Z minus six days: Insert primal scream here

[urbandruid]

Gods, I am so tired. Every time I turn around there's something else I have to do. And suddenly both of my teachers- even my nice, laid-back Soc teacher- expect us to have all our reviewing for the finals done by Friday. For me that means reading a couple Soc chapters (no problem) and doing a ton of Algebra problems. Problem. Not because it's obscinely difficult or anything- some of it is- but because there's a ton of graphing, and it takes forever.

Does anyone happen to know, by the way, what the point of hyperbolas is? It just seems very random to me for some reason.

Ah well.

Eye doctor's office called yesterday to reschedule the appointment. Which is okay, because I really didn't want to go today anyway. It'd take hours out of my studying time, and who knows what shape I'd be in when I got back? If they decided to dialate me I would be screwed. So it works out okay.

I'm just... ugh. Bouncing off the walls, almost ready to throw my Algebra book across the room, and perfectly willing and able to kill anyone who interrupts me or pisses me off. Finals is like temporary insanity, right? That's what I thought.

I'm horribly jealous of all of you who've finished your finals stuff and gone home for the summer.

One more week.

Also, am starting to lose what little patience I still have with the "party crowd" at school. You know the ones I mean- you're hauling ass to the library to cram in some more studying, and they're dancing around the quad playing music and swearing cheerfully at one another, not a care in the world, discussing this weekend's beer blast at the top of their lungs. They've given up on passing their classes, so the world is one big party now. Never mind the fact that two thirds of the student body is a hair short of homicidal due to finals, and they should really Just. Shut Up.

I know, I know, I'm just being bitchy and evil because of finals. I know this. I just can't do much about it- I don't have the energy to be nice to morons right now. Especally since they keep running me over and walking into me like I'm not even there. I'm so tired of being invisible.

One more week. Less, even. Two more classes, one more test, two finals.

Have I mentioned that conic sections suck? (They're also kinda useless, but never mind that...)

Still no sign of Spike. Although I guess I could waste some time fishing Spike the action figure out from the box in the corner... but I'm kind of afraid to dig too deeply into the corner. God knows what's in there that might bite me. (Spike, obviously, but also possibly some X-Men. And maybe Snape. Haven't seen Snape for a while...)

Wha. Evil finals. I just want to play with my toys, you know?

Okay. I think that's enough insanity for me for a while. I'm off to pester the neighbors with loud music and hit the *sigh* Algebra.

Comments

[bohemienne.livejournal.com]

Eww. All that crap they're having you learn is really only useful if you're going to be a Mechanical Engineer. So it does have applications, but only if you're totally sadistic. So sorry you have to put up with it. :( Good luck...

[urbandruid.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I loath my math classes.... Ah well. I'm almost done with it, anyway. Thanks.

[smith-mun.livejournal.com]

The only "application" and I use the term loosely I've seen of Hyperbolas so far is in the use of hyperbolic trig functions like sinh, cosh, tanh, etc. It just simplifies the visualization of what's happening. You'd use the hyperbola for the hyperbolic trig functions like you'd use the unit circle for the trig functions.

I agree with you, though. I'm not seeing a whole lot of usefulness with conic sections so far. And graphing is a total pain. The unit on graphing polar graphs nearly killed me, as I was spending nearly 30 minutes/graph. Sadly, graphing is one of those things only lots of repeated practice is gonna help you conquer. It does help to have graphing software to confirm what's happening, though.

*hugs* Hopefully once you're done with algebra, you won't have to revisit it much if your career doesn't require it! I feel for you on the party people issue. I had the same problems with people yelling and laughing at 2 AM while I had an exam that day. I found that mental visualizations of violence really helps. That and punching pillows.

[urbandruid.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks. I figured it was something like that- way more complicated than I'd ever need.

MEntal visualizations of violence, huh? Will try that. Thanks. :)

[dagnylilytable.livejournal.com]

::hugs you::

Algebra II was a bitch for me with the graphing, as well. Because not only do I have fine motor problems, I have problems with perception that no one exactly knows what they are, they just know they're there when I try to graph or figure out directions. You know, there's a software program I used called Ucalc, that would generate the graph for you once you had the equation-- it's good to check your work with, anyway, because you can size it so you can see what you're working with better.

[urbandruid.livejournal.com]

*hugs back* Thank you.

Yeah, I have similar problems with graphing. The hand-eye coordination is just not there sometimes, and I'm forever messing up my graphs.

That sounds like a pretty cool program, I'll have to look into that.

[eilanhp.livejournal.com]

"Does anyone happen to know, by the way, what the point of hyperbolas is"

They com ein handy when it come sto complex numbers and norms (Analysis I and Differential Equations is where I needed/need them).

You do them at uni? Sorry, I'm a bit surprised.

[urbandruid.livejournal.com]

Huh. So what they're showing us now is kind of a lead-in to higher levels of math... makes sense.

Yep, last section of the last chapter in Algebra II. I gather they're pretty 'basic' ones, since we only had problems that started from the origin (0,0). Apparently there's some master list of stuff they have to teach us, and that was on it. Lucky, lucky me. :)