Twas the night that was past........ my bedtime.

Oh, it's late! I want to go to bed! Do I have to write a post mommy?
Actually it's "only" 2100 but I feel drowsy for some reason.

My Economics final was at 0800 this morning and it went as well as could be expected. I definitely didn't think it was as hard as it could be. I had my 3 x 5 card sitting on the desk I was at and as the teacher handed out the tests, she glanced down and said "minimalist" and smiled at me. I guess I really didn't have much on there. The girl behind me said she got her sister to write out her card for her because her sister's writing was smaller than hers and it seemed that almost everyone had their cards filled. With what I don't know because there really wasn't any formulas to know, just the knowhow on interpreting different graphs and problems. I could have put my information on a stamp. 3 x 5 centimetres?

Anyhow, when I got to the exam I lent my calculator to a young black student next to me (as I did the last test) and then as I was looking through my folder, I realized that when I had cleaned it out I had forgotten to replace the scantrons back into it! I was horrified, especially so because the teacher carries extras which she charges a dollar for them but I had absolutely nothing, not even a penny! What was I going to do. Timidly I asked the student next to me (who seems to be very studious) if he happened to have an extra one and he said "sure! I've got plenty." And after he handed it to me I stammered that I didn't have any money with me (and it being a final exam, when would there be time for repayment) but he said "no worry brother, you look out for me, I look out for you." Phew. I mean, it was only about $0.15 and I HAD lent him my extra calculator for two class sessions but I was very thankful for his generousity!

The test went fairly well. I try to go through the questions slowly and methodically but I'm still amazed when students walk out after only 15 or 20 minutes into the exam. Either they are blindingly fast or just don't really care too much. I should have been able to get almost all the questions but we'll see. There is always that factor which says that I'll miss few I shouldn't have.

I went to the book store afterwards and found out the titles and authors of the books I needed for the Spring semester (yes, I got a late start on that) and also the prices charged. Then I went online at Amazon and Ebay and did some shopping. I got some great deals and I should be able to have all my books for next semester for about $200, give a Jackson or two. Which isn't bad at all considering at least two of them are very heavy duty books, dealing with Physics and Electronics. If I had bought them new it would have been nearly $400 for all of them. Thankfully my Calculus book holds for the next class so I didn't have to buy that.

There was one book that was written by the instructor of the class I'm taking so I had to pick that up at the bookstore. Apparently it isn't sold anywhere else. Talk about a monopoly!

I asked how much they would be willing to give me for my economic text book and study guide (both of which were in almost mint condition) and was told $33 for the both of them. They sell that set used for $68.50 or something like that. I'm getting less than half of what they sell for it! It's certainly not operating where marginal cost equals price so it's definitely not a perfectly competitive market! That's quite a profit they're making! So I decided to hang onto the books, put up a couple of posters and then go around to the first day of classes and I'm sure there will be students who haven't bought a textbook yet and will want to get one cheaper than they could at the store while I'd still be making more than I would at the store. Though how I'm going to collect is a problem. I suppose I'd have to hang onto it until I received payment (possibly at the next class meeting) because otherwise I might never see them again. I doubt many of them will be carrying $60 in their pocket the first class meeting. Anyway... but I am willing to do something like that for the sake of a few extra dollars (or a lotta extra dollars in this case!).

I also helped Mr. Y move a couple of things, lifting and such. It sure is handy to have two people do something at times, especially when it is heavy. He invited me to dinner but I had to decline because the Yule's had already done so! I am really overwhelmed by the graciousness of the people here in the church. I certainly don't deserve any of it but I am grateful for it.

Various things were discussed, the dinner was excellent as was the dessert: delicious butter scotch brownies made by F.B. They were really, really good! Not only that, but they looked good too! Unlike some of the things I've attempted to bake before...

The Bible study went well though we ran a little short on time and had to skim the last few sections. It was on Luke 9 which has quite a bit to cover. I was thinking today about the Transfiguration and just wondering why it was Moses and Elijah. I think I might have expected Abraham or David to be there as well. There was definitely a purpose though, I'm just not sure what it was. The law and the prophets embodied, Mrs. Yule suggested. I don't know, I'll have to look into that further.

I forgot to mention that the last time I visited the Y's, Rachel took me up to show me her room and then sat down in her little chair and began (very patiently) to read some of her books to me, showing me what each thing meant. She has a short attention span so if I tried to read it to her she'd just turn the page (or clumps of pages at a time) and keep going. She must be a very good speed-reader because each book only took about 25 seconds max! I like to dwell on each page a little more, you know? :)

Here's some thoughts of today:

On "Who Want to be a Millionaire" (I had lots of time today) one of the questions was:

Which of these animals is warm-blooded? $8,000

a. bull frog
b. garter snake
c. goldfish
d. guinea pig

And the guy did get the correct answer but he had quite a pause on it! Isn't it instantly obvious? It seemed so to me at least.
There was a guy who said in his introduction that he worked on/with computers a lot and was writing a novel and gave talks to college students, helping them learn how to take multiple choice exams and such. The advice he had was to eliminate the answers you know are incorrect and then you have a better chance of choosing the correct one.

Pardon? Um... isn't that kind of common sense? Is there anyone who WOULDN'T do that? Do people actually need to be taught that these days? If so, then no wonder the test scores are so poor! Guessing an answer that you know is wrong? That's bad man.

This guy had a question that went like this:
How many dominoes are in a standard "double six" set?

He used his "ask the audience" and his "50-50" lifeline to get it. Now I don't know the number off the top of my head but it's a matter of simple logic. Since it's a double six, if you have a six on one side, you can have either a 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0 on the other side. So in other words, the possibilities with a six on one side is equal to 7. For a five on one side would be 6, etc. The sum looks like this:
7+6+5+4+3+2+1
and I did that in my head really quickly and was shocked when a computer guy (who works with numbers and sequences if he's ever done any programming) was having problems with it! Just think about it a minute! It's not just a magical number, there is logic behind it!

He went with the audience which said it was 36 (most of them said so) and the correct answer was 28. I sitting here with my jaw open. He lost all that money on a simple logic question like that. A Computer Science guy too! Oh well. I think being on a gameshow would drive me nuts, all the contestants act like little children. That's another reason why I enjoy Jeopardy, the contestants act so intelligent, instead of screaming "come on, big money!" while clapping and screaming.

I digress, here's a few more quote that are pretty self explaining.

The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.
- Larry Hardiman

[Abstract art is] a product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
- Al Capp

Fig Newton: The force required to accelerate a fig 39.37 inches per sec.
- J. Hart

And I think it's time to say good night. I'll leave with a Homestar Runner cartoon as promised to Dark Warrior.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail80.html