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Mind over Matter

On Friday, I handed in the take-home midterm I had for PDE’s. There were eight questions on the test. On the single sheet of paper that I handed to the Math Department secretary, I had solved one.

I think this is the worst I have ever done on any test in my life.

I got on the subway and was reading the Metro when I came across a study that had been done. A group of girls were all told that boys do better on math tests than girls by about 5%. Half the girls were told that this is because boys have better natural number sense, and the other half were told that this is because teachers and parents encourage boys to do better in math. All the girls were then given a math test.
The half that were told that boys are socialized to do better preformed very well, while their peers did very poorly.

It occurred to me that I was living proof of this. I had been getting a B+ in this course (based on problem sets), but the moment the prof said it would be a take-home test and thus harder than a regular one, I started to panic that I couldn’t do it, that it would be way beyond my abilities. And so it was.

Later today, I will have a midterm for Modern Symbolic Logic. I think that it will be a joke, an easy A if ever there was one.

If I do indeed do well on tonight’s test, I will proceed to change my study habits by first assuming that it’s all very easy. Who knows, it might work.

Arjunaaa!

I was sitting on the subway on Friday, reading about a very interesting psychology experiment in the Metro, as I made my way to Etobicoke.

I went to Adnan’s and we watched more Sex and the City than is good for us (Damn you Richard, you dog!). When we were just about to start running late, we got dressed. I put on the very first garment I’ve ever had made just for me: a lovely dark blue sari. Shim came to pick us up, and we were off to the show.

We had fantastic seats – First in the front and to the side, and then we switched to further back but dead centre. The show was wonderful, in my opinion the best since Bishma. It did go on for hours and hours (four-and-a-half of them, in fact) but it was worth every minute. The battle scenes were hilarious terrifying and there were several romantic moments that made us blush. It was bright, colourful, and spectacular.

It was followed with yummy yummy Lahore Tikka House!

In Other News

I lost.