Pop Quiz

Today was a long day… started class at eight and came back at nine at night…

And, to my surprise, there was a POP Quiz for my EE20N class today.

I concluded that the only way to survive here is to be extremely consistent and up to date with the material. Then whatever pop quiz would just be a natural thing.

So here was how it went. We were given 30 minutes for the quiz. I was really panicky at the start and brain was stuck. Then I hear pencils scribbling everywhere and I was just staring at the first question.

But I remembered what my CS61A Professor Brian Harvey said, something to the tune of “Don’t think that your pencils always have to be moving in university exams. Students don’t read the question properly enough, and those who spend more time reading and thinking about the question end up doing better.”

Somehow I kept my cool and went ahead and finished the paper which seemed intractable at first.

Oh and just writing my name on the paper amounted to  5 points out of the total of 45. You cannot get 0 marks here.

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The sole question in my previous Physics 7B Lecture: Estimate the number of moles and water molucules in the world’s oceans. (So fun!!! I wish all quizzes were like that.)

In my previous Math quiz I forgot to square r while finding the area of under the parametric curve and only realized it right before time was over. (I was thinking how come this quiz so easy wan.) I dunno what I did somehow I scribbled stuff that amounted to a 7 out of 10 points.

I think if I were in the more rigid UK my scores would have been lower. In programming exams, they wouldn’t care much if you ended up with additional parentheses at the end of the lines of code. Upon hearing that, I jokingly said that if I were in the UK I would have lost marks due to the missing parentheses because the marking scheme said so and so and therefore minus marks. Things are more holistic here.

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It came across my mind to drop a course since I barely had time to do anything much but study, eat, hang out with friends, and go online. People think I am crazy for taking 20 units. I guess it’s the norm for the internationals.

But anyway, if I were to consider dropping a class, EE20N would have been the one to go. BUT I enjoy the class and Professor so much that I would never want to drop it. Hence, no dropping of classes but to go ahead and do it until the end. This is one technical class where I actually feel entertained by attending it.

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Ern Sheong was like that in Secondary School:

Prefect, Scout, Badminton, Green House, Math and Science Club, etc etc.

In Junior College in Singapore:

Council, Guitar, Cross Country, Gavel Club, Olympiads, Research, etc. etc.

In UC Berkeley this semester:

Study, study, study.

Never joined anything yet, unless you count the Christian group I am in. But I actually don’t mind it. I realized that doing all kinds of stuff just to make your CV look good is not worth it. I just wanna chill and enjoy the academics. And not to mention that I don’t really have so much time left over after school this semester. Is there something wrong with that? In any case, I never found anything interesting which I feel that I have to join here. Maybe next semester.

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Hmmm I am still speaking like a Malaysian. As in, pure Malaysian English, which I modify the second time I say something if people cannot understand my Malaysian English lingo. I can’t speak the American accent. Might sound a bit like it for a while but it quickly reverses to Malaysian English with the lahs and the ones.

Sigh, no mood to study tonight. But I’ll have to get back to it I guess, or I would drown. Cheers.