One More Time

The cut in the time is too close: I'm physically buckling. Today is LE#3. And today is the report on QR algorithm using Hessenberg matrices.

Bad Timing

It would truly be awful timing if I would be ill the day before an examination I haven't written and a report I hadn't finished were to be given.

Also, I have to remember about the make-up for tomorrow's exam to be given next week (Tuesday).

Sucks

Okay, this sucks. Posting a reminder for the third time. I give up.

SW#3, 4 PS#5, 6 sols: Tuesday
LE#3, MA249 Report: Wednesday
SW#5: Thursday

LE#2, 3, SW# 5 sols, MC#2, Finals: next week

Checking SW#3, 4, 5, PS#5, 6, LE#2, 3: before Finals, hopefully, or maybe next next week

Checking MP#1, 2, Bonus: next next week

Not too shabby. Get it done. Especially Boyer-Moore and Knuth-Morris-Pratt.

Tight Bound

That's how schedules seem to be. I forgot that this morning's class ends at 9:30! Curses. I guess the TFR SW#4 will be on Tuesday and SW#5 on Friday.

This is what I get for forgoing last Friday's morning class.

Feverish

For the last week or so, I've been working slightly under the weather. I've felt flashes of feverishness, but otherwise have been okay.

In other news, SW#4 will only be for 30 minutes, to be entirely fair to the TF sections. Now to make sure that I can cover Floyd-Warshall's and Johnson's, and at least cover a bit of NP-Completeness for TFR. Maybe the secondary lecture comes after the SW?

Steam Dissipation

It could be that this time of the semester is the most hectic for students, or it could just be a lack of spirit in teaching. For the third week in a row, the lecture for CS 175 was held on the table in the faculty. And I uploaded the notes. Is this good for people training for a regional competition? Is it good for me to act this way?

This interesting tidbit from /.

Treading Carefully

Rereading NP-Completeness and Approximation Algorithms for the TFY class. Working out the holes in the MHR discussion. Rediscuss for MHR? If there's time, preferrably after the long examination.

Rushing Headlong into the Break

Finally caught up on reading for Bellman-Ford, DAG and Johnson, though Johnson still seems a little vague. Caught up with TFR as well, with B-F and DAG inserted, but because I was late, we're still left Floyd-Warshall and Johnson. Will focus a bit, try to make SW#4, SW#5, LE#3, and solutions to SW#3-5 and PS#5-6 for the weekend. And still have to read on Computational Geometry and make the last balloon fight for CS 175, as well as study on CS 131 not just for next semester, but also for a report on numerical methods for getting the eigenvalues of a matrix for Ma249. Whoo!

Winding Down

Me, at the end of the sem: a nattering fool, telling you what to do with your sem-long gathered information.

Emptiness

Which is worse: being the test set for a lecture, or always having the lecture delayed?

Rushing Through

Tried to see if I could cover all the graph algorithms in one meeting. Covered Krsukal's, Prim's, Dijkstra's, Floyd-Warshall's, and some Matrix Multiplication. And started late, too. Will have to review Bellman-Ford's, DAG and Johnson's, probably cover those next meeting, probably before the SW 4. Whew.

Yawn

I can't believe, barely two weeks from the hustle-bustle period of deadline-for-dropping, that I have suddenly lost enough steam to let inertia guide my motions into the day. Not much going on anywhere. There's small mounds of work, threatening to get larger, but where to start? Moreover, how to start?

Too Many Options

Bonuses, drop the lowest requirement, overloaded seatworks with low maximum scores. How much can you give someone by which you don't want to have themselves hung?

Student Evaluation

I didn't get to give the third seatwork (mostly because I didn't start with the slides last meeting), and gave fifteen minutes for evaluation. With some dread, I prodded Ate Mila for the SETs from the last three semesters. It wasn't so bad, I'd say my average so far is in par or slightly above par territory vis-a-vis promotion standards. The last sem was as bad as I thought, but I knew that before. This sem, however, is the backbreaker, as I have no CS 11 to pad my scores. CS 11 is relatively easy to teach and the ease of their understanding stems from my being familiar with the topic and the approach.

Also, I saw this article on /. Interesting to see that the exposure of these types of contests has not completely been embraced by the 'l337'.

PSHS University Fair: Some Comments

I feel that the booth for the fair was successful, as we were able to attract a sufficient number of students to have run out of the stickers provided to signify that a student had visited and learned from the exhibit. On the minus side, the logistics of moving to and from the venue were somewhat complicated, unfortunately, by the offer of the college to provide vehicles for moving equipment, as these vehicles and equipment were available at inconvenient times (although the bulk of the movement and the setting up was done at 4AM on Friday) or they had less space than could be used (the truck that left 5PM on Thursday only had room for the formica boards that served as posting boards and dividers). It was a good gesture from the college, but some more consideration should be made for the next fair, which may be next semester.

Either way, faculty and students of the department both provided for the movement, the setting up, and the packing up of the booth for the fair. There was much more activity at the site in the morning, and I was there to eye the other exhibits. From first blush, it seems that the La Salle exhibits had the most preparation; however, one must note that both La Salle and Mapua have good marketing, and it showed. I still believe that it was a good idea to have students manning the booths, because it both gave a down-to-earth and an approachable set-up, as well as removing the veneer of marketing flash to show solid substance underneath, supported by the "customers" instead of pushed by the "vendors".

The venue lacked ventilation. Otherwise, with half a room, there was not much to complain about in terms of hosting.

The science colleges throughout had the sparsest exhibits, and thus had the least traffic (noting the exception being the Ateneo Math Department, which had puzzles to play with). The best draws for the exhibits were all the interactive ones - ones with robots, ones with ice cream, ones with games.

Talking to Sir Denoga about lunch, when the torrent of students became trickles, I heard that the UP booths were being criticized for booth attendants ignoring the students. I know that this is not the case for our booth, but I hope that more attention is given to the attendees. (I feel a little guilty, as most of the time I felt my job was to entertain whoever was keeping an eye on the booth.)

One fair down - two more to go.

Sliding In and Out of Lectures

I think I'm getting the hang of slide-based lectures. Finished both BST and RBT in the lecture, and caught up with TFR on Heapsort, Counting Sort, and Radix Sort. Not bad, speeds things up. Must make sure to read them ahead of time, though. And the colors are gone, too.

Searching for a Tree

I have decided, after a less than clear lecture, to break out Dr. Tungol's slides for tomorrow. Will I be even more boring with slides? Tune in tomorrow.

All's Fair

With most of the PSHS University Fair done and over with, what's left is to pack up and leave. All my class standings have been computed, and I am in the process of making tomorrow's balloon fight. All's right with the world. At least for an instant.