12/21/12

I leave for France in 15 days.

I'm going to be on vacation for 13 of those days.

Naturally, I have a lot of stuff to do before Saturday.  And I haven't really started any of it.

This has made my mom very stressed and also a little bit mad at me.

But I'm like, "Hey, the world is ending tomorrow, why spend all my time getting ready for things that happen after tomorrow?"

I am going to be in big trouble tomorrow if the world doesn't end.

The Magic Kingdom

Today I went to math class.

My mom went to Disney World.

While I was learning about the I.C.M. and Number Theory, my mom was watching the Main Street Electrical Parade.

So jealous.

Anyway, since I can't be in Disney World right now I've decided that the next best thing is writing about it.  So today I bring you my favorite things from the Magic Kingdom.

1. Tortuga Tavern - Tortuga Tavern is a restaurant across from Pirates of the Caribbean. The entire time you get to listen to PotC music while eating delicious food. However, it closes at 2:00.  So if you try and go back for dinner, dreaming all day of the delicious burrito you're going to eat, you'll be very disappointed and have to settle for a not-very-good-and-not-at-all-remember-able dinner at the place around the corner. So go for lunch.
2. Pirate Goofy - Also by PotC is a Meet & Greet with Pirate Goofy. I can't even begin to describe the joy of meeting Pirate Goofy. But if I were going to try I would say it compared to the feeling Captain Jack Sparrow had when he escaped the gallows and got back the Pearl. Or the feeling Elizabeth had knowing she didn't have to marry Commodore Norrington. Or the way Orlando Bloom felt after he successfully flipped the perfectly balanced sword and caught it without killing himself or Jonathan Pryce.  Maybe if you mixed all three of those together, that would be the joy I felt knowing I could meet Pirate Goofy.
3. The Rope Drop Show -  Unlike the rope drop show in front of Mexico, the Magic Kingdom's Rope Drop Show is totally worth watching, even if it means you aren't at the front of the rope drop crowd. Not that you should completely abandon the area by the rope, just maybe take a few steps back so you can see what's happening. Even if you can't see, the music alone is pretty great.
4. Sweaters Around Waists - There are very few places it is acceptable to wear a sweater around your waist once you are above the age of nine.  These places include Disney Parks and... well, I'm not sure if it's socially acceptable anywhere else.  But I do know it is acceptable at Disney World. So is skipping. And smiling. And being happy to meet fictional characters from movies. I love Disney World.
5. Meeting the Fairies - Even though I am not a huge fan of the fairies, it was a lot of fun to meet them. Plus, while you wait in line you are in an air-conditioned building where they play clips from the fairy movies. And you may realize you like Tinker Bell more than you thought.
6. Fastpassing the Princesses - At Disney World you can get a Fastpass to meet the princesses. Plus the wait line is inside. And they tell you what princesses you can meet that day. It's magical. (At Disneyland there is no Fastpass, everything is outside, and they won't tell you what princesses you'll be meeting. In this one instance, Disneyland should learn from a job well done by Disney World.)
7. The Wait Line for Space Mountain - For those of you who had a short wait for Space Mountain, you probably walked through the queue unaware of the weird buttons lining the walls. Those of you who were lucky enough to have a long wait know that these are for a game they turn on to make the wait less wait-like. I don't remember much about the game except that there were spaceships... and I rocked it.
8. The Castle - The castle always looks amazing, but the best place to get a good view and picture of the castle is from the left side over by Liberty Square. Especially at night. Preferably when it's lit up in the yellow-orange color.
9. The New Fantasyland Expansion - This is my favorite thing about Disney World and my favorite conversation starter (Hey! Have you heard about the New Fantasyland Expansion?). I have been following its construction ever since I found out they were adding a restaurant designed to look like the scene 'Be Our Guest' from Beauty and the Beast.  (Belle is my favorite princess.) 

They also built Beast's castle. 

And they're going to add Prince Eric's castle.

And they're adding a Princess Fairytale Hall.
And a Little Mermaid Ride.

And they built another Dumbo ride to make the wait shorter.

And they added an air-conditioned-circus-inspired child play area while you wait for the ride. 

Previews for this magical land are happening now and it will officially open on December 6th with additional expansions next year. 

So while my mom is previewing the Beast's castle and the Be Our Guest restaurant, I'm studying for finals...

Just kidding. Finals aren't for another week and a half, but I'll be studying in a week, so... I think it counts.

It's November 5th!

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Today, people all over the world Britain are gathering around bonfires to set off fireworks and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes. 

Those of us here in the United States don't really get to celebrate this holiday.  George Washington condemned it during the American Revolution because he was trying to gain the support of French-Canadian Catholics.

(Guy Fawkes Day apparently has a strong anti-Catholic sentiment.)

However, this is all very much off topic.  Back to the story of Fawkes:


In 1605 Guy Fawkes and his friends decided to blow up the House of Lords in order to kill King James I.  Some genius, though, decided to send a letter to one of his friends warning him not to go to Parliament the day they planned to blow it up.  His friend then showed it to the King, who ending up catching Fawkes guarding a whole bunch of gunpowder, right under the House of Lords.

Two lessons can be learned from this:

1) If you plan on killing someone, don't tell anyone who might warn the person you're trying to kill.

2) More people should be celebrated for failing.  This entire holiday came about to honor the failure of Fawkes and the other members of the Gunpowder Plot.  Can you imagine if every time somebody failed we got a holiday out of it?  "I'm sorry you failed this test, but in your honor no one has to come to class next Wednesday."  Or, "I'm sorry that you failed in asking her on a date, but here's some wood.  Go light things on fire."

Personally, I think this would make the world a much better place.  Well, until global warming catches up to everyone's failures and the world spontaneously blows up, but until then, a much better place.


In other news, November 5th is also the day I can enroll in classes for next semester.  At my French school!  Well, I could have if I understood how to enroll, but it turns out everything is in French.

In honor of my failing, I'm going to eat some chocolate cake.

On a more successful note I did manage to sign up for the sports program.  For a small fee you can enroll in a bunch of different classes -- fencing, horseback riding, badminton, tennis, skiing... However, I'm not sure yet if being able to speak, or at least understand, French is an important component.  Luckily, my dad sent me this text today:

"You will be speaking French no problem.  But just in case - hola (with a little gismo above the a) is how you say whoa in French."

I can just see it now:  American girl trying to ride a horse shouting, "Hola with a weird a!  Hola with a weird a!!"

I hope I get a horse that speaks Spanish.

Paperwork, Movies and Money

I don't know if you caught this from my last post, but I am really excited to go to France.  So excited that sometimes when I'm walking around campus I just randomly start smiling.  This is mostly on account of I just had to tell myself it would be inappropriate to yell out FRANCE! which makes me laugh at myself.

But despite all the excitement, there are three things that manage to bring me down from this high and back to reality.  They are (in reverse alphabetical order):

Paperwork

There is a ton of paperwork involved with studying abroad.  Well, maybe not a ton, but a lot.  Even when you think you've finished all the paperwork, more of it magically appears.  First you have to apply for the program, then the school you're going to wants you to fill out more papers, and then your school wants you to fill out more papers.  Oh, and don't forget you'll need a VISA, which also means... you guessed it!  Many more papers.

Luckily I'm off to France, which is like the paper government of the world.  Seriously, if there was a world government, France would be the people in charge of making people fill out all the paperwork.  That's how much they love it.

Movies

Good Idea: Watching movies set in France in French.  Especially musicals from the 1950s.

Bad Idea: Watching Taken 2.  Cause then you'll be reminded of Taken 1.  Which is the movie where the girl gets kidnapped and made to do, you know, bad stuff...  IN FRANCE.  Oops.  Luckily I won't be going with a stupid roommate who will tell the kidnappers we're staying in an apartment by ourselves, I'll just be there by myself.  Alone.  Which is so much better.

Money

There is almost as much money involved in studying abroad as there is paperwork.  And it's not even your money, it's borrowed money, that you're expected to pay back and stuff.  And yet some people have found a way to quit school and just spend all their time traveling the world.  Or maybe that's just my own personal dream.  Either way I need to figure out how to make that happen.

Je vais en France!

For the past couple weeks I've been walking around apostrophe-ly* asking France to email me and say, Kenna, you're awesome.  Please come visit us.  Sincerely, France.

No, France is not a person.  I'm talking about France the country.

Finally, France did email me back.  And pretty much they said, Dear Kenna, you're awesome.  Please come visit us.  Love, France. 

Except, you know, it was in French.

So, last weekend I bought a ticket to France, and now I'm doing everything I can to learn French in the next two months.  That's right, I'M GOING TO FRANCE IN TWO MONTHS!

Also, yes, I don't speak French.  But how hard can it really be to learn a language?

*apostrophe-ly: a way to address some absent or nonexistent (France is the absent, not nonexistent option) person or thing (or country) as if present and capable of understanding

I'm in a Class with Paul Walker, Being Taught by Horace Slughorn

On the first day of math class, my professor showed us a really cool program that will randomly choose positions on a map to see which stops are most commonly used.  It was really only cool because he used a map of the London Underground.

On this first day of class he mentioned London quite a few times, and as I sat there in class I started thinking that he looked quite familiar.  Which doesn't make sense, because I knew I had never seen him before.

And then it hit me with the same amount of force the Whomping Willow hit the Weasleys' flying car:

I'm being taught by Horace Slughorn!

I mean, theory of probability isn't quite the same as a potions class, but there are some definite similarities.  Like they're both taught by Professor Slughorn.

As if this wasn't enough excitement for one semester, I also have a class with Paul Walker.  Well, I'm not sure if it's actually Paul Walker, but every time I try and go up to him and ask if his name is Paul Walker, I just see this:

And how are you supposed to talk to someone when all you can remember is them working so hard to go save the dogs trapped in Antarctica?

Hey, I haven't met you,

So I probably seem crazy,

But you look like Paul Walker

So call me maybe

Probably like that.  Thank goodness for Carly Rae Jepsen, solving the world's problems one stalker at a time.  (For the record, no, I haven't seen her in any of my classes yet.)

Only in a Math Class...

School starts on Monday.  So I decided today would be a good day to go read all the syllabi my teachers have been emailing me about, five times a day, for the past month.  (For you Non-Math majors that comes out to about 150 emails I've received regarding important class information.  For you English majors, that was an hyperbole.)

Most of this information has been boring, repetitive and useless.  Very little of it was confusing.  Until I came to this:

"The two values will be averaged. The integer part of the average will determine the letter grade if the fractional part is less than or equal to .5. If the fractional part is above .5, the value will be rounded toward the paper grade."

I read it once.  Read it again.  And finally on the third time I realized it was saying that if you get higher than 89.5 it's an A and so on.  By about the sixth time I realized what it was really saying.  Your grade has the potential to go up if you average higher than x9.5 -- but only if you write a better paper than you take a math test.  Considering we're all math majors, this doesn't look so good for us...

Only in a math class could understanding the grading system be so confusing.

10 Things to Know Before You Tell People You Want to Go to Law School

10: LSAT scores start at 120.

That's right, even if you only manage to get your name correct, you still get a 120.  If someone tries to sound smart by saying they got a 125 on their LSAT you know they actually only got a 5 on a normal scale.

9: You don't get points taken off for answering incorrectly.

The person who answers no questions and the person who answers every question incorrect still get the same score.  Anyone with $160 and a spare Saturday can say they got a 120 on the test; it's not something to be proud of.  Also, you have to get 15 questions correct to move up to a 121, so if you don't feel like you can do that, it's better to just answer none.

8: LSAT scores only go up to 180.

Some genius decided that the best scale for the LSAT would be from 120 - 180, not 0 - 60 or something reasonable.  Maybe a 0 score just seemed to harsh.  Either way, I now have way more respect for Elle Woods (from Legally Blonde) getting a 179.

7: The LSAT has a section called Logic Games.

More formally known as Analytical Reasoning, this section is filled with brain teaser-like questions - so exciting!  For those lucky enough to also get a Logic Games experiment section they get to do this twice.  (I included this in order to spare others the embarrassment of saying, "They have games on the LSAT?")

6: The writing section of the LSAT is a waste of time.

Law Schools make you submit a personal statement anyway and use that to judge your writing instead of using the writing sample on the LSAT that is there to allow them to judge your writing.  Waste Of Time.

5: It is not necessary to get your undergraduate degree in math.

In fact, most people will think it is really weird that you intend to go to law school with a math degree.  Just something to think about.

4: Know the top 10 law schools, even if you have no intention of going to them.

People are going to be interested in the top 10 law schools, especially when you keep talking about how important they all are.  So you should probably know them.  They are, in order, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, U of Chicago, NYU, Berkeley, U of Pennsylvania, U of Virginia, and U of Michigan.

Fun fact - Princeton surprisingly doesn't have a law school.  It did from 1847 to 1852, but then they gave up on it.

3: Know what type of law you plan on going into after law school.

Apparently there are lots of different types of law.  And people are going to be interested in what type of law you plan on pursuing.  If you haven't made this decision ahead of time, you may end up saying the first thing that comes to your head and sounds reasonable, which will probably be Corporate Law.  (I'm not even sure if that's a real thing, but it sounds good.)

2: Have good reasoning for that type of law.

Enjoying watching the show Suits on USA is not good reasoning for wanting to go into Corporate Law.  Not knowing any types of law is also not a good reason for choosing Corporate Law.

1: Read books & study up about your chosen path.

After telling everyone you intend to go into Corporate Law you should study up on it.  Because Corporate Law actually sounds like the worst type of law to go into.  After not sleeping for three years of law school, you'll then have to work 18 hour days and sleep in a sleeping bag at your office in your spare time.  (At least, that's what the fictional book I read told me Corporate Law would be like.) However, thanks to my other fictional book, Antiquity Law is looking really good.  Sadly, I think a graduate degree in some sort of antiquity study might be necessary.  Also, Antiquity Law might be fake.

Celebrate the Little Things

You know what's annoying?

The last couple weeks of school.  It's supposed to be all exciting because you're finally done with Advanced Applied Analysis and that awful math project you've been working on all semester, but instead the last weeks of school are way more stressful than the rest of the semester combined.

It's like your teachers all realize at the exact same moment that you only have a week of classes left.

That means not only do you have to write those five term papers you've been putting off all semester, but now you also have to worry about a presentation, a take home quiz (because there wasn't time for it in class), three math homework assignments, and three online quizzes.  Not to mention, you've got those four finals coming up next week.

Seriously, that is what my last week of school looked like.

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I've been quite stressed recently.  Because, did I mention that I haven't had a free weekend for the past month?

So, I've decided to start celebrating the little things in life.

For example, on Tuesday I celebrated the end of classes by eating pizza and sitting by the pool.

Then, Tuesday night I celebrated the fact that I managed to write a 7 page paper in under two hours (on account of I used my time earlier in the evening to sit by the aforementioned pool).

And then today I celebrated the fact that a cute guy made my smoothie at Jamba Juice. 

The fact that I also finished my math poster and two law essays was just icing on the cake.

Wednesday Nights

It's Wednesday, and that inevitably means that I have math homework due tomorrow.  It's the same thing every week.  I get the new assignment Thursday afternoon, and it is due the next Thursday morning.  Now that we are halfway through the semester you would think that I would have learned that I should not leave the 9 hour math assignment for Wednesday night.  But I'm an optimist, and I always hope that I'll magically be able to get my math homework done in a mere hour.

I can't.

So here we are again.  It's Wednesday night, about 10:30, and what do you know I haven't started my math homework yet.  In fact, I just barely looked at the assignment five minutes ago.  It's a long one... like multiple pages long.  So once again, I will be staying awake for the next four or five hours, faking my way through yet another Advanced Applied Analysis homework assignment.

Which brings me to my next point.

Shouldn't there be some sort of pre-req for Advanced Applied Analysis, such as Basic Applied Analysis?  I mean, seriously team, I feel like I really missed some of the concepts that are considered fundamental to the course - such as, an in depth knowledge of optical and/or fluid mechanics, the general idea behind physics and string theory, or even what applied analysis means.

Which leads me to my conclusion:

I hate math.  I hope one day to go back to that special place where math and I got along and I felt smart, but for right now, I'm just trying to make it though.  On the plus side, only 8 weeks left this semester.  A total of 12 classes to survive.  And then a year after that I'll be completely done with my math classes.  And that will be a happy day.  I'm thinking of hitting up law school next, because after math I feel like that should be a piece of cake**.  Or, perhaps I'll just eat some cake in celebration of being done with math.

(**For those of you actually in law school who know that it is in fact NOT a piece of cake, please keep your opinions to yourselves.  I am happy in my ignorance.)

Lessons I Learned As A Child - The Revised Edition

Apparently I hurt my mother's feelings with my last blog, by telling all three of you (my mother and two sisters) that I learned most of my lessons as a child from my teachers.  This was false information, and to prove that my mother did her job well, I'm now going to list the important lessons I learned from my parents, which will exceed the four lessons I mentioned learning from my teachers.

1) You can marry more in a minute than you can make in a lifetime.  Solid advice right there.

2) A clean floor = a happy mother = a happy family.

*Also, Marilyn Monroe got it wrong.  Vacuums are a girl’s best friend, not diamonds.*

3) When working on duets with your sister, it is best practiced with a mother saying counts above you and your sister fighting.

4) Brush your teeth.

5) You also taught me how to tie my shoes.  The right way.

6) You taught me how to drive.  Sorry that I learned that one poorly.

7) The safest place to be when you're in trouble is your room.  Hiding in the closet.  Then, when your parents are terrified because they can't find you, they'll forget that they're mad at you (thanks to help from Kyla on learning that one)

8) Most importantly, though, you taught me that you should never ask your mother for advice.  Because she'll say, "I'm not going to make decisions for you." And then when you make the wrong one, she'll just look at you disappointed-ly because you should have known better.  Just make the wrong choice without asking her opinion, and then you can claim ignorance.

Also, you taught me that you should never give up.  When it comes to piano.  Other things (like cheerleading, club swimming, math club, and the Harry Potter series) are fair game for giving up.

And that’s what I learned from my parents.

Lessons I Learned As A Child - Part 1

You learn a lot of important lessons as a child.  Some you learn from your parents, but most you learn from your teachers.  To me, teachers were like angels guiding me to my dark, unknown future.  My family still makes fun of me to this day, because of all the messages of wisdom I passed on from my teachers to them.  You want to know what my teacher says?  She says you need to stay with the goop.  (Apparently I didn’t know how to pronounce my ‘r’s’. Or my teacher was seriously confused.)  You want to know what my teacher says?  She says...

Well, I’ve started to notice a pattern with all these pieces of wisdom I’ve gathered.  They are all designed to prepare you for the future.  Like, in 4th grade when your teacher makes you use cursive all the time to prepare you for 5th grade.  But then you get to 5th grade and they could care less about whether you use cursive, but you better be sure to use a pen on all of your assignments, because they want to prepare you for 6th grade. And then you get to 6th grade, and all your preparation is in vain because you have to type all your assignments anyway - to prepare you for junior high, of course.

That’s how college is.

I learned all these valuable lessons as a child, to prepare me for life, and now NONE OF THEM APPLY.

For example, as a child you are taught to never take candy from a stranger.  Not in college.  You grab all the free stuff you can get - candy (wrapped or unwrapped, we don’t care), ice cream, soda, food handed out by unlicensed food handlers. . . we take it all.  I guess by the time you get to college no one is interested in poisoning or kidnapping you anymore.

On that same note, as a child you are taught to never talk to strangers, because strangers are scary and dangerous and such.  Not in college.  You sit down in your first class and your teacher already has you separated into groups with a bunch of strangers, because they want you to get to know everyone else in the class.

Third lesson I learned as a child: When it’s cold outside, you put a jacket on.  In college life this means: When it’s cold outside, you better put some boots on.  Otherwise, you’re going to be cold in that mini-skirt and tank top.

Which brings me to my final point.  As a child I was taught that math is used in real life all the time.  Now, teachers couldn’t always explain how the rule of the multiplicative inverse would help me out in life, but I trusted them.  And then I was taught a sad lesson in my astronomy class today.  You want to know the real reason why math exists?  It’s so that you can turn this:

“The acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables - the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the object. The acceleration of an object depends directly upon the net force acting upon the object, and inversely upon the mass of the object. As the force acting upon an object is increased, the acceleration of the object is increased. As the mass of an object is increased, the acceleration of the object is decreased”

into

F = ma. 

Yep, that is why math exists.

You want to know how I know?  Cause my teacher told me, that’s how.

Advanced Engineering Mathematics

Today my $200 textbook arrived in the mail.  That I got for $150.  Yeah, it was a good day.

What fascinating subject will I be studying this semester?  Oh, that would just be Advanced Engineering Mathematics.  Apparently pre-reqs of basic engineering mathematics, physics, or advanced engineering concepts are not required. . .

Fantastic.