have time to angst about next year's classes.
My physics video is almost done loading, so I better get some actual studying done.
My parents and brother are in Barcelona for one of of my mother's conferences. My dad specifically asked me to stay in the house to deter burglary, and since the weather is fairly boiling and they have air-conditioning, I didn't object much. So since last Tuesday, I'm house-sitting. Basically I sit in the living room for hours and hours studying or goofing off, and not budging from the air-conditioning unless I must.
This also means taking care of my grandmother. Now, I love my grandma like burning, but she's 97 years old and having a conversation with her can be very difficult. Most of the time she has a caretaker who is very adept at making sure she does everything she needs to, but of course she gets Sundays off, starting late Saturday afternoon. So there was some angst about me not being able to visit while A wasn't there, because the buses on Saturday don't start until after dark, which was about 9:30 this week. By this time of night my grandma is usually too tired to have visitors.
Sunday morning was easier, she had a friend who cleans for her (long story) over for most of the morning, and I showed up and stayed for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and by six PM A was supposed to be back. Next week perhaps I will ask a family friend to walk over, because my cab fare budget is limited and I have to take a cab back from Friday night dinner, which is also my responsibility. She has also become a fussier eater.
Last week I got two packages from eBay, because I'd ordered two video games. One was The Sims 3: Ambitions which I am overall very pleased with. My main problem with it is that it makes my laptop overheat even more than it did before, up to the point where the heat management system basically makes the computer go into hibernation mode. I've also had some patching problems. After I get the computer properly cleaned it should be much improved. Nonetheless, I ended up playing the same character in the same town three times, with a fourth (likely) yet to come. At least I keep getting better at it. Fourth time's a charm?
The second game was supposed to be Dragon Age: Origins because I wanted to try something new and you can't go wrong with a high fantasy loving parody with a little queer on the side. Only I got the expansion pack by accident, and this is after angsting and waffling over the best deal for two weeks or so. Whatever, I ordered the basegame for a decent deal and I will play it when it comes, by then I should have had my fill of ghost hunting, at least a little. Should be hilarious.
Friday was my genetics test. I studied hard and I hope I did well. Once I had studied myself to a frenzy and I could do no more, I actually had some whiskey to calm down before I went to sleep. I hardly ever do this, but it pretty much worked and I slept decently. The format of the test sucked: the multiple choice questions, all of which I was 98% certain I aced, were 36% of the grade, and 64% was taken up by T/F questions, where you get +4 if you answer right and -4 if you answer wrong. The answer sheet had only one square for each question, which means you didn't even get the option of skipping a question you were uncertain of. The only margin of error was, if you only make one mistake, they won't dock points for wrong answers. It was 16 questions, and I was totally certain about 10 of the answers, but the others are making me pretty anxious. I think even open questions would leave me calmer, although I definitely don't know Drosophila embryogenesis as well as I could.
Thursday is physics, where I'm pretty much counting on taking the second test. I'll still sit the test though, to get a better idea of the questions and the crunch time. And I'll study, because spreading studying over time makes it stick better, theoretically. There's just a lot of material and it's completely nonintuitive. The only good news is, even though I absolutely have to pass the course, I won't need the actual material for next year.
In other exciting university news, whoever takes care of the schedule made some alterations which make next year's psychology classes a big fat nightmare, and I have to redo all my plans. I did expect that the schedule I drew up wouldn't stick, but I wasn't expecting them to switch classes between semesters in a way that pushes back one of my classes to year 3. You can't take neuropsychology without, oh, cognitive processes or somesuch? IDK. I still have this week's test, and then at least two after that, to worry about before I have time to angst about next year's classes.
My physics video is almost done loading, so I better get some actual studying done.
no subject
2010-07-19 15:14 (UTC)The true/false grading sounds really really harsh :(