Last Day of Classes

So. Yesterday. Last day of classes. First up was my oral exam for Chinese, where we had been given a topic earlier and told to prepare a powerpoint, then talk about it for 3-6 minutes. Mine was on the benefits to China and society of democracy in Chinese rural villages. I didn't really prepare. Instead, half an hour before I started dumping logical obviousness onto a powerpoint, things like ``Well, if someone is good in office, they'll get elected again, but if not, they won't be elected again." It's a gross simplification of reality, of course, where people will choose the lesser of two evils, but it did the job. I clearly have some command of the language, since I can totally make stuff up for five minutes on a topic I frankly don't care about. I'm an engineer. I do math. I do nanotech. I do physics. I like to shout about math and science education. I also talk about autism sometimes, mostly online since not that many of the people I know in real life are aware that I'm autistic. I DON'T do political science or politics or history or really any of the social sciences. Flagship is supposed to get you to professional competence in your language, and for that I need some vocabulary and materials related to MY majors, not ones related to the social sciences that I never cared about and probably never will. (There aren't that many STEM majors in Flagship, and a lot of us have this problem. I'm just blunter than the other, oh, one of us at my college and probably seven between the other colleges. As opposed to 80+ who aren't STEM majors, most of whom are in social sciences or humanities.) <end rant about Flagship that's mostly coming out because I am terrified of when I go to Nanjing University for that semester and have to take math and engineering classes in Chinese.>

After that, I had some time, which I mostly used for dealing with getting summer housing, editing my fiance's big history paper, and DAGNABBIT I forgot to send my submission into the Loud Hands Project. I'm gonna do that now and hope they still take it. Fail. I never managed to get it edited either. Also fail.<sends essay in.>

Then my International Politics class, which I kinda had to take. There are a certain number of classes you have to take in English about China/International stuff to be a Chinese major, which you need to be to be in Chinese Flagship. So glad that class is about to be over. I'm decent at it, if a bit cynical. I just don't like it, maybe because I am so cynical. Having systems mess you up has that effect. Then thermodynamics, which is going OK. Not great, but OK. It's hard to have all classes go great when taking seven of them, doing research, and having the world go insane around you. Last class of the semester was Real Analysis, which is probably my favorite class of the semester. Professor Pakula is GREAT. He really is. He's a complete softie about getting homework in on time, which can lead to procrastination, but he's a good teacher. I was sometimes bored, since math has a tendency to just make sense to me, but hey, he has other students in the class. I know they mostly think it's hard. (Real Analysis has a reputation for being the hardest class you take in undergrad math at my school. I don't really get why.) So I tend to keep quiet about the fact that it is easy for me. At least we all agree that Complex Analysis is painful. They took the undergrad version; I'm finishing up the graduate version, but we all did the cry and die thing. So did most of the grad students in my class. It's just... wow. I'm a bit scared of that final when it comes.

Class ends, go home, try and fail to be productive, assist an online Algebra 2 class for Art of Problem Solving, and go to sleep. I'd planned to get my math homework done then, since it's due today, but I didn't have it in me and still don't. That doesn't change the fact that it needs doing, all three classes worth of it. Bleargh.