27 outs in a baseball game, 27 days to mark a test…

So the waiting has finally come to an end, a mere 1 day short of the four week mark I was beginning to expect. Some people pointed out that our Statics mark in first year didn’t come until the Thursday of the first week of school, that may be the case but it was the last exam written on the last day of exams, they also had full lecture halls of students. And 27 days (Hiebert’s record) still has a significant margin over the 22 days record set by Hrudey and company.

Discussions amongst the other guys seems to suggest that things must have been tied up in the physics office

I figured it wouldn’t hurt to fill in the details regarding semester 6/8. my courses this semester consist of…

• EE 350 – Electronic devices, Instructor Jeremy Sit
• ENGG 405 – Engingeering Management Instructor Peter Flynn
• EE 323 – Partial Differential Equations Instructor Vien Van
• PHYS 381 – Electrodynamics Instructor Zbigniew Gortel
• PHYS 371 – Quantum Mechanics A Instructor Frank Marsiglio
• PHYS 397 – Projects in Experimental Physics Instructor Kim Chow

Things are looking busy but thus far not impossible. Engineering Management is something I know I will find harder than the average person, we’ll see how it goes. If I keep on top of things I should be in good shape. I guess that’s the situation for all of my classes, but staying on top of things gets tough when I have to write those big lab reports (one of which I picked up today – 89% woo hoo)

So I wasn’t completely out to lunch with my previous entry, Hiebert is still rewriting the record books for being the slowest marker on the face of the planet but Drs Dai and Gortel did get their grades onto beartracks today.

I’m a bit choked with my Stat Phys mark =( I guess I had pretty high expectations of myself after pulling out a 106% grade on the midterm and seeing how bad everyone else felt after the final exam. I guess I really did poorly on the “Ice in a Jar” problem, I only managed to do the easy first part and had to leave the bit with V / Vquantum out because I couldn’t remember. That can’t be the sole explanation for loosing so much ground to everyone else in the class so I must have really screwed up another problem that I’m unaware of.

I can’t really complain about missing a 4.0 from Complex calculus because my complete lack of interest in the teaching style and content did hinder my ability to show up for class on time and pay attention once there. I mean, I can evaluate any integral the guy wants to throw at me but when it comes down to stupid tricks and proofs I’m just a few steps behind. I certainly hope that the USRI feedback will step things up for future EnPhys. The other kids in the class seemed to be content with the garbage but I think that covering some real course content would have been a good idea.

I knew that the ridiculously high marks by everyone else in the class weren’t to my advantage. 1.5 marks off on the midterm, a sprinkling of half mark-deductions on homeworks and a single sign error on the final exam could all legitimately add up to an A- when the class average is a whopping 85% or higher. I’d like to hear how some of my friends did, if they’ve all got 4.0 and 4.3 then I’ll be pretty sad.

High class averages (MATH311) are certainly not my style of education but stinking hard courses (PHYS311) aren’t reaping me great grades either. I guess I’m best suited to trivial material (EE280 and EE338) with tricky exams, I certainly collected the trophies there!.

So, It’s three weeks since I wrote my optics test and I still don’t have a mark… Guess my emotion, you’re likely correct.

I’m also not completely happy with Gortel and Dai for not getting those marks done but I’ll admit Gortel had a big class where almost everyone wrote 2 full books. What’s going on up there in Edmonton? I mean I leave for a week and no-one in that city can manage to get any work done?