Kerri's Birthday

Long lost pictures

So now that school is out I finally posted pictures from this semester. We start at a look at the snow from our office window, then look at our Christmas tree and some halloween jackolanterns

I'm finished!

I'm done with finals! I just finished my last one. It feels great, but I am frustrated. Before I explain, please know that I am not fretting, I will not worry about the end result, and I know everything will be just fine, so please do not right any of the sentiments in the comments. My last final today was for econ 459. I studied really hard for in and understand the math and everything. The test was 5 problems. Problems 1 and 2 I did ok on, 3 I think I nailed, 4 probably did good, but problem 5 killed me. My professor used this problem to teach us a new concept. It required really confusing algebra. Although I could tell you exactly how to get what he was looking for, I couldn't manipulate the problem correctly. I hate it when teachers think that a test is the proper place to teach concepts. If he had put the concept we learned on the test I would have been fine. But as with all of my classes, my finals don't really affect the final grade.

I turned in my capstone and 341 finals this morning. I think I'll get a B in both those classes, and I took my biology final this morning. That class was a waste of my time. So now I get to enjoy the semester break without anything to do, and come January start my last course that I am taking independent study.

We made it to the end

Well its the end of the semester for both of us. Kerri's last day of teaching was yesterday, and she gives her last final at the same time I take mine. It is so nice to be done. Yesterday was technically the last day of class, but I decided to take an extra reading day to work on my capstone paper.

I've spent the semester trying to determine the way that wealth influences human rights protections. There are a lot of different ideas floating around out there and I tried to pinpoint it. It turns out that the theory I thought was correct holds up in my quanititative analysis but not my qualitative. What gives? That's research for ya. Thankfully we have spent the semester writing the paper in 3 parts. So after extensive revising this week of all three parts, I was able to stitch them together, clarify my thesis and call it good. Kerri and I think I spent over 100 hours over the course of the semester working on it. In the past week I have spent 26 hours. I know, its overkill. I keep telling myself that out of the 15 people in my class I have probably spent the longest amount of time on it. I think it is time to call it good.

So today and tomorrow are also reading days (although BYU shouldn't count saturday as a reading day. I hope to get my take home final for my European Politics class out of the way. I am pretty sure I can get half of it done this weekend, and the rest done by noon on Monday. After that I'll be studying like a mad man for me econ 459 final, and I'll brush up on my biology. Both Biology and Econ have their finals scheduled for Wednesday, and lucky for me they are back to back.

So it looks like I am on track to have everything turned in by Wednesday like I hoped. This is my last real semester of college and I am so glad its done. Next semester I'll take my history 202 class independent study and should be done by the end of Feb. I can't wait to graduate.

I've lost my motivation

1 week left. That's all I have and guess what? My drive to continue went kaputz tonight. By next wednesday I need to have 1 25 page paper written, 1 5-7 page paper written 1 bio final taken and 1 econ final finished. I know that doesn't sound like a a lot. and I am not too stressed about it. To be fair my capstone paper is pretty much done. I've been writing it for the past 2 months. The problem is that I've been writing it for 2 months and am sick of it.

I met with my professor about it today. He liked my findings section, but I had to spend a lot of time explaining what I did. He was really confused. But in the end he was more ok with my work. Funny, becuase he gave me an 89 so I don't really think it was all that bad. I need to redo some of my tests and analysis but that should be pretty easy to fix. I've spent the past few days fixing my research design section adn today I was supposed to take all the comments my sister made when she looked at it and fix my theory section. But I didn't. I slept instead. I could start working on my paper now, but I don't want to . I am still tired so I think I am going back to bed. Its hard to be motivated becuase now I am doing the painful job of editing. I have gotten between an 86% and 92% on all my papers so I think to myself, there isn't a whole lot of improvements to be made, but then again, there could be.

So here's the game plan to get me to survive till finals. work on my capstone tomorrow and Thursday. Hope that by Thursday night my paper will be done (it better, I've easily spent 50 hours on the stupid thing so far this semester. I think I am making it harder than it should be). Friday day work on my take home final, Friday night take my wife to temple square to look at lights and see MoTab. Saturday morning work on take home final, Saturday afternoon get hair cut, Saturday night work on final. Try to take a break on Sunday. Monday finish take home final and begin studying for bio. Tuesday cram for econ test. Wednesday turn in capstone and 341 final, take bio and econ final. Wednesday night crash and burn.

And if needed, both my take home and 341 final can be turned in next Thursday. Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Good night.

Minuit Chretien

So, at the end of Christmas Eve Mass in France, the Priest carries the baby Jesus down the aisle to the Creche that is set up in the back of the Cathedral and lays it in the manger as a tenor sings the song "Minuit Chretien" or for us Americans "O Holy Night" I personally think the lyrics in French are more powerful than the English version of the song, but I wanted to post these two different versions of the song.

This first video is just a recording that has been passed around for a while, but it makes me laugh every time I listen to it. It makes Kerri cringe. The second video is Alain Sombret singing Minuit Chretien.

Merry Christmas!

The final countdown

9 Days! that's all I have left of real school. Although I think those 9 days are going to be packed. Last week as a lot of fun and really tiring. I am finishing up my capstone paper, which has required me to compile data in excel and then run regressions. No big deal right? It shouldn't have been. But after spending 13 hours on Tuesday trying to get it work, and another 5 on Wednesday I said enough. I was able to to get everything straightened out but was so tired of working on my data that I put it away for the rest of Thanksgiving break. That means that this afternoon I will be running regressions and writing a paper on my findings. I think I can do it.

I am nervous about my findings paper though because my original plan to run a times series regression isn't going to work. There is something wrong with my data and I can't figure it out. So I averaged the data for the 10 year period so I can run a simple OLS regression. I don't think this is going to be a huge problem because when I told my professor I didn't want to run a time series regression if I didn't have to, he recommended the averaging method. But as a result my findings will not be as robust as they should be. But that's ok. The important thing is getting a 5-7 page paper written, and a presentation prepared by tomorrow at 3. Piece of cake.

After this paper my semester is basically over. I have 1 or two more econ assignments, and my stupid 341 readings, but really all that needs to be done is piecing together 3 papers into 1 big paper and expanding it a bit. And then, I'll be done with class.

Thanksgiving was fun. We ate food, played games, slept, put up the Christmas tree, drank egg nog (yuck! I only do it to make my wife happy). watched movies, forgot about homework, and saw Madagascar 2 (She loves me, she loves my thighs). If I remember, pictures will be forthcoming.