Right, so original topic:

We had a stats review session in lecture yesterday and stats today.

Conclusion among people in the know (i.e. people who are good at stats): we either have nothing to worry about, or we are completely lost and screwed as a consequence.

On the one hand, you've got the TA and prof saying that the midterm isn't meant to be some really hardcore exam. It's something we shouldn't worry over much (and in my case not at all, according to the TA while we talked in a basement stairwell).

I'm a good intellectual, so I don't believe anything people tell me unless there's some substantive proof to back up the claim. So far all I, Meagan, and a few of the other 'in the know' people have seen are confusing lectures and a confusing review session. It isn't that the prof is incompetent--complete 180 on that count, trust me--it's just...imagine a master surgeon who has blocks of meat for hands. You can know how to carve up people straight out the ass, but trying to demonstrate that to others ain't so easy in practice.

The review session today wasn't bad at all. At first my brain needed to warm up some, but then everything came back into focus. There were a few things that surprised me, but they were largely calculation-based things. Since we're given all the formulas we'll need on the exam, no problem.

Right now I'm at the last 3 or so lectures. Read through all the notes again over the last few days. I'm hoping to cover the rest of this by dinner time. That way, I can go back and focus on the statistical output we got on handouts for each class. See, we've been heavily reliant on following output. We can see how certain modifications make for changes in some places, and how some results do and don't change. I get the sense that we'll mostly be getting output on the exam that we need to interpret, along with some general concept questions.

Arguably this is alot better than memorizing a bunch of formulas. Even if I have all the important formulas memorized after figuring out their logic.

So, regardless of how I emotionally feel about the exam, I'll keep reviewing and further cementing the concepts in my head. I've tried not to go too far into the realm of deep theory possibilities. Just enough so I'll be prepared for nitty-gritty questions.

And after this exam, I can focus on getting alot of administrative stuff taken care of. Like:

*Emailing my assistants about more bullshit ceritification classes they're required to take.

*Talking to OverlyEmo and her friend about when they're coming to Madison, talking to a parking attendant to get an idea of how much it'll cost to stow her car in one of our many, many parking garages, and general trip planning shizat.

*Talking to Adam and catching up more on college, respective life stuff, etc.

I got to yak with him for about an hour yesterday, which was an excellent break from re-reading and re-thinking all of these equations and concepts. Perhaps some trip thingy shall be commencing. I will have to think about this when I'm not dreaming in linear regression equations.

*Catching up with ye gods number of people. I haven't been around lately because of the exam and other work stuff. Rest assured I ain't gone or nuts or both, just one of those busier times in the semester.

*Figuring out what the fuck the animal committee is doing with my first two experiments. Can I do my experiments, do I need to modify some text, sacrifice a pygmy goat to the altar of PETA or something? Throw me a bone or an email, it's been a month and a half already. They keep pushing back their meeting dates too, which bothers me.

*Planning how to get some work done ahead of time on the Brain Damage review paper and the presentation for that class.

It's probably fairly obvious I'll be staying in Insanity for all of spring break. That'll give me a chance to get ahead on all this stuff, which'll save me from a big time crunch toward the end.

So back to stats I go.

previous - next