(no subject)

[davv]

Some days ago, I finally got my paws on freeze-dried ice cream: I was curious what it was like. If I were to describe it in a few words, I'd say it's the un-Lembas.

Where Lembas is supposed to be filling, this is mostly air. You end up wondering whether you actually ate anything! It's quite snacklike in that respect.

It's not bad, though. It's just... weird, which I guess is its appeal :)

(And I think I've come to like unusual things more, lately.)

Comments

[lhexa]

Sounds a bit like cotton candy, without the lingering stickiness.

How go your most recent classes?

[davv]

Pretty much! Cotton candy without the stickiness and with a more interesting taste, not just "sweet sweet sweet!" all the time. And it's also quite brittle.

Mathematics could be more fun right now. There's a lot of calculus that's probably quite useful if you're going into physics: line integrals on scalar and vector fields, double integrals on domains aligned with the x or y axis, and on sections defined by polar coordinates. I don't know if it's the raw amount of it or how they emphasize rigor that makes me feel overwhelmed, but it's hard to keep up.

I've said that one of the worse parts of lower education mathematics (to me) was that they just conjured equations out of thin air: "if you see x^2, write 2x". But this feels like it's going rather far in the opposite direction. The introduction to each type of integral is preceded by showing how one can reach it by Riemann sums, for instance. After having seen the trick three times, I think I get the point :)

I guess I'm more a big-patterns kind of drake. OTOH, I do understand that without practicing the fundamental parts, it's hard to use it automatically to the point required to see the patterns in the more advanced stuff. But still!