h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can't get back to studying physics. It's rotating frames of reference and the Coriolis force and so on. I understand the concepts, but I can't even begin the problems! Math isn't as bad as it used to be, since I no longer have preconceptions regarding the material.

Perhaps I should explain what I'm taking this semester: honors multivariable calculus; honors freshman mechanics; music theory 61A (second-year harmony, mostly 19th and 20th centuries); musicianship 51A, same material except I have to sight-sing it, take dictation from it, clap and ta rhythms from it, and so on; cello lessons; piano class; and symphony orchestra. It's a lot, but it's really fun. Except for math: my professor is young and brilliant and German, so is very formal about everything. I couldn't understand AT ALL his parameter transformations or double integrals! I LOVE physics, though, since my professor is really understandable and does lots of experiments for us to try and understand the concepts. Music theory is pretty easy, musicanship is hard but fun, and orchestra is... well, orchestra.

Anyway, as of lately, I've been able to understand the math lectures and not been able to understand physics at all! It's very strange. We're doing differential forms and vector spaces in math, which are really quite straightforward. But in physics... agh! Oh, well.

So that's my basic life.

Recent highlights include:

- kicking major ASS at the university concerto competition earlier this week, while at the same time spraining my ankle. ouch. I didn't win, but that's because I'm a freshman and there were lots of older people who had only this chance to win. The best part was that I played well, for the first time in my life!, that my friends came to watch me, that I didn't have any memory slips, and I was totally into the music. I did 12 minutes of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto #1 in E flat Major, which you should totally listen to if you don't know it!

- flunking my math midterm. 28/50. but the median was 30 on this one, so I don't feel so bad. Last time, I got 27 and the median was 36. wups. I'll have to study really hard for the final in December.

- Getting my dorm bed lofted (a bunk bed with nothing underneath) so that I have room for all my crap and stuf. My dorm room now looks like a room instead of a storage space!

- Listening to the Harry Potter novels on audio, thanks to Napster. I know I'm "too old for that stuff," but heck, it's darn good writing and really great fun.

I have some insights on college life for anyone interested:

- College is home if you go back "home" and the tap water tastes funny and your room back home seems very hollow and echoey

- the best part of living away from home is that you actually want to talk to your family!

- Always make sure you have enough coat hangers!!

- The internet connections in the campus network are so fast... it's almost worth the extra money to live on campus. I love Napster!!

So that's my life as of mid-November.