Lightning Bolt!

I managed to find my grades for this semester (Spring 2003) on the Registrar’s site (which is harder than it sounds!). I did pretty well, keeping my GPA on course. Here’s the breakdown:

• Discrete Structures – B+: Damn Tzeng! I thought I would have an A in this one, especially with my good grade on the midterm, as well as Tzeng’s legendary curve… oh well
• Programming Languages – A: With that much extra credit, you can’t go wrong.
• Artificial Intelligence – A-: A bit better than I expected.
• Network Programming – B+: Quite an accomplishment considering how confused I was throughout the class. Lots of stress, one test, but it’s all over now.
• Probability & Statistics – A: I did really well on the first two exams, but I was worried about the final because my teacher got ‘too pregnant’ to teach, so I basically didn’t learn anything from the guy who came in after her. I guess it all worked out.
• Spanish for Professionals – A-: Things I learned from this class:
  1. Don’t take Spanish first thing in the morning, you can’t form sentences that early
  2. Don’t take classes that are subversively business-oriented.
  3. Just because the people in your class seem like morons doesn’t necessarily mean that the tests will be easy.

Well, I think things generally worked out… I put a lot of effort into classes last semester (and the one before) and it seems to have paid off.

Sometimes I think that I’ve learned to adapt things that I’ve learned from Cross Country in high school to academics in college. One of the most important things in running I learned my senior year was how to race instead of just running a race. When I actually began racing, I accepted the fact that running fast becomes painful, and ignored it. The knowledge that I will finish successfully makes it worth it. This can also be applied to academics; working hard and losing sleep, missing events as needed (or going to events and missing more sleep!) is a painful way to live, but it is worth it, and helps you reach your potential. Enough soap box for me, time to think about food.