Mid semester update

It’s the middle of the semester right now in Maryland, and I finally found some time to update my friends! I’ll be posting up some of the more exciting stuff I’ve been doing in the next few posts, but I guess I’ll give a rundown of what a normal week is like right here first. I actually consider my work week to start on Wednesday and last till Sunday, while I take my break on Monday and Tuesday. When I say break, I mean more of a break from work and intense mental concentration type of stuff, because I still have to go to class on Monday and Tuesday. The time in class is actually a nice breather from all the other stuff I’m doing. So it goes something like this:

Wednesday: Prepare for Monday class

Thursday: 2h of class. Prepare for Tuesday class

Friday-Sunday: Do important scholarly type stuff, such as research, writing up ideas and coming up with ideas.

Monday: 3h of class. Relax.

Tuesday: 7.5h of class. Relax.

Preparation for class involves reading about 10-12 articles in total every week, as well as writing 2 summaries. Often there’ll be at least one huge other thing that I have to do every week, whether for class or something else, such as having a draft of a paper due on Monday or Tuesday, or preparing to lead a class discussion type of stuff.

I’m also involved in this project where we’re going to use a simulation to do experiments. It’s like an advanced form of battleship where you use radars to detect enemies and tanks to engage those enemies you find. Its really really cool!

(tangentially, I only recently found out that there’s actually gonna be a movie based on battleship, as well as monopoly. I REALLY hope this isn’t true.)

One thing found out as we reached the middle of the semester, is that we don’t have a mid semester break! At least I’ll still get spring break next semester, but I guess I was spoilt by the existence of these breaks in NUS.

In any case, classes have been great so far, and I feel like I’ve been learning new things everyday! I think I’ve accumulated a lot more words that aren’t suitable for daily conversation, or will elicit puzzled looks whenever I use them. Efficacy? Anticipated and anticipatory emotions? Valence? I’m expecting a lot of “Swiftly moving on….”s from my friends.

Well that’s the state of my life address for now. I’ll be posting up some other stuff tonight, but I can’t guarantee when the next update will be…