So, the third week of classes are beginning already, yet I still feel an extreme lack of motivation and concentration. I know I should start focussing before I fall behind, but I'm constantly feeling tired from my super spread out schedule, 3 night classes, cooking, cleaning, and my part-time job. I need to work out some sort of schedule to be better organized :S
I started and finished my first problem set on thursday. Luckily, it wasn't difficult. The first problem was very similar to what we had done in class. The second one required more thinking, but was just as straightforward. The solution I wrote up seemed like a "dumbed down" version of the solution posted today. The one posted seemed much more mathematical and precise than my own. I hope we aren't graded too roughly on how we decide to present our solutions. Like, would it make any difference if I were to say "1 is either 1, 2, or 3" rather than "1 is in the set {1, 2, 3}?
Anyway, so we looked at another flavor of induction last week: complete induction. I don't really like complete induction. Sometimes it just takes me a while to work out what I need to do in order to complete my proof, and that's really frustrating. For example, the examples we did in class - although I saw what the patterns were or what the recursive factor was, I just couldn't put it into words. When Prof. Heap asked the class to scribble down ideas, I just didn't know what to write down sometimes. Perhaps I'm just one of those people that need more time to think about something. Whatever it is, it was still pretty frustrating. I still haven't found time to read the course notes yet. I read on someone's blog that after reading the book, induction made more sense to them? I don't know if it will help me solve more problems, but I should read up in any case.
On a completely different note, I really like how Prof. Heap is using his tablet PC to present his lectures with, but there are a couple of concerns I'd like to address. Firstly, I don't print the blank slides (perhaps I should), and I find that sometimes, usually at the end of a slide, the slides change too quickly and I don't catch what was written last. Luckily, the slides are posted online, so I can find what I had missed. Secondly, sometimes when the Prof is trying to emphasize a point, he scrolls his cursor around the word or point. The cursor is actually kind of hard to notice because it's a tiny green dot that sometimes blends with the words themselves. Usually, I am able to catch it while it's making its loops, but I'd just like to point out that its not always easy to see.
That's enough blogging for me tonight, I think. I've got a looooong day ahead of me tomorrow.