Cough. Cough. Hack.

I got really sick over the weekend, and have been dealing with that all week long. The fever and sore throat have kept me from sleeping much, although its starting to get a bit better on that front. Still, if I was going to have to get sick, better now than during finals.

Apart from (or despite) the sickness, I've made it through the last week and into Thanksgiving break. Well... almost. There's still class on Tuesday, but that shouldn't be a big deal. After break there's only one week until the end of classes, and my exams will be a few days after that. Both of my lab sections are finished (although I have to make up one in Physics), and I found out that I got an A- on the Physics re-quiz, which was nice (the average went up on it to a 79%, and I came in with a 92%). That should effectively put my Physics grade at some sort of an A- without any curve, although it's a bit hard to calculate exactly what A- it is.

Anyhow, a B+ or higher on the final would pretty much guarantee I keep my A- GPA whether the final and/or course are subject to a curve or not. A high B "might" do that too, depending on how my lab scores ended up breaking down. If there is a curve, which wouldn't shock me too much, even a C+ might do it....

If I got an A- under those circumstances, of course, it wouldn't mean I knew physics well. And the MCAT will get a good chance to reveal that in a year and change. But I'd still be happy. One step at a time - getting a good grade now is a prerequisite for taking the MCAT. I can worry extensively about the physics sections of the MCAT later on.

Basically, this is the end of things for the semester. I need to put out a really really solid two weeks of studying like I did for mid-terms, and hopefully things will turn out well. I'm going to work under the assumption that they will and register for next semester's courses later tonight, even.

The Re-Quiz

I got to take the make up quiz in physics this morning, for that first quiz-test from what now seems so long ago.

I hadn't written about it much, mostly because it hadn't been on my mind. I've been preoccupied this week with more current physics work, and with finishing my final Chemistry and Physics labs. I hardly had time to study for the make up quiz, but I was more or less ok with that and was resigned to not doing particularly better (or better at all).

The quiz went respectably well though, actually. It was a nice surprise to know I've retained more old knowledge than I thought I had, when I've been so worried over the new stuff I haven't figured out yet. I didn't get a 100%, but I'm pretty sure I did well enough to boost my grade somewhat.

A Scare

It's a bit past Halloween, but people were talking in my physics lab today, and I overheard the TA say she thought Calculus 2 was required to sign up for the second semester of Physics. That would have been respectably problematic for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that I'm not even sure I could schedule Phys 2/Calc 2/Chem 2 at the same time in one semester. The money would have been a problem as well, not to mention the difficulty of taking more math (Calc 1 ended up going nicely, but I had nothing else competing for my time over the summer).

Anyways. I /just/ got home and the very first thing I did was check on the Internet to see if this rumor was true. Fortunately, it wasn't.

:: sigh of relief ::

Yay. (5-4-3-2-1)

Now relief time is over (I enjoyed my 5 seconds...).

Finals are impending. I'm not too worried about chemistry (yet), but the physics one will take me forever to get to a "decent" level on, again. Something about this class absolutely does not click for me, and it was only thanks to a monumental amount of studying/praying/panicking that i got through the last exam.

Hopefully I can go through that again without suffering a total mental breakdown, and will grab another ok score in the process. Then I'll get to move onto next semester, where I'll have to do it two more times before things finally start looking up for me. My labs in both physics and chemistry are (almost) done this week though, so I'll have a bit more time to put exclusively into exams for this go around.

(Unfortunately, it looks like I'll be staying up into the wee hours of the morning finishing my last chemistry lab report tonight though.)