Math Cow Disease

Today was the day of the Applied Vector Calculus final exam.

It started off like any normal day (except that I slept until 9:00 instead of 8:00). After breakfast, Jeff and I concluded that any attempts at studying at the apartment wouldn't be very successful. After a quick good-luck phone call from Jennifer, we headed up to school.

After liberating a ream of paper from the C-Lab (C-Wing, not some dorky abbreviation for Computer Lab), Jeff and I got down to business. I'm glad I went through all of the problems over the last two days, and special thanks to Amy for compiling Kuperschmidt's solutions. I can honestly say that I did not commit any problem to memory, but it helped a lot being really familiar with both the material and the problems. Amy's flash cards also helped. I'll never make fun of anyone for making flashcards.

I should mention that around 11:00, I saved Astronomy Kid. He's the student from South Korea that likes to camp out in one of the classrooms to do his homework. This time, he seemed to have taken the camping metaphor a little too seriously - he was passed out on one of the tables. I hollered at him and made sure he wasn't missing a final, and let him be. He came by a little later to thank me, because he did have a final at 1:00 and was sure he would have slept through it. No problemo.

About a half-hour before the exam, we packed up and chilled for a little bit. It was one of those nervous, on-edge, laugh at anything conversations. We discussed Seasame Street for Grad Students, and how we would soon be knee deep in the Math exam. Knee-deep in something, at least. And somehow that conversation gave birth to "Math Cow Disease."

We headed down to the classroom at about 12:45, ready for the worst. There was plenty of gallows-humor in the room, which broke the tension nicely. My assorted-fruit TUMS were a hit, it seems. Anyway, Dr. Kuperschmidt shows up, and gives us a six problem final that I mostly remembered how to do. On one problem, it seems he didn't copy the statement correctly from the book, making the problem unworkable under the conditions. We'll see what he does about that. He was supposed to email us with our grades this afternoon, but he didn't. What a chump.

Working out at the Fitness Center went well. Packing a bag is a bit of a pain, but the free-ness makes up for so much. Dinner was at Davy Crockett's Roadhouse - the food was as good as Colton's or Logan's, but the service is a tad hit-or-miss. Dr. Who and BSG were pretty good, I think we have next Friday before the winter hiatus. Hopefully Christmas and New Years' will keep me occupied on the in between.