Blog Archives

Finals Week

Posted on April 30, 2013
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It’s hard to believe how fast time flies by: it was  just few weeks ago (or feels like it) when I was standing in front of my nearly 30 students introducing myself. And here we are only a few days short from congratulating new graduates, and submitting the final grades to the student management system… spring and graduates are sure sign of the summer, even in Alaska.

Today is the big day. To my students. I finished their final exam last night – 7 pages of tough questions to answer in 75 minutes. After getting done with the exam, I have been grading homework assignments and weekly exercises nearly non-stop the whole night. And more to go through still …. I know how I will spend my nights this week.

Teaching at UAA has been such a blast and blessing this Spring semester. My students have been awesome beyond awesome, and I am proud of every single one of them. While Computer Science is not always the easiest subject to figure out, they have been working really hard while figuring out the problems. And I have learned so much from them. Every course  I have been teaching at the university level has taught me new pedagogical skills, making me a better professor. I have grown together with my students. And I dare claim we have had a great time – well, at least I have had fun…. hopefully my beliefs about being an extraordinary professor won’t be crushed when the class reviews come in.

 

 

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December 8-21: Travels, Baking, Presents

Posted on December 21, 2012
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That’s about the great plan to stay on top of the blog every single day in December. Well, the Christmas is knocking at the door and somehow nearly two weeks passed by without me having a chance to write a single word. Obviously that happens when I traveled to San Diego, had tons of work stuff going on, wrapped up the grad courses, graded my students on another class, and started to prepare for Christmas. There is never enough hours in my day.

However, San Diego trip was a good one. Sunny break from negative Alaskan temperatures was more than welcome. Yep, did I tell the mercury has been frequently around -10F in Anchorage area….? And a few days ago I was in Fairbanks for some work stuff, and the thermometer showed a lovely temperature of -44F. Talk about cold!

But back to San Diego…. so we spent four awesome days in California. Checked out the Birch Aquarium, one of my favorite indoor spots in La Jolla, enjoyed Coronado island that really is not an island….. ate well, and bathed in the sun. Running on sandy Coronado beaches was so much more motivating than being dressed up like a Michelin man while heading out for a few mile run in cold Alaskan darkness.

As far as the Christmas preparations go, we have gotten all of our presents mailed and cookies baked. I only need to get a couple of gifts for Jason, and then 2012 Christmas shopping is D-O-N-E. And I do have one present that will be delivered after Christmas. Simply because Santa’s factory faced a shortage on supply, and sewing project couldn’t be finished on time.

But Christmas is on its way to the last frontier. Stop by tomorrow to read about our baking projects and check out pictures of self-made cards and our gorgeous Christmas tree! Now off to the Anchorage Ballet’s Christmas 2012.

 

 

 

 

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Hard Work Pays Off

Posted on June 29, 2012
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Last week on McNeil river, tons of work stuff and some research readings… no wonder I was practically running out of time when getting ready for my Advanced Calculus final this past Monday. On top of being sleepier than sleepy after munching overdoses of Zyrtec for a few days, thanks to the mosquito army that attacked me on McNeil.

Calculus, and math in general, have always been easy to me. I enjoy logical problems where I can prove the methods used to solve them. If there are more letters than numbers in my math problem, that just simply makes my day. However, I had to spent some time refreshing my memory on how to solve this and that in Calculus. In fact I haven’t taken any single bachelor-level Calculus class in the university, ever. I went to the school in Finland, and my high school Calculus covered practically the whole, regular 3-year Calculus program that undergrad degrees offer in the US. Actually I tried to take Calculus here a few years ago, and was bored out of my mind after a couple of lessons. Hence I begged an opportunity to just test it out, got it, and maxed out the exam. So my college Calculus career was over real quick. And besides, the logic of Calculus is easy and fascinating.

Anyways, the final test day came, I finished rest of the homework at the very last minute. Actually I might have been the one 15 minutes late from the exam, just because of wrapping up the last calculations … and I got the paper in front of me, was looking at the problems and while I got half of them done quickly, the other half was more of a hard work. Also, since I missed classes on the previous week, I didn’t know I was allowed to have three pages of cheat sheets! Three pages, holy smoke! That’s a lot of notes. So I had only two 3×5 cards. Epic failure. With three pages of notes, I would have been able to prove Newton’s laws.

So I calculated and calculated, took derivates, integrated and proved my formulas. Right after the exam I knew I had completely messed up two questions but kept fingers crossed that I got enough extra credit points from additional problems to cover the mishaps. Since Monday I have checked the grading tool a few times a day, wanting and not wanting to see my grade. B would be a failure, C a disaster. And I already had a guaranteed C, even if I hadn’t even showed up at the final. Officially the grades were due yesterday. And last night I woke up to a dream about vector equation where I couldn’t remember whether gravitation constant G was either 6.67384 x10-11 or 6.67348 x10-11 N.

I looked at the clock on my nightstand. 3:18 a.m. Grades must be in the system! So I grabbed my iPad, took a deep breath and logged in.

I could hardly believe my eyes. But it was and is an A. Hard work in previous exams in straight A’s as well as diligently knocking down the homework and doing all the extra credit opportunities in the exam truly paid off.

By the way, G is of course 6.67384 x10-11 N. Should know it, even in my dreams.

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MilSpouse (first) Friday Fill-In #72

Posted on June 1, 2012
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Hello June! It’s time for a new MilSpouse Friday Fill-In… Hard to believe that it really is summer now. At least if you look at the calendar. We have had a few chilly days here in Alaska lately, and I am truly hoping June comes with sunny, warm days…

But let’s check out this month’s questions! Thank you to Wife of A Sailor - once again – for hosting this lovely tradition of getting to know fellow MilSpouses.

1. What’s one thing in the past month you would have changed? The weather… while we had a bunch of nice, sunny days, there were too many gray and rainy rays. After such a long, snowy winter it would be great to have looooong summer!

2. What was your favorite thing that happened in May? Last month was another wonderful month in our life. I had my university commencement, we had a great Memorial Day weekend in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, a fun trip to Colorado ….

3. June includes the first day of summer… what are your plans for the summer? Quite a few Alaskan adventures: long backpacking trips, bear photography at McNeil River…. maybe a few trips to Lower 48 as well, in addition to my business trips.

4. Do you use the services on base (gym, financial planning, family services, daycare)? And if so, what’s your favorite one? Yep, I do, and love them! I am a real gym rat and work out on post once, sometimes twice a day. I also stop by at the library every once in a while, eat at DFAC when I am too lazy to cook lunch or breakfast at home… We also use the veterinary clinic on post for minor stuff such as vaccinations and dental cleanings.

5. What are you looking forward to in June? Sunshine! And our McNeil trip. I am also hoping that my schedule slows down a bit: recently it has felt like I am working 24/7, and at the same time I am running out of hours all the time. That being said, I also look forward to getting back on track with my Ironman training. I have been slacking like no tomorrow for past 2-3 weeks, thanks to all travels and about a million deadlines that hit me like a steam train. I hope to get my weekly biking miles over 200 miles/week, and running miles to 60-80 miles/week in June, and if not adding, at least keeping them there.

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Graduation Picture

Posted on May 31, 2012
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The official graduation picture proofs arrived a few days ago, and here is the official portrait! I am getting some additional graduation pics done with a photographer friend of mine later in the summer but this is the one from the commencement day, May 6, 2012.

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” ― Oscar Wilde

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