Ok, so perhaps I've told you about this lovely fluid dynamics class of mine before. The one that seems so tantalizingly possible and yet is totally impossible? Yeah, that one.

This is the sad tale that I know as reality:

On the first day of class, I go to the classroom about 7 minutes early so that I know that I'll find the room, since it's in a different department. When I reach the room, there is a sign on it with the number of my course that draws my attention. Below the number it says, "Today this class will begin at 3:00pm instead of 2:00pm"

"Rats," I say to myself, "I have walked all the way over here in the freezing Rhode Island January just to walk all the way back to my department and then walk all the way back over here an hour later?"

But I do it, wasting an hour doing nothing in my lab until 3.

When I arrive at the class, it has already been underway for an hour!!! Oh no, what is going on?
"Oh," says the professor, "Did you two (me and the other geology guy who'd independently come early and seen the sign and returned an hour later) see that sign?" We did, we answer. "Ah," he continues, "my secretary put that up there, it wasn't supposed to be there so I took it down."

...apparently all the other people in the class had arrived late, when the sign had already been taken down.

I quickly caught onto the material and the class went on, like a river flowing to the sea. Not a big deal. The first homework assignment? Piece of cake, all linear algebra. I begin to think I've got this covered.

Oh ho. No. No indeed.

The homework has no particular "due date"--- it's all due at the very end of the semester. I try the second homework assignment... can't really do it... I've got the concepts down, but I have no idea how to do the programming. What shall I do? I figure maybe we'll cover that eventually. Am I supposed to know this already? Was there a pre-req? As time passes, I begin to worry deeply. Deep worry-lines, in fact, appear on my face. The river looks less like a series of meanders on a flat flood plain and more like a braided stream with high gradient heading towards a waterfall. I doubt my very worth as a human being.

But lo! See what I discover the other week! Apparently, during this precious first hour of class, he'd told us all that we had to get a particular textbook. This textbook teaches us everything we need to know that he is not going to take time to teach us but which is absolutely essential in doing the work for the class.
I finally get my hands on the textbook, the manual to All Life. Wow, this class would have been 1000% easier and made 1000% more sense had I had this book all along. I read it like it is oxygen for several days. I do not recommend this kind of "panic reading"... it's hard to get the stuff to really stick. I start the homework... I have all the available tools now! I can do this!

But it's programming, and if you know anything about programming, you know that it is fraught with peril. The kind of peril that takes the uninitiated 10 hours to resolve and those with knowledge about three seconds. All I need is SOMEBODY who knows enough scientific function-oriented knowledge of C++ (and what I'm trying to do in numerical methods) to answer my basic level questions about it. Like someone else in the class, or a TA or something.

...LIKE A TA OR SOMETHING.....

This is the email I get back from my professor just now after I write him my insanity-driven plea for aid:

"Hi -- I am traveling and will be back on Friday -- we can talk then.
J N, ___@___.edu, is the TA and he is very good in
programming."

That was probably something ELSE rather IMPORTANT that was likely discussed during the first hour of the course.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Thus I have about one month to do everything.

What I really hate, is when there isn't a particular class listed as a prereq, but they assume you've taken it anyway.

I asked a teacher if I'd be alright taking a class, having not taken everything that everyone else had taken. He said sure, I'd be fine.

I have to retake the class.
» ikimashokie on 2007-04-11 06:44:25

I did say that I had C++ notes. What kind do you want?
» ikimashokie on 2007-04-11 09:13:36

Hmmmmmmm
What does not kill us makes us stronger. You must be very ...very strong at this point or very very weak trying not be be killed.
» papakerbs (71.196.241.179) on 2007-04-11 09:43:02

Crazy teacher!
I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck with your work! I am sure you will pull it off! Then you should take yourself on a two week trip to the Bahamas!
» Rachel (71.237.5.36) on 2007-04-12 01:33:54

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