Take that, Gauss!

I wrote the last few lines of physics equations of my life (presuming I don't go back into some scientific field after postgrad in philosophy), less than two hours ago. Weird...

A damn good last few lines, too! It was probably the best exam I've written in the past few years (or almost), which definitely makes up for the rubbish problem solving exam we had yesterday (then again, since everyone seems to have done rather poorly, hopefully they're moderate it up a bit). Now to finish my dissertation on quasi-realism, and revise a bit of logic, and I'm done with the undergrad life!

Attitude

After tomorrow, 5pm, if ANYONE ever mentions superstrings to me again (especially a non-physicist, but you crazy physicists take note as well) I swear I will beat the living daylight out of them.

*grmbl* Goddamn essay...
Goddamn word count...

Update: I've been in the library since 9 am. I've had a total of 90 minutes of breaks. Meaning I've spent 10 hours in the library. Now after loads of editing, rewriting, and chopping entire sections out of my paper, I now have about 500 words to cram in subsections about string theories and gravity, and some stuff about current research (maybe). Christ... I haven't even mentioned gauge-symmetry. This is such a crap essay...

Hours of reading, pages and pages of notes, and I still don't feel like I even vaguely understand what the hell this theory is about. The only reassuring thing is: neither do most of the people writing these papers, apparently.

I bet this essay topic was the lecturer's little sick joke to play on students.

Foggy Weather

I'm not that passionate about weather, really. I'm not too keen for really sunny afternoons, although it is nice to sit in the park with a hat on your head, some corona, and a book. I'm not a huge fan of rain, especially when I'm under it without cover, but I have to admit it'd not unpleasant, being inside on a rainy day, with the light on, my bathrobe donned, and something good to read in the warmth of my room. Not much love for snow either: fresh, it's cold as hell and ends up getting you wet, and after two days of urban existence, it turns into the most vile, dark slush possible. But I must say few things match the experience of drying out in a chalet with cinnamon Glühwein, and seeing a dark cloud pouring snow down, or standing under a lamppost on a dark snowy night, and seeing how the light plays with the flakes as they come down (pro-tip: wear a hat, or the experience suddenly goes downhill). But it must be said: there is one type of of weather I'm an absolute sucker for, and that's fog. Fog is just amazing. Not the heavy kind that drenches you in 5 minutes, or the wimpy light kind that's accompanied by drizzle, but nice, thick fog. The kind that wraps around you so that you can barely see ten paces down the road, and all the streetlights become nothing more than diffused orbs, and people come and go into the thick mass like shadows, as if there were nothing more to the world but what you can see.

I love how the imagination works in the fog. In hiding all that is unsightly, and blurring all that might be, it leaves the formation of the external world to the mind. Walking down a stone-wall-lined back alley near Endcliffe Crescent, you could almost expect a victorian gentleman in a top hat and black cloak to just walk by, or be in Elizabethan England, and be walking along perimeter of some estate, or just pretty much be anywhere you want to be. The fog makes the world like a book, makes the world anything you want to see, and I think that's pretty damn good stuff, for something which is basically just water.

Anyway, enough crazy ranting about fog. Back to some fun reading about Nuclear Physics while listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "The Lost Christmas Eve", as the rain batters my skylight, and rattles on the roof.

Beautiful day + Stuck Inside = Daily Deal during exam week

I'm quite certain the weather's taunting me. I woke up at 6am, because of the sunlight. When I was awoken again (by my alarm) it was beautiful outside, nice and warm with a sky that you'd see on a daily basis in Provence. Not a cloud in the sky. I wouldn't have been half surprised to see birds merrily flutter together and form the words "Ha ha you have an exam"...

The exam went okay-ish, but definitely could have gone a lot better (I know I say that a lot, but here it's really true... I think). Ironically I did quite well on the part I thought was really hard (atomic spectra) and found the part which I usually aced on past exam papers near impossible. Weird.

Oh well, wait and see. Now I have to start revising for the Solid State Physics exam, start researching my papers for Mind, and write my papers for Reference and truth. Ugh... not gonna be a fun week.

PS: I added a link to this blog's RSS feed, so if you're into that whole "keeping track" thing, you can just add this link to your feed aggregator and enjoy my whining as it comes (ie fairly frequently).

It's that special time of year again

The place: a typical suburban house in Sheffield.
Time: 10:42 AM.
Weather: Rainy.

Woke up late for the last lecture of term. No biggie, as they just viewed the Milgram experiments and discussed them a bit (and I had had the displeasure of viewing them).
Spent the morning reading about flippin' Atomic Spectra and electron spin (physicists will catch the freakishly bad pun in this sentence).
Had to run and wait in line at module registration, because of the risk of having my philosophy modules already capped by the time I register (fortunately there was room left, most likely because Philosophy of Mathematics, Language, and Advanced Logic don't attract hoards of students anyway).
Came back home and read about Special Relativity, prepared a class for my french group, then got a call indicating that there wouldn't be a meeting tonight, and then spent the evening reading more physics.

Crap weather, crap obligations; there's no doubt about it, everything seems to indicate it's that wonderful time of year again: Exam time! Yay!

More whining about this in the next few days.