Another Semester Down

Well yesterday I had my last final of the semester. My semester was very challenging this fall, I had Organic Chemistry and lab, Physics for Engineering, Calculus 3, and an easier engineering class.


Chemistry labs are always frustrating. The amount of work you have to do for the 1 credit hour you recieve just doesn't seem to add up. You have to read the material, fill out the pre-labs, sit through the actual 4 hour lab (alot of the time you have to restart the lab halfway through), and writeup the lab reports. I swear most of the time your grade is based solely upon what TA you end up with. Some TA's are extremely harsh, others are very lenient. In the end you come out with the same knowledge regardless of how harsh your TA was. At the end of the semester the Professor looks at all the different TA's scores, and goes through a really funky grading process that basically entails raising the grades of those who were graded very harshly, and bringing the grades of those who were graded very leniently down. After that, your numbers are plugged into a database along with all of your quiz scores and your final score and something magically pops out. Basically... its impossible to have any idea of what grade you are going to end up with. That is how it is done here at the U, I don't know if its the same elsewhere. My TA gave me the same score for all of my papers. 50/50 points on my prelab, 40/50 points on my writeup, and it was the same for just about everybody else in the class.

The final for the lab was open book, but it was actually quite challenging. On the last page of the exam there was a 40 point problem (out of 80 points total) that asked for you to devise a labratory procedure that would isolate 4 different compounds with certain conditions. The thing is I actually hadn't made it to that problem or known it was there until the TA said there was only 5 minutes left for the exam. Frantically, I spilled through my textbooks and found that adding excess amounts of certain bases would turn certain things to a salt and adding excess amounts of acid would turn others to salts so I desperately tried to spill all the information I could onto my paper. "adding excess acid would turn this into a salt, filter the salt away, adding excess base would turn this to a salt... filter it away." It was an act of desperation and I was pretty sure there was no way that that was indeed the correct answer, but I was desperate and I was shooting for the partial credit. The funny thing is, none of the labs or procedures we had done all semester were in the slightest resemblence of that process...this is the reason why I was so sure it wasn't the right answer, but I was actually correct... and most of my classmates were wrong haha (a pretty unfair question huh?). I got 40/40 on that question and in the end did better than most of my classmates on the final.


I was having difficulty in Calculus 3 all year. I feel like Calc 3 is really hard... and kind of easy at the same time. Once you get your head around the initial mind warp that they place on you at the beginning of the semester the concepts are fairly easy. I guess the hardest part of the class was getting points to count towards your grade. You were graded based off of 4 exams, one of them being the final. The thing that was most frustrating was the teacher would write her exams with only 3 or 4 questions, and she doesn't curve them. So you miss one problem and you find yourself with a C. I just wanted to pull my hair out all semester. The final wasn't comprehensive, it was just like another midterm. So having two finals on the same day I had strategically split my study time based on the difficulty of her previous exams. I had studied the things we had gone over in class and things she emphasized because that seemed to be the trend of what she put on her tests. The final came around, and she had thrown us all a curve ball. Luckily there were more than 4 questions on the exam, but two of the problems looked completely foreign to me. It looked like everyone else was having just as difficult of a time as I was. You know its finals time when you can hear people sobbing during the exam.

I had been doing just fine in physics all semester. The class was probably the most difficult class out of the ones I had this semester (probably the second hardest class i've taken thusfar), but I had been doing just fine in it. I was looking at being above average with probably a B all semester, and the final came around and it just totally kicked me in the butt. I couldn't believe I had done so poorly on the final. I was pretty good at all the individual concepts and the normal story problems we had been doing all year, but for the final the professor had mixed multiple concepts into single problems and threw a bunch of little tricks in that just raped me. The teacher wanted a more defined line between the different grades so they graded the exam extra harsh as well. I'm frustrated because I didn't think I was doing that bad in that class. I'm very disapointed.

I actually really enjoyed my organic chemistry class, much more so than general chemistry. It was still a really hard class. We had been going through a fairly steady pace all semester and we didn't cover a whole lot of material (we had gotten up to substitution and elimination reactions), but in the last 2 weeks of school it was like our professors were stressed we hadn't gotten through the material so they dumped more material in the last two weeks than the whole semester (the dehydration-type reactions, the 5 or so different addition reactions, addition reactions of alkenes and alkynes, and oxidation and reduction reactions). It was very overwhelming and their (there?) were just a ton of things to memorize. One of the professors that taught the class was a big organic synthesis guy, so half the test were difficult synthesis problems. They'd give you a starting product and an end product, and you would have to "fill in" all the in between steps. They're difficult but I enjoy doing them. I studied really well for that exam too and I'm pretty sure I did better than most the class. I'm hoping I redeemed myself from my other classes with this final.

I hope I didn't do too bad on my other classes. I'm extremely disapointed. I have to have a certain GPA at the end of spring between my prerequisites to ensure major status and I hope I don't have to retake any of my pre-reqs. They only allow you to retake one, and if my GPA doesn't match up after that one "redo" than I will have to have some major changes in my projected life goals. I want to have a degree in engineering. The very thought of transfering to a chemistry or biology degree seems so lifeless to me, and I would also find myself amongst an ocean of 3.8-3.9 GPA'd students with chemistry and biology degrees that I would have to compete with when applications to med schools arise. I'm not saying that that will be what will happen but the thought of that window getting narrower is stressful.

christmas ideas for the weary and broken hearted

here are a few ideas of some things I would like to have, for those having troubles with christmas shopping ideas.

-a GPS for my car
-A heated blanket
-I like books alot, I think eventually I am going to buy Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rum Diaries, and Hells Angels by Hunter S. Thompson for myself but you could spare me of that if you'd like. "Where Men Win Glory" by John Krakaur. "the Art of War by Robert Greene" is one i've been looking at and i'm also interested in a book called "Sin and Sintax." by Constance Hale. The more books the merrier.
- I really want Instructional Lead guitar DVD's pretty bad, I always learn a ton from clips i've seen but have never bought the whole thing. There was one by Rusty Cooley that I saw that I especially liked but anything would be nice. The more the merrier.
- I wear size M or L shirts, and I have a 32 inch waistline.
- I need acoustic guitar strings
- I've always wanted to try brass acoustic bridge pins
- I wouldn't mind a pair of moccasins or slippers
- A charging station could be nifty
- I like those baggier nike sweatpants
- I would not be THAT disapointed if I got an amazon gift card.

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

-Hunter S. Thompson

PETA rages war gainst the U

An undercover PETA agent got a job in the bioengineering labs at the U and posted an article on the PETA website last week on how the U treats animals unethically.

Anyways, there have been PETA protesters holding signs at the U for the past couple days. There are signs that say stuff like "The U tortures animals!" people yelling "Dr. such and such drills holes in the skulls of homeless animals!" from their PETA soapboxes and blown up pictures of animals with the neural implants all over the place. Its kind of crazy.

I agree that animals should be treated with respect, but I also doubt that any of the protesters have actually been inside the labs. I haven't been inside them myself so really I have no idea if the lines of that which is considered ethical has been crossed, but I do know a little about the research from a few of my classes.

The neural implants (the "electrode array") researched at the U are part of a joint effort with MIT. The electrode acts as an interface between neurons and electrical components and has actually allowed amputees to control a robotic arm with their brain power for a short period of time (the brain eventually scars over the chip rendering it useless after a few weeks). Its funded by the Department of Defense and the technology is intended for use by disabled veterans or any amputee for that matter.

Today while I was at the bus stop I watched as protesters would approach students with questions. "DiD you KnOw that the U tOrtUres animals?!" (thats what they really sound like haha its kind of funny), but i just had to sit there and ponder what I would say if I was approached by one of these rampant college students. I doubt they would actually ever approach me because the weak only prey on the weak, but I figured the first thing I'd ask them is if they've actually seen or been in the labs. In my head the protester would than proceed to preach the principles of faith..... but thats just kind of how my sense of humor works. The second thing I would ask is if they actually knew what was implanted in the animals skulls and what they were for. Thirdly, I would go on to ask who they thought was paying for it all, and finally I would top it all off by "admiring" their bravery for "indirectly" taking on the military industrial complex. It's a shame none of the naked PETA protesters came out to protest.

Pat Denner

Today, Kadey came up to Salt Lake to visit me after my classes. We decided to go down to Broadway street and look at the cool boutiques and antique stores around main and the Gallivan centers.

One of the stores was a neat little art gallery and so we walked inside and chatted with the nice old man who ran it. The paintings were probably some of the best paintings I have ever seen, varying from cowboy paintings, pinup girls, old cars, and airplanes. If I had money to blow I probably would have blown alot of it there haha. It turns out the older man was the artist of all the paintings. He told us his life story and I thought it was very interesting.

He was drafted into the service during WWII and was serving in the navy. In his spare time he would sketch his friends and officers and various scenes. The word got out that he was a pretty good artist and he was eventually transfered back to the states where he spent the rest of the war as an official illustrator for army and navy handbooks.

He left his position in 1949 and came back to Utah, the only company that would hire him was some electric company in Salt Lake. In the 50's the stateline casino commisioned him to design a sign for them and he subsequently designed the "Vegas Cowboy" thats become the icon of old Vegas.

Later, the man who started Kentucky Fried Chicken was a fan of his work and he commisioned him to design the likeness of the "Colonel Sanders" we all know.

His paintings were amazing. Everything from sketchs, oils, airbrushes, and pastels.

It was a pretty awesome experience to talk to him and have him explain a good chunk of his paintings. I never would have thought that such an icon creator lived in the same city as I did, let alone ran a shop just down the street from me.

Always set to work without misgivings on the score of imprudence. Fear of failure in the mind of a performer is, for an onlooker, already evidence of failure.... Actions are dangerous when there is doubt as to their wisdom; it would be safer to do nothing.

Baltasar Gracian: 1601-1658

"One should not be too straightforward. Go and see the forest... the straight trees are cut down, the crooked ones are left standing."

Kautilya, Indian Philosopher, 3rd Century B.C.