here in Hawaii has been a lot cooler, and for the last couple of days, there has been a lot of trade winds coming through the area, which has been nice.
On Thursday, I actually wore my hooded sweatshirt to school, although by the time I arrived on campus it was warm enough for me to not wear it.
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Sweet new toy...
My phone broke today, and I bought the iPhone as a replacement.
In fact, I'm writing this entry from my phone; hence the proper capitalization of the sentences, and the short entry.
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In fact, I'm writing this entry from my phone; hence the proper capitalization of the sentences, and the short entry.
--
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
the (slightly) changing weather...
while the rest of the country has entered well into autumn, honolulu had its first "cool" day of the season.
the temperature was in the high 70's (mid 20 degrees C), so it wasn't cold, but I can sense the chill in the air with the shirt I was wearing.
it's probably not completely inappropriate to break out the sweat shirt, but it's not at that point yet for most of the population...
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the temperature was in the high 70's (mid 20 degrees C), so it wasn't cold, but I can sense the chill in the air with the shirt I was wearing.
it's probably not completely inappropriate to break out the sweat shirt, but it's not at that point yet for most of the population...
--
Monday, November 2, 2009
throwing out the needle...
For the last 61 days, I have been completely addicted to this game called Mafia Wars on the Facebook.
If you are among the millions of people on the face of the English speaking part of the earth, you already have a mild idea of what I'm talking about (in fact, you don't even need to speak English, as Facebook is available in many languages including "pirate" English, -aye matey, arrr...)
But for some reason, if you have no idea what I'm talking about (like my dad in Japan that reads this blog who probably has no idea what I'm talking about), it is basically a game where you earn experience points, mildly similar to the RPG games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.
What makes it slightly more interesting about the game compared to the RPG games is that you can interact with other players and play cooperatively.
You may be wondering, "why was I so consumed?"
Part of the reason is that I just don't like to lose; so when I started playing the game, the top 10 of the friends that have been playing for months were at levels over 100.
After about a week, my character was moving relatively quickly through the levels, and within three weeks, my character's level was at over 100, which was mildly satisfactory, but still short of making the top 10 list.
My aspiration was not being #1 on my own list, but to overtake the friend that introduced me to the game.
I made the top 10 list in my small group of friends in about a month, but I was at least 40 levels away from the friend that introduced me to the game.
As you may have guessed already, today was the day that I finally overtook my friend in the rankings, at level 239. Now, I can put the game to rest, and focus on important things, such as this blog (haha).
(...on a side note...)
Although my regular character had not achieved the number 1 spot on my list, I actually have another account that was geared to level up quickly, and that character took less than 30 days to get to level 560, which is sitting currently at the number 1 spot on my top 10 list.
Ok, enough recreation (including this blog),
I'm going to get back to serious business...
--
If you are among the millions of people on the face of the English speaking part of the earth, you already have a mild idea of what I'm talking about (in fact, you don't even need to speak English, as Facebook is available in many languages including "pirate" English, -aye matey, arrr...)
But for some reason, if you have no idea what I'm talking about (like my dad in Japan that reads this blog who probably has no idea what I'm talking about), it is basically a game where you earn experience points, mildly similar to the RPG games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.
What makes it slightly more interesting about the game compared to the RPG games is that you can interact with other players and play cooperatively.
You may be wondering, "why was I so consumed?"
Part of the reason is that I just don't like to lose; so when I started playing the game, the top 10 of the friends that have been playing for months were at levels over 100.
After about a week, my character was moving relatively quickly through the levels, and within three weeks, my character's level was at over 100, which was mildly satisfactory, but still short of making the top 10 list.
My aspiration was not being #1 on my own list, but to overtake the friend that introduced me to the game.
I made the top 10 list in my small group of friends in about a month, but I was at least 40 levels away from the friend that introduced me to the game.
As you may have guessed already, today was the day that I finally overtook my friend in the rankings, at level 239. Now, I can put the game to rest, and focus on important things, such as this blog (haha).
(...on a side note...)
Although my regular character had not achieved the number 1 spot on my list, I actually have another account that was geared to level up quickly, and that character took less than 30 days to get to level 560, which is sitting currently at the number 1 spot on my top 10 list.
Ok, enough recreation (including this blog),
I'm going to get back to serious business...
--
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
first week of school...
-
so the first week of school has gone by, and now i have a better idea of how this semester may go.
i'm taking three classes:
one with the classy (hungarian) professor i mentioned last year, who will probably be my advisor for the phd thesis. the course is a seminar/reading course, which means we'll be reading a lot of research papers.
another is operator theory, and surprisingly enough, the professor is a white guy who teaches the course completely in american english, so it has been a "normal" class thus far.
the last of the three courses is the greek class i mentioned that i wanted to take last semester. the class is pretty easy, as the aim of the course is reading comprehension, but completely unconcerned about forming sentences of our own (which is what i want anyways).
the next entry will talk about what i teach this semester (God willing)...
--
so the first week of school has gone by, and now i have a better idea of how this semester may go.
i'm taking three classes:
one with the classy (hungarian) professor i mentioned last year, who will probably be my advisor for the phd thesis. the course is a seminar/reading course, which means we'll be reading a lot of research papers.
another is operator theory, and surprisingly enough, the professor is a white guy who teaches the course completely in american english, so it has been a "normal" class thus far.
the last of the three courses is the greek class i mentioned that i wanted to take last semester. the class is pretty easy, as the aim of the course is reading comprehension, but completely unconcerned about forming sentences of our own (which is what i want anyways).
the next entry will talk about what i teach this semester (God willing)...
--
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
the results of the course...
-
After all is said and done, here are the results of how the students did in the course:
6 students got A's.
5 students got B's.
4 students got C's.
5 students got D's.
4 students got F's.
A pretty evenly spread grade distribution.
The grading of the final exam was excruciating; the total possible points were 140, but the highest score was 126; as a result, I made the exam to be out of 120.
This enabled some of the border line students to attain a D, which yielded the above grade results.
All in all, it was a good experience, but I'm definitely not planning to teach again the next summer, as I covet my time more than the pay given.
--
After all is said and done, here are the results of how the students did in the course:
6 students got A's.
5 students got B's.
4 students got C's.
5 students got D's.
4 students got F's.
A pretty evenly spread grade distribution.
The grading of the final exam was excruciating; the total possible points were 140, but the highest score was 126; as a result, I made the exam to be out of 120.
This enabled some of the border line students to attain a D, which yielded the above grade results.
All in all, it was a good experience, but I'm definitely not planning to teach again the next summer, as I covet my time more than the pay given.
--
Thursday, August 13, 2009
exam 4 results...
-
so after the punches were pulled,
here are the results:
4 students got scores in the 90's.
4 students got scores in the 80's.
5 students got scores in the 70's.
6 students got scores in the 60's.
4 students got scores in the 50's.
Finally, a bell curve like result, although it is slightly shifted down.
Monday was the last day that covered new material, and the last two days as well as today has been review.
The final exam is tomorrow; hopefully, the process of grading and giving out grades will not be too painful.
We'll see how it goes...
--
so after the punches were pulled,
here are the results:
4 students got scores in the 90's.
4 students got scores in the 80's.
5 students got scores in the 70's.
6 students got scores in the 60's.
4 students got scores in the 50's.
Finally, a bell curve like result, although it is slightly shifted down.
Monday was the last day that covered new material, and the last two days as well as today has been review.
The final exam is tomorrow; hopefully, the process of grading and giving out grades will not be too painful.
We'll see how it goes...
--
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