How to fry the sound capabilities of your laptop

Follow this simple steps to make your laptop mute forever:

1. Sit down in your desk and get comfortable.
2. Put your earphones on. If you do not listen yo music, it is OK. You will look cool.
3. Place a blanket over you, to protect from the cold, or to look cool (or miserable).
4. Now, take the blanket off.

You will feel a slight electric zap on your ears, and hear some weird sounds. Try singing just so you verify you are not deaf. Now you can check that your computer has just lost its sound capabilities due to the static. Damn you electromagnetism! You took away my precious music! Oh well...

There was no particular reason for me to have my earphones on. There was no reason for me to use the blanket since: 1) it was not that cold; and 2) I had a jacket I could have wear. But still, I followed this simple steps....

This week has been so depressing. On Monday I had the Classical Mechanics midterm. I was able to fully solve one problem out of three. I worked my way around the third, but I had to hand in a poorly worked second problem. I do not even want to talk about last week's midterm on Classical Electrodynamics.

I feel so tired. Yet I totally did not rested during the weekend. At least I am done with grading now. Problem set #5...

Midterm...

Egads! Tomorrow is my first midterm at Stony Brook.

Classical Electrodynamics is first, followed next week by Classical Mechanics and the week after with Quantum Mechanics. This past weeks have been really hard. I got a 20 out of 120 in the second homework in CE. Basically I did not worked on the problems enough to say anything about them. I gain some lost ground with the third one, 70/80. I also feel a better understanding of the third chapter's material (I never liked the method of images...) Anyways, the fourth problem set was again handed in poorly worked. This time I worked the problems, but could not solve any by the deadline. Oh well! I went through Jackson's and reworked some of the homework problems with the professor's solutions. I really do not want to fail this class, or ANY for that matter. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

At the same time I feel a bit desperate. A course in Classical Electrodynamics deals with the electromagnetic field (in vacuum and matter), radiation, waves and relativity. Besides for relativity, I find most of this topics a bit boring, I guess they describe tangible, everyday-objects. But I just do not care. My interest lies along quantum theory and strings. I should learn these topics, and get them right for at least once.

I have been feeling really stupid while working with the homework problems of all my classes. It is not about dealing with the math, but the physics is coming out a bit constricted from my mind. I think this are bad signs. Am I becoming a "physically" mindless mathematician? Maybe I need that type of thinking when working with abstract concepts. Still, I believe that physical intuition is important. I hope I do not fail as a physicist!

I do not want to fail.

Phew...!

I am tired!

This has been a long week! Monday was depressing since I only handed in one problem, out of six, of the Electrodynamics homework. I did not had much time and the little time that I gave to it was spent mostly in staring at the piece of paper. I do not why, but I just felt stupid. The professor handed the solutions and they all see so easy now. Oh well! I already started to work on the next homework, and have two problems solved! I HAVE to do well to get through the class.

Grading has been horrible. I hate it!

The Mars Volta has a new album out, which is just awesome. I have been listening it non-stop, over and over and over.

I also started working on the string theory notes this week. Right now I am typing the part on the bosonic string action. It is cool.

Oh! Yeah... it was a good birthday... I am going to Boston on Saturday. Should be pretty good.

Routine

I guess I already have a pretty good picture of how my weekly routine is going to be for this semester. After spending most of Saturday at Dreamland, I went grocery shopping and cooked some "real" dinner that night.

Sunday was dedicated to grade lab reports. Man! I took to much time going through the first few. I hate working under those conditions. You cannot think clearly just wondering about all the homework you have to do for the next day while stuck reading about somebody's speculation on error in a measurement of a pendulum's period. Oh well. I spent all afternoon at my office until before 9:00 PM. I worked on the Electrodynamics problems, but was not able to finish all. I am used to not handing in all problems solved, but this cannot go on far. A third of my grade is being determined from the homework scores. The same thing happen with the Quantum Mechanics problem set, one (of two) problems was handed in blank. I really do not care if the professor thinks I am stupid because I did not handed in my "reasons" for not "solving" the problem. I just think that either you can figure it out, or you do not. I guess some sort of feedback is good so the professor has an idea where I got stuck. It turned out that there was a hint in many books and I did not checked them. I felt very stupid when I realized this. Oh well, now I am checking every book I have.

This week has been pretty rough. I was able to solve every problem of the Mechanics set, so that made me feel better. Electrodynamics is looking pretty nasty, but I already have one in the bag. And Quantum is not going to sneak on me again.

Friday....

Homework, homework, homeworks!!!

A full royal flush of problem sets is on the hand: Mechanics, Electrodynamics, Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory.

Mechanics problemas are about finding Lagrangians. I have not tried any yet, so I will start with that one first. I think I commented on some of the Electrodynamics problems previously. Right now I have completed two and have three "started". Quantum Mechanics has a simple one (in the sense that I remember a lot of bra-ket notation) that I already completed and the other one is still settlings down. I do not think I will even care about the QFT problems.

But maybe I will get bored grading lab reports tonight...