CSC236H: Some final thoughts

CSC236H is coming to an end, as a result so is this slog. I might post one more entry regarding studying for the final, but I'm not going to make any promises. I'm currently finishing up antibiotics for strep throat. So, I guess a lot of things are coming to an end. I've been ill, and as a result suffering, for almost a month now and it had some severe effects on my performance in my classes. As a result, I spent about a solid week with antibiotics, tylenol flu and the course notes trying to figure out everything I needed to for the term test yesterday (Friday) morning.

I think it might have paid off. I had no trouble answering the first question about the Cartesian product. I skipped the second question to work on the third one after that, proving the equivalence of languages. The second question, the one I answered last, was about regular expressions. Although I'm happy with how I answered both of those questions, it dawned on me after I went home to nap that my proof for question three might have been a little weak, and my proof for question two might have been very week. I didn't quite follow the steps of what I hope were structural induction as well as I could have. Hopefully I still pull through. After all, it was a big struggle to get where I did. I'll be happy with a C.

Problem Set 6

I've spent a fair amount of time trying to do problem set 6. I've been reading chapter 7 over and over. It's not making any sense to me right now. I'm going to have to talk to Danny tomorrow.

CSC236H: Term Test 2

As much as I've tried to get on top of things in this course, I haven't. I need to be honest. It's only fair. There is no point in lying to myself. I do want to do well in this course. I just, haven't been scheduling the time that it deserves. All of my classes. I just, fell behind. I'm going to do what I need tonight, as much as I need to. And I'm going to get this together. Starting now, with the notes. I'm going to get caught up. Starting first with the 8 hours a week that we agreed to on the first day of class.

Progress?

I didn't do well on A1.
I don't know how I did on T1.
I didn't do PS3. Or PS4.
I didn't do A2.

I'm also doing equally as poorly in my other classes. But, the upside is, having accepted certain assignments as casualties to a lack of time, I might be able to turn my performance around. I hope.

Trying to keep up

I haven't talked about CSC236H for a while. It might be because I'm so embarrassed over my performance in the class. I didn't do nearly as well as I had originally thought I was going to on A1. I managed to feel my way through the first term test on Friday, but I don't know how well the result will be. I've also fallen very far behind in all of my other courses.

In today's class I sat through the example proof we were supposed to do, completely frustrated I couldn't even get the base case to work. Turns out I was doing it totally wrong. So, I submitted nothing and looked like a fool. 10:00 classes, not my forte.

10am Lectures

So, I'm starting to think I might have made a seriously flawed decision when I thought I could handle a 10am lecture. I have a bad habit of sleeping through my alarm. I remedied the problem today by setting 4 separate alarms. They did their job and got me up and into my lecture, but that doesn't change the fact that I spent chunks of it completely oblivious to what was going on.

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep I read some of the course notes. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the reason some of it made absolutely no sense was because I wasn't fully functioning. I'll try again later today and see if I make any progress on the principle of well-ordering.

For those who are interested, here are the links to the current assignment (A1) and problem set (PS2):

A1 (pdf)
PS2 (txt)

Note: Question 4 of A1 is no longer due next monday, but will be handed in with part of A2. PS2 is due friday. I don't even understand what it's asking for right now. That might be because every time I've looked at it, I wasn't awake yet. Yes, I know. 10am lectures.

SLOG 236

This is SLOG 236, my course log for CSC236H at the university of Toronto. I'm four lectures into the class right now, although I missed today's lecture due to sudden freak cold. I haven't been enjoying it much. It's not a course I would have chosen to take - not at all. It's a required course for my Computer Science and Economics specialist, and I'm more keen to take the economics courses. Computer Science happened to be something I did well enough in when studying in high school, and that doesn't always translate into good marks in post-secondary. I found that out when I was at Waterloo.

That said, I'm going to try and get into the material more. I think I'm going to need to start waking up earlier so that I'm fully functioning when I get to class. The material is like one big puzzle, and I'm sure that if I want to I can enjoy it more than I do right now.