Spring is here!
Correction: Spring semester is here. Spring is most definitely not here. See the picture below that I took last May February.
So I’m back in the miserable wasteland fun town known as Ithaca, and I’ve survived my first week of interesting, exciting classes that I need to take to graduate. They’re mostly ChemE classes, taken with the same one hundred people I’ve been taking classes with for the past two and a half years.
As my college career has progressed, my standards for the definition of success have varied drastically. Take, for instance, the following:
Most freshman engineers start out taking either the second semester of single variable calculus or multivariable calculus. As a kind of “welcome to Cornell” gift, both of those math classes are curved to a B. Minus.* That means that if you do average on everything, all you get for your efforts is a B minus. I managed to get exactly zero points for an entire question on the second prelim, which set me back one-sixth of the points without even accounting for mistakes I made on the other parts of the test. I studied hours for the final, and judging by my final grade, I did a lot better on the final than the second prelim.
Spring semester of freshman year, I started rock climbing, and progressed from struggling up the wall using any of the holds to struggling up the wall on routes. Now I can also climb some of the problems at the bouldering wall. So there’s been improvement there.
Then there’s this semester. So far I’ve been present when the Cornell men’s hockey team beat Harvard 3-2 with 40.5 seconds remaining in the third period. I tried to read one of my textbooks. I later gave up after five pages, but it’s the thought that counts, right? I took care of swim test and timecard logistics and returned library books all in one morning. In four hours of ChemE work, we did most of not just one, but two assignments, and got one of the questions right on the first try.
And finally, I have not yet shown up to class in my very fashionable pajamas with penguins on them.
*I’ve never had this definitively confirmed, but based on peoples’ general performance, I can believe it.
