Last week was probably the most stressful and exhausting week of the school term (and of the year) so far, but it ended up being less scary than I had feared. My midterms were easier than I expected. The GRE was exactly as I remembered it, except that the math section seemed more difficult this time. Interestingly (or perhaps not), my GRE scores this time are almost identical to the scores I received six years ago. Apparently a master’s degree in math doesn’t help on the GRE!

I was ecstatic after finishing my three consecutive days of exams, so I took most of the weekend off from studying. I didn’t do anything particularly special, but I did go to the mall. I haven’t been to the mall in a while, so I was surprised by all the Christmas decorations. I love Christmas! Yay!

Speaking of Christmas (this segue totally makes sense in my head), I haven’t had a drop of Starbucks coffee since I went back to school! All the coffee shops on campus are university owned, and I haven’t had much opportunity or need to find my coffee elsewhere. I always look forward to the red holiday cups from Starbucks (hence the correspondence between Christmas and Starbucks), and I have yet to get one this year! I definitely need to make sure I get my grande peppermint mocha fix soon!

Unfortunately, my three exams in three days were just the beginning. After a deliberately unproductive weekend, I’m faced with piles of things to do this week. Besides my usual schoolwork and two final projects I’m worrying about (there are only about two and a half weeks left in the school term!), I also need to work on my applications for graduate school. I would enumerate what I have to do for the applications, but just thinking about all I have to do makes me feel overwhelmed. The fact that one of my potential referees declined to write a letter doesn’t help.

No worrying about it now. Time to sleep! Another busy day awaits!

In a frustratingly ironic twist after yesterday’s post, I woke up today feeling stressed out and worried about the coming week. I know that worrying never helps anything; it’s only a hindrance. I try to stay positive and confident, but sometimes my nerves get the best of me.

I bought a book today to help me study for the GRE. I haven’t had time to study for the exam at all, and I really only have today to study (until Friday night after my midterms). I wish my scores still counted (I took the exam six years ago), or that my master’s degree would let me waive the requirement, but no such luck.

My jitters today may have also been compounded by a conversation I had with my brother this morning. He’s having a rough time in medical school, and he feels like his classmates are outperforming him. I told him that it doesn’t matter what other people are doing. All that matters is that he tries his best; worrying and comparing himself to others will only make things worse and more difficult. After all the positive advice I was giving to him, I got to thinking about my own upcoming challenges. I need to heed my own advice.

I had a conversation with one of my friends from graduate school about a week ago. I told her about how well I’m doing in my classes but that I still had reservations about going to graduate school for statistics. I feel like my experience in graduate school made me lose confidence in my mathematical abilities. By the end, I didn’t feel like I had what it takes to be a mathematician. I don’t want history to repeat itself. I’m very afraid that going to graduate school for statistics will only show that I’m not cut out to be a statistician either.

My friend, however, sees things differently. She doesn’t think I lost my confidence. She thinks I never had it to begin with.

As an undergraduate, I had very good grades in my math classes, but I never did anything on my own. Whenever I had problems with homework, I would ask my professor, my TA, or my classmates. I never built the confidence to do the homework on my own. If I got stuck, I shut down and waited to ask for help. Once I got to graduate school, I was in a different world. Graduate students often collaborate, but confidence in your own abilities is necessary for success, and that’s something I never had.

My experience with statistics so far has been very different. I do all my homework on my own. I’m the one who helps others rather than the one who others help. I have always had self-confidence issues, but my confidence in being able to do statistics is pretty high (at least for now). My friend thinks I will do better and go further in statistics because of this one fact. She always thought I had the brains to do math but that I never had the confidence.

This time around, hopefully I have both.

What a long week. I woke up feeling sick about a week ago (last Saturday), and it escalated into a mid-level fever (102 °F). The fever lingered for three days, and I’ve been recovering the rest of the week. I still have a small cough.

School is going well, but this week was pretty demanding, especially considering I was sick. I had three lengthy homework assignments due today (one for each of my classes). I had to do most of the work while I had a fever; I must not have been too sick, since I was able to still think logically enough to get the right answers.

Whenever there are lots of assignments due, I get a lot of questions from classmates. Everyone likes to compare answers with me. Somehow, if their answers are the same as mine, then they must be right. I’m the standard answer!

I’m exhausted. I’d love to spend the weekend relaxing, but next week might be even more tiring than this one. I have two homework assignments due Wednesday, a midterm Thursday, a midterm Friday, and I’m taking the GRE next Saturday. Scary! Such is the life of a student, I suppose.

I’m definitely sleeping early tonight.

I called my big sister from work tonight. Besides a few text messages back and forth, I haven’t talked to her since I left the company over a month ago. It was great to talk to her again.

She caught me up on some office news. The most important news is that my old friend/boss is leaving the company. Tomorrow is his last day. He’s moving on to bigger and better things, just like I am. I haven’t had a chance to talk to my friend yet (to congratulate him on escaping too). I’m not sure if I’m even supposed to know (most of the people in the company don’t know yet), so I’ll wait to see if he tells me himself.

Sounds like I left at a good time. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to stay after the person who brought me into the company left.

My sister’s wedding is less than a month away. She sent out her invitations a few weeks ago. Because our grandfather lives with our uncle, she sent one invitation to our uncle and included our grandfather in the invitation. We have two aunts in Taiwan who already told my sister months ago that they will not be able to attend the wedding, so my sister didn’t send them invitations. Our grandfather will also be in Taiwan during the wedding, so he will not be attending either.

A few days ago, my mom got word (from our other aunt, I think) that our two aunts and our grandfather didn’t get invitations, so she called my sister to tell her to send invitations to them. For some reason (maybe a traditional Chinese culture thing), my grandfather is expected to have a separate invitation, and our two aunts are supposed to  receive invitations because they’re family.

Because wedding invitations are expensive, my sister didn’t order any extras. In order to send the additional invitations, she had to ask some of her close friends to give back their invitations and explain why. I don’t think my mom understands the huge hassle it is to send these invitations (even when they will definitely be declining).

If it was just a matter of family respect, then it’s almost understandable why they need to have invitations. It’s a hassle, but we all have family obligations. But there’s more to the story.

My sister’s dad is my mom’s first husband (so technically, my sister is my half-sister). My sister’s dad’s family hurt my grandfather’s pride many years ago (the story is far too long to discuss here), so our grandfather refuses to attend the wedding because my sister’s dad will be there.

Apparently, when my mom told my sister to send the additional invitations, she repeated that “your dad hurt your grandfather very badly” (in Chinese) at least ten times. It also seems like our two aunts in Taiwan are not attending for the same reason. If they can’t attend my sister’s wedding, that’s fine, but does she need to know that they’re not attending because of her dad?

My sister has been dwelling on her conversation with my mom for days. She told me this whole story online last night and said she couldn’t stop crying, so I called her to try and comfort her (not that there’s much I can do).

She feels bad for what happened, but she can’t change the past. She feels like she’s forever being punished for events that happened over thirty-five years ago that have nothing to do with her. Obviously, none of what happened is her fault; she’s just unfortunately caught in the middle.

She can’t understand why our grandfather and our aunts can’t put the past behind them to attend her wedding. After all, the wedding has nothing to do with her dad. The wedding is about her and her fiance. It’s a once in a lifetime event. My sister is the first grandchild and the first to get married, but she feels like she’s not worth making the sacrifice for. She made a very valid comparison: If she were to pass away (which won’t be for a long time, knock on wood), would they even attend her funeral if her dad is there?

She’s afraid that she’ll be thinking about all this during her wedding, which should be one of the happiest days of her life. Whenever she talks like this (which happens every so often after she talks to my mom), it breaks my heart. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t change the past either. Our family can’t let go of what happened, and the only person who suffers from the whole thing is her.

I’m getting to know some of the students in my classes. Word seems to have spread that I know what I’m doing (I stay up to date on the course material and try to do my homework well in advance), because many of my classmates have been asking me for help whenever they have questions. I’ve become the go-to guy for verifying answers and helping to solve homework problems (I’ve usually solved them on my own already).

One of my classes involves group work, so our class was split into groups of three. We sit with our group members during lectures and do in-class exercises together. A couple days ago, we were working in our groups, and four people from separate groups asked me questions to see how I was doing the exercise. They have their own groups with whom to compare answers, yet they all came to me. It’s amusing.

There are a few classmates who are in two of my classes who ask me for help in both. One classmate in particular initially asked to “work on homework together,” but because I do my homework early, I ended up just tutoring her. I feel like a TA for my own classes!

I used to be the go-to guy at my old work and at Target too. I think there’s a trend here…

My sister’s bridal shower is today. I had previously mentioned to my sister that I thought it would be fun to go (I like participating in anything involved with my sister’s wedding), so she invited me, even though bridal showers are supposed to be “girls only.” She said I could be her photographer (to make it less awkward to be the only guy, though that doesn’t bother me).

Unfortunately, I can’t make it to her bridal shower. I’m beyond busy this weekend. I have two midterms next week (one Monday and one Thursday), and I have two homework assignments both due on Wednesday (they’re usually due on Fridays). The bridal shower would take all day (I’d have to drive two hours each way), and I just can’t afford the time.

My sister doesn’t mind; she understands that I’m really busy. I shouldn’t even be there anyway. But my sister texted me last night to tell me that my younger (male) cousin will be attending the shower instead and will be acting as the photographer. My cousin is in college and has midterms next week too, but he lives closer to my sister. It’s not as much of a time commitment for him to attend.

Even though I can’t make it, and my cousin is a much better photographer than me, I can’t help but feel (more than) a bit jealous. This is just another sacrifice I have to make to do well in school. I was supposed to visit my best friend from elementary school last weekend for Oktoberfest, but I couldn’t make that either.

Sigh.

School is consuming all of my time and energy. On weekdays, I carpool with my parents, so I get dropped off on campus at around 9am. After my classes are done for the day, I spend a few hours in the library until my parents pick me up around 6pm. When I get home, I continue to study and do homework until around 12 or 1am. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

My weekends are also filled with studying (though I do take a little time off every now and then). Even though my homework assignments are due on Fridays, I like to get a jump start on the next week’s assignments over the weekend so I don’t fall behind.

I was a pretty good student when I went to college the first time, but I don’t think I was this studious before. My outlook on life is different now, and my motivation has changed. I’ve been out in the “real world,” so I understand what’s at stake. I’m not in school just to get good grades or get a degree (I’m not getting one right now anyway); I’m in school to learn the material so I can use it in the future.

It helps that my statistics classes are specifically designed to be applied in the practical world. My professors often express how important and universal statistics is, and we often analyze real data that my professors have used in their work. I don’t know how much the other students appreciate this, but the connections to real life fascinate me, and I stay motivated to learn more.

I think this all means I grew up a lot over the last couple years and I didn’t even realize it. Being lost wasn’t a total loss.

I got my first homework back from one of my classes today. I work very hard on making my homework neat, organized, and correct, so I always expect to see 100% when I get homework back. Needless to say I was surprised to see a 98% on the top of my work. I got a 9.8 out of 10 possible points.

I’m a huge perfectionist. Most people would probably be ecstatic with a 98%, but I was bothered by the missing 2%. Apparently my answer on one question deviated slightly from the answer key (I think my notation is a little more mathematically formal than that of most statisticians), so I lost 0.2 points.

I couldn’t figure out why I was marked wrong, so I approached my professor right away and asked her. She agreed that my answer was correct (though written a little differently from her key), so she changed my grade to 10 out of 10!

It seems almost ridiculous that I would fight to get 0.2 points back on my homework, but I deserved them! Every fraction of a point counts!