The World of Stuff .com

Of calculus and calculations

Today was the last day of mid-term exams. I took four exams this week, and I already know how I did on three of them: on the American Government exam, I got an A (no surprise there). In English, I got an A (again, a pretty easy test). And Calculus. I was hoping to get a B on the Calculus exam because I have a B in the class and it seemed like it would be a pretty reasonable grade, right? Some parts of the test were easy, but overall, it was a killer, even though it was multiple choice. I’m surprised that I had enough time to mostly finish. I ended up having to skip some questions, and I was able to get back to some of them; on the other three, I just filled in random answers.

So yesterday I found out what my grade on the exam was. My teacher had everyone’s answer sheets there, all graded by machine. We were supposed to be on our way to our next class, but I stuck around because I really wanted to know, and I would practically die if I weren’t able to find out. He was showing some people their scores, and finally, he got to me. He told me I had a good grade. Then he got my answer sheet, with the score printed on it: 92… an A! I managed somehow to get an A on the Calculus mid-term. Sure, I still have a B in the class, and that’s a disappointment for me, but at least I got an A on the exam, if it counts for anything. Actually, I think that a good exam grade might bring up your class grade, but I can’t be certain. It couldn’t be brought up that high, anyway.

There’s only one exam I’m not sure about yet: Anatomy and Physiology. It was the last (the latter, actually) of the exams I took today, and it occupied quite a bit of my time. But I seemed to know most of the things I needed to know, and the teacher likes me, so I think that one’s going to be okay also. I’ll find out soon enough.

We started riding to and from school with Yamilée on Monday, just as we had planned. But due to this week’s wild and crazy exam schedule, we haven’t been able to get things into full swing yet. Plus, we won’t be able to get rides home with her on Wednesdays, so we’ll perhaps never really get it into full swing. Oh well. At least we don’t have to take the bus.

Yesterday, while the sophomores and juniors were taking the PSAT (another craziness factor in our exam week), the people who weren’t taking the test had to do whatever for the whole morning. In other words, we had to stay in our first period classroom for hours and hours. Luckily, my teacher had some of the school’s laptops in her classroom, so everyone (that is, all ten seniors who bothered to show up at school on time) could entertain themselves during that long, boring time. I spent much of my time Wikipedia-tripping, and I came across the article for the Doomsday method of determining the day of the week.

Now, I’ve written about a different method before, and apparently I barely managed to commit it to memory when it piqued my interest. But it was extremely hard to remember because it was just one big calculation where you have to memorize a set of arbitrary numbers that correspond with the months of the year. I was able to memorize the Doomsday method quickly, and so I was then able to find the day of the week for a given date. Of course, it wouldn’t have been enough to just memorize the algorithm for the Gregorian calendar, so I went ahead and memorized it for the Julian calendar also. (It’s actually easier.) I’ve been captivated by the whole thing since yesterday because I had previously thought that calculating the day of the week was out of my mental reach. It’s not! Plus, you can use your powers to wow your friends!

President Bush has just signed a law that effectively legalizes torture and suspends the right of habeas corpus for “unlawful enemy combatants” — any citizens that the President chooses. With elections coming up, see how your Senators voted on the bill. Keith Olbermann’s commentary (YouTube) on the new law is worth watching.

What would happen if everyone on Earth suddenly vanished without a trace? Although that’s totally impossible, of course, a new article speculates on how long it would take for all traces of today’s human civilization to be reclaimed by the earth’s natural processes.

One year ago: “This hurricane is going to ruin my plans for the weekend.”
Two years ago: “Though the last thing you want to read about here and I want to write about here is politics, this post is intended to be the first in a short series devoted to the U.S. Presidential election.”
Three years ago: “A bomb dug underground had exploded under my feet, and I was decapitated in the blast.”