The Isaw Vendor Slash Mathematician

Posted on December 22, 2007 at 2:43 pm | 12 Comments
Filed under School Sabotage

Most of you perfectly know that I love Math. Back in my final year in High School, I was able to aced two out of my three Math-related subjects and consequently, I bagged the Best in Math and Best in Physics awards. Math has been my favorite subject since fifth grade. Math was my best friend since then. I’m not sure if I’ve already posted here that before I’ve reached Grade 5, Math has been my biggest waterloo. I hated numbers. I used to get red marks in Math. I thougt Math would be my problem every school year.

Don’t ask me what I did to work harmoniously with numbers because I don’t even know what happened to me. Haha. My skills in Math just came out from nowhere! I’m so thankful that I don’t have any problems with numbers nowadays. Ironically, until now, I still haven’t memorized the multiplication table. If you would ask me what is eight multiplied by seven, I would not be able to answer you instantly. Lol. Yes, that’s a fact… and it’s weird.

Yes, I know, we would not be able to apply most of what we have learned in Math. An isaw1 vendor (Yeah, I’m quoting the joke that spread through SMS a year ago) wouldn’t answer you “It’s tan452 times 5 per stick.” when you would ask him how much are the isaws. A knowledge in simple Math plus knowledge in integers and decimals is enough3. But will you believe me that I have classmates that don’t even know how to round-off to the nearest hundredths? Eek. They’ve reached college, and still, they don’t even know simple Math. The thing is, these have been taught to us since grade school… and until now, they haven’t learned how to perform these simple and basic Math skills.

It’s so sad that after this semester, I wouldn’t encounter numbers as often as now. Basic Statistics is the last Math-related subject that I would take (unless I would shift to another course). Even though I don’t have any background knowledge about Statistics (since we didn’t have it back in high school), I can still get how to solve this and that even though our professor does not know how to clearly discuss whatever she has to teach us. Actually, from what we have already discussed, I can say that Statistics is a lot easier than Algebra. Besides, we are allowed to use calculators. Haha.

Finally, I also want to rant about our prelims in Statistics. I wasn’t able to finish it, thanks to the very limited time. Even the Math geniuses who can solve with their eyes closed would not be able to finish it in ninety minutes because there were so much to answer. We had to make an array composed of 50 raw data. And according to my unreliable Statistics book, the process is tedious especially if raw data are numerous. And then, we had to do a frequency distribution table of it, then, graph the data in various graphical forms. There were other types of tests, but this was a shocker, despite the fact that my professor perfectly knows that our examination was tedious and very time-consuming, there was also a find-a-word puzzle included in our exams.

What the hell?!

  1. I don’t eat isaw but I want to know how does it tastes like. [↩]
  2. Tan45 is equal to one, by the way. [↩]
  3. Did I forget something? [↩]

12 Comments

Tagged as • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Catching Up

Posted on November 25, 2007 at 11:30 am | 18 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose

Sixteen days after my last update, at last, I have a new entry! Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. My blog went to hibernation because of school work. Only three weeks have passed since the second semester had started and I’m already tired. It seems that my professors’ favorite pastime is to give their students loads of assignments, researches, projects, reports and tests. So many deadlines, procrastination is my best friend. My only consolation is that I have a better schedule now, by dusk, I’m already home (except for Tuesdays) and I’ve got loads of break time (two and a half hours of break every Tuesdays and Thursdays and another extra hour every Tuesdays).

Yesterday, I had to go to the mall to get my invitation for the debut party that I’m going to attend on the very first day of December. The debutant is a grade school friend. Yeah, that’s how long I’ve known her. Some of my grade school friends (most are also my high school friends) were there to get their invitations. I didn’t expect that most of us are invited because we haven’t got in touch with her all these years, and if there is, only a little. The biggest surprise of all surprises is that the guy who we constantly linked with the debutant during our grade school days is also invited.

We’ve talked about so many things. We talked about the photo of the debutant in her invitation, we reacted that the photo was Photoshopped. And as my friends really love rumors (actually, most are facts but we still call them rumors), I knew that Friend A is now dating Previous Schoolmate-slash-Previous Classmate A (who’s studying aeronautics) again, Friend C had to stop studying, Friend D is now wearing braces whereas Friend E would have his braces removed sometime this week, Friend F shifted to another course, Friend G lost weight (whom I didn’t recognize until Friend D told me her name), Friend H’s suitor four years ago will be back here in the Philippines soon (he’s somewhere in North America right now, and from what I’ve heard, he’s in the military), and Previous Schoolmate B fathered a child. Ah, time flies so fast, and so many things happen in just a snap. I really miss my friends. I miss laughing hard just because of a small thing that others would not recognize as laughable. Laughing with my grade and high school friends is really different from laughing with my college friends.

As for me, aside from the fact that I’m busy with school, one of my blockmates had wet my clothes last Thursday (long story, and I don’t want to elaborate it), I’m reading “The Thirteenth Tale” by Diane Setterfield, enjoying my Statistics class, my Internet connection is not working (I’m on dial-up right now), Google Reader reports that I have 175 blog posts to read, hating my Literature subject because of my professor who talks very slow (we just finished the introduction), opened a new blog (I’ll be giving the link to a few selected ones), my cellphone started to show signs and symptoms that it’s going to die pretty soon, managed to lost my umbrella in school, and I now strongly believe that the weather reports here in the Philippines are not accurate.

Well, we spent our time mostly in talking (and laughing), we wanted to catch up with our latest experiences, and we’re craving to fill up the spaces that are still missing. But we had to stop because it was getting dark, one of us had other things to attend, while the others wanted to watch “One More Chance.” And because I don’t like watching Filipino movies (I think I have only seen three Filipino movies in the big screen during my 17 years of existence here on earth), I decided to go home1. I would rather pick a boring English movie than watch a corny Filipino flick.

I just hope during the debut of my friend, more spaces would be filled, that we’ll laugh so hard that we would look like rocking chairs, and we could plan an overnight party sometime during our Christmas vacation.

And if you’ve been following me in Twitter, you might perfectly know that one of my college friends is also inviting me to her debut party on the last day of November. Hell, two debut parties in two consecutive days! Euri says that I should attend both because debut parties = free food but debut parties = clothes + gifts to buy. And as of the moment, Christian = broke. Eek!

  1. Corny na kung corny pero corny talaga. Magulo ba? Sorry, pero nakokornihan at nababaduyan talaga ako sa mga Filipino movies, no offense [↩]

18 Comments

Tagged as • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •