LOVE IS POISON

Lunchtime rant. It's lunchtime and I'm sitting alone and I think I'll explode if I don't rant about how everyone sucks. Been a while since I posted, I've taken to ranting on Twitter because it's easier to just capslock at the screen, but this one doesn't exactly fit in 140 characters. And I don't think any of you deserve to hear this from me one-on-one, so.

Things about me:
1) I like maths.
2) I don't like stupidity.
3) People who don't get maths or think it's too difficult for them aren't stupid. Their teachers never explained things properly.
4) I'm taking yet another class on didactics this semester. (I don't want to be a teacher AT ALL but it's easy credits and I like learning about how people learn, if that makes sense.)
5) This fucking class is full of fucking stupid people who want to become teachers.

...You can probably guess where this is going.

Look, I get that the mantra of this class is that with teaching there isn't no 100% guaranteed best way of doing it. We're shown a lot of examples and we talk a lot and we look at studies and surveys, and we're supposed to think about it and have our own ideas. Like a very wise man once said, it's not rules, it's more like guidelines. And I'm not saying I'd be the best teacher ever, far from it, I'd be a terrible teacher for several reasons. But I'm pretty sure that out of all the people in my class I wouldn't be the worst teacher, and the idea that some of my classmates are going to become teachers and fuck up future generations is just. Urgh.

Case in point. We're all given mock answers from students and asked how we would grade them. Professor repeatedly states that there are no right or wrong answers, we're just going to discuss, blah blah. I get that. We're never going to agree on something so subjective as grades because, surprise!, even in maths grades are highly subjective and depend on the teacher. But. BUT. IF YOU THINK THAT THE BLATANTLY WRONG ANSWER, THE ONE WITH A BUNCH OF MISTAKES AND RANDOM PASSAGES THAT DON'T FOLLOW ANY KIND OF LOGIC, THE ANSWER THAT DOESN'T ANSWER THE QUESTION AT ALL, THE ANSWER WHERE THE STUDENT NOT ONLY WAS WRONG BUT YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HE WAS TRYING TO DO, IF YOU THINK THAT ANSWER IS THE BEST ANSWER OF THE BUNCH BECAUSE IT USED X AND Y AND SO THERE WAS ~FORMALISM~ AND THEREFORE IT'S THE BEST AND IT'S AUTOMATICALLY BETTER THAN THE ANSWER GIVEN BY ANOTHER STUDENT, WHO USED SIMPLE WORDS AND NO FORMALISM BUT REACHED A CORRECT SOLUTION, IF YOU THINK FORMALISM TRUMPS HAVING THE RIGHT IDEAS, THEN, PLEASE, GET OUT. It's literally the opposite of what we're told every day in this class. And in all the other didactics classes, which I know you took. And it's a free country and you can take whichever classes you want, but the idea of you going out in the world to teach, to actually teach maths to poor hapless kids, so we'll have another generation of students who hate maths because it's complicated and you must have X and Y and use lots of difficult formulas because otherwise it's not right, because the teacher said so, it pisses me off so fucking much.

For bonus points. At the end of the lesson, asking the professor how he would have graded those answers, implying that his is the right answer, and the past two hours of discussion don't matter at all. You keep doing that. Why.

I like presents, generally. I don't like getting presents for people. I can't wait until I'm old enough that I can give people money in an envelope and tell them to buy something they like. My biggest fear is that some friend will get me a present and force me to reciprocate. Birthdays are bad, but Christmas is the worst because it's all together, A TON OF PRESENTS ALL TOGETHER JFC HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO COPE. So I usually team up with my siblings and we get the presents for our parents, etc, together, this way we only need one brainwave. But we didn't know what to get for each other, so I was about to suggest let's not get each other presents this year, too much of a hassle, when my sister comes up all happy and tells me that she and my brother finally found presents for me. WEEPING. PANICKING. DENIAL. So I just spent the afternoon trying to find presents for them and I think I did it? I did not find the game my brother wanted bc it went out of print like ten years ago or smth so I got him a nerdy cookbook. Then weeping again because I found the very same thing that my sister wanted and couldn't find anywhere, the same thing I told her last week it was impossible to find. Now I just have to hope that nothing gets ~lost~ in the mail.

Oh and the other presents aren't even wrapped yet because nobody can be arsed. So much holiday spirit in the air in this house.

I think an update on my life is long overdue because I don't even remember the last time I posted here. It's not really an OMGSTILLALIVE post because lol I'm stuck with my uni's crappy wifi rn that loads one page every 10 minutes, I'm supposed to be studying but I have no lessons and no willpower to do anything even remotely productive, think of it as me rising from the grave as an unquiet spirit to bother you with my incoherent wall of text. Or whatever.

♠ My course load this semester is... eh. I've had worse, but the timetable itself sucks. I get home at 9PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I have lots of free periods. And I told myself I'd be good and use this time to study, but who am I kidding, I always bring my laptop on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So it's like 40% study, 60% try to connect to the internets and waste time because I'm tired. And despite being tired I just can't go to sleep before midnight, and even when I do I end up tossing and turning in my bed until almost 2am. IDK why, I'm like BODY I WENT TO SLEEP EARLY FOR YOUR SAKE SO FALL ASLEEP ALREADY and my body's like LOL NOPE and my brain's like WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO REMIND YOU OF YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FUTURE SO YOU CAN WORRY AND NOT RELAX EVEN ONE BIT and then I'm dead in the morning. Though, afternoon naps? Feasible. Oversleeping? Hell yes. I just can't sleep when I should.

♠ The courses themselves would be interesting, if not for the teachers. I have functional analysis and geometry with two professors I already know from first year. They're not bad, but they talk too quickly and write things messily and I have a hard time keeping track of what's happening. I've been trying to keep up with at least geometry, but for every hour of lesson I'd need two hours to understand my scribbles. Most likely I'll end up studying on the online pdfs, which look neat and ordered but aren't as in-depth as the lessons. Then I've got yet another course with the same dumb professor that drove me crazy last semester because she talks slooow and dumbs down everything to high school level. Yeah, there's this trend of either too easy or too hard, idk. But I like the subject. I think from next week I'm going to skip every other lecture because the dumb is killing me. Plus I have the course that's crazy late in the evening and I can't even skip because attendance is mandatory, but it's game theory and I love it. The only problem is that it's for all students, not just mathematicians, so everything's dumbed down and we waste forever on stuff like DO YOU KNOW HOW TO CALCULATE THE AVERAGE BETWEEN TWO NUMBERS? DO YOU KNOW HOW TO CALCULATE A WEIGHTED AVERAGE? and blah. This scary amount of maths drove away most non-mathematicians anyway, so last week the level improved a bit. Here's to hoping it'll get even more interesting. Because rn I've been entertaining myself by thinking up elaborate fandom scenarios for all the examples.

♠ THERE WAS THIS ONE EXAMPLE CALLED THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES. I TOTALLY RENAMED IT AS THE BATTLE OF THE REMOTE CONTROL BECAUSE ALL OF THIS PROFESSOR'S EXAMPLES ARE SEXIST AS FUCK, SHE EVEN COMMENTED ON IT AND I WAS LIKE "Y U NO FIX THIS" BUT APPARENTLY LOL NO, WE NEED TO HAVE THE BOY WHO WANTS TO GO TO A FOOTBALL MATCH AND THE GIRL WHO WANTS TO GO TO THE CINEMA TO WATCH SOME ROMANTIC CRAP. SO I CHANGED IT TO CAP WANTS TO WATCH CSI AND IRON MAN WANTS TO WATCH GREY'S WHICH IS 1) CANON, 2) WAY MORE AWESOME, 3) IT WAS 7PM AND MY SANITY WAS GONE. MY NOTES FOR THIS COURSE = FOREVER THE BEST.

♠ SHE DIDN'T TELL US THE STORY OF THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS IT AND IT'S EVEN IN MOVIES AND TV SHOWS AND STUFF. :| I AM DISAPPOINT ALSO BECAUSE IN MOVIES AND TV SHOWS PEOPLE WHO TEACH GAME THEORY ARE MORE AWESOME THAN HER. HOLLYWOOD LIED TO ME. SO I DECIDED THAT THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA IS THE STORY OF BELLE AND RUMPELSTILTSKIN IN OUAT. IT ENDS BAD BECAUSE IT'S A NASH EQUILIBRIUM LOL IT COULDN'T HAVE GONE ANY OTHER WAY BECAUSE RUMPLY IS SMART. BEST NOTES EVER, I TELL YOU.

♠ Aside from my very exciting courses, my life is... er... non-existent? I just don't have time to do anything, it seems. It's my birthday in one week though, maybe I could muster some strength and guilt-trip my sister into taking me shopping because I haaate shopping and I'll never go on my own but I really need a new pair of jeans. And shoes because I'm still pretending that it's winter but really it's not but ugh new shoes are the worst. Can I be 4yo again and have my mum do all my shopping for me?

So, by the way, I typed this before lunch and had to wait to post because did I mention that the wifi here sucks. And now I have to wait until 5pm to go to lesson and turn game theory into epic adventures of fictional characters. Woe.

Dato che io mi muovo rapidamente solo quando c'è da organizzare vaccate. Sento il bisogno impellente di riguardare Star Trek (XI) ~because of reasons~ e le nuove foto del set non aiutano. Quindi, donne, ditemi una data in cui possiamo rimirarlo tutte insieme. Chibi non può prima di mercoledì, quindi facciamo la prima settimana di marzo? Per l'orario diciamo indicativamente verso le 9 di sera (anche se si sa che poi si inizia tardi).

[Poll #1821515]

So internet is back. And I'm going crazy running up and down and trying to do seven things at once. So much for my vow to study allll day long today. (It's a stupid subject anyway.) PEYTON I AM COMING FOR YOU!

The phone company said they'd fix it in 72 hours, not counting weekends because they're not working on weekends ofc, this was one week ago and I'm starting to remember why I hate living in this country. Also my train today was 45 minutes late and freezing cold. Right now I'm in uni because I needed to tell my prof that I'm a failboat and I'll try his exam again in a couple of months. TBH I think if I winged it he would have given me high marks all the same because he gives 30/30 to everyone unless you make blatantly huge mistakes, I could've probably winged 27/30, but it's one of the big important exams and I want to at least know this subject better than so-so. He was happy with my reasoning. I'm less happy that I'm sitting here in uni and it's so cold I have to keep my coat and scarf inside, but at least there's free wifi. Which is slow as fuck, but any port in a storm. So far I've also mooched internet access from one of my mum's friends, and dad bought one of those USB internet thingies but it's slow as fuck and has such a low limit that really I can't use it for more than reading/writing mail. I had to download a largish pdf for my next exam and I didn't do it last night because it would have taken forever. Largish here is 120 pages. I cannot. All I want is Glee's cover of Smooth Criminal which gives me all the feelings for Santana and makes me forget I'm straight. At least if I had TV shows I would be distracted. Instead I've almost finished ADWD which gives me all the feelings BUT IN A VERY BAD WAY. SRSLY HE IS WHO?! AND SHE DID WHAT?! WTF IS GOING ON WHERE'S THE NEXT BOOK.

ETA: Also I acknowledge I'm the worst flister ever since I never ever comment and I have an awful ego and always talk about my stuff anyway, so if you want to defriend me I won't mind and tbh I probably won't notice because I'm ditzy so yay defriending amnesty is go!

A long, long time ago (like a hundred or so) mathematicians were having fun and creating set theory, and then some smartass like Mr Russel and his friends came along and started saying things like "what happens if I take the set of alllllll sets ever?" and "what happens if I take the set of all sets that don't belong to themselves?" and "lol paradoxes" AND THEY BROKE THE MATHEMATICS. People were very sad and they had to build up the mathematics again, only this time they made it better so it wouldn't be broken any more.

So in this course I am studying how to build stuff like natural numbers (which are 1, 2, 3, etc...) and then addition and then multiplication and so on and so on. EXCEPT THAT I AM BUILDING THE ADDITION WITHOUT THE ZERO BECAUSE OOOPS I'M NOT CONSIDERING ZERO AS A NATURAL NUMBER. It makes no sense to leave the zero out because all of the beautiful properties of the zero? Out of the window. My prof said we could include the zero, or start from one, and it was a matter of preference, but I think I'd very much prefer to keep the zero tysm. Suddenly I remember why I stopped going to her lessons.

Among my (few) pages of notes there's scribbles in the margins that look suspiciously like "PROVE THIS THEOREM BECAUSE YOU WERE SLEEPING WHILE SHE TALKED" and "NOT ENOUGH COFFEE TODAY".
So I figured I'd use the provided material instead of relying only on my awesome notes. Except the materials are a dozen or so handwritten and scanned pdfs that the prof put online, which are also not in order, unless you count "ZF, 1, 3, 4', 4, 5, 6a, 6b, 7, 10a, 10b, reals, math system" to be an order. (It's not, math system comes before chapter 1 from what gathered.) In a course about numeration systems. The irony is killing me.

This is a fucking puzzle worth 1000 picarats.

Except, wait, it's one of my exercises taken from the awesome pdfs of not awesome. I'd give cookies to anyone who can solve it, except I'm fairly sure it's impossible because each letter is a different digit (from 0 to 9) and the letters are A, B, C, D. WHY IS THERE AN E. THERE CANNOT BE AN E. WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN.

Last night, I was so nervous about my impending exam that I my stomach was upset and to calm down I did exercises until midnight. It didn't really work. I think it wasn't the nervousness, it was the chili I had for dinner.

Everyone's doing it, so end of the year (or beginning of the new year since I'm late as usual) fic meme!

I have no idea how many fics I've written this year, since sometimes I've counted two linked fics as chapters of a longer one and sometimes as two separate things. And I don't want to count the drabbles or the ones that suck too much. My writing folder is messy as fuck, as usual, and there's a bunch of things that I told myself I'd finish by the end of 2011 and look, it's 2012 and nothing's changed. Figures. I've also got one or three unfinished fic memes, but... yeah... my resolution this year is that I won't make any resolutions because they never work for me anyway. ONWARDS!

( THE LIST OF DOOM. )

Plus all that half-finished crap, like the anonymous Merlin fic for the kink meme, the ASOIAF/SPN crossover, the longish Castle fic and a bunch of Italian ficlets plus the SPN/HP crossover I'll translate soon maybe. The grand total is about 50 fics and 140,000 words, give or take, which I like. Go me. And here's to 2012.

MOAR FIC MEMES LATER BECAUSE HERP DERP I HAVE TO STUDY.