Classes

[tarigwaemir]

Haste Street, on the Feast of St. Augustine

First day of classes. General consensus seems to be that Advanced Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is deathly boring. I wouldn't mind boring so much if the lecture didn't seem so unstructured. The professor gave a lecture on nucleotide metabolism today, and I honestly wasn't able to tell what the point of the lecture was. He didn't really go over the purine biosynthesis pathways; instead, he just pointed out various interesting aspects that didn't seem to tie together to make any overarching point (other than, "these metabolic pathways have various interesting aspects"). Advanced Genetics, Genomics and Development, however, was tremendous fun, though we had a lot of information thrown at us at a very rapid rate. (Well, at least it keeps me awake.)

Part of what may account for the pace is that all the courses are divided among three professors who teach more or less independently. There's a "final" after each third of the course. It feels more like sequentially taking three short five-week courses that are somewhat interrelated in topic, rather than taking a single course.

Anyway, I'm going to stick with the biochemistry course a while longer and see if it gets better. If it doesn't, I may have to drop it. I'm supposed to take one core course (out of three total) that isn't in my "division" (i.e. genetics, genomics and development), and originally, I'd intended biochemistry to be my "out-of-division" course, but if I drop it, I'm not sure what I'll take instead. Maybe I should just take neurobiology or cell biology next semester (but that would mean giving up the chance to take the computational biology class). Argh.

Took a typing test (link from aiwritingfic): 104.79 wpm and 434.48 cpm, with two errors. Personally, I think the writing sample was too short, and the sample I got had the sort of language I'm used to typing for papers, so I think my speed was inflated. (Previous typing tests usually place my speed in the 60-80 wpm range, depending on the sort of text I'm typing.)

Really cool meme from zoesque:

Give me a series and I'll tell you who on my f-list would play each character (in my opinion). Please be specific, though. If you say 'Furuba', specify 'Zodiac members' or 'Student Council', etc. unless it's a small enough series that I can actually COVER all of the characters without my hands falling off. You know my fandoms-- if not, ask.

Yours &c.

Comments

[lacewood]

Hm, Shaman King? Anyone in the main handful of the cast (Yoh, Anna and gang) though Yoh and Anna are the ones I really want to know about. Everyone else is optional XD

[troisroyaumes]

Anna = cynic_in_charge, no doubts on that one.

Except then I'm not sure who'd be Yoh. You? bravecows? tsutanai? Although I think Kristina is too hardworking to be Yoh. XD;;

Maybe lazulisong, since she has a twin (although I don't think her twin necessarily equals Hao), and she also protests whenever Eve makes a drabble request of her? (Man, this meme is harder than I thought. Will have to think more for the rest of the gang.)

[ladyseishou.livejournal.com]

May be speaking out of turn but do you think that the professor would be open to student comments/concerns regarding his lecture(s) for Advanced Biochemistry and Molecular Biology? I had a professor once for differential equations who was more of a theorist (n-planes, etc) who didn't seem to realize that his class was full of Engineering majors more interested in mathematics as an analysis tool. I bit the bullet (very shy then as well as now) and it turned out fairly well. In any case, good luck with your classes!

[troisroyaumes]

No, no, not speaking out of turn, and your advice was very useful. Actually, my first-year advisor turned out to be one of the professors teaching the course (not the actual professor whose lecture I heard yesterday, but he teaches the second third), and he explained the rationale of the course and what we were supposed to get out of it, which helped a lot. I suspect I'm still going to be bored, but as long as I understand what I'm meant to be learning, I think I can deal with it. In any case, thanks for the advice, because it helped! ^_^

[love_archived]

Hikago, any characters you like.

[pyrefly.livejournal.com]

1999 nen 7 no Tsuki Shanghai! Dramatic yaoi love story ftw!

Uhh, main characters and anyone else you feel like adding in. :3

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

51.74 wpm with 5 mistakes. I CAN'T TYPE. I still have to look at the keyboard ;_;.

Death Note!

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Uh, the detectives in the Special Mass Murder Investigative Unit, including L and Light.