one final down

[rivendellrose]

One final down. One in-class and one take-home still to go.

As predicted, the Anth 310 test took me about 25 minutes, counting double-checking the answers. With any luck, I'll be getting an easy A out of that one... to counteract the doom that I will no doubt be suffering tomorrow morning in my statistics final.

For now, I'm clocking a bit of time at the office before I try for the statistics study center.

Edited and bumped, since an hour later I realized I'd forgotten to actually post this. Argh. Accidentally had non-caffeinated tea today, am not functioning at peak capacity.

Comments

[gurny.livejournal.com]

Good luck on the stat! You can do it!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

My hatred for this class will literally never find an end, I think. o_O

I'm going through the practice problems my TA sent out. She included the answers, but her processes Make No Sense. Would it be so gods-damned difficult for somebody to just outline "if you have a problem set up like x, use equation y, if you have a problem set up like z, do n"? Would this be too much to ask?

[ursula]

(Yes, actually. I can tell you why, from a teacher's perspective, but that would be mean before an exam . . .)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I had a feeling there was a reason. It's too consistent to be an accident. I suppose the best I can do is grumble with a fair modicum of good nature about damned professors making me Learn by Working Things Out On My Own. ;)

[ursula]

Yeah. Sometimes teaching is muddled, but sometimes there *is* no universal rule about which equations to apply in which order. After all, if you could always write down a procedure ahead of time, you could program a computer to take the entire exam for you, and who wants to waste their time on stuff computers can do better? :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yup, yup. And I don't feel too bad about the darned thing, so something must've gone right in the class... at least I hope so. ;)

[ursula]

Luck!

[gurny.livejournal.com]

I think your hatred will find an end pretty soon. Once it was over for me I felt fine with it. I hope you have a good Spring break plan coming up to relax a bit.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

One way or another, I have a feeling this is going to be one of those tests where I walk out, breathe a sigh of relief, and forget about the damned thing.

...If only because I have to set in immediately after on finishing my take-home midterm for archy. *g*

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Good luck on the remaining two. Glad to hear you think the first one was an A. Talk of finals is not making me nostalgic for college days.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Heheheh. No, I can imagine this is not one of those things that anybody who's been through it would be crazy enough to miss. Thanks for the good vibes!

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

You're gonna be great, don't worry, just be calm and think clearly and rationally.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I don't know about 'great,' but I'm fairly sure I'll pass.

...Fairly sure.

Totally unrelated to the subject of your post but...

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I was wondering something about Wash. Do you think he's had more education than some of the crew? It seems to me that he uses fewer "ain't" and tends to pronounce words in a way that makes me think he's had more formal schooling.

Oh wait. There is an ep that even says he went to flight school, right? So he is more educated than most of the others (except for Inara, Book, and the Tams), right?

Happy distraction from my own studying ;)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely say that's accurate. The education levels indicated by the crew's speech (vocabulary, typical degree of formality used, etc) seem to me to go something on the order of Simon, River, Inara and Book, Zoe and Wash (which is something I'll get back to in just a second), and then Mal, Kaylee, and finally Jayne. Although it should be noted that even Jayne definitely has his moments of higher language. ("Pretentious.")

(Did I mention that I loooove linguistics and trying to ferret out the little idiosyncracies of how people talk? I apologize for going off on an absolute tangent, here...)

In terms of education, the first four are knowns to some degree - Simon is a well-read and highly educated young man, not to mention a doctor; River is a genius, and presumably went to very impressive schools and learned a great deal before the shit at the Academy screwed up her brain. If she were still sane, I think we'd see a degree of language from her that's even higher than her brother's, but, as her name suggests, River is also a lot more flexible and able to mold to her surroundings than her brother - I wouldn't be surprised to see her pick up bits of speech from the others, on occasion. Inara has been in intensive cultural training for many years, is well-read, and is at least said to speak multiple languages. Book... is a mystery, but a very eloquent one - he is a preacher, after all.

Wash definitely went to flight school, and I'd say his language does reflect a good bit of education, although it's worth keeping in mind that it was more technical than cultural. He seems pretty well-versed in a lot of subjects, though. Zoe's unique in this respect - we know almost nothing about her background except that she was a career soldier, and was raised on a ship (presumably a transport?). She speaks pretty formally, but with a different sort of cadence than, say, Inara. Short, to the point. Very much a soldier's way of speaking, practical and grounded and very... Zoe.

Mal's a funny case, because he has that down-home folksy sort of way of speaking... and he turns it on and off depending on who he's talking to, particularly ladling it on strong if he thinks it'll irritate some high-and-mighty rich person. "Shindig" is one of the best examples - boy does he play up the country boy for Atherton, just to watch his teeth grind. ;) And yet at times we see him speak pretty damned eloquently - I get the impression he's had some degree of schooling, even if it was just his mama sitting him down every day and making him read the bible and whatever other books she could lay hands on, making sure he learned his sums and such. And we know he's read at least one poem. *g* And then there's Kaylee and Jayne, who are more the folksy sort who can't turn it off if they try. Again, I'm thinking they got a bit of schooling, but probably the equivalent of... oh, through middle-school, maybe highschool. Reading, writing, 'rithmetic, and not a hell of a lot more before they set off on training for work, and that came either from family or just plain on-the-job, perhaps, in Jayne's case. I've got this funny image of 13 yr-old Jayne, too big for the desk in one of those one-room schoolhouses from all the Laura Ingalls-Wilder or Anne of Green Gables types of books, pulling girls' pigtails and cussing out the teacher before saying to hell with this and heading off to hire himself out for whatever work came his way. :D

Re: Happy distraction from my own studying ;)

[reve-lucide.livejournal.com]

... River is also a lot more flexible and able to mold to her surroundings than her brother - I wouldn't be surprised to see her pick up bits of speech from the others, on occasion.

River has already done this on a few occasions:
1) when she immediately mimics Badger's accent after only hearing him speak a few words
2) when she mimics Kaylee's "no power in the 'verse can stop me" ... I always thought she was mimicking more than just Kaylee's words, but also her tone and general way of speaking

I know I've thought of more at one point, but that's all I can remember right this second. Interesting tie-in to River's name, though ... hadn't thought of that before. The only thinking I've done on River's name had to do with the River / Reaver parallels.

Re: Happy distraction from my own studying ;)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Aha, thanks much - I had a feeling there were examples, but for some reason they were escaping me at the time!

As for the name thing... that's me being a names-wonk. I love names and their meanings, and it amuses the heck out of me when people actually suit their names. In River's case, it just seems to fit her so well. ;)

Re: Happy distraction from my own studying ;)

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Wow - thank you for the detailed response! Very well thought-out and I bet you're spot-on with each one. Thank you.

Re: Happy distraction from my own studying ;)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

No problem, I had a lot of fun thinking about it!

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Random I know, but I keep thinking about it....how is the blood orange sorbet?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Unbelievably fabulous. :D

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

I thought it might be...Damn, I should have gotten that!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's soooooooooooooooooooo good.

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Mom! she's teasing me....

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

O.o

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

....LOL.