This week has been pretty light. I should be able to get everything I ought to do done by the end of the weekend, but I probably won't. Curse entropy*!
The problem is that, for some reason, I find the assignments this term to be insensately tedious. Really, I'd prefer to leave an analysis of molecular vibrational modes to a frequency calculation, rather than having me manually crunching out irreducible representations. Nor do I want to write a mock poster proposal/abstract. Or do prelabs (ugh, prelabs). Any one of the numerous minutia that aren't particularly difficult, but time-and-brain-consuming**.
Instead, I want to run calculations. Prettify my presentation. Think about my complex analysis assignment. That's 3 assignments out of >8.
Sigh. I need motivation to do all my assignments, tedious or not.
Actually, you know what this reminds me of? High school! Crap! This is a university, so why do I feel like I'm in high school, stuck with repetitive and mind-numbing problems that one must plow through to pass the course? Since I'm not actually smart***, there should be plenty to get me thinking. Gahhh someone make me interested in my courses.
Postscript: "Quantum mechanics for chemists" is much, much worse than I feared. Frankly I'm amazed that my eyes haven't started bleeding from the wreckage that is the so-called derivation on the board. Arrrrrgh - the worst thing is, I don't actually know quantum mechanics. Why is there such a strong feeling that the professor is bullshitting me? (Trying to take square roots of scalar operators to get vector operators might've something to do with that. And somehow managed to talk about the postulates of quantum mechanics without linear algebra. Where are my bras and kets? - the rant can go on...) Seriously, I feel virtuous for refraining from stabbing the professor with his chalk. How am I going to survive this class?
*One could argue that we really should talk about the Gibb's free energy, but meh.
**I don't worry about zombie invasions. My assignments will no doubt sap my brain away long before they come.
***See: any arbitrary pure math major****.
****Sorry, applied math majors. With the possible notable exception of cool fourth year classes like quantum computing, applied math classes are...sad. Just a little.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Apathy
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4 comments:
well said, entropy really put us in chaotic world. not sure why it tend to increase. can it stop for a while so that I have a nice sleep.
Aha, quantum mechanics is not always bad. with strong maths background you have, i'm pretty sure you will survive with flying colors.
when I was in 2nd year, quantum mechanics is well understood without linear algebra(ket and bra) but in 2rd year, linear algebra mess my life. but it's more useful than Schrodinger's approach.
Something like that happened with my quantum chemistry course. The trick to survival is to have a couple of games like "find when is your professor wrong and why", "discover the real reason behind some reasoning instead of what your professor told you", etc. In any case, at least you’re not alone in that class. Me, it was just me and my professor.
senioritis. ;)
northbeggar: blame the Boltzmann definition for the increase of entropy over time :P
Jonathan: wow, you're the only one? That must've been terrible. However, I've long since assumed that the answer to "when is your professor wrong" is "nearly always" (the "why" usually falls out pretty quickly). *cough*
Psi*Psi: nooo I'm not a fourth-year yet! Make it stop!
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