School Day Blues

I was up until a little after 5:00 AM taking my two quizzes and two tests at Mississippi State.

I am still finding the thermodynamics course tough. I got an 88% last night, but should have done better. Eight of the points I lost, I lost stupidly on questions I probably knew. My fault.

For both of my two course, this last week is critically important. The quizzes I took are worth less than a point on my final grade, but the tests are 7.5% and next week’s final is 30% of my final grade. So, nearly 40% of my final grade will be decided over a very short period of time.

Why am I anguishing over these grades? No one will ever see them. Yet I do anguish.

The tests are timed, the quizzes are not, which last night almost led to a sticky situation. As I was finishing a quiz, getting set to move to a test, I pressed the button to register my answer and… nothing. I tried again with the same result.

I went upstairs to see the ‘cable’ light on my cable modem off. Comcast was doing something (probably maintenance of some sort. It was 3:45 AM) affecting my service.

If this had happened five minutes later, I would have been in the timed test – and screwed. There are lots of ‘no exceptions’ admonitions on the course websites.

I waited a half hour or so, writing a note asking Helaine to make sure I was up this morning early enough to finish my work before the noon deadline. Just before I went back to bed, I looked and the light was back on.

Sometime before Wednesday I’ll take my two finals and be done with it… only to start up again May 16th. This summer semester, a shortened period with the same number of classes, quizzes and tests, is the end of the line for me.

I’ve found lots of the work interesting, though some of what I’ve done was trivial or needless. There is much too much emphasis on severe weather (thunderstorms and tornadoes) and not enough on the challenges a forecaster faces on a daily basis.

2 thoughts on “School Day Blues”

  1. Geoff

    I enjoyed the TV special that you, Dr. Mel etal presented last evening; regarding CT weather history, channel 8 forecasting tools and insights.

    “Surprised” that I did not see the weather forecasting “paper tools” — that you previously alluded to in this blog, as part of your course work — being utilized!

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