Fourth Week Review

Okay, I know my last few blog posts seem like they were written by a half-asleep zombie or something, so I'll make it up to you with a much detailed account of my fourth week.

MONDAY

Highlight of the Day: Received the results of my Math 18 Long Test #1

If you have read my earlier posts (or if you know me), you'd know that I'm an ME student, yeah, and our Math subject is called Math 18 a/b or, you know, we just call it Math 18 or write 'Ma18'. So anyway, it's Principles of Modern Mathematics. It's basically a review of high school Math.

In ME, they have this rule that you must garner a total score of 100/200 in the first two Long Tests in Math 18. Our classes started on June 13; our first long test was scheduled for June 30. That gave us about two weeks to learn pretty much the hardest Math I have ever experienced--so far. Our topics were quite simple, really. First was Proving. I'd like to show you a little something about what proving is like, if you don't mind haha. If you do, you can just scroll down.

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Proving goes kinda like this... everything you do has to have proof, so there's this thing called the Law of Trichotomy. It means that for any real number a , exactly ONE of these can happen:

a < 0, a = 0, or a > 0

There is also a rule that goes, if a > b, then a - b > 0

And simple rules like: a + c > b + c --this is called the Order Axiom (ii) , and ac > bc -- Order Axiom (iii).

So remembering these rules, we are asked to prove stuff like...

If a > b > 3, prove that b^2 + 6a - 2ab < 9

SOLUTION

Since a > b, a - b > 0. Similarly, b - 3 > 0 and by transitive property, a > 3, and therefore a - 3 > 0.

By Order Axiom (iii), we have

(a-b)(b-3) > 0

-b^2 + ab - 3a + 3b > 0

Also by Order Axiom (iii), we have

(a - 3)(b-3) > 0

ab - 3a - 3b + 9 > 0

By Order Axiom (ii),

(-b^2 + ab - 3a + 3b) + (ab - 3a - 3b + 9) > 0

-b^2 + 2ab - 6a + 9 > 0

Therefore,

9 > b^2 + 2ab - 6a + 9

*The words do have to be written like that.

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So besides Proving, our other topics for the first Long Test 1 were solving inequalities, I don't need to tell you how they are...

The last topic was circles and lines, but not just your ordinary circles and lines, my friend! Can you imagine trying to solve for the equation of a line that passes through a circle at some random given point, or trying to find the equation of the circle instead, given a line tangent to the circle at some point. Well, now that I think about it, it's kinda easy... but that's just 'coz I know what to do. At the start of the term, I had no idea how I would answer something like that.

So the first Long Test consisted of 7 items, the last one is always Proving because Proving is the hardest and the professors put it there for only the smart students to answer, which I find entirely untrue because I was able to answer it and I'm not a smart student haha. It's a lot easier if you work backwards on your scratch paper. So anyway, we took the test last... Thursday, June 30. I remember I wasn't feeling extremely nervous to the point where my heart wasn't beating wildly, nor was it frozen like the first time I met Dr. Garces. But I remember I was nervous enough to have my hands shaking while answering item #1.

One annoying thing about being nervous DURING a test is that you seem to be looking ahead, instead of focusing on what's right there, right then. I tried to answer a number, and then I'd hit a snag--by snag, I mean I realized this would either be a long solution, or my solution so far was incorrect--so I moved on to another item. I find out that I need a lot of thinking time to answer this item, so I move on to the next one for fear of running out of time. And move on to the next one, the next one, and back to the other one. The annoying part was that I KNEW I was wasting time hopping from one question to another when I should try and focus on answering one question and finishing it.

So our answers were to be written in bond paper. Before the test I took out a bunch of papers and wrote my name on all of them to save time. Everyone was doing it anyway. So blablabla I answered everything except for one where they asked me to prove that two circles did NOT intersect by giving us their equations haha. I just scribbled a few solutions, like finding the radius and the midpoints, etc. because I knew I'd get 'partial points' and damn right I did. I got 8 points for that item (out of 15) just for getting the radius, midpoint, and distance.

So MONDAY, we had our Math class at a computer lab, which was fun because Dr. Garces introduced us to a program kinda like Word but for Math equations and graphs and stuff. It was really fun because it was mixing Math with Computers, we even got to do this wicked.. 3D-like parabola thing that reminded me of the behind-the-scenes footage I see of animated films or video games (like SSX!) and it was really cool...

So at the end of the class, Dr. Garces handed out our results. I got a measly 75 out of 100, our highest scorer was Sylbeeeeert who got 90 out of the hundred. I guess I could've gotten 80 or something if I knew how to write the final answer properly on those inequalities... dammit haha. I dunno if you're supposed to get the intersection or the union of the sets, you see. And in one item, we were supposed to write the equation in slope-intercept form, I didn't know the thing I did WASN'T the slope-intercept form... o.O

So that's it for Monday's highlights.

Other stuff we did on Monday: Chem Lab experiment where we mixed different solutions and recorded our observations. Another experiment where we measured unnamed solutions of different colors, solved for their densities, and put them in a test tube to see the layers of different colored solutions haha.

TUESDAY

Highlight of the Day: Nothing

My TTH schedule is pretty relaxed. I only have three classes for the day, the first of which is Filipino at 7h30 to 9h00. Coroza (my prof) was out, so he sent a substitute, and we answered two essay questions. Next, I was supposed to have PE at 9h00 to 10h00 but our instructor was having surgery on his right forearm so I stayed at the library. My last class is a one and a half hour Math class from 10h30 to 12h00. After class I usually just go home and eat lunch there. But today I went with my blockmate Lizle to do our MEA interview.

* MEA stands for Management Engineering Association. It's the 'home org' for ME students. Similar to AMA for MGT, MISA for MIS, MACA for.. the Management with Chem in it...

So during the MEA interview, they explained to us the different projects under MEA. And they asked us what our skills/talents were.. and who our MEA crush was. I'm not gonna expound on that. But I WILL tell you what I did haha, since it was Tuesday and I had an early leave, I was itching to go home early and watch my Korean movie. So when Delfin asked if we had any class afterwards I said yes, I had class at 12h30 (it was 12h00) so they said okay, they'd hurry it up. Then 12h30 came and they said, oh Ashley has to go, so I said no, I always arrive 30 minutes early for class. So we went on haha.

WEDNESDAY

Highlight of the Day: AIESEC Orientation Seminar at the MVP Roofdeck

Academic-wise, the day was normal. Every Wednesdays I have a 4-hr break period between Chemistry (lecture) and Math so I usually stay with two of my blockmates at the Rizal Library Information Commons (where the computers are). I spent quite a lot--A LOT--of time on the internet for some reason... I think that was when I asked Paolo all those formspring questions. So with about fifteen minutes to 10h00 I answered a few Math problems, then we had lunch at Gonzaga Hall. I ordered this spicy tuna bowl from that Bento (?) stall and they weren't kidding. I kept blowing my spoon thinking it was still hot when actually my tongue was on fire and made everything feel hot.

So I attended the AIESEC Orientation Seminar because--duh--I joined AIESEC. You can search that on your own, it's too hard to explain. But I don't think you can find this online so I'll just tell you about it. There are, I think, six divisions or departments you can get in to. Outgoing Exchange, Incoming Exchange, External Relations, Projects, Communications, Talent Management, and Finance.

Yeah... I got distracted while watching Marites vs. the Superfriends =)) You should really check that out.

So I figured out that I wanna go into-----

DAAAAMN, I totally forgot about this post I was gonna make =)) And now I have no recollection of what I did last week, since it's already the end of the fifth week. Oh, well. At least you learned an important Math lesson.