I can't believe myself. Days ago I was joking with myself that if I get a tooth problem, I am going to go back to China. Of course, back then it was all just a joke. It's not now. If I and couple of my friends are right, I am getting a wisdom tooth. I know that I am not smart, or mature, but why now? I can't even speak now. Kinda reminds me of my childhood, though. Now I can only wish that it's going to come out right. At the mean time, please, God, give me enough strength to last through.

 

Oh, by the way, we just finished our Stats test today. IT's open book, still, don't know how well or badly I did. Hope I am going to be alright. Now still have to do the Calculus homework tonight. It's so not me, as Liching put it. I am actually starting to like going to the library(which is Sackler, to me) and doing homework now. It's like my favorite pasttime, well, probably second to basketball.

 

 

Sometimes it really scares me when I start doubting my professors' abilities. It's not because that I am so good. Just that sometimes it really does seem like they are lost. Professor Sternberg is the most obvious example. Nobody dares to ask questions other than pointing out her calculation mistakes. Liz said to me today that she was lost in that class. I explained to her," It's not that you are lost. It's that you are caught up in the torrent of being lost and can't get free." Really, when a whole class of "highly intelligent and versatile" math majors have a total veto on the understandability of the course material, shouldn't the professor be thinking a little? It just scares me that the same stuff might be taught completely differently by another professor, and what I learn for her might be entirely incompatible. What if I spend a semester taking a course and end up getting nothing more than a grade and a credit hour? I'd rather believe that it's not that way.

 

 

I haven't been studying like this for a long time. For the last couple of weeks, I have been spending time studying in Sackler with friends till eleven. It's really nothing to brag about since 11 is like afternoon for some of the real hardworking guys, but for me, I can't even remember when was the last time I actually spent more than three hours in the library studying.

There is some difference, though, between studying hard, getting a lot done, and spending a lot of time in the library. Steve studies with me. He would deal with a technical problem real seriously which I would most of the time just skip. We spend two and a half hours this monday in solving an iterated integral because we didn't get the same answer at first. That's called studying hard. Normally, if I am studying by myself, I would finish up all the homework in half an hour's time, that's called getting a lot done. And last thursday, we spent two of the three hours free talkiing, that's called spending a lot of time in the library. A lot of times, it makes people feel accomplished when they spend a lot of time in the library, but what have they done?

 

I am amazed at the attitude American students take towards math. The fact that Mathematics is the only subject that a student could suck at yet he can still proudly smile and say to people:" well, I am not one of those people." just shocks me. IT's right that in this world you can look everything up on the internet. But a lot of times, college education is not really for remembering hard facts. It's about getting accustomed to ways of thinking and dealing with stuff. And with the importance of mathematics as a tool in this world, studying math is really more about understanding the system than about formula and PIs, Deltas, epsilons. If a student can't even understand that a*b + a*c = a*(b+c), he should be going to copace for special programs.

 

I've been feeling sloppy for the last month or so. Sometimes I just get frustrated. Today I just got upset at Amy during dinner because she refused to show me the answers to the survey. That's something that I wouldn't do most of the time. As I was walking downstairs out of her appartment, I kept feeling bad about what I did, not so much about I got mad at her, but about getting upset so easily. I've been feeling a lack of soul support lately. It seems that I am tied up in a relationship that has turned into a burden for me in the past couple of weeks and I just can't let go. IT's probably going to go back to normal, but until then, I am going to need some serious fixing.  But again, maybe, sooner or later, I am going to have to survive on my own. Hopefully, I'll be able to find a way to deal with it.