I'm back!

Whew!!

I'm sorry I was gone for so long, but that cold/flu/yuckyness really got me last week. Being sick while you're a student is always hard, because first you suffer from the awfulness of being sick and then after you have to suffer the painful 'catching-up-with-work' process. I actually listened to Claudia and didn't go to class for a few days, and I'm sure that made my sickness much shorter than it would have been if I had just forced myself to go. Luckily, I had someone I could count on in the classes that I missed, I've copied down all the notes that I missed from each one and have been to each of the lectures once since I wasn't there, and it's not completely over my head, so I think I'll be okay!

Just for a class update, let me tell you what's going on in each of them right now. In Complex Analysis, we looked at lots of complicated integrals the week before last and went from there to look at logarithms, etc. Now we're into Laurent Series - a special kind of power series, for you math people out there. Very exciting. Power series make sense to me, so I'm looking forward to this chapter!

In Stochastics, we had a brief (and lovely) interlude for the last four classes in which we talked about the classic probability problems - you have 'n' different balls in a bag, pull out one, write down which one it is and either put it back or don't (two different stochastic models) - what is the probability that a certain number of balls come out in a specific order, etc. [I just got back from juggling class, and as I took my juggling balls one by one out of my bag when I got to the university, all I could think of was the stochastics problem!] I say that this was a lovely interlude because before that, we were talking about extremely abstract kinds of distribution functions and I just didn't have quite a solid enough picture of those kinds of functions in my head to be able to wrap my mind around the problems we were supposed to be doing.

The metaphor I tend to use for that class is: When you read the notes from the lecture or the solutions to the homework problems, it's like reading a language that you can understand, but you do not know how to write. Then, of course, you have to DO the homework problems, which IS writing that language - it's almost like writing poetry in that language! (I'm not saying that the problems are particularly beautiful*, but just that poetry is hard to write and these proofs are pretty damn hard, too!). Afterwards, it all seems so simple, but when you're sitting there with your brain and your pencil, it seems kind of impossible to get right! I think we're diving back into the theory next week, but the last four lectures have made a lot more sense to me than the others, and that's AWESOME.

In computer programming, the main lesson I have learned is this. We have to hand in our homework in groups of four, and I could spend an hour and then some explaining to all of you the fantastic, frustrating, and often hilarious dynamics of my group. BUT - all in all, that is my favorite class right now. In that class, it is very clear to see when you are learning something because you can WRITE A PROGRAM AND MAKE A COMPUTER DO SOMETHING! I'm very, very proud of how much I've figured out so far, and I think it can only get better. I wasn't expecting to like programming this much, but I really do. :) Awesome surprise!

In non-school news, Mainz is coming alive with Christmas now. We have several Christmas markets in the city, including one right on the square in front of the train station, so I see it every time I go to class. :) My juggling is also coming along, and last week I couldn't go to rock climbing (sickness- bah!) but I will go tomorrow and hope I haven't forgotten everything! I don't think I have. ;)

I hope this is a good catch-up for everyone, and I hope all of you are avoiding the colds that are flying around every country at this time of year. Let me know how you're doing and I'll write something here again soon!

:-)

*There are, in fact, many things in math that I find beautiful. Stochastics proofs (so far) are not one of them.