Learning issues.

So, INPG enjoys scheduling exams after Christmas break, which is an absolutely horrible decision, as I did not study during break.

I really don't like how school is organized here. Class is once a week, for somewhere between 2-4 hours. There's no homework assigned. No books. Just lecture notes and the examples given in class. No practice exams. You do get all the material from class on the exams, but I need more than what's given in class. I need supplemental material to read. I need example problems. I just can't go over the same problem that we did in class and expect to learn the material. I need to crank out problems. This is how I learn. I learn by doing. Doing problems until I know the subject and not by just going over my notes.

So, I haven't been doing so well on the exams. This needs to be changed. I need to find a way to succeed to get the credits.

The land of street kerbs, tyres, and queues.

My England trip has been quite enjoyable, other than my 8 hour wait for my flight there. I arrived Sunday, the 23rd, and stayed with my oldest cousin, My Yung, at her London flat. I went shopping the first couple days on Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus. It was insane and extremely crowded. Overall, I spent way too much money. Although, I really do like, these clothing brands: Uniqlo and Topman.

Then, I took a train up to Bradford to my aunt and uncle's. All 4 of my cousins came home for Christmas. It was exciting to see all of them again. Three live in London and one lives near Leeds. Everything I did there: eat a lot, sit around, watch movies, sleep, and eat more. I did watch Avatar and went out twice with my cousins. Avatar was sick. My cousins paid for all my drinks. :)

Now, I'm back in London. I stayed 2 nights at my cousin Peter's flat. I went to Covent Garden, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Tate Modern on Wednesday. Covent Garden was a nice little market with a bunch of street performers. St. Paul's Cathedral was just gorgeous. Beautiful cathedral. Also, I was able to climb up to the top of the cathedral. I got some beautiful views of London. The Tate Modern is the gallery of modern art. It was cool, but some of the art was too odd for me. Some of it was spectacular, some odd, some very disturbing. On Thursday, I went up to Camden. It's extremely punk rock there. There's a HUGE market there. I spent about 4 hours there and didn't even get through all of it. There were many stores that were really punk rock, selling band tees, leather/black clothing, doing tattoos and piercings, etc. But that's not the only thing there. It's quite an extremely diverse market.

New Years Eve, I went out with two of my cousins to watch the fireworks in front of the London Eye. We arrived at like, 10:30pm and actually got a nice spot to watch them from. I definitely was not drunk enough, but there weren't any toilets. I did not want to pee myself or leave to find toilets. The fireworks were really sweet. They lasted for about 10 minutes. However, the trip back was horrible. It took us about 2 hours because of all the people attempting to leave at once. I think the news said that about 200,000 people were there last night.

I would put up pictures, but I forgot my camera cable. I will put them up after I get back to France.