So I finally had my first real test in the US - the midterm for Advanced AI. As expected, it was a lot more fun than the crappy ones we usually had back home. So I got down to comparing the two styles and noticed a few things about how we did tests back home.
As far back as I seem to remember, my memories of exams have always had a certain kind of boredom and a 'grin and bear it' feeling associated with them. Even the most fun exams would inevitably have some kind of boring question in it - boring because of the tedium of doing it, or because it was something that had turned up several million times before, or something like that. And there was always that little bit of willpower you needed to keep yourself writing more and more crappy stuff at breakneck speed. Especially in engineering, where answer lengths and marks became very highly correlated.
This sort of thing was the hallmark of all exams, except perhaps Maths. Engineering stole even that distinction from that wonderful subject by making it boring as well. There was no...elegance to the mathematics we did in engineering. It didn't take ingenuity, or insight, or anything. Just remember blah blah and use so-and-so and grind away.
That's why the Advanced AI exam was fun. Okay, it was short and easy(who needs 3 hour exams anyway?) but more importantly, it was scoped to exactly the level of difficulty that the subject warranted. This was something completely missing back home. Too much extra crap to consider over and above the subject, which was all that really mattered, frankly. Ah well, at least that's over...
Rather uncharacteristically, I've started getting some exercise. Going to seed in grad school hardly seems like a good idea. Luckily for my lazy nature, my bike is perfect for this sort of thing. I just have to ride to campus and back every alternate day, and the exertion it takes to handle the slopes is all my body needs.
Of course, my killer metabolism(I have no idea where it came from) takes some of the credit too. Some of my roommates have started hitting the gym regularly to keep from putting on weight. I'm lucky enough to remain completely stable even without having to do any of that. Plus my legs have already grown significantly stronger since I began biking last week, and stamina levels are up as well.
Bikes are nice. Best mode of transportation ever invented. :)
Incidentally, I've finally got my nice little review copy of Yanni Live! and I can testify that it's absolutely mind blowing. I'll be sitting down and writing a review as soon as I can. It's going to take some thinking, because there's no way I can do justice to such an amazing performance otherwise. Suffice it to say that it rocked.
Hopefully this little post should be enough to satisfy the demands of public opinion. I've been getting complaints from both friends and relatives about not blogging. Apologies, but I'm a lazy bum, and after all, procrastination is a graduate student's birthright.
Better head for the Engineering II building now - class is in twelve minutes. Cheerio!
Monday, October 09, 2006
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