Physics failure

So, I thought I did pretty well on my Physics (Intro Mechanics and Heat for non-phys/chem majors) final exam on Saturday. So I check my grade online, and see that I got a 12/20, which is a 60%. Shocked, I click to see the class distribution of the grades.

The mean was 6/20. The mode was 5/20, which is equivalent to guessing, since it was multiple choice with four choices per question. Only six people (including myself) got a 12/20, three people got 13/20, and no one got higher then that in a class of 390 people.

…

So at what point does it shift from the class failing to the professor failing? Because apparently he didn’t do the greatest job at teaching us. I’m not incapable of learning physics – I got an A+ in it in high school, and we didn’t really learn that much extra stuff in this class.

Thankfully this class is notorious for huge curving, so even though I’m sitting at a 77%, I’ll probably end up having a high A. Woo boy. Can’t wait for Electricity and Magnetism next semester!

Friend: I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have any physics, engineering, or chemistry nerds ;)
Me: Har har

IN Atheist Bus News Coverage

WRTV 6News of Indianapolis had a story last night about Bloomington, IN’s rejection of the slogan “You Can Be Good Without Good” for being too controversial.

The lady shaking her head in disgust and saying “You can’t be good without God”? Yeah, that’s why we need this campaign, people. A statement we see as benign and obvious is terrifying to other people.

There’s also a an article online with…dun dun dun…an internet poll! I’ve already emailed it to PZ, but I figured I’d post it as well. Probably the best thing (or worst, if you’re anti-atheist) you can do to advertise something atheist related is have a dumb poll about it. A poll crashing at Pharyngula is way more advertisement than people ignoring it at Digg and Reddit.

What is your opinion of an advertisement rejected by Bloomington officials because its message of “You Can Be Good Without God” was deemed too controversial?

Choice Votes Percentage of 699 Votes
I agree with the advertisement and I think it should be allowed. 292 42%
I don’t agree with the advertisement, but I think it should be allowed. 87 12%
I don’t agree with the advertisement and I don’t think it should be allowed. 287 41%
I agree with the advertisement, but I don’t think it should be allowed. 23 3%
I don’t know. 10 1%

Alright, off to bomb my Physics exam! Woo!

I love when internet culture sneaks into real life

As I was leaving my programming exam in the computer science building tonight, I noticed they had put up a new kiosk outside. We staple flyers to these things to advertise for events and such. Student groups (including ours) have been whining for a while now that there aren’t enough on campus, so I was pretty excited to see a new one. I was more excited when I read the lone flyer someone had pinned on.Wait a second, what does that say? Let’s zoom in a bit:
I love internet culture so much. I should expect nothing less from computer science students, but I still love it. I feel like I’m in some secret club that only the cool kids know about. Good to know we have silly comment trolls for tangible objects.

(And I apologize for the crappy photos. Only had my camera on me, and I got out of my exam at 9 pm)

Oh academia

One final down, four to go! Though this morning’s was one of my easiest of the bunch – Evolution of Behavior. One of my favorite classes ever, so no need to really study, plus I only needed a 65% on the final for an A…heh. Wish I could say that about Physics. One of the amazing professors I do research for (it’s a joint research project) teaches that class, and after I turned in my exam he was whispering some questions about how the project is going. Which led to this exchange:

Prof W: Have you read this book? *motions to an ancient looking book he was reading during the final called Rodent Reproduction*
Me: …Uh, no.
Prof W: Oh, well it looks like they don’t mention anything about [part of our research] here either, so [etc etc more research talk blog readers don’t care about]

…This is what I simultaneously love and fear about academia. I love how there was even a remote enough chance in his mind that a lowly undergraduate like myself just happened to peruse some forty year tome on rodent reproduction, of all topics, that he would actually ask me. Okay, I have been trying to find some literature on our research, so maybe he thought I may have seen that book, but still. I get this all the time from professors, especially the “Have you read the paper by SoandSo on Obscure Research Topic?” Even if I have, by some stroke of luck, I usually can’t remember the names of the authors. I consider it a success if I remember the key points from the paper at all!

Though I know realistically it’s not expected of me to know all this stuff as an undergrad. Prof D, my main professor and official “boss,” even said that he really enjoys working with me (I’m his first long-term undergraduate researcher) because he doesn’t expect me to really know anything. So when I don’t, he’s pretty relaxed about it and helps me out, but when I do, he’s pleasantly surprised. I think I give myself too hard of a time because I’m constantly comparing myself to grad students instead of other undergrads.

As fabulously awesome as I may be, I still have a long way to go before I develop that professor-worthy memory. I know it’ll probably happen without me even noticing it. When I was doing field work with Prof W a couple of summers ago, I was amazed at how he knew the common name, scientific name, and natural history of basically every fricking plant and animal out in the desert. I didn’t even realize dung beetles were in Arizona; I thought they were some exotic insect out in Africa or Asia or something (sheltered Indiana girl!). I asked him how in the world he knew all the stuff, and he just laughed sort of sheepishly. “You don’t try to remember it – you just pick it up after a while.” At the time I thought this sounded insane, but now that I can recognize exactly what bird singing is waking me up in the morning, I know it’s happening.

Oh, and the chickadees need to simmer the fuck down in the morning. I wish there was a “fee bee fee hey no one’s trying to take your territory and Jen’s trying to sleep” call.

Indiana atheist bus rejected in Bloomington

From the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign:

“Bloomington was first on the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign’s list of places it hoped to run bus ads. However, the city has rejected our campaign’s slogan, ‘You Can Be Good Without God.’ This is deeply disappointing to our campaign’s members; we all love Bloomington and were very much hoping to run ads in our hometown along with many other cities.

Following their rejection of our ad’s slogan, Bloomington Transit referenced their ad policy, which currently states that they may reject any ad they feel is ‘too controversial.’

However, we are not giving up. Yesterday the ACLU of Indiana, on behalf of the campaign, filed a lawsuit against the city of Bloomington on First Amendment grounds. No campaign donations will be spent on the suit.”

This is pretty disappointing. Bloomington, home to Indiana University, is one of the most liberal cities in Indiana (other than Indianapolis or the Chicago suburbs). I don’t know how atheists could possibly be less controversial than “You Can Be Good Without God” – that seems like a pretty benign and obvious statement to me. The fact that it is controversial to some people is exactly why we need people reading it!

Oh well. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the one in West Lafayette goes through. Not only would it be awesome seeing that on campus, but we’d beat IU too!

Blog Carnivals

I again apologize for not updating lately. I barely survived dead week, and I’ve spent this weekend recovering by hanging out with friends and playing endless hours of Civ4. My plan of Hindu world domination is going quite nicely, mwahaha! It is annoying how you HAVE to be religious in order to do well in the game. Even if you try not to be, your cities will invariably get infiltrated by your neighbor’s religion. It’s like a virus. I’d love to see a future version of Civ where late in the game you can learn atheism to replace your religions. Like, maybe religion helps until you get until the industrial era…and then being religious actually makes you take longer to develop different sciences and technologies or something. Of course, people freaked out enough when Civ decided to include religion. If they played atheism in that light people would probably shit bricks.

Other than that, I need to start studying for all of my finals…blah. After that I’ll be much happier, though! I’m having a big end of the semester party at my place on Saturday, which should be full of debaucherous fun, knowing my friends. And then once I’m no longer inebriated from that, I will resume my regular posting schedule. Promise! The cherry on top of the semester ending is that my ex is finally moving out of the apartment, so no more drama dealing with him. It’s been a lovely three months, let me tell you.

Until then, here are some blog carnivals that I follow to keep you busy:
Carnival of Evolution # 11
Carnival of the Godless
Humanist Symposium #36

So…close to being done… gah…

The finish line to the semester is in sight… Just pooped out my two extra credit papers for Learning, have to sit through two more classes (very sad that Evolution of Behavior is ending…best class EVER), hastily finish my genetics assignment and email it to the prof before 5 pm, type away at my programming assignment and turn it in before 10 pm… though I’m almost done, so it shouldn’t take that long…gahhhh…. must… hold on…. crawl across the finish line on my hands and knees… finals don’t even matter …*sputter* *collapse*

I will do a little celebratory dance when I submit my final python programming assignment. It was a stupid introductory 100 level class, yet it was harder than my 500 level biology classes. Sadness. I just don’t think I have the brain for programming, as I’m really not mathematically oriented. Not to mention computers are like a magical black box to me. I want to be able to random push buttons and have stuff happen, not actually think how to make the computer do that. Sadness. Oh well. I have to admit I did learn a lot, though probably not enough to actually write useful programs.

On a lighter note, my TA for that class that grades our lab assignments is a club member (and now the Society of Non-Theists secretary, woo) and friend, so I left her a little present in our comment section:

Yay real life

Just as a warning, blog posts may be a little sparse the next couple of days. I have papers to review and answer questions about for genetics, physics homework, papers to review for extra credit in psychology, and a giant ass programming project that I haven’t really worked on yet. On top of that, I’m getting sick. My throat is sore and my left tonsil has started turning delightful colors, and I pretty much feel like crap. Hooray. I’ll let you know if I start oinking.

I was going to scan some doodles for you, but my scanner has apparently decided to die, so no fun doodles for you. Sorry.

Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go attempt to trudge through my homework. Now I know why they call it “Dead Week.”

Teaching!

Looks like I’m definitely going to be a TA next semester! It’s exciting and a bit frightening at the same time. Both of my parents are retired teachers, so I’ve always been curious to do some teaching of my own. I really enjoy explaining biological concepts to people, and I feel like I’m good at telling what’s confusing people. I figure this will be great experience since I’ll probably have to do it in grad school, and hopefully I’ll love it like I think I would. Otherwise I may have to rethink my life goal of professor-dom. Or I can be one of those jerk professors who are all about research and begrudgingly teach classes, but that’s kind of sad.

The class is the Cell Structure and Function Laboratory. Hell yeah, doesn’t that sound fascinating? It’s the fall sophomore lab everyone is required to take. I didn’t want to teach the little freshmen who knew absolutely nothing, and this class was actually pretty good when I took it. It’s also not too mentally strenuous. Basically you set up your gel, sit around while your gel is running, and then interpret your gel. Oh, and a lot of stuff with hemoglobin and peroxidase isoenzymes. Exciting stuff.

I just hope I’m a good TA. I don’t want to be the jerk or the confused one who comes off as being really stupid. I want to be the cool TA, the one that actually remembers your name and jokes with you and is useful. Oi. And then the fear settles in that I’m being trusted with a new generation of scientists… As long as I don’t spill ethidium bromide all over them, I’m probably okay.

Oh drunk people

This week is Grand Prix week at Purdue, which is basically a week long excuse to party and binge drink 24/7, culminating in a go-kart race. Being the defective college student that I am, I fail to see the appeal in these activities. I plan to hide in my apartment as long as possible, since I may just accidentally get drunk from stepping outside into the alcohol-infused air.

My fellow students, though, take this very seriously. Yesterday as I rode the bus to my 1 PM class, people were already outside drinking beers and partying. I guess I should be happy that it was at least after noon. Maybe I’m just secretly jealous because while they’re partying away, I was sitting in the basement of LILY learning signaling cascades associated with cancer…naahhh, what I was doing was more interesting.

The funniest part is that they’ve set up barricades all around the bars in Chauncey, narrowing the street from 3 lanes to 2:
They claim it’s because of the smoking ban, and now more people smoke outside the bars. Yeah. Totally not for the exponential increase in drunk people who like to stumble out into the road and dart in front of your car. They do this anyway, but now there’ll be ten times as many of them.

And yes, I think I’m a curmudgeonly old woman at heart. Good thing I don’t have a lawn, or I’d probably be yelling at people to get off it.