Calculus Midterm?!

I know I've been completely MIA the last three weeks, but that is only because I am taking a 5-semester-unit calculus class in 6 weeks. I just spent the last few days writing out every question on the practice exam 4 times with different variations (see picture of my "desk" below).

That is how terrible at calculus I am. Anyways, professor changed the class format from multiple exams to just a midterm and a final, so no pressure, but if I don't do well on this exam I am screwed! As incentive to power through the maths, I have been watching Friends on Netflix between problems (you do what you gotta do!). I finally made it to season 10 and got to see the well-rumored reason why everyone started naming their kids Emma when I was in high school. I mean, it's a good, strong name for a feisty, independent, adventurous, and stubborn girl. I should know, I am one. MUAHAHA

Okay, just wanted to do a quick update... I'm off to take my midterm! WISH ME LUCK. Let's just not get bitten by a dog on the way or anything.

Calculus...the Final Frontier!

So, I have spent the last week reading, catching up on Friends, scanning in my lecture notes from last quarter, and backpacking through Point Reyes with my Andrew! Blisters and beach-side adventures were aplenty as we hiked over 14 miles (in one day!) with our packs, and met a sweet dog named Ahi. We returned to the grid yesterday refreshed and so happy to shower. It's amazing how good it feels to be at home, lay down on a real mattress, and make pizza when you've been eating backpacker food (read: just add water) off a whisperlite and sleeping in/on ultra lightweight everything for a few days. The views out there were pretty unbeatable though.

 My handsome Andrew hiking with his pack (after we unloaded all of the food, tent, sleeping bags, pads, chair, water, stove, etc in the photo below...you can really fit a lot of shit in two packs.)

 Base Camp with our "kitchen" on top of the bear box

Some hard body couple running shirtless on the beach

Oh, you thought by the post title that this was going to be about calculus? Well, I thought I would ease you in with the vacation photos first, but my final calculus course (could it be, my last mathematics course EVER?) starts tonight. Am I ready? Of course not! But is one ever truly ready for mathematics? It's only a matter of time before I am swearing at webassign/mathlab/whatever online homework system they'll have us using this time. 

But, Emma, I thought space was the final frontier? Well, I haven't earned an A in any math class since high school, and I'd like to change that this Summer. If nothing else, at least hopefully this calculus class won't end like the last one... wherein my hand (my writing hand!) got bit by a dog the night before my final (at 11:40pm, just my luck) and I came to the final anyways and suffered through trying to write illegibly with the pencil between my pinkie and ring fingers and started bleeding on my paper. It was truly as ridiculous as it sounds. I had worked so hard in that class and went to every single office hours with my professor only to not be able to write on the day of my final. The whole situation was quite upsetting. But what can I say, I am stubborn and I wasn't about to post-pone a final because of some minor nerve damage in my wrist. Let's just not make that a repeat performance. Wow, see, I am already feeling way better about this class!

It's a Wrap!

My blog fluency is equivalent to child swimmer level: arm floaties. I thought I had this, but I seemed to have "saved" this post from June 7th instead of publishing it... now I am pushing the big orange "Publish" button for sure!

I have officially survived my first/junior year at UC Davis! Finals are over and now I just have to sit and anxiously await the posting of grades! (June 13th edit: Still waiting, but I got a B in Genetics and that is all a girl can hope for with a class average in the 60s!). Two weeks before the end of the quarter, our beloved Smartsite online portal went down, so even if professors have already graded exams, they can't upload them to Smartsite so we have to wait for our official transcripts to post to view our grades, which may take a while ("June 24th" officially). In the meantime...

After my last final, Andrew took me out for steak and whiskey, so I'm really feeling in Summer mode now (even though I'm taking more classes starting next week). I'm wearing flip flops and tank tops like they're going out of style. I also finally started reading the book Cutting for Stone that was recommended to me last year by an older woman volunteering at the library who used to work as a pathologist in the 1950's, "back when things were less elegant and more gorey." The book retraces the  history of twins born in Ethiopia to a surgeon father, and mother (a nun!) who passes at their birth. When I started reading it, I thought that the universe had conspired for me to read this book at this time in my life. I highly recommend it. Also, so does the New York Times (where it reached #2 on the bestseller list) and Amazon (where it is in the "100 Books to Read in a Lifetime"). Cutting for Stone reminds me of how I used reading as a kid to travel and learn about histories and cultures from different perspectives. I had this series of books wherein young historical figures would write about major world events in a journal format. For a long time I kept a journal, always thinking that my words would be worth something one day. As it turns out, writing is more about the reflection process than the actual end result. Oh well, I am learning a lot about Ethiopian and Arabian peninsula history reading my current book, which has only taught me how little it is that I actually know.

This post is getting a little long in the tooth; I'll bow out here, I've got some Summer to Summer!

Bocce Battle of the Labs!!!

Apparently the Plant Pathology department is obsessed with bocce ball? Word on the streets is there is a rumble going down tomorrow on the field outside Hutchison ("plant pathology building" where my major classes are housed because the PlantPath dept created Global Disease Biology!). They set up a huge event tent and everything (see picture below of it being built). Earlier this morning I saw a scruffy man in a "Got Wormwood?" shirt sipping coffee from a plant pathology department mug, nodding at the tent with satisfaction. I got the feeling he was thinking, "this year is my year." I'll see what I can find out tomorrow.

*edit: Is it possible that a secret bocce tournament happened in the dead of the night? By the time I returned to the scene the next morning, there were piles of ice under the trees, full garbage cans, and fire extinguishers everywhere, as if the party had already came and went. I asked around but was not able to find out any more. I'll have to scour the plant pathology department lab pages where surely one of the labs will have announced their victory by now.