El niño que vivió

Time for a new entry, now that the weekend is here. I'm happy to report that my order from Amazon arrived a couple of days ago. Since then, I've been reading thru the first chapter of "Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal". I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I can pick up without having to refer to the dictionary -- I would estimate about 40% comprehension. Of course, it helps that the story is familiar to me.

I have also been working with Madrigal some more. I did a quick tally of roughly how many words I have in my passive recognition vocabulary based on Madrigal's word groups and transformation rules. I came up with about 1265 words. Not all of them are high frequency, but a lot of them are, so it's good to be able to recognize them.

In other news, I think that I have my classes prioritized this semester. The one that is going to take the most work by far is the Real Analysis, but it will probably also be the most rewarding. The Combinatorics class comes in a distant second for difficulty and a close second for interest. As for the Stats class, so far it hasn't really been difficult at all. I am looking forward to learning more about the specific linear models and how to program them in R. I still want to get certified with SAS; I just need to figure out when I will have enough time to do it.

First Day of Classes

Today marked the start of a new semester, one which is a milestone in a certain way. This is the first semester with an assistantship, so now grad school feels much more serious and real to me.

The classes themselves went pretty well. The real analysis class seems like it will be a good, natural continuation of the classes I had with Dr. Fleming last year. Dr. Angelos seems like a reasonable guy. The stats class doesn't seem as intimidating as I thought it would be at first. I have to get familiar with a software package called R. I still want to pursue certification with SAS. As far as the Combinatorics class is concerned, I think it will be okay. I have a natural interest in the topic and am interested in learning more about it. I am going to have to sit closer to the front though in order to compensate for the professor's quiet voice.

In other news, Amazon tells me that my books should be arriving soon!

The Fall Semester Approacheth

This morning I went up to Mt Pleasant to do my grad assistant training. There were parts of it that I found interesting and informative, but there were also parts that seemed a bit boring to me. I think that this is probably because of my pre-existing interests in learning and memory research, as well as different learning styles and perceptual/cognitive psychology.

More interestingly, I went ahead and purchased my textbooks. The books for Real Analysis (MTH 632) and Combinatorics I (MTH 578) look especially interesting. The book for Applied Statistical Methods (STA 580) seems like a massive brick!

This semester I intend to experiment with using SuperMemo to provide continuous review and recall of the material for my classes. My plan is to enter the class material into SuperMemo collections right after my morning classes and make it part of my daily repetitions.

I have had a good experience thus far using the software to help me with vocabulary acquisition for Spanish, Russian, Toki Pona and lojban. I have also used it to help with remembering various bits and pieces of music theory and statistics. I look forward to using it for my classes!