Above the Sea and Fog But Still Perpetually Obscured.

As it’s presently the last week of holidays, I am trying to get a lot of study done.  Mainly maths study.  This really is the first serious study I’ve done for about 4 years.  The last two years I’ve been sort of ‘meh’ to the idea of bothering to study and as such, I haven’t really progressed, but of course this year is different.  In 2006 I started doing study in a different way, I would take all the notes I had gotten, either written by me or the tutor/lecturer, and write down onto A5 cards all the important stuff such as rules, formulas and other bits of information I think would be important.  There are two bonuses for doing this.  The first is that everything I need to know (or at least I think I need to know) is on small cards that can be easily navigated.  The second bonus is that this is really the only way that will get me to study, because of certain learning disabilities and blah blah blah.

I’ve never really found another way of studying that worked for me, or one that keeps me as motivated as this does.  I’ve tried writing up notes on whole pages, on the computer and just highlighting my previous notes but none of that seems to work.

How do you study?

As such, I am now back off to study and hopefully far less procrastination.

Well, the first term officially finished a couple of days ago, a week ahead of the other SA universities. Not quite sure why, but I think its to do with all the building thats going on. Anyway, this means I’m on holidays for the next two weeks and I want to get some serious stuff done. This also means its time for another list!

• Write up maths notes. (Mainly because I can’t remember any trig)
• Write some more and possibly finish my stupid text adventure.
• Finish some games. ME2 and maybe another one.
• Do lots of programming.  Kinda want teach myself some Obj-C and make a crappy iPhone app.

Well, thats all I can think of.  I’m sure I’ll find plenty of stuff to sidetrack me from these goals.

Well, this is the fourth week of uni and unlike previous years, I’m actually attending (most) lectures and all tutorials! On top of that, I’m actually doing all the tute work of which there is a ridiculous amount. On top of that, I’m managing to write little applications once or twice a week. So, it’s all actually going rather well. Only real problem is I need to do more maths work because there are a few confusing concepts.

One thing I wrote in the past week is an app that generates a list of prime numbers up until the x-th prime number. I’m particularly proud of this because it took less than an hour and I did 60% of it on the bus. Alas, here be the code. From what I can tell, it’s 100% accurate up to the 500th prime number. Just don’t enter 50000 because it takes a little while! If anyone has ways of improving it, I would love to hear it.

PrimeNumber.java (1.29kB)

One other cool thing is that I’ve been using OneNote. A couple of years ago, I though it was a very useless program but since Uni started, I have found it rather invaluable. Combining it with Dropbox makes it more valuable.

So basicically, Uni is going well! Hazzar! If I find some time, I might post some non-programming, non-uni related stuff.

This post was brought to you by the taste of Farmers Union Iced Coffee Strong and the sounds Emilie Autumn’s “Laced/Unlaced”.

Well, today’s marks the start of O’Week. As such, it is one week until Uni goes back. I have an idea for a feature on here which will help with my study and possibly entertain you readers.
Yeah, probably not entertain.

Basically, at the end if each week I willl do a summary of what I have learned during that week. This will ensure I keep posting as well as helping me take notes and do ALL my work.

So next year, I have quite a lot in store for me.
For once, I’m going to take university completely seriously. So seriously that I’m doing bucketloads of maths, now and over the next three years. Mind-boggling I know. Why would a person spend their current free time doing maths? Because:
a) I have to, and
b) I have to.

But why?
Well basically, I’m doing a Bachelor Of Computer Science (finally) and it needs a Year 12 Maths Studies pre-req. For those unknowing to the South Australian school system, Maths Studies is the second highest high school maths. I did it for a semester back in year 12 but blah blah blah, didn’t finish it, nor did I finish year 12 until a year later. So for the past month I’ve been doing what Adelaide Uni refer to as their ‘Mathstrack’ program. It is supposed to take 6 months but I have done 60% of it in 2.5 weeks and should actually have it finished before Christmas. That being the case, I still have a lot to do.

Ok, so 2010, the year of serious business study.

Thats actually kinda all I have planned for. I guess the rest shall unfurl itself over time.
I’m now thinking that I have lured you here with great plans/resolutions/ideas.