The Storm With No Name

Now that I am good and liquored up, I feel ok to talk about my day with you. It's been a little rough. But I have noticed that lowering my expectations helps a little with having days. We all have days. Lower your expectations of said day, and it actually turns out ok.

Today was the midterm for my computer programming for atmospheric sciences, or whatever the hell it's called. I actually do not know what the class is called except METR50. I was actually pretty excited to take this class and to learn computer programming. In general I am excited to become smart. Smart is cool, smart is fun. You draw weird squiggly lines and Greek letters on paper with or without numbers, you "write code" on a computer. You know what a derivative and an integral are. I mean, how cool, right?

Enter METR50 to put me in my place.

I'm no longer a fan of METR50 (computer programming). I still would love to be a great computer programmer. Write my own programs, debug existing programs, yadda yadda. Just not by way of this class. This class blows. Whether or not that phrase sounds intelligent, it is, alas, true.

I had no great expectations for today's midterm. As a matter of fact, I just assumed the entire class would fail it and we'd have some spectacular grading curve that landed me with a C. Awesome. I didn't even know how to study for this thing. We would have a written part, worth 60% of the grade that would be much like our quizzes that everyone keeps failing (including me) and then a programming part worth 40% where we would write code (computer code, in computer language, to make the computer do stuff)...which everyone has been doing semi-ok at, given that we're given a lab with a task and not taught how to do it...and then we're staring down a cursor on a black computer screen that only replies in sarcastic tone, saying things like "Syntax error" or "Float encountered when integer was expected".

Excuse me for a minute here. But who is the computer to "expect" anything? That damn thing can't anticipate my needs! It can't read my mind! If it could, this class wouldn't be the lowest grade this semester. I don't give a damn what you were expecting, if I give you a damn float, I expect you to take it and say thank you ma'am!

For crying out loud. Who does this computer think he is? You'll take what I give you and you will like it.

What does this have to do with a storm? I'll get there. There was damage in my apartment. Today.

Anyway, so I anticipated doing poorly on the written part of this test but figured I could pull it together in the actual programming portion.

And of course the written part stunk. What will the following code produce? Blah blah blah.....? What? How the hell should I know? I don't speak Python!! Ugh, anyway, totally expected. Let it go. On to the programming portion.

I did well for the first part. Now that I've had a full bottle of sake I have no recollection of what the first part was, but whatever.

The second part though. The second part was a nightmare. It was open book for the programming part, as well as open note, and open internet. But really, when asked to write a program that will calculate the atmospheric pressure at a certain altitude given a surface pressure, and then have that program print out a table (neat, in line table) of your altitude versus your pressure... I just don't even know where to start in asking Google or Jeeves or Yahoo or whoever the hell might be willing to help me on my midterm.

I typed in the function and confirmed it would give me an output. Check.

Now I had to get that function to loop through over 50 different altitudes without me typing in those altitudes, and give me an atmospheric pressure for each of those altitudes in a neat table.

What did it give me?

"Syntax error"

"Float encountered, integer expected"

Like I said, I don't care what the hell you expected, I gave you a float and I expect you to work with a float. Damnitt. 

"5000 data-blogger-escaped-1x089045ksjdfn.="" data-blogger-escaped-at="" data-blogger-escaped-function="" data-blogger-escaped-p="" data-blogger-escaped-pressure="  What? Really?

I looked at the clock. I had 2 more hours to figure this last problem out. But time wasn't the problem. The problem was I had no idea how to tackle this. I scanned my notes. I flipped half heartedly through the stack of books at my desk. I had to pee. Bad. Should I give up? No way. I can figure this out in 2 hours.

I asked for permission to leave to pee. Granted. I came back with slightly (ok, not really) more hope.

People around me sighed in frustration. The girl a few seats over dropped her head onto her desk. I had had several cookies and brownies and a few gulps of coffee before this exam. I tried a few more things. I tried a FOR loop and a WHILE loop. I tried for n in range (0,5100, 100). I tried return this and return that. In return I got:

5000 [834832.,m 9030u53ioj5 opiu390u5iojf vpwiuiowjflm e u3msv kjkioewutu qwpu903259 -93589-  858 835-98-885-   8 85858- -85-8 85-8358-358   85-24=09-68 ]
..........or something very similar.

I got error after error. I was collapsing. I buried my face in my hands. My eyes filled with tears. Yes. I am a grown woman and an exam was bringing me to tears. Literally.

I pulled another book out and flipped absentmindedly through the pages. I tried different things I came across.

Suddenly.....it worked!!!! I had a table with altitude and corresponding pressures!!!

I spruced it up a bit, gave it a heading, made sure they were spaced evenly, made sure the units were attached to the output, sent my program in to the instructor, had her check to be sure she got it, gathered my things and skipped off to the grad room.

Everyone asked how it went. One girl told me the final for that class brought her to tears. No joke!! That midterm brought me to tears. I ate several more cookies. I think I ate maybe 8 sugar cookies with super sweet frosting over a several hour period. They were so good. I didn't have alcohol so the sugar was going to have to do it. Just a few more things to button down before I could go hit the grocery store, then go home to make enchiladas and Mexican rice.

The wind was howling and the sky was dark. A storm was brewing. (Really, just the tail end of a front was about to hit us, so we were getting its outflow gusts of wind).

When I finally got home (accidents on the freeway, groceries, etc), I saw that everything on my kitchen windowsill had been knocked over, and one of the terrarium thingys had been shattered. The bonsai tree was tipped on its side and there was no sign of Mr. Spud. Ugh. Really? And no alcohol on board (or anything other than cookies). Ok, no big deal, I can handle this.

I cleaned up the glass, soil, rocks, plants, etc. I just threw out the plants. It occurred to me that I could just replant them somewhere but I had no "where" to plant them. I was not up to going back out and buying pots.

(The windowsill, once covered by knick-knacks and plants, had been swept clean when a strong gust of wind had pushed the blinds into everything, toppling everything in its path.)

I found Mr. Spud in the sink and brushed him off and put him aside. I brought out the vacuum cleaner so that I wouldn't have to brush up against any glass. Dishes, the counters, Mr. Spud, everything, got a good vacuuming to ensure I would not later come in to contact with glass.

Oh Mr. Spud. If only I had paid more attention. If only I had thought of your wellbeing instead of getting the crap cleaned up and the groceries put away.

As I vacuumed over Mr. Spud, removing soil and small glass remnants, I heard the vacuum cleaner suck up something larger. I took a good look at Mr. Spud and gasped. Oh my god his eyes!!!!

Oh it just sickens me. I thought about going through the contents of the vacuum cleaner, but I was well beyond my means...actually....the contents are still there. So when I sober up in the morning I can pick through the vacuum cleaner and find his eyes.

So Mr. Spud is a potato and vegetable scrubber. He has a brush on his back. He grins at me and makes googley eyes as I wash dishes or cook. Well. Not currently. Now Mr. Spud sits and grins blindly out at the world.

So I poured sake into a shot glass as I cooked. A bottle of sake, 3 enchiladas and two helpings of Mexican rice later, I am fairly content.

My bonsai might live. Maybe I'll search for Mr. Spud's eyes tomorrow. The succulents are dead. The vintage salt and pepper shakers are fine. The wind has settled and there is no sign of rain at the moment. But maybe tonight.

I'm still over an hour away from bedtime and too intoxicated to finish writing up my physics lab report, or calculate the molecular weight of air on Venus, so maybe I'll just peruse Pinterest.


Moral of the story? Simply lower your expectations, eat lots of sugar and drink plenty of coffee, eat good food and wash it down with alcohol. It'll all be ok in the morning.

Oh, and Queso Anejo is just simply amazing.