Walking across the campus.

As I mentioned in my last post, this is the "Lernphase". There are only a few courses offered at this University of 30,000 students that actually have exams during the first part of the semester. The vast majority just have a final exam or a final paper due during the semester break (it's a joke, of course, that it's called a break). But because attendance is not required in most lectures (seminars and other smaller courses, sure, but not most lectures), there's at least as many students on campus during the Lernphase if not more than in the regular semester, as all are making the pilgrimage to one of the several libraries or cafés on campus.

Everyone is in a haze of exams. Studying habits like constant tea consumption and the listening of dramatic instrumental music are contagious. Diagrams like this one are flying around Facebook:

And I'm part of the craziness. However, with only one final this time, I have a relatively calm few weeks ahead of me - just a bunch of algebra, which I'm alright with.

There are two non-exam-related things I wanted to mention today. First of all, as I got to campus today I worked for a while on the other side of the University from the math building (a more cozy library than the math one, and since I was only there for the atmosphere and not for the books, it didn't matter that there weren't any math books around). Then after lunch, I made the trek to the back of the campus and as I went, I heard snippets of different conversations, since I (for once) didn't have my headphones on:

In front of the building where most foreign language classes are held:
"Yeah, there's a lot of exchange students in that lecture..."
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In front of the main library:
"Really? Sub-saharan? I thought that was..."
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In the absolute center of campus near the music building:
"I have my first exam tomorrow..."

Then a trend starts:
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In front of the main cafeteria, on the other side of which is the math building:
"Yeah, that's what I said - positiv-definit and symmetric..."
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On the other side of that cafeteria:
"And we have to calculate Eigenvalues too, right?"
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And finally, in the elevator of the math building.
"Of course it's obvious if you are considering it over the complex numbers. But as soon as you move to a more general ring, then...."

I just couldn't help grinning to myself. That last conversation was actually happening in English (the others I translated), with heavy non-German accents on either side (grad students, I'm assuming) and it went on to name a bunch more terms that I know vaguely from hear-say but have no real clue what they are mathematically, and just the fact that that kind of research is going on down the hall from where I'm prepping for my one little Algebra exam makes me so happy.

And finally, C and I have started a new project with our fantastic neighbor. We've decided to watch all the movies on the American Film Institute's Top 100 list. Actually, we decided to do this a while ago but we haven't managed to start until last weekend. Let me just say - 100 films is a lot of movies. A few I've seen on the list, but not all. We're starting at the bottom, so theoretically, they'll just get better and better. The list was apparently constructed based on criteria such as: awards won (i.e. Oscars or similar), popularity over time (including DVD/VHS sales as well as box office), critical recognition, historical significance, and cultural impact.

In any case, we began on Saturday night with Ben Hur, Film No. 100, and Toy Story (No. 99) on Monday. We decided to keep certain tallies with each of the films, though the same things might not be counted - for example, for Ben Hur we counted the number of beers drunk during the 3.5 hour spectacle (5) but for Toy Story, we counted cups of coffee (4). Ben Hur also got +3 Jesus points, since none of us expected to see Jesus because all we knew about the film was that there was a chariot race. I shall be sure to keep you posted about our progress there! We'll have to make hay while the sun shines, or rather watch films during our semester break, since if we watched only one every week it would take us at least a two years to get through all of this. We shall see!