#pre-calc example

[er-cryptid]

Synthetic Division [Ex. 2]

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[yuri-is-online]

How do you think Yuu’s otherworldly education compares in common subjects between Twisted Wonderland and Yuu’s world? Would a Yuu being 16 influence if the prefect is ahead in any classes? I’m sure this would be dependent on the standard age for levels in a school system and what kind of school system we are looking at.

I’m going to use math as an example for my rambling. Math isn’t a skill that requires any magical knowledge as a background, so Yuu could theoretically be ahead in that subject. (I have no clue what math skills are required by grade in a Japanese school which NRC is partially based on.)

Using my high school as an example. Our math courses followed the track: Algebra 1, Trigonometry, Algebra 2, Pre Calculus, and then AP Calculus or AP Statistics depending on the year. A freshman could easily make it into a higher math like Calculus before graduating if that person started farther along in the track.

So a Yuu (from the 4 year system of schools) could have been approaching a higher level of a subject at 16. And if Yuu’s math skills were better than the level of a first year, I’m not sure a placement test would have been offered to Yuu since that would require effort from Crowley Grim’s level would have to be accommodated on top of fitting Yuu’s schedule with normal first year classes. Which would be such a disservice to Yuu, even if the class being easy gives more time for the subjects that need to be learned from the ground up.

I have thought way too hard about this. I am sorry for the rabbit hole and the asks being so close together.

- 🦐

No need to apologize for sending asks shrimpy friend, you always have the nicest theories. You can spam me if you please.

We know from a few tidbits here and there that grade skipping is allowed, but it depends on where you are in Twisted Wonderland. Given that the original intent for Idia was to have him be a child prodigy who had speed ran his way into NRC, I would assume grade skipping is allowed by the school board, but well. You have already hit on the tiiiiny wittle issue with Yuu.

Grim and Yuu's grades are averaged, if I understand what Crowely says at the start of the game and Crewel's vignette correctly. The idea was that since Yuu would automatically fail any magic based classes, Grim would pick up the slack there and Yuu would be able to help him learn practical life skills. Yuu being smart probably would help them, but their other half would still need to be brought up to speed about things like basic math before Crowley would consent to let them jump ahead a year.

You are correct that this would be a disservice to Yuu. Deuce's dorm uniform vignette has him struggling to solve simultaneous equations. Ace and Cater both list this as a basic math skill they learned in middle school, meaning they are excepted to know this, so a Yuu who was in something like Calc or AP Stats would be in a very advantageous position... but they still would need to teach basic math to Grim and keep on him so he did his homework for his other classes.

So the TL;DR:

No Yuu being more advanced than the other freshmen probably wouldn't help them graduate faster. It might help them educate Grim faster, but this assumes he wants to work which he does not.

Yes this is almost entirely down to Crowley not wanting to put in effort and his decision to count Yuu and Grim as one student.

If we are being honest it probably is more convenient for Crowley to have Yuu be a first year given the work he wants them to do for him. He gets to keep them around longer that way lol.

[parichutes]

my pokemon take of the day is that if you think the physical / special split was bad you're just trying hard to have interesting takes.

I can agree it wasn't handled ideally; I'm a believer that a lot of pokemon if not all of them should've had their base stats re-examined post-split, but for devs on a deadline I can understand the choice not to when transferring from past gens could've been at risk.

Alakazam and Gengar lost the elemental punches and weren't given access to beams to make up for it, but like. boo-hoo the strongest special attackers in the game got nerfed? cry me a river. Gyarados gets access to STAB on ONE of its types now and has its own identity in battle rather than being the "outclassed by Tauros hyper-beam machine" of a single gen. the pokemon that benefit from the split gained more than what other pokemon lost.

We can talk about dodrio losing physical tri-attack and sceptile losing special leaf blade. We can talk about guys like sandslash losing their 10/10 combination of typing and physical defense.

But all of those things are either niche cases or have been fixed through obsolescence- for example sceptile gaining special moves energy ball and leaf storm that more than make up for losing its original signature move.

And these problems would have been better handled by just drawing a line at gen 4 and redistributing base stats. Totals can stay the same, and instances like sceptile being clearly a physical attacker despite its stats could have been amended.

And I've left the most important thing about the physical special split for last, which is that it's good because it actually tells you how battling, the most important element of the game, actually works. I didn't know which types were physical and which ones were special pre-split until I was an adult and decided to look it up. NOWHERE does it tell you. the split made the game mechanics more intuitive and unveiled how the game even works, and that alone is enough to convince me it's better this way. If gen 3 had an identifier, like future gens, of which stat each move used to calc damage, everyone would have wondered why it has to be split by typing. Just sayin.

[caddyheron]

every aaron headcanon ever. go

Oh anon, what you have unlocked… sorry for whoever reads all of these. (These are mostly bway but l can be generalised to 2024 / 2004 I think, but usually, 2024 Aaron is a different person to me.)

• He’s an older brother to a younger sister, middle school aged when he’s a senior. He tries to have a good relationship with her, but she’s very much a pre-teen girl who doesn’t really like to listen to him and his parents make him drive her around a lot.

• Weird relationship with his parents. His mom wanted him to get an amazing education at Northshore and is devastated and furious when she founds out that the school found out she lied about their address. His mom claims she wants the best for him, but really she just wants him to Be Good at something. His dad is just… a typical dad. He pushes Aaron for sport, says stuff things like “good job bud” and then sort of leaves him to his mom.

• Deeply, deeply mediocre at everything. He’s never gotten above a A in a class before, even if he works at it, his standard grades are Bs and always have been. He doesn’t have a class that’s “his” in the same way Cady has AP calc, for example; he just takes classes and does okay in them. It fucks with his self esteem so much because he’s never going to be anything other than average.

• Four season athlete to try and make up for his crippling mediocrity but he’s just… average at that too. Coach Carr sort of hates him and benches him a lot.

• He does genuinely enjoy soccer though, and is friends with a lot of the people on the team. When he was younger, that was his main activity, he really enjoys it, even if he’s just okay at it.

• A very, very long list of allergies: pollen, animal fur, peanuts, tree nuts, penicillin, dust and Regina’s hand cream. He doesn’t talk about any of them to Cady when they first start dating because he can’t handle being “flawed”.

• His entire time with Regina was spent being her trophy, a prize, the caricature of a perfect person, so he doesn’t know how to be anything else for a long time. If he isn’t perfect for her, a perfect boyfriend, then he is truly nothing at all.

• Post-Regina, he starts having panic attacks. He was a sort of anxious person before and during, but after Regina, he starts having panic attacks he can’t control even a little and he is so embarrassed by them because he can’t stop it. And he can’t reach out for help.

• Ms Norbury has taught him every year of high school and she’s such a comfort teacher for him; after he breaks up with Regina for the second time, he comes to class looking dazed and pale and tired, so she makes him sit down with her afterwards and talk to her about exactly what happened.

• Neurotypical but has many, many food aversions. For a while, he eats only soup and crackers because he’s so anxious and neither are too strong tasting and don’t upset his stomach.

• Speaking of soup, he and Cady frequent Olive Garden for their dates because of the free soup refills and Cady is obsessed with their breadsticks. There’s a week where they go every single day after school, no one knows why, but they do know they’re concerned for Aaron and Cady.

• Gets frequent nose bleeds and announces them with “oh. nosebleed”.

• Develops a friendship with Janis post canon because they can bond over Regina trauma. Janis teases Aaron for every single thing he does, but is also fiercely protective of him and helpful when he needs it. But she does call him a “wet cat” and “the lost puppy dog who follows Cady around” on a daily basis.

• Wears his letterman jacket so often Cady wonders if he owns any other clothes.

• He has super warm hands unless he’s anxious, then they’re freezing cold. This is how Cady knows he needs help, because he usually overheats really easily and his hands are so hot, but if they’re cold, he knows somethings wrong.

• Gets sunstroke like it’s nobody’s business. He bypasses sun burn and goes straight to heat stroke almost every single time the group go out somewhere in the summer, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it.

• Barely drinks alcohol unless he feels like there’s social pressure to do it. He doesn’t voluntarily drink very much, but at parties he likes to especially because it makes him feel “normal”. When he was dating Regina, he drank a lot more but Regina never let him drink enough he was a mess.

• Can’t drink soda because the bubbles hurt his mouth and make him so uncomfortable. He drinks the occasional coke if he’s feeling really brave.

• He frequently feels more like an object than a person. Especially when he was dating Regina - he almost had to gain her permission to feel because he couldn’t be too much, he was a side prize and she was the centre of it all. He spent a lot of his time forcibly numbing himself until he felt like a shell. So, so easily manipulated when he was like that.

• Lactose intolerant but doesn’t tell Cady because he doesn’t want to have flaws. Cady finds out after they go on a date and then they get ice cream afterwards. [Which Aaron only ever eats from a tub.]

• After a zoo date goes wrong (petting zoo + his allergies… bad), Cady suggests they go to an aquarium next time, and they both have such an amazing time. Cady buys him a little fish plush because he bought her a cat plush when they were at the zoo. Iykyk, but that’s where the ship name catfish comes from!

• Terrified of spiders, which Cady finds so confusing because she loves all animals!

[Cady, smiling: it doesn’t bite!!!

Aaron, shaking: idontcareidontcare

Cady: AWW LOOK IT MOVES!!!

Aaron, hyperventilating: pleasetakeitawayplease]

• He once broke his arm but never realised because he just assumed it was sprained and he was in a normal amount of pain. His mom didn’t listen to him so he assumed it was fine, until several weeks later, the pain is so severe he’s holding it so limply that Ms Norbury points it out and he explains it and she sends him to the nurse immediately who phones his mom and he eventually needs to get it rebroken. He’s out of sport for ages.

• Hates the sea so much, Cady has to forcibly drag him in. Does not love it when he’s in the sea either:

• Is painfully aware of his own normalcy. He’s, overall, a plot device in every iteration and therefore a plot device in his own life. He’s exactly how he’s interpreted to be and exactly what people want. He’s on the outside of every single event, until he’s brought to the middle and needed immediately. I can expand on this point at some point because I feel so strongly about analytical interpretations of Aaron that go beyond hc post.

Bonus 😭

• 2024 Aaron specifically but he hates fairground rides and anything that is too high or spins too fast. He gets dizzy so easily and I once described him as a “feeble victorian women stuck in a 17 year old boys body.”

Thank you <3 im sure I can add more to these eventually, but it’s just off the top of my head. Feel free to send thoughts / own aaron hcs too!!’

[gren-arlio]

We are so back. Well, I somewhat am. Welcome to Episode 11 of (Waku) Puyo Extras.

(What a lovely image of Rulue and Minotauros as a team. Surely nothing bad will bestow him...seriously, this image is amazing.)

Hey everyone, Gren here, back from my break. It was a nice break, and I was able to focus on schoolwork. We don't talk about my Pre-Calc grade (just know I got a C) but I got an A in every other class. This episode is a little late because I was focused on the Splatoon 3 Splatfest (I was Team Handshake, GGS to all,) but it's here nevertheless.

As the year is slowly coming to an end, my workload increases. I think this'll be the last Extras episode until the NEW Episode of Waku Puyo Translations. Which means me dying to Kikimora text. Fun, yeah? Yeah.

So, with my absence, what game will we cover this time around? Well it's one I've mentioned a couple of times, which is...actually kind of nice, no researching history for me; Rulue's Spring Break of Fists...or Rulue's Iron-Fist Spring Break. For today, I'll use the first version.

This game is thankfully one of the easier ones to get footage of. Besides, the game itself is fairly interesting with its current casting, with people that you don't really see every day. And hey, this is the first time we've properly covered Rulue here, so there's a first for everything.

With this, I really hope you enjoy this and my derusting of my skills.

Oh, and random thing. My account turned 2 recently, though I began posting...in April of this year? Wahoo.

What's the Origins for the Game itself?

Similar to many games I've covered here (if only I had a good computer, I would probably make a funny YouTube series,) Rulue's Spring Break of Fists is a Disc System game released on Volume 14 of Disc Station Magazines in 1997.

(The opening to the game. Nothing amazing, but certainly an...opening?)

The game itself is somewhat of a Choose Your Own Adventure game, with you playing as the lady herself, Rulue. Here, you get to...choose your own adventure. There's three main things you can do:

Find the five divine treasures.

Explore the land. Or "The Wonderful Land".

Gather ingredients to cook.

It's interesting how the character most associated with fighting has a game where... you kinda don't fight unless it's a very specific circumstance, which I'll get into later.

Visually, I won't deny, it depends from person to person. If you like the 90s Moe eyes, then this artstyle is genuinely amazing, but if not, lotta characters look weird.

(This is a prime example, with Kikimora. Her eyes are huge, and personally I like them, but I can totally see why someone doesn't.)

So for this episode, I'll throw a question/poll:

This'll last a week, and I'm curious to see.

-----

How About Gameplay?

Something I want to note for this game is that in this... there's a LOT of different dialog choices. You're gonna have split paths all the time, though to my knowledge, they more just impede you until you guess right...or get a bad ending.

(Something like this. Also, rare Black Kikimora appearance, though...with an item Rulue gets, she transforms back into Kiki? It's odd.)

Whilst exploring and doing the routes, something you'll note is that there's a lot of quizzes, questionnaires, etc. Now why does this matter?

Because some of these questions are fucking hilarious man

What do I mean? Well, y'all know Momomo? Silly little shopkeeper? Well, they ask you a question for a quiz, and guess what the question is?

How much Yen will it cost to buy Disc Station Magazine Vol. 1 through 13 on their online store?

(This is Rulue trying to solve that question. Lowkey...I forgot the answer.)

This guy really thinks I know. And I think inflation has really made these prices seem cheap in the long run...

Oh, and another question, one I've mentioned before. You encounter Witch in one of the routes (oh boy), and she gives you a quiz also, albeit one that's...certainly biased towards her, asking stuff is "How cool am I?" And them sorta deals. Though, one question is literally "What is the size of my top?"

This game loves its odd questions.

-----

So, What's the Story? Well, Stories?

Well, simply put, apparently this game is after Chaotic Final Exam, and is MUCH calmer than said game. People from the game apparently have new personalities due to the events of the game, and Rulue...is delivering letters given via Masked Prince.

As stated prior, there's three routes in this game:

Characters that appear on all routes are Arle, Rulue, Masked Prince, and I believe Momomo.

Route A:

Rulue sets to find 5 magic items. Most notable characters here are Apparently Schezo, Serilly, Draco, Minotauros, and shockingly, Count and Vamp.

(Quite the shock, eh?)

This route...is certainly interesting. Between seeing Mino battered and bloodied by a fight, a literal possessed Arle by Count (or Vamp,) you FIGHTING Arle due to that, same deal goes for Schezo, he also got possessed, and a final fight with Count if he was overly buff...it's certainly one hellva route.

(This is...wow. What an experience.)

Route B:

Rulue, with envelopes given via Masked Prince, has one of them stolen by something, and she goes to investigate it. Getting sucked into a "Wonderland," younalso get some backstory about Rulue, notably hearing her grandmother. I'll tell y'all, I was given help by people who work on the Puyo Nexus and other Puyo Translations:

Rulue and her grandmother were very close, and she gave Rulue a music box when she was about 5 years old, under a Sakura tree. When she turned 6, her grandmother fell ill, and Rulue, upset that she wasn't spending time with her on her birthday, breaks the music box.

However, when Rulue sleeps, she has a dream about her grandmother, with her saying to not be upset with her...and when Rulue woke up, she felt like she'd never see her grandmother again.

(Edit:

Notable characters here are Kikimora and Black Kikimora, Serilly, Rulue's grandmother, and Demon Servant. Yeah, he's alive in this game.

I forgot to credit the main person who did this part, @klug. That's completely on me, my apologies. They did help quite a good bit for this, so thank them for the research and info. Wouldn't have gotten this without them. Again, apologies for not putting credit.

Here's their Puyo Nexus page. Go check em out.)

(YOU'RE ALIVE IN THIS GAME?)

So you know when I said this game was a lot more casual? I look real silly saying that now.

Route C:

Easily the most casual route, Rulue...is trying to cook. The grill calls for her name. I'm not joking when I say that the only characters here are Momomo and Witch. I guess Witch can cook?

This route is uh, odd. You spent most of the time doing quizzes and route splits because...I guess Witch and Momomo feel devious today. This route is notable for Witch asking that question in her quiz and only having 5 endings...Yep. 5 endings.

Something I've neglected is the ending to these routes.

There's about 30 of them.

Yeah. Good luck.

(Autism be damned, Witch can apparently cook. Just have fun on the quiz.)

-----

So, The OST and Final Verdict?

The games ost is honestly decent. I can't describe it well but a lot of the music is just flat out solid, with no real complaints here. I'd say check it out at least.

And the final verdict?

The game itself is honestly very fun to browse and look around. The game gives us Rulue lore RANDOMLY that I'll gladly accept, Demon Servant, Count, and Vamp make an appearance, and the game, while confusing, is really fun to watch.

I'd say for Disc Station, it's very solid.

With that...that'll be all for today. Next week I won't post due to Thanksgiving and spending time with my family, but next time we meet, we'll finally continue our Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon translations after SO long.

See y'all then. Hope you enjoyed the show.

[buggbuzz]

Hii :). I know it’s a bit of a random question but I’m thinking of becoming a biology major and since you are one of those would you mind sharing a little (or a lot) about what it’s like?

YESSS OKAY!!

technically i'm a biotechnology major, so i'll have some more specific requirements, but right now i'm still in the general biology stage, so it's pretty much the same.

things to note:

if your college is anything like mine, you're gonna need to do biology AND chemistry for a little while. you'll also need to have your math classes covered; pre-calc was my last math requirement, and yours probably will be too

colleges! like! to! scam! you! for example, i'm working on my associate's right now, a "two year" degree. EXCEPT they set the curriculum up for FIVE semesters instead of four. pre-calc was required for bio 1 and chem 1, and i needed to do three bio classes and four chem classes in order. no matter what i did, i'd still have to do more than four semsters. my point? be prepared for stupid stuff like this. plan out all of your semesters to the best of your ability ahead of time so you can avoid being put in a tight spot. check your major's class requirements to make sure you know what you have to do. enroll in your classes the second they're available. and, you'd probably benefit from taking bio, chem, and math ap courses in high school.

biology is a LOT OF READING and it moves VERY QUICKLY!! so much reading. and if you're like me, and you don't really have an issue with reading a lot of dense biology material, don't get cocky. try to stay on the ball and study your textbooks at an even pace, not in huge last-minute bursts; your brain will get overwhelmed and fried REALLY fast.

i've found that one of the best ways to memorize biology is to understand each concept from multiple angles, and to understand how all the pieces go together. other good techniques are remembering interesting little tidbits, making analogies for everything, and connecting things you learn to other things you already know.

biology is also very visual and reminds me a lot of a rube-goldberg machine. think about how all the different moving pieces fit together. drawing out all the diagrams, looking up information about things mentioned offhand, and looking up extra diagrams and images can help a lot. of course, this is coming from an artist and a visual learner, so take that with a grain of salt. (on my instagram i have two different story highlights of my note-taking method! i have a lot of drawings and strategic methods there, so it might help to take a look)

as you can expect, the labs are really gross. i've got a stomach of steel and think parasitic worms are cute, so i'm a lot better off than most people, but even i hit my limits sometimes. you're gonna be shoving your fingers into organs and getting body fluids and fecal matter all over your fingers. also, the smell is unfathomably horrible. i'm serious about that. i've never smelled something so horrible in my entire life. also also im pretty sure the preservative fluid is toxic when consumed, so don't, like, put your mouth on anything dead.

make friends with your classmates, especially your lab partners! having eachother's backs and being able to comfortably collaborate will do your grades, stress levels, and lab performance all a huge favor. scientists are actually really easy to make friends with, too (at least biologists anyways). if you start chatting about different cool biology things you can make friends pretty quickly.

a lot of the practical things in lab are actually more complicated than they look. i went to an art high school and took ap bio after covid, so all of the few experiments we actually had ended up being dried up or cut from the curriculum. the only thing i had real experience with was microscopes because i actually have one at home. so, my first actual lab in college i had to trap a planarian in a slide with a dip in the center, and i shattered like four slide covers trying to set it up (SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING 💀💀💀). it also didn't help that everyone else had actually taken bio 1 in college and had experience with lab equipment already, yeesh. you pick it up fast, though.

you eventually start learning about organ systems. let me tell you something, it is such a goddamn mindfuck to learn about how your body works as its working. you feel like a sentient AI learning about circuitry and programming for the first time. it's pretty useful, though, as far as medical things as concerned, both physical and mental. you're kinda forced to be more aware of your own health.

still, im ecstatic that i'm majoring in bio. absolutely the best thing EVER. i learn something new every goddamn day, and this fall im taking a GENETICS CLASS, my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THING. i absolutely recommend majoring in biology.

[biochemsitry]

So I was wondering if anyone can explain this to me. I doubt anyone can but it's at least an interesting story I think. (Disclaimer: if you aren't a math person, this might be pretty confusing, but I will try to explain stuff.)

I'm sitting in my 300 level calc 1 class. We're learning about instantaneous velocity and limits and the like, not super hard stuff. This is the fourth class period we've had so it hasn't gotten to the hard stuff yet.

By the way, I go to a tiny private university. I'm one of 5 students in this class. My uni is, um, known for not being great with math-- we literally have two math profs in total. Two. I think we have 3 math majors in total, and all three are in this class. The fourth is math ed. I'm biochem.

Back to what happened today. Our prof, let's call her Dr. H, is explaining limits (for non-math or science ppl, it involved lots of graphs and functions and letters). The freshman math ed major, let's call him J, is very confused and raises his hand. "What does f(x) mean?" he asks.

Dr. H pauses, unsure of how to answer. The other 4 students, including me, try to explain f(x) to J. Dr. H ends up drawing a graph on the whiteboard to explain that f(x) often, at least at the level we're at and with the stuff we're talking about, is the same as y. f(x)=x is the same as y=x. f(x)=3x-1 is the same as y=3x-1.

J seems to be satisfied with this explanation, so Dr. H continues the lecture. A few minutes later, she gives an example problem with both f(x) and g(x). J is now more confused than ever.

"Wait, what's g(x)?" he asks.

"g(x) is the same as y in this situation," Dr. H answers.

"But I thought f(x) was y."

At this point, we're all looking at J in disbelief. For people who don't know, g(x), f(x), h(x), etc. in graphing are all representative of y on a graph, at least typically, and at least in contexts like this.

Dr. H pauses, then says, "I think we need to have a conversation about functions after class."

Now, don't get me wrong. Functions can be hard. If you're not a math person, it's easy to go without knowing what they are. I'm not trying to put anyone down for not knowing what they are. My mom never got past algebra 1 and either never learned them or has completely forgotten about them. But then again, my 16yo brother with severe discalcula (math dyslexia, basically) knows at least about functions and he's barely even done pre-algebra...

But this kid made it into calculus apparently without any knowledge of functions, which (I think???) are usually taught at the algebra 1 level (so about 8th-9th grade, or 13-15yo, at least in the US. It's usually younger in other countries though, at least from what I gather?). It's not something you'd learn at age 14 and never use again until college-- most maths from algebra 1 and up use functions pretty much all the time. But this freshie is, like, 17-18, and a math ed major, who must have either klepped out of lower math courses, or had gotten a high enough score on the ACT/SAT to be able to go directly into calc 1. This guy's smart-- he seems to be really good at math other than functions. I just have absolutely no idea how he made it into calc without knowing about functions. Just... how?????

(In case anyone's wondering, we absolutely did NOT try to make J feel bad. None of us students even said anything about it afterwards at all. We just don't do that. Dr. H was very kind in how she handled the situation, too. Never make a person feel bad for not knowing something. I'm not making fun of him by posting this, either; I'm just very confused lol. I doubt he'll see this, and if he does, I doubt he'll know it's me talking about him. He's a smart guy, and I'm not blaming him for his lack of knowledge on functions. I'm mostly just wondering how his HS teachers neglected to teach him about such a basic and important part of math.)

[zerodaryls]

tagged by @jazzandpizazz, thank you!

1. Are you named after anyone? I named myself, and no, not really, lol. though I did have partial inspiration from Riley from National Treasure because he was the nerdy comic relief character and I was like "that's me". So. Sort of?? But not really. I was just looking for examples of guys named Riley to make sure it wasn't all women. aND THEN DISNEY CAME ALONG WITH THEIR STUPID EMOTIONS MOVIE AND EVERYONE DECIDED TO NAME THEIR DAUGHTER RILEY AND NOW IT'S NOT AS MASC/NEUTRAL A NAME AS IT USED TO BE AND BARISTAS KEEP SPELLING IT "RYLIE" WITH LITTLE HEARTS OVER THE "i". >:(

2. When was the last time you cried? ummm over a movie probably but I don't remember what. Jurassic Park III, I think lol.

3. Do you have kids? yes, a cat and a rabbit.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? ehh an average amount probably

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people? idk, appearance probably? like before I know them.

6. What’s your eye color? blue

7. Scary movies or happy endings? happy endings. but like, if it fits the narrative and makes the point of the story more powerful then a good sad ending is nice. (see: A Single Man)

8. Any special talents? er... no? maybe being able to say "llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobyllllantysiliogogogoch". though that's probably not as impressive to Welsh folks, lol.

9. Where were you born? California (in the boring middle part)

10. What are your hobbies? thinking about fictional characters, writing about fictional characters, watching fictional characters... walking, playing dress-up in my room lol

11. Have you any pets? a cat and a rabbit. they are my children.

12. What sports do you play/ have played? none currently. played softball for two non-consecutive years in elementary and middle school. and now I'm queer and trans. slippery slope, y'all. /j

13. How tall are you? like 5'6.5" (~169cm)

14. Favorite subject in school? ASL or art. maaaybe math but definitely not when it got complicated like pre-calc lol.

15. Dream job? I do not dream of labor. (lol, but genuinely... I wish I could just be paid to volunteer with various causes. like, 3 days a week I would volunteer at an animal shelter, 2 days a week I'd help elderly people, etc.)

Tagging anyone who wants to do this, just say I tagged you :P

[animezinglife]

^Even if the JC classes do transfer, they may very well transfer as an elective credit you don’t need rather than your four-year school’s course equivalent. Which too often means not only will you essentially be taking your course over, but that you now have an elective that may or may not even count towards your degree plan. Some schools offer public online course credit transfer guides and equivalency information--which is obviously great as they’re making the effort to be transparent, but it can still be confusing for students. Too many of my engineering students for example learned that the hard way as freshmen because they’d take courses like “Pre-Engineering” at a JC or VoTech or something more specified that ended up having nothing to do with their degree plans once they actually got to college. 

That said, your baseline courses like Comp I & II, College Algebra/Algebra I, Calc I, etc. will transfer consistently as an equivalent--it’s in those tried-and-true staples where the JCs shine for high school students.

You run a lot more risk with AP even beyond transfer equivalency: usually you’ll see a 3 in AP Calc be the minimum for transfer credits into an engineering program, but truthfully and depending on the program, that might be closer to a C or D equivalent in the actual course (though it doesn’t get applied as a letter grade). It’s just not the best or most accurate indicator of success, even if AP students most typically are already strong students.

For the arts and humanities, my stance has less to do with articulation technicalities and more to do with experience. You can often miss the opportunity to take classes in the subject areas you enjoy most (or develop new love/interest in) and soak up the knowledge of someone outside your norm if you just test and CLEP out of everything. I tested out of quite a few basics but still had an hours requirement to meet, so I kind of wish I’d gone the concurrent/dual credit option for some of them in retrospect.

Public schools absolutely waste massive amounts of time on even the curricula level, and they’re getting worse instead of better. Homework is arguably the biggest waste of everyone involved’s time.

Let’s all take a moment and thank modern family for this

[sleepybutalrightiguess]

Dear fifth grader me,

You’re supposed to be doing your math homework right now, aren’t you? How long have you been sitting there, staring at the screen? You haven’t finished a single assignment today, have you? I remember being so mad at myself for not just doing the work. It was so easy. I was in advanced math for a reason. Even with all my problems with homework, I’m still skilled enough at math to stay ahead of the curb, getting to pre-calc honors in sophomore year while Rhiannon was in regular pre-calc that same year. It hasn’t really sunk in that I was in a higher level math class then my older sister, who is an entire grade ahead of me.

But with math being easy for us, there was absolutely no reason you wouldn’t be able to get your homework done, right? It would be so easy to just do it and be done with it. You know the math, and it’s not like it's hard. Why won’t you just do it? Why won’t you just focus. Close that stupid Youtube tab and do your homework. You need to get it done. Focus. You are already 57 assignments behind. Focus. You don’t need a break. You’ve been on Youtube this whole time. Focus. It’s not that hard. You just have to focus.

Why. Won’t. You. FOCUS?!

Except it is that hard. Your problem is not the math, we both know that. And if it really was that easy for you, it would be done. It isn’t that you are stupid, or lesser. It’s that, with how you're going right now, you physically can’t focus. You clearly don’t want to be watching stupid videos on Youtube instead of getting your homework done. If that was what you wanted to be doing, you wouldn’t be mentally yelling at yourself and calling yourself useless. You do need a break, one that isn’t on Youtube. You need to step away from the laptop. You need to take a breath, and understand that you're not stupid, or a bad kid, or useless, or anything else. It doesn’t matter how little work you get done due to your distraction, or how many late assignments you have, or anything else.

The problem isn’t even that you aren’t trying hard enough, it’s that you are neurodivergent. We have ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. There are multiple parts to it, some good and some bad (a tendency to ramble, for example), but there is one large part that is important for you specifically to know. People with ADHD struggle with focusing on things that aren’t interesting or that are repetitive/monotonous. Things like, I don’t know, doing the same types of boring equations that you've been working on the whole unit on the same website with only one format and only one style. It would be especially hard if you were on a chromebook with nobody watching you and it only took one click and two keys to open up a website with easy to digest, colorful stories of the characters and tropes you really like, each story being unique and interesting. With retrospect, It is really obvious why Mathia was such a struggle. (Good news though, we never have to do Mathia again after 6th grade.) (Unless they suddenly bring it back in college.) (I really hope they don’t.) (I don’t hate it as much after 5 years of not having to do it, but I probably would if I had to do it again.)

“It is NOT YOUR FAULT that you CAN’T–not won’t but CAN’T–focus on getting your homework done.”

My point is that it is not your fault that you struggle so hard with finishing your homework. Say it with me. It is NOT YOUR FAULT that you CAN’T focus on getting your homework done. And because it is not your fault, you don’t have to deal with it alone. I know it feels like it is your problem, and that there is no reason for it besides your own bad decisions, but this is not something that you can fix on your own through force of will, especially when you are guilt-tripping yourself the whole time. Trust me, I tried. I tried for years, and my grades suffered from it. My mental health suffered from it. That mindset you’ve built, that you need to handle it all on your own, that you can handle it on your own without changing, that mom and dad will be mad at you for saying you can’t do it like you are mad at yourself, that reaching out for help would be a waste of their time because you can do it alone if you just force yourself to get it done–it’s something that I am still wrestling with. There is a reason it took so long for me to accept a psych evaluation and even longer to admit that I needed meds for it.

Those ideas that you are fostering are both wrong and harmful. You can’t strongarm your way through this. There are things that we can do on our own to help (music is always a good idea, and if something is really boring and repetitive, it is a good idea to have an idle game playing next to your assignment so it feels less like you are just doing homework and more like you are messing around as you wait for what you need in game), but you will never try those if you refuse to accept that it is not a lack of effort that you are struggling with.

It is also important to note that you can’t get work done unless you are either interested in what you are working on or if you don’t have at least some energy and motivation to do it. Trying to do the boring assignments while feeling guilty, bored, and like you won’t be able to do anything fun or make any progress that day is only going to make things worse. In those times, find a way to make the work interesting, like the ideas from earlier in the last paragraph. On that note, you also need to step away from the chromebook. Being distracted does NOT count as a break. You keep guilt-tripping yourself about the distraction, which is emotionally draining. On top of that, being on a screen for too long makes our mind feel like it's trying to swim through syrup, making it even harder to work. Step away from the chromebook, the device that holds both the horribly boring Mathia and the guilt-ridden distractions. Try to make up stories, read a book, maybe try drawing something, see if you can find someone to play a short game with you. The important thing is to get away from the screen and do something fun for a while. It is much harder to work if you have no positive emotion to work with.

Also, for the love of all that is good, ask for help.

The longer you push others away and lie to them to try and force yourself to push Sisyphis’s boulder, the harder it will be to ask for help in the future. It is still hard to go to teachers and ask for a bit more time on assignments, it is still hard to go to our parents to get advice on what I should prioritize and what I shouldn’t worry about when overwhelmed, and it is hard to be willing to work where others can see what your doing so they can help you stay focused. Those are just some of the things I still struggle with. Like I said before, it was really hard for me to accept that I needed therapy and medication for this because “If I just try harder, I will be able to force my way through this.” No matter how many times you run into a brick wall or how hard you shove your body against it, the wall won’t be what breaks.

Instead of breaking all of your bones, grab a freaking ladder.

I know it isn’t that easy (I am the one who had to grab it, after all), and I still don’t have all the rungs, I may never have them all, but the sooner you reach out and try something else, the sooner you can start making progress and recovering instead of hurting yourself while staying stuck in place, barely staying above the surface. The longer you stay there, the harder it becomes to move past it. I know it hurts right now. I know how much it hurts to hear them be disappointed in you for missing another assignment, for lying again, but I promise they aren’t mad at you. At least not in the way you are. I know all of the horrible things you have told yourself sitting in front of that stupid screen, trying to brute force your way into doing something you can’t. I know how every completed assignment makes you feel like you can finish, you just aren't trying hard enough, but you are. You are fighting as hard as you can, thinking that you are just being lazy. It is okay to not be able to focus on just that one stupid website daily. It is ok to struggle with all of the rest of your homework too. It gets easier, I promise. It gets worse before it gets better, and it takes a lot of time and work, but it gets easier.

Sincerely, you highschool senior self

[er-cryptid]

Matrix Multiplication - Ex. 2

Patreon

[polaraaace]

Tales of my Calculus 2 professor because I’m still not sure how I feel about the guy

Opened the first class by telling us that he failed Calc 2 the first time he took it and barely scraped through the second time. This ended up being much more encouraging than it should have been

He spoke so. Slowly. And punctuated his lectures with. Dramatic pauses. Which sounds great, and it did set a pace that wasn’t overwhelming, but it was extremely distracting and it caused me to start thinking of him as Professor Shatner

I had taken Calc 1 online with a different school than my community college, so I was a little apprehensive about any possible differences in the curricula. I emailed my professor asking to meet during his office hours the day after the first lecture but never got a reply. I assumed he’d be there during his pre-posted office hours, so I showed up and waited 30 minutes. He finally answered my email saying there would be no office hours that day with no further explanation

After that, I brought my Calc 1 notes to the second Calc 2 lecture. He skimmed through it—including looking closely at the very last page, which summarized everything I had learned about integration up to that point, and simply said “this is great note-taking! Keep it up this semester!”

The day before the first test, I was studying in my school’s math tutoring center when I realized I had no idea how to integrate the square root of x squared plus nine. I called over Professor Shatner for help since he was nearby, and he said “that’s u-substitution,” like I should know what that was. (In his defense he thought I should have since the college I was at for calc 2 covered it at the end of calc 1, though the college I did calc 1 with covered it at the beginning of calc 2.) When I asked “what’s u-substitution?” he told me to get on Khan Academy and resumed eating his lunch. He managed to deliver that whole interaction without seeming rude at all, just preoccupied by his casserole

The next day I emailed him explaining the school difference situation (again) and asking for lectures on the topic I’d missed. He was really nice and sent over a couple of his own recorded lectures. I fully intended to watch these but never did because by the time I remembered I had picked up what I needed to know by watching Professor Shatner do u-substitution problems like the class already knew how to do them

He would let us ask for help with calc 1 stuff (except for u-substitution) on tests

The standards for homework were kind of insane. He would assign a list of problems at the start of every unit, and we had to turn in either a stapled packet or email him a PDF of our work on the day of the test. It had to be “professional,” but he refused to elaborate on what that meant. He did show us an example from last semester and mention that he had docked a point because the student didn’t leave enough space between words

Told us to use Desmos for any graphs because he “didn’t want to see (our) ugly scribbled graphs”

His wedding was the Thursday we were supposed to start the second unit, but he had scheduled that and his honeymoon so that he could be back the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, that’s not quite how it played out—his flight home got delayed a day, and then he got sick, so he returned to campus a week later than he’d planned. He later said he’d missed 13 days of work, which was more than he’d ever done before, and the only way that was possible is if he counted weekends as work days

I was kind of shocked when I found out he had married a woman

I had a field trip for another class the day of the second test, so he scheduled an appointment with me to take it the day after

Unfortunately, because I was taking 18 units, reading some pretty dense books for fun, and kind of depressed, I barely studied for the second test and didn’t even come close to finishing the homework. It didn’t help that I struggled with that chapter to begin with and Professor Shatner’s extended absence meant we had to teach ourselves from recorded lectures through a lot of it

I came into his office the day before I was supposed to take the test on the verge of tears to explain the situation and ask if I could just skip the test and get a 0 on the whole unit “to spare us both.” He looked at me like I was suggesting he throw me out a window and said gently, “just take the test at the time we scheduled and you’ll do what you can”

I showed up the next day at the time we agreed on in the room we agreed on and he wasn’t there. I waited 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. Nothing. I checked his office repeatedly. I went around peeking into every classroom in the math building. I emailed him, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. I finally started asking every math faculty member I could find if they knew where Professor Shatner might be. They had no clue. Hours after the scheduled time, he replied to my email saying he wasn’t on campus that day and set another time for me to take the test

I tried to use the extra time to study but it wasn’t enough. I came into the room, sat down, and started crying silently as I fumbled through the test knowing I was going to fail. I had written “I’m so sorry :( I promise I’ll do better next time” on the homework as a pre-emptive measure, and I apologized again on the test

I did fail that test. Badly. But I did the math to check and he gave me the minimum number of points needed to keep me above an overall failing grade, and when I brought up the possibility of dropping the course he encouraged me to see it through despite just having warned the whole class that if we thought we might fail we should drop and retake it

He also allowed people who had dropped the class to keep attending the lectures so they could keep up and be prepared for when they retook it

He didn’t let us keep our tests after they were graded. If we wanted to go over them, we had to do it there in class or schedule office hours with him

The one time I scheduled office hours with him to go over a test, he wasn’t there. I had to use process of elimination to track him down to the math tutoring center

On the third homework assignment, he only gave me a 14/15 because I hadn’t drawn the arrows on a graph exactly how he wanted me to but didn’t leave any notes or comments on my work explaining what I did wrong until I directly asked him. I’m still pissed about that

When I asked him if I should skip math the semester after and re-teach myself calc 2, he told me I should charge straight into calc 3 and specifically wanted me in his class. His lecture didn’t fit with my schedule but his help and encouragement

He would go off on tangents about how AI was going to change everything and he was worried about how it would jeopardize his students’ future careers, but he also encouraged us to use things like Wolfram Alpha to help teach ourselves

Loved to say that math was a language, which really resonated with me. Unfortunately, this led to some jarring quirks like him ending every problem with a period because he compared equations to sentences

Attendance/participation wasn’t mandatory and he recorded all of his lectures and uploaded them to Canvas, but still had a very high attendance rate

When I brought up the idea of skipping math for a semester to re-teach myself Calc 2, he encouraged me to push forward into calc 3 even though my major didn’t require it. I trusted him, so here I am now. I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or not

When I ran into him just before my first calc 3 test this semester, he told me, “come back and tell me about it when you get that big A!” I ended up getting a C, but his faith in me is still helping

[motleyfam]

A quick FAQ based on the responses so far!

1) You ONLY get the money if you get 100% on the test. One single mistake and you get nothing.

2) There is no penalty if you fail the test (aside from the crushing weight of disappointment at the knowledge that you missed out on $50,000 because you forgot a stupid negative sign or whatever), so you might as well try it.

3) To people asking what the heck “Algebra 2” is— in the American education system, we typically split algebra instruction into two, separate, year-long classes: Algebra 1 for the basic concepts, and then Algebra 2 for the more advanced concepts. Both classes are considered high school level courses.

4) I didn’t include anything higher than pre-calc because I was trying to choose classes are generally considered to be around the same level of difficulty, while also giving a variety.

5) You get a list of formulas, but you do NOT get any notes or examples. You need to know what the formulas mean and how to apply them yourself.

6) Yes, you get a calculator.

7) You get ZERO study time. The second you see this poll, I am slapping the test down in front of you.

8) To the show-offs people asking if they can take multiple tests to earn more money: sure, but ONLY on the condition that you bet the $50,000 you just won that you’ll get 100% on the next test too. If you win, you get $100,000 and the chance to bet it all again on the third test. But if you get even ONE single question wrong, you’re back to zero and the game is over. You cannot play again.

[mathemadept]

Pre Christmas Exam Vibes

Academic, Physics (Classical Mechanics): Basic Lagrangian Overview

NB: none of this should be taken as any type of academic resource, I'm still just in my second year of a 4 year theoretical physics degree. The information in this post might have errors, if there are glaring mistakes I'd appreciate any feedback.

The latex wont display correctly unless you read the post from here

Exams are just around the corner, days are getting shorter, and there's still so much revision left for me to do by the end of this week. The intensity and density of material this term is much greater than last year. Even though one can't truly devise a measurement of intensity, it definitely feels like there has been a geometric increase. So far this semester I have taken classes in 4 subjects from the school of physics and 3 from the school of mathematics.

I have a feeling the majority of my time until the day exams start is going to be spent self learning material I may have missed in lectures throughout the semester. As a STEM student, the only way to truly improve is to do as many practise problems as you can. I know this. I am fully aware of this fact. Nevertheless I find it increasingly difficult to initiate studying.

I'm procrastinating at the moment so this post is just going to be a small info dump of some ACM.

Advanced Classical Mechanics and the Lagrangian

so far this year the most difficult subject I've had to wrap my head around has been Advanced Classical Mechanics. The course this semester has consisted mostly of an introduction to the Lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics, a surprisingly old study but with many innovations in the field having occurred only during the 20th century. Noether's Theory, which connects symmetries in the Lagrangian with conservation laws, is perhaps the most glaring example of the modern developments that took place during the beginning of the last century.

The maths involved in the course is pretty simple/ rudimentary, just some basic linear algebra for harmonic oscillators and some single and multivariable calc ( all stuff covered last term). The most difficult part of ACM so far has just been how different it is to Newtonian mechanics. In some sense the mathematical formalism makes it easier: there is less to remember and the majority boils down to constructing a valid expression for the lagrangian, but it takes more creativity to analyse a question correctly.

It is interesting to note that Lagrangian mechanics is a more fundamental idea/representation of the universe than Newtonian physics, in fact The entirety of Newtonian dynamics can be seen as a specific case of the more general Lagrangian formulation. I say this as the concept of the Lagrangian is not restricted to macroscopic dynamical systems but also extends to relativistic and quantum mechanical interactions.

Lagrangian Mechanics

Lagrangian mechanics, whose basis lies in the principle of least action, is such an incredibly powerful tool. It has honestly become one of my favourite concepts in physics so far due to its simplicity, generality and conceptual beauty. With the Lagrangian and implementation of the Euler Lagrange equation you can derive the equations of motion of a system, combining with noether's theory we can also find conserved quantities of the system. Of course, the most difficult part of the Lagrangian mechanics is finding the Lagrangian associated with a particular system.

what is the Lagrangian anyways?

any physical system has an associated function called the Lagrangian which can be expressed as the difference between the kinetic and potential energy of the system. More formally, the Lagrangian is the function between two points in the co-ordinate space such that the action, defined as $S=\int_{t_1} ^{t_2}f(\vec{q}, \dot{\vec{q}},t)\operatorname{d}t$ is stationary. In other words, the Lagrangian,$L$, is a function of $q,\dot{q},t$ such that the variation of the action is 0. Mathematically, this can be expressed as $$\delta S= \delta \int_{t_1} ^{t_2}L\operatorname{d}t=0$$

It is also found that for a specific system, the Lagrangian is the same as the difference between the kinetic and potential energies of the system. $$ L = T-V $$

In nature, all systems seek take the path of least action from one point of their configuration space to another. The Lagrangian is only a specific case of a variational calculus problem where the quantity to be minimised was the action and the variable of integration is time. The same principle can be used to find a function that minimises any quantity with respect to some boundaries that are kept fixed. Good examples of the more general variational problems/principle (is/ can be used to find) the equation of the brachistochrone, the curve which allows for the fastest descent of a ball acting only under gravity, or the surface of a bubble. In each case the "action" (the quantity to be minimised) is different. For the brachistochrone the action takes the form of time, representing the time of descent from some initial point $(x_i,y_i)$ to some other final point $(x_f,y_f)$. In the case of a bubble or film of soap around a wire mesh, the quantity to be minimised is the potential energy.

Euler Lagrange Equation and Equations of Motion

Once the Lagrangian is determined for a system with coordinates $\vec{q} = (q_1,q_2,\dots,q_n)$, we can use the Euler Lagrange equation to determine the equations of motion of the system.

the derivation for the Euler lagrange equation is straightforward but lengthy so I will simply state the equation without the derivation. Explicitly, the Euler Lagrange equation for a Lagrangian, $L$ with generalised co-ordinates $q$ is given by

$$\frac{\partial L}{\partial q} = \frac{\operatorname{d}}{\operatorname{d}t} \frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot{q}}$$

where the partial derivative $\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot{q}}$ is called the conjugate $q$ momentum, $p_q$.

there is of course so much more to cover in Lagrangian mechanics, but this post is already getting quite long. I might make another post later and continue with some more basic concepts. For now, though, I am signing off.

[blnk338]

Math is my favorite too!! I’ve always been able to pick it up. All I need are a few examples and boom my brain picks up the patterns. Most of what I learn stays in my head but if I go long enough without using it it definitely goes (but like I said all I need are a few examples and it pops back).

The down side to all this shit in my head is that I don’t have room for basic multiplication. I rely on my calculator for that. But bc I’m a math girlie I naturally hate English class. I would rather spend my time at pre-calc working with the 6 trigonometric functions or something.

-💣

do you know how mentally fucking weird it is to be good at math and also good at writing. like dude its like my brain switches between them all the time and it fucks with me sm

[anthonysayswhat]

I have all of my schoolwork from when I declared as a physics major. From community college to university. This is ~3 years worth of material. People think I’m crazy for holding onto this stuff, but I paid to go to these classes. It cost money to get to write these notes and take these exams. I might as well keep them to reference back too. And I actually do!

I can take a chapter out of my physics textbook, for example, along with my notes and homework for that chapter with me and leave the rest of the textbook at home. Or if my friend had a question about physics (which is based on a true example), I took a chapter of it to work, and we sat down during our lunch and discussed in depth about fluid mechanics. Plus my notes look too good to throw away 😅

Top Row: 2 Chemistry notebooks on top of my chemistry binder, a binder of programming and Python (those are the notebooks on the right of them).

Middle Row: Physics binder (Classical Mechanics), physics binder (Electromagnetism and Modern Physics), physics notebooks (Mechanics and Mathematical Methods)

Bottom Row: Trigonometry/Pre-Calc binder, Calc 1 binder, Calc 2 binder, Calc 3 binder, Linear Algebra/Differential Equation binder