My Classes

I just realized that it's been a long time since I told you all what classes I was taking, and so since I'm taking different classes now I thought I would tell you what I was whining about. Here is my schedule:

Electromagnetism 3: The final quarter of a year-long sequence, this quarter we get to study stuff like electromagnetic waves, charges in motion, and relativistic effects. It's all stuff I've seen before, but on a much more rigorous level.

Statistical Mechanics: I get to do icky things in here too. Actually it's not quite as icky as quantum mechanics or electromagnetism has been in quarters past, at least in my opinion.

High-Energy Astrophysics: A class that meets twice a week, where we sit around and learn about x-ray astronomy.

Astronomy Observing: In this class we get to actually observe stuff. We spend time learning how to use our telescope and how to use the various computer programs available to help reduce and analyze the data we collect. I'll be looking at some open clusters for my project in here.

Anyway, that is my schedule. If I ever forget to say stuff like that even though I'm whining about it constantly, remind me.

Physics is Icky

Look, I waited only a few days before posting since last time! Very impressive, I must say.

Anyway, the concert went alright yesterday. By that I mean my solo was not terrible. Other than that, we probably have played the pieces better, but I guess we survived. At least my solos in the next concert will not be so important, which is good.

Tomorrow I have a midterm, in physics. For those of you not aware of this yet, it turns out that physics is icky. I know that most people realize this fact after about 1 physics lecture, but it took me two years to come to this conclusion. Personally I think this is proof that physics majors like myself are actually quite stupid, but I suppose maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, I hope my midterm tomorrow is not too bad. There's not really a lot I can do to study for it, just look over some of my old homework problems and see if I sort of know what's going on. It's open book/notes which makes it possible that I might do decently.

Right now I'm supposed to be filling out forms and doing other useful things, but actually I will play WoW for a while first. I'm sad and pathetic like that. Alright, I've decided to stop whining for the moment.

Updating More

So I'm continuing my update. For some reason I felt like breaking it into two components. Anyway, as some of you may know I have been playing WoW a lot this year. Today my primary character hit level 50. That means only 10 more until I won't be completely useless. Then I just have to get cool gear and I'll be decent. Well, as decent as a resto druid can possibly be I guess.

What else new and exciting do I have to write about here? Um, not much most likely. Let me think...Back in March I got to go on a couple basketball band trips which was kind of neat. First I went to the Men's PAC-10 tournament, which kind of sucked since we lost the first game and went home. But I did have one awesome trip, to San Diego for the Men's 1st and 2nd Rounds. We won both our games there and also I got to spend a day at the zoo, which was pretty cool. Except they don't have penguins. Naturally, the team went on to lose in the Sweet Sixteen, a trip I didn't get to go on. Although they really should have brought me, since my all-time record on UW pep band trips is 8-2. Not a bad percentage if I might say so. Anyway, the point is that San Diego is cool and other teams should always lose to us in basketball. Even if they might happen to be better than us.

As of this quarter I am 2/3 of the way done with my undergraduate career (well, give or take an extra quarter I am contemplating adding on the end). That seems kind of weird...Pretty soon I'll be down to my final year here, and then I'll have to go somewhere far away for grad school. So if you know of any schools that are strong in theoretical astrophysics and/or cosmology, let me know...

Lastly, for some reason they keep making me first horn in the symphonic band here. What's even worse is they keep giving me solos. Now I know I may actually occasionally be overly modest about my playing ability, but I am NOT a first horn. I'm a 2nd at best, and having all these solos is getting to be quite annoying. The good news though is that I'm not getting as stressed out about them as I used to be. Last quarter I had a solo where the entire band cut out, and I held a high note. The director said that it was when they "torture" the horn player. This quarter it's even worse, I have an offstage solo where nobody else is even playing. So anyway, not fun but I guess kind of cool that I have this opportunity to play solos. Even if I don't really deserve it. The concert is tomorrow, so I hope I'm ready.

Ok, I guess that's enough of my babbling for the moment. I'll try to publish more than one post a quarter, but we'll see if that actually happens...

Updating is for Losers....

Yeah, so it's been a really long time since I posted something here. And truth be told, I'm only posting here because I'm listening to some music I download and need something to do for a little bit. But I'm still posting.

I suppose a lot theoretically could have gone on since it's been so long. But this is me, so obviously that isn't anything you need to worry about. Let's see....Um, I got accepted to an summer REU at UCLA. I'll be analyzing data from computer simulations of magnetic fields in galaxies, and comparing them to real observations. It might not be the most glamorous project, but I do expect it to be fairly interesting. Probably making simulations about such things is what I'll spend my life doing, so it will be valuable experience.

What else...Um, I tried out for section leader. However, fortunately I will not be mellophone section leader next year. It's not that I don't think I could do it, but I don't really want to have that position. It was good experience for the future perhaps...If I stick around for another quarter of band after next year, then I might try out for a student staff position. At least now I sort of know what to expect from an audition with the marching band directors.

I've decided now to stop adding to this post. But don't worry, there shall be another!