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[octoprof]

Why do the A-10s have to start their touch and goes while I'm on the top floor of my house recording lectures for an online course? Yes, the landing strip lines up with my house.  Pfft.  So, a little sound effect in the lecture video is no biggie, right?

Wow - those look noisy, all right.  Course, you could have these doing circuits and bumps right overhead, as happens here sometimes.

We get those infrequently. We also get some fighter planes but they don't seem as loud as the A10s, or as ugly.

[dolljepopp]

We're in a direct line with the airport's only runway. The passenger planes aren't a problem -- nothing too big or too loud. But the cargo companies have the 777s.

And they are busiest at night from about nine about midnight.

[llanfair]

I don't feel like doing out the litterboxes.  The cats aren't grateful, anyway.

(Of course, if I don't do it, they'll make my life a stinking hell ... )

[ptarmigan]

I've now spent a solid 90 minutes (in two 45-minute chunks) working uninterrupted on the remainder of my probability homework.  Probability is the easiest of my classes, and most people in there are not even math graduate students (but I am).  Yet I have not gotten anywhere on the remaining questions.  At all.  One of my proofs is proving something close to the real thing, but (a) relies on an idea I made up that I can't justify or even figure out whether is true or not, and (b) I can't see where the error might be to get me to the thing I'm supposed to prove instead of this other thing. 

I don't know whether to give up on this and move on to some other task for the day or what I should do about it.  I shouldn't be having this much trouble with it.  At all.

[octoprof]

I've now spent a solid 90 minutes (in two 45-minute chunks) working uninterrupted on the remainder of my probability homework.  Probability is the easiest of my classes, and most people in there are not even math graduate students (but I am).  Yet I have not gotten anywhere on the remaining questions.  At all.  One of my proofs is proving something close to the real thing, but (a) relies on an idea I made up that I can't justify or even figure out whether is true or not, and (b) I can't see where the error might be to get me to the thing I'm supposed to prove instead of this other thing. 

I don't know whether to give up on this and move on to some other task for the day or what I should do about it.  I shouldn't be having this much trouble with it.  At all.

I remember taking my first graduate level statistics course in my PhD program. I had a wonderful professor who was originally from China. He was great. however, he had trouble pronouncing his Rs and Ls and it took me a few days to discern what he was saying. You can imagine how the lectures on probability (the first week or three) sounded in this accent to my unlearned and backwoods ears.

May I suggest that you walk away from this task for a while and let your brain heal whil doing something else?

[ptarmigan]

I've now spent a solid 90 minutes (in two 45-minute chunks) working uninterrupted on the remainder of my probability homework.  Probability is the easiest of my classes, and most people in there are not even math graduate students (but I am).  Yet I have not gotten anywhere on the remaining questions.  At all.  One of my proofs is proving something close to the real thing, but (a) relies on an idea I made up that I can't justify or even figure out whether is true or not, and (b) I can't see where the error might be to get me to the thing I'm supposed to prove instead of this other thing. 

I don't know whether to give up on this and move on to some other task for the day or what I should do about it.  I shouldn't be having this much trouble with it.  At all.

I remember taking my first graduate level statistics course in my PhD program. I had a wonderful professor who was originally from China. He was great. however, he had trouble pronouncing his Rs and Ls and it took me a few days to discern what he was saying. You can imagine how the lectures on probability (the first week or three) sounded in this accent to my unlearned and backwoods ears.

May I suggest that you walk away from this task for a while and let your brain heal whil doing something else?

Heh.  My professor is almost exactly as you describe, though I haven't had trouble with it.

I cried and got over it.  I added an appointment to my calendar to meet him during his office hours tomorrow, and to make sure I'm prepared for that, I wrote up a page about what I've tried and my difficulties, which led to some additional insights, but still no solutions.  I've only ever gone to office hours for this type of purpose maybe once or twice in my entire academic career, so I'm not really sure about doing it.  I feel kind of ashamed about it given that I'm a math person and most of the class is not, but I'm going to just let that go (I hope) and go anyway.

[octoprof]

I've now spent a solid 90 minutes (in two 45-minute chunks) working uninterrupted on the remainder of my probability homework.  Probability is the easiest of my classes, and most people in there are not even math graduate students (but I am).  Yet I have not gotten anywhere on the remaining questions.  At all.  One of my proofs is proving something close to the real thing, but (a) relies on an idea I made up that I can't justify or even figure out whether is true or not, and (b) I can't see where the error might be to get me to the thing I'm supposed to prove instead of this other thing. 

I don't know whether to give up on this and move on to some other task for the day or what I should do about it.  I shouldn't be having this much trouble with it.  At all.

I remember taking my first graduate level statistics course in my PhD program. I had a wonderful professor who was originally from China. He was great. however, he had trouble pronouncing his Rs and Ls and it took me a few days to discern what he was saying. You can imagine how the lectures on probability (the first week or three) sounded in this accent to my unlearned and backwoods ears.

May I suggest that you walk away from this task for a while and let your brain heal whil doing something else?

Heh.  My professor is almost exactly as you describe, though I haven't had trouble with it.

I cried and got over it.  I added an appointment to my calendar to meet him during his office hours tomorrow, and to make sure I'm prepared for that, I wrote up a page about what I've tried and my difficulties, which led to some additional insights, but still no solutions.  I've only ever gone to office hours for this type of purpose maybe once or twice in my entire academic career, so I'm not really sure about doing it.  I feel kind of ashamed about it given that I'm a math person and most of the class is not, but I'm going to just let that go (I hope) and go anyway.

Feel no shame! What you are is a person who wants to be able to solve things. This is good!

[zharkov]

Why do the A-10s have to start their touch and goes while I'm on the top floor of my house recording lectures for an online course? Yes, the landing strip lines up with my house.  Pfft.  So, a little sound effect in the lecture video is no biggie, right?

Wow - those look noisy, all right.  Course, you could have these doing circuits and bumps right overhead, as happens here sometimes.

We get those infrequently. We also get some fighter planes but they don't seem as loud as the A10s, or as ugly.

I get the transport planes, not too bad, but every now and then the fighter planes show up from a different airfield.  They do touch and goes, but the goes are at a 45 degree angle and a gazillion miles an hour, much louder than the transports.  They also do the deal where they climb together -- looks like a few feet apart -- and twice as loud.

Despite the whine, I give those men and women a lot of credit and hope they have fun doing that stuff.

[octoprof]

Why do the A-10s have to start their touch and goes while I'm on the top floor of my house recording lectures for an online course? Yes, the landing strip lines up with my house.  Pfft.  So, a little sound effect in the lecture video is no biggie, right?

Wow - those look noisy, all right.  Course, you could have these doing circuits and bumps right overhead, as happens here sometimes.

We get those infrequently. We also get some fighter planes but they don't seem as loud as the A10s, or as ugly.

I get the transport planes, not too bad, but every now and then the fighter planes show up from a different airfield.  They do touch and goes, but the goes are at a 45 degree angle and a gazillion miles an hour, much louder than the transports.  They also do the deal where they climb together -- looks like a few feet apart -- and twice as loud.

Despite the whine, I give those men and women a lot of credit and hope they have fun doing that stuff.

Mr. W. spent many years in the USAF so we enjoy hearing them, really. I think I pick cities with very nice airports (runways!) that do not have a lot of commercial flights because everywhere we've lived we get a lot of planes from elsewhere doing touch and goes.

My whine for today: Insomnia, it's what's for breakfast.

[chaosbydesign]

I don't want to go to class this afternoon. I want to go home and sleep. I also do not want to prep my class for tomorrow right now. Can I leave it til 1am again?

[ptarmigan]

Sorry about the insomnia, Octoprof.  Better luck tonight.

Hang in there, CBD.  Since this is neither the validation nor the "suck it up" thread (which is every other thread), I'll remain neutral on whether you should leave prepping until 1 AM, but you'll probably feel better if you don't.

[octoprof]

Sorry about the insomnia, Octoprof.  Better luck tonight.

Hang in there, CBD.  Since this is neither the validation nor the "suck it up" thread (which is every other thread), I'll remain neutral on whether you should leave prepping until 1 AM, but you'll probably feel better if you don't.

A new whine: ptarmigan has all the good thread ideas.

[ptarmigan]

Sorry about the insomnia, Octoprof.  Better luck tonight.

Hang in there, CBD.  Since this is neither the validation nor the "suck it up" thread (which is every other thread), I'll remain neutral on whether you should leave prepping until 1 AM, but you'll probably feel better if you don't.

A new whine: ptarmigan has all the good thread ideas.

Ha!

I talked to my professor, by the way.  He was nice.  He concluded that he will need to talk to the class because probably most of us are having the same difficulties.  (I like to think he drew this conclusion because I am so kick-ass that if I can't do them, nobody can, but I have no evidence for this outside of my own wishful thinking.)

Somehow I seem to get myself all twisted up in this class.  Last week I did this mammoth proof by induction for something that turned out to be a 3-line proof.  I knew the proof by induction wasn't correct, for the simple reason that there is no way these non-math people would be expected to use proof by induction, but I couldn't come up with the simple answer.

[chaosbydesign]

Somehow I seem to get myself all twisted up in this class.  Last week I did this mammoth proof by induction for something that turned out to be a 3-line proof.  I knew the proof by induction wasn't correct, for the simple reason that there is no way these non-math people would be expected to use proof by induction, but I couldn't come up with the simple answer.

I do this sort of thing with my coursework. Last week I handed something in that took for freaking ever because I picked a really fancy complicated way of doing it instead of going with the obvious, easy method. In my mind the easy method was just too easy for the level I'm currently studying at, but given that the other students I heard discussing the coursework in class after submitting it have apparently gone with the easy method, I guess I was wrong. I over complicate easy tasks because I always think that if I'm doing something I find easy, I'm obviously not going into enough detail. The method I used wasn't wrong, it just took a hell of a lot longer to complete than it would have if I'd just gone with the easy option.

[prof_smartypants]

My dog has 26 minutes until dinner time. She is currently laying on the floor directly in front of me making the most god-awful whining sound to ever come out of a living being.

25 more minutes!!