Well, I have to admit that this blog was forgotten. However, with the lack of response to the blog, it was hard to stay committed. For someone that doesn't really blog, it felt rather odd to write a blog that noone reads. I'm sure that the TA's and professor were busy with other stuff, but more feedback on the blog would have been nice.

Well onto the course itself. Overall, I found the course to be pretty difficult. The amount of course work to be done was pretty huge. With something to do every week, whether it was a problem set, an assignment, or a test, there was never any time to relax and just take in the material. It would have been great if there was one week per month with nothing stressful from the course. The high work load of the course often conflicted with other courses and lead to many sleepless nights. Bad time management on my behalf was probably to blame, but nonetheless I found the amount of work from this course to have been far greater than that of any other course.

As for the material of the course, at the beginning, it wasnt too bad with the stuff on induction, but as the course progressed, it managed to get more and more confusing. Around the point of program correctness, I was just completely confused. There wasn't any time to just slow down and slowly understand everything. However, near the end at regular expressions, things started making more sense. It helped that in CSC207 regular expressions were also being used, so it brought about a better understanding of the material. CSC207 gave regular expressions a purpose and a feeling of practical use. As opposed to a lot of the other material that was just theory, regular expressions served a purpose and was actually useful. The material on DFSA's was pretty interesting, but the textbook's wording on NFSA's was pretty confusing. However, the lecture did help clear things up.

In short, the course was pretty hard. It covered difficult material and had a lot of course work. For the course, I didn't really know anyone in my classes, so I had to do all of the work myself. It would have been good to have worked on assignments with other people to help reduce the stress, but I'm pretty anti-social at times and find it hard to approach people. Well, that is one thing I found good about blogging, I can say and express things I normal wouldn't be able to in real life. Anyways, despite the difficult content, the lectures explained the material pretty well, though professor Heap's writing is hard to read sometimes.

I do regret my lack of proper time management as it probably would have helped me do far better in the course. However, there is still the exam, so there's still some stress left from the course. Might as well begin to manage my time better for studying for the exam.

I thank the professor and TA's for their help with this course. Despite the difficult and sometimes boring content, they managed to make light of the material and teach it well. There were many parts of the course that I enjoyed and found interesting, as well as parts I didn't enjoy. But overall, it was a good experience.

Well, Test 1 wasn't too bad, I wish I had a bit more time though. The question with sets was worded very awkwardly, and made me misunderstand the question twice, so I had to go through and redo my rough work. That ended up wasting way too much of my time, so I didn't get to complete my last question. The annoying thing was that I knew what to do, just didn't have the time to complete it. One thing that another student brought up was the verbal time announcements. I totally agree with that and would love more frequent verbal announcements. I realize that the time was on the board, but it can be hard to see. I was sitting close to the front and had trouble reading the time, I can only imagine what it was like for the students near the back.

One thing that this test made me realize was that my basic multiplication skills, are really really rusty. Haha, it took me longer than I'd like to admit doing the math for one of the questions, and it was just simple multiplication. As for concepts, I think that the test covered a good set of material. None of the ideas were exactly new and never taught, but they did require proofs that were different.

The thing about tests for this course that I find troubling is that, even if you do all the practice, review all the questions done in class, on problem sets, or for assignments, you can still have no idea how to solve a question. These situations can be so frustrating since even though you know what to do, you just can't connect one part and complete the actual proof. It's very easy to lose track of time when you're frustrated and in deep thought about one of the questions. Seeing as the tests only last an hour, this can become problematic.

As for the new material, I must say I'm not all that comfortable with it. It seems a lot more complicated than the induction we have been doing before, and a lot of it leaves me abit confused. Whenever Professor Heap gives us time to work on a question, I'm not sure what to do now and just feel abit lost. I'm not particularly looking forward to the assignment and test that will cover this material. It feels as if the course suddenly got exponentially harder.

Well, now that Assignment 1 is over, I actually have the time to add this blog. Better late than never I guess.

Since this is my first post, I'll just go over everything I've thought of so far in chronological order.

Well, we started the first class with a full 3 hour lecture much to my dismay lol. In most other classes I had, we were let out earlier even though most my courses were 3 hour night lectures. Haha even worse, Professor Heap went right to the serious stuff and started talking about induction. I'm glad that I'm comfortable with induction otherwise I would have just died there. After getting a syllabus and looking at it, I realized that this term was gonna be a lot of work. Looking at the schedule, it seemed like there would be something every week, whether it was a problem set, an assignment, or a test. I didn't particularly enjoy CSC165, and CSC236 seems to be a continuation of it, so hoping for the best. At least Professor Heap mentioned that the structure of proofs for this course won't be as rigid as that of CSC165, that's something to be grateful of. On a brighter note, I've mentioned Professor Heap already, but I'm glad that he's the one teaching this course. Despite not enjoying CSC165 too much, I did enjoy having Professor Heap teaching the material. I guess, with that ends my thoughts from the first week.

The only thing that lingers in my mind of Week 2 was the first Problem Set. I was glad that it was relatively easy and I could figure out what to do for both questions. However, I did have some trouble trying to put my thoughts down as words, especially for question 2. After getting it back, too thrilled about my mark, but I at least the comments were helpful.

I found the Problem Set for Week 3 to be rather interesting. Even though the problem with stamps was brought up in class, the one on the problem set was abit different. At first i found the wording to be rather confusing with the n>N, but after completing the Problem Set, I understood why the wording was the way it was. At least the problem was interesting to do, and not just another boring proof. So far all the material covered hasn't been too bad, and is still easy to understand and grasp.

Assignment 1 was more work than I had expected it to be. I first quickly looked it over, and thought that it seemed pretty simple, and Question 1 really was. However, once again I had the trouble of finding a way to convey my thoughts into an actual proof. I wasn't too sure if what I had down was enough, even thought to me it seemed fully proven. Question 2 was rather fun and amusing. It was different from most other proofs I've had to do which made it interesting. It required abit of thought, but overall, it wasn't too bad. It was Question 3 that gave me some trouble. I had read it over and over, and still didn't really understand what the question was asking. The frustrating thing was that I fully understood part b, but had no way of doing it without part a. After reading some forum posts, I managed to slightly grasp what to do, but I'm still not sure if it was right or not. I hope I had the right idea at least. Overall, the assignment wasn't too bad, maybe I should work with a partner next time.

On another note, I had a laugh when some friends came over while I was working on Assignment 1. These friends were in random programs, most of them haven't touch math since high school. They saw the rough work I had on my white board, and just had these twisted up faces of confusion. They gave me some pitiful looks as I laughed and told them it wasn't as bad as it looked. At least my friends all think I'm abit smarter than before now haha.

I hope the first test won't be too bad. What I'm hoping for is that the questions would be similar to those we had on the Problem Sets and Assignment, but abit shorter, since we get a week to work on the Problem Sets and Assignment, but only a few hours for the test.

Anyways, I guess that's enough for my first post. It pretty much sums up all I have to say about the course so far.