Characteristic Undecisiveness

After my one lecture* of the day, Principles and something of Statistical something (I'm sure it'll trip lightly off my tongue by the end of the term) I finally got round to hunting down the books my tutor recommended in the course choice advice session, when I said I was worried because I hadn't really done any statistics. I went to Alpha books, and spotted a copy of the first one straight away; the slightly over-helpful member of staff (quite a senior member of staff I think) asked me what I was looking for and found the second one for me. They didn't have the third one but that didn't matter as my tutor had only put it down because it was his favourite book: it was actually a bit advanced for what I was after. So then I had to work out which one to get. One was more mathematical, full of proofs for everything and going into details about the mathematical properties of the functions concerned- usefull if you're asked to prove something in an excercise, and are not sure how the function behaves- whereas the other was more explanatory, with many diagrams and examples, and would be very usefull if asked why it was a good idea to use a particular statistical technique. In the end, I decided I needed them both, which set me back £55 but which is hopefully a good investment. I dread to think what they cost new... especially as I got £5 off what they would have sold one of them for as it had become slightly scuffed while in the shop.

But the life of a student isn't all studying, exciting extra-curricular activities and looking through second hand bookshops. When I came back to halls I had to do my laundry for the week, since I'm going home for the weekend. My brother is also coming home, and as he has more lectures than me, he was going to work out which train he was going to get and text me to let me know so we could go together and save Dad having to come down to the station twice to pick us up (it's nothing like walking distance- 20 minutes drive across the countryside- and there's no public transport). So I got a message saying he'd be on the 10 to 3 train and was all planned to catch that, when Dad called and revealed that there wasn't a 10 to 3 train and Tom was getting the 10 to 2, which there's no way I'd catch now. I don't think he was very pleased with him...

*It was a problem class really; the lecturer (the one with the boring voice) was going through the excercises on the board. But as I wasn't having difficulties with any of them, and as we'd already been given a pretty comprehensive answer sheet, I actually used the time to sit there and work through the final few- somehow what with Green Party and Sustainability things going on, and the work not actually having to be handed in, and having got out of the habit of deadlines, I'd developed quite a relaxed attitude to getting it done, and only remembered late the night before that today's lecture was the same course as Tuesday's and we would be going through the problems... I finished a little before the end though- and I was tuning in and out of what he was doing on the board too; didn't seem that helpful. Though I'm sure that next week or the week after, when it's all a bit harder, I'd do better to make sure I've done all the excercises before class, and pay attention.