I started this week's problem solving homework this morning.

I puzzled with the Phi look up but got the first part of the first problem in this week's homework done. I will try to complete the first problem today before I go to work.

I have one more school assignment to complete this term.

I am just getting started now on my last assignment for this term. I will read sections 5.3-5.5 that cover the material for this week's assignment then I will attempt the problems. I have no volunteer meetings this week or anything special at work. We are nearing the end of our project at work. This will also be the last week of classes I believe.

I have to search out an optional course for Friday evenings next term.

I am not yet familiar with the techniques for searching the graduate course schedule at the University of Ottawa. I also need to review all the courses that are suggested options in the systems science certicate plus thesis. I only take 1 optional course. I need to pick well for high grades in the main.

I got almost every problem in this week's homework correct.

I just checked the solutions to our seventh homework assignment and I have every answer perfect. May be one of twenty little numerical values was wrong. So my grades should be improving now and I will continue to hit the books.

Speaking of hitting the books I just reviewed the ideas of conditional probability section 1.3 in the text book. I will complete my review of chapter 1 today.

My school work is now completed for the week.

I was able to get the school work done now and solved the last problem which was a combination of a normal probability with a binomial sample. I am ready to go to class today with the homework done.

I solved more problems this morning and am almost done this week's homework just on time.

I actually fell alseep yesterday in the early morning. I worked this morning continuously on problems and solved 4 more problems mostly concerning Chebyshev's inequality and then problems with the normal distribution and Z scores. I have taught or helped teach both of these subjects in the past two years of school. I have one final Z score problems to solve and I am done for this week. I will get ready in the next hour to attend class this morning and hand in my school work.

I read a little more of the book Policing the Risk Society as well last night but other than that and writing on blogs and the math school work with exam preparation study, I have done no other studies in the past few days.

Completed a second problem now.

I just now completed a second homework problem so have six left to complete. I hope to be done this week's homework this morning.

I also spent about an hour in total organizing my studying and doing these blog entries which help me set goals for studying and keep me motivated. Thus I now have done 1.5 hours study leaving 4 hours to still do today and also leaving 34 hours to complete before the exam. In terms of 2 hours per day I am half an hour short of today's goal and then an additional 6 hours short of the goal because I did not study on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. But I am now focusing again on this study goal and catching up.

I spent half an hour studying the textbook and the notes on methods of enumeration.

I did follow through right away after posting my last entry and completed studying the notes and textbook for section 1.3 which covered methods of enumeration, the factorial, and permutations and combinations. This is a difficult area for me at times and at other times I do really well with this area. I am done with this for now and solved a few problems from the textbook in my head without checking answers in the back of the book even after I was done the solving.

So I now have 5 more hours to study today and a total of 35 hours of study left until the exam and I have about 6 more hours to budget to studying chapter one of the textbook.

Right now I am going back to completing this week's homework.

Hours to study for the exam.

I think I miscalculated how much time I needed to study based on days left to the exam. Rather than start at 26 and count down I need to start at 39 and count down. This is because I need three hours for each of thirteen weeks of the term. I have not studied at all since my last note and that means I still have only done about 3.5 hours of study. Counting down from 39 this means I need to study 35.5 more hours. I now have 15 days to go which means I need to study about 2.3 hours a day until the exam. I will try to study for 5.5 hours today and catch up the point 3 hours.

Also I must study five chapters which means about 7 hours per chapter. I have only really studied chapter one so far. Thus I need to spend about another 3.5 hours on chapter one. But chapter five is not something we studied a lot and also chapter four is not heavily covered so I can budget 4 hours to each of those thus spending about ten hours for each of chapers one through three. This means I might budget all of this morning's study to chapter one and do my homework.

One problem of eight solved in this week's homework.

I solved one problem now of eight problems to be solved. I also got my grade for last week's homework and have brought my grades up a little including not being tricked by an error in the textbook but instead relying on my own learning from the textbook. In this first problem I needed to show that a sum of identical and mutually independent exponential r.v.'s is a gamma distribution. I usually have had the first problem in this weekly homework done by Friday or Saturday of the previous week so I am behind but trying to race to completion by Thursday morning when this homework is due in class..

I read sections 4.1 and 4.6 this weekend.

I started some homework so this is really not part of my exam study. I got through the learning material supporting three problems in this week's homework. I also looked at the three problems and they could be tedious but I should get them started today. I am hoping to make all my remaining lectures.

I studied my notes and have less than 23 hours left to go in my ideal study plan.

I carefully reviewed my notes for sections 1.1 and 1.2 of the textbook. This was about an hour of study today. So I now have close to 22.5 hours to still study before the exam. Ideally I would have 20 hours to go now so am now two and a half hours behind schedule.

I read more of our textbook today.

I just read sections 1.1 and 1.2 which have the introduction to the sample space and a random experiment and also contain the definition of probability and the probability set function. Also frequency is covered including the frequency histogram and the relative frequency histogram. This took about 20 minutes to review. So I now have about 23.4 hours to study until the exam.

I need to study for two hours a day until the exam.

I put in my two hours on Friday but not on Thursday. The plan is to study two hours a day until my exam December 7th. This should amount to 26 hours of study. I have studied about 2.25 hours now. I have some 23.75 hours to still study. I will study for 45 minutes now before sleeping.

I read the basics of two variable distributions.

I read section 4.1 in our text book and solved the first four problems in that section while reading on an intercity bus.

I am studying for my exam this weekend.

I am reading my course textbook this weekend. I also got my table of integrals to study. I will also read Kevin Haggerty and Ian Hacking this weekend. I also have a basic book on compound microscopes to read. I will also continue to read Churchman on systems science ethics.

I got my homework handed in this morning.

I did very poorly with my last assignment. I got this week's assignment handed in this morning and attended the lecture. I worked today and yesterday as well all in one long day. I have to study for 2 hours per day until my exam now. I have studied for only 15 minutes so far today

Reading Gidden's book and solving simple probability problems.

I read some of Gidden's book on the identity and also a little more Ulrich Beck and then returned these books to the library as someone put a hold on them. I also borrowed some Kevin D. Haggerty books yesterday.

I have only four more problems to solve in this week's homework.

Weekly probability homework.

I continue to do my weekly homework problems. I have about six more problems to solve today and will hand this in tomorrow. The first four problems concern the Gamma distribution and the Chi-squared distribution.

I am reviewing the VCR tapes from my introductory criminal law course.

In my new job one of my new coworkers in August was also a student in my criminal law course in 2001-2002. I started this fall to watch the VCR tapes from this course. I had watched these tapes when they were broadcast and once while studying in the course. The professor was John Hale, a practicing criminal lawyer here in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario..

The list of books I have out from the University of Ottawa Library.

The systems approach and its enemies / C. West Churchman. (New York : Basic Books, c1979).

General systems theory : ideas & applications / Lars Skyttner. (Singapore ; River Edge, N.J. : World Scientific, c2001).

Advanced systems thinking, engineering, and management / Derek K. Hitchins. (Boston, MA : Artech House, c2003).

The Relevance of general systems theory; papers presented to Ludwig von Bertalanffy on his seventieth birthday. Edited by Ervin Laszlo. (New York: G. Braziller, [1972]).

Taking control of IT costs / Sebastian Nokes. (Harlow, England ; New York : Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2000).

General systems theory: mathematical foundations [by] M. D. Mesarovic and Yasuhiko Takahara. (New York : Academic Press, 1975).

The taming of chance / Ian Hacking. (Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Soft systems methodologt : a 30-year retrospective / Peter Checkland. (Chichester ; New York : John Wiley, c1999).

Computers, work, and health : a socio-technical approach / Trevor A. Williams. (London ; New York : Taylor & Francis, 1988, c1989).

Elements of applied probability : for engineering, mathematics and systems science / David McDonald. (River Edge, NJ : World Scientific, c2004).

The emergence of probability : a philosophical study of early ideas about probability, induction and statistical inference / Ian Hacking. (London ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1975).

Survey research methods / Floyd J. Fowler, Jr. (Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, c2002).

General systems theory, systems analysis and regional planning : an introductory bibliography / Hugh E. Williams. (Monticello, Ill. : Council of Planning Librarians, 1970).

The presentation of self in everyday life. Irving Goffman. (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1959).

Mad travellers : reflections on the reality of transient mental illnesses / Ian Hacking. (London : Free Association Books, 1999, c1998).

Risk Society : towards a New Modernity / Ulrich Beck ; translated by Mark Ritter. (London : Sage Publications, 1992).

Modernity and self-identity : self and society in the late modern age / Anthony Giddens. (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford university press, 1991).

Reflexive modernization : politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order / Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash. (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1994).

Studying is little more relaxed after I got this week's homework submitted (early again).

I read a little about self therapy about an hour ago by Anthony Giddens. I also read a little math. I then emailed the director of my school with an update about my studies. I explained my background a bit more to him.

After talking with professor Ivanoff I bought a table of integrals

I handed in this week's homework today in the morning. I chatted with professor Ivanoff about graduate school thesis. This was interesting and gave me some perspective on this task. She pointed out the differences with a math thesis as opposed to other subjects. I had difficulty with an integral on this week's home work. The professor told me to get a table of integrals. I searched the university library and came across this book

Jeffery, Alan. Handbook of mathematical formulas and integrals 3e,

This book I can see has many useful formulas and I need to own one of these. I searched at Shirley Mill's homepage book price web search tool and the cheapest book available was Amazon.ca and I just purchased it on-line.

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Working on probability homework early this morning.

I finally got working on my probability homework. I solved a number of problems. I then proof read my solutions.

Exam schedule checked.

The exam in my course is on the first exam day in the morning. I will need to take the day before off or the day after.

I worked out and typeset 5 sub problems in this week's homework.

I worked out five sub problems in basic continuous distributions. The basic premise is that an integral of a p.d.f. from negative infinity to positive infinity should be equal to 1. From this property we needed to find constants such that the property held for various functions involving the constants.

One hour reviewing the U of Ottawa's undergraduate calendar for biology and mathematics courses.

I surfed the undergraduate and graduate calendars at my new school. I made a file of biology course descriptions. This file contains the ecology and plant biology courses I would like to study. There is also a light microscopy course in graduate school that might be enough.

I read a little Castells on nationalism.

I read a little of The Power of Identity by Manuel Castells this morning. I also read some business theory and some of my course textbook.

Discussing Kant with other students.

Through my union activities I have come to know a PhD. student in philosophy also at the university of Ottawa. I have been briefly discussing my Churchman reading with him. I have now completed a chapter in Churchman and want to complete a few chapters in a few other books this weekend. I just reviewed or scanned the chapter in continuous distributions in my probability course textbook. I have some home work to get done today in this course. I also need to buy some printer paper today.