Heh. I just found an entry I started writing last Friday . . . and never managed to post. Mostly because school is keeping me busy. Busy in a good way, but I’m ending most days feeling mentally (and because of that, physically) exhausted.

Statistics is easy; Biology is mostly easy except for having to memorize the ^#*%^@ cell cycle. (Can’t I be a biologist without knowing about mitosis and meiosis? Okay, so I can’t. Whatever. *pouts*). Oh, and Thomas Hunt Morgan? Let’s dig him up out of his grave and beat him with a shovel (w+ . . . WHY????). Physics was insanely hard for me at first, not so much because of the physics, but because of the math needed to do the problems – my algebra skills were . . . rusty, to put it mildly. (Surprisingly, my trig skills are just fine, which is a relief). In the past week, though, I’ve put in a lot of time and effort (and a couple of sessions with a tutor), and I think I’m back where I need to be with the math. And the physics. We’ll see – I just got home from taking my first Physics exam, and I think I did fine. There weren’t any problems that made me think, “WTF?” and I’m pretty sure I did the one write-your-answer problem correctly (the rest of the test was multiple choice). Anyone want to have a go at it?

George and Alfred are brothers who drive race cars. (They’re also apparently not that smart, as you’ll see in a bit). George’s car accelerates at 3.00 m/s2, while Alfred’s is a bit slower: 1.50 m/s2. They set up their cars on a race track, 1.00 x 10^3 meters apart, facing one another, and from rest, drive towards one another. How long will it take them to crash into one another, and at what distance from George’s starting position will this crash occur?*

So, my brain has been tired lately, but I’m still feeling like I’m hanging in there as far as schoolwork is concerned. Plus, I have friends in Biology now (we have lunch together, and study together, and work out at the gym together, all of which is lovely), and I have people to chat with in both of my other classes. (I wouldn’t call any of them “friends” yet, but it’s still good).

Physics lab is fun – on Wednesday, we got to fire steel balls out of a little “cannon.” And in Biology lab, we got to mate drosophila flies on the computer like crazy (I deliberately did some pairings that I knew were LETHAL! Bwahahahahahah)! Okay, so it’s probably not quite as interesting as actually breeding the fruit flies themselves, and seeing what happens, but the computer model is much faster. 😀

My son, btw, was a bit scandalized by the fruit fly experiment. He said, “What did you do? Lock the flies together in a bedroom with a ‘do not disturb’ sign, and then wait for them to make kissy noises?” *facepalms* Of course, he was even more traumatized the previous week when we played with Mr. Potato Heads in bio lab. And yes, we made them have sex with one another, to see what would happen to the offspring. Mr. Potato Head Sex! W00t! (That really was the title of the lab). Genetics. Fun stuff. 😀

Nothing quite so interesting in Stats. We’re doing a project for which we had to collect data, and the group I’m in decided that we were going to poll students on their majors, and see the breakdown of male & female, and whether they were science majors, non-science majors, or undeclared. We stood outside the library asking people about their majors as they walked by, and it was really not fun. People are damned suspicious when you walk up and ask if they are willing to participate in a survey. Even though ours was only ONE question. (Then again, when I see people wanting to ask me survey questions, I run in the opposite direction, too, so I guess it’s only fair).