It's a Christmas Miracle!

Sidenote: This is a fairly long post, but it's worth the read.  And at the very least, it gives a glimpse into physics grad school classes...

E&M (electricity & magnetism) has always been my weakest sub-subject in physics.  I'm still trying to understand some of the concepts in the basic version of it that all engineers and such have to take in college.  It was a class that I always barely managed to squeak by in.

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to taking it this past quarter in grad school.  Every physics grad school uses the same ridiculously hard (and hard-to-understand) E&M book by Jackson.  It's been that way for years and I think it'll continue, if only to serve as a rite of passage for each generation of physics grad students.

I was further discouraged to find out that we had perhaps the toughest professor at UCSC teaching it (the other contender is the professor teaching E&M 2 next quarter!).  He's a brilliant man, but his mouth can move almost as fast as his brain... which results in him rattling things off and the class struggling to comprehend it all, let alone take notes on it.  My "favorite" moments in class were when he'd stand in front of the whiteboard, writing things that we/I couldn't see and then modifying them as he went!  It was hard for me, as more of a visual learner.  Overall, however, he really did seem to care and want to help.  We just weren't at his level of intelligence, so it was tough.

The class structure was weekly homework assignments (super tough), but instead of turning in the homework for a grade, we were given a quiz on one of the homework problems (randomly).  I had several consecutive weeks of scoring around a 5 (out of 10).  Each week, I was so thankful to be able to get any points... sometimes it would come from office hours right before, or a friend showing me how they did most of a problem (and then the quiz was that one).  Each week, I'd pray, and each week, God showed His faithfulness.  It really built my trust in Him.  I sent this to Nicole after class one day, after I had been freaking out before the class... she later sent it back to me as a reminder:

A week ago, all that trust came into question with the dreaded E&M final.  I had prepared and studied about as much as I could in the days leading up to it, and it was just hard.  Ridiculously so.  I looked at through the test and was nearly completely at a loss.  I remembered my brother's wisdom from his professor: "OK, I do know some stuff, there must be something I can do..." and I kept going.  After about 20 minutes, I had written out about all that was in my brain.  But I knew I couldn't leave; then it would just look like I didn't care.  So I forced myself to stay, to keep going.  The three hours dragged on... at times, there was nothing for me to write, but I stayed and tried to look thoughtful, tried to not breakdown in the final, resisted the urge to run away screaming (generally considered bad form).  I answered 2 of the 4 questions with some semblance of correctness (but no final/complete result).  Another problem I went off with a method that I think was completely off-base and wrong to even consider, but I needed to write something down.  The last problem, I was completely clueless on.  I wrote down what was given in the problem and was at a loss from there.  I ended up using the space to write a note to the professor, admitting that my final was sad even though I had studied and tried hard.  And that I was willing to do some sort of extra work to make up for my low scores if necessary, just please, please do not fail me. (Our program only requires you to take classes pass/fail, rather than needing a grade... beyond grad school, who cares??)

The end of the third hour finally struck; my torture was over.  Other students were definitely traumatized, but to a lesser extent: "I think I'll be luck to get 50% on that... that was the hardest test I've ever taken." 
For me, I was wondering if it was possible for me to get 20%... I spoke more about the test with Jen afterward, and this confirmed my fears.  In texting with Nicole about it later, she was surprised and depressed too.  We had been praying for God to once again come through in crazy ways, but it looked like our prayers did no good.  Except perhaps to help me to actually keep staring at the impossible test instead of sobbing like a two year old.

After the test, I also heard about a chemistry student who had been in the class and was told by the professor to drop so that he didn't fail... I also heard about 2nd years that will be in both our E&M 2 class AND our Quantum Mechanics 1 class next quarter... so people do apparently fail classes... eeg. 

I didn't even want to think about not being allowed to take E&M 2 and having to find other classes to take instead, or getting kicked out of the program...

The final was on Monday, and I heard nothing from the professor for over a week.  Grades were due yesterday, and as of 5pm, he still hadn't posted anything... ARGH (I had been checking religiously since Monday).  I finally checked once more at the end of the day, 9:30pm, and I got this:

I PASSED!?!  I don't understand how this is possible, so it must be God at work.  I am so grateful to have passed E&M 1... it's a huge relief.  I feel like I can finally relax in earnest.  I can do grad school; He will see me through it.  Thank you, God.

Full of Thanksgiving

...the food coma is just starting to wear off :-P

Really though, Thanksgiving was a great time.  My aunt and uncle who currently live in Germany made the trip, my grand-aunt (?) flew out from the East Coast, and my brother even flew up for a less than 48-hr trip. And I got to see my cousin who lives in SF, and lots of extended family from my Mom's side!  It was great to see and spend time with so much family!  I especially enjoyed getting to show my parents around SC the weekend before :-)

Then I returned and received more cause for thankfulness: a morning of church with a friend, followed by lunch at a taqueria and a GORGEOUS walk along West Cliff (Sorry the good weather wasn't around for you, Mom & Dad).  And since the weather was so good, then Jen and I climbed a tree:

On top of that, we ended up having a "Roommates Thanksgiving" with all kinds of food from our families!  Yadi brought chili reno her mom made (legit!), Cynthia wanted to share noodles her dad made with us, I brought my grandma's chocolate chip pumpkin bars, and Jen made thick & rich hot cocoa.  We were all thoroughly stuffed afterward :-D

Finally, I wanted to share something one of my lab students told me today.  I so enjoy teaching the labs, especially when you get the sweet stuff like this:
"I just wanted to thank you for teaching our lab. I don't really like physics, actually I hated it... but you made the lab interesting and fun, and I actually enjoyed it! When you started talking about TAing next quarter's labs, I got excited, thinking I could end up in your lab again. And then I remembered that my major only required one quarter of physics lab, so I wouldn't be taking it, and I was kinda bummed. So anyways, thank you!"

So much to be full of thanks for... I'm stuffed with it!