2 months sober of gaming, I have finally cracked

Looking forward to any math class = advanced mental illness.

 

I don't know man, I'm sitting here integrating derivatives and listening to Squarepusher and it's giving me a rush.

 

Don't play video games. Do your work. Be awesome.

Eww, analysis? Go die.

So many people don't get this.

My friends know I studied math (peasant math, not the legit stuff) and they give me shit for using a calculator. I just headdesk because they think a math major is someone that can add/multiply big numbers in their head.

Trickster is an expat in a very dangerous region. Their wages and benefits are insane because their jobs are risky as fuck.

And Trickster, no bullshit from you. I help do benefits for other expats in your region. No shit, I just finished assisting in an affordability study on a giant contractor in your region (with a few british expats!), so my opinion is actually really well qualified.

If I spent my entire life thinking math was a collection of arbitrary formulas for which I have to do arbitrary actions upon, then I'd hate math class too.

Math is just a convenient framework to solve problems.

 

Your music? Analysis helped make it. Image processing? Analysis. Anytime a analog device needs to approximate a digital signal? Analysis. When a digital signal needs to approximate an analog signal? Analysis. Those differential equations that makes your computer work? Analysis helps with all that too. Specifically, integral transforms. And even more specifically, Discrete Cosine Transforms and Fourier Transforms. And then doing it fast makes them even more useful.

Being good at math comes in several steps. First, you don't use a calculator because you can do all that shit in your head. Then you use a calculator because it's faster than doing it in your head. Then you don't use a calculator anymore because the calculator can't do shit for you.

 

I'm sure math gets interesting the higher up one goes but, eh, I just can't bring myself to do it, considering that math isn't even marginally related to my academic interests, but that I rather sort of just did it as a vestige of being raised a Chinese American.

And yeah, I've decided against taking up gaming in college. Back to Greek!

 

You made the right decision son.

 

I would argue that it's less qualified than someone actually out there.

The danger is grossly exaggerated, it's really based more on where you are in the region. I'm near Basra, and that's pretty safe. Shit happens occasionally but that's really no different to the US. If I was near Baghdad, getting shot at would probably be a daily occurrence. And before this, I worked in the United Arab Emirates, where the danger is probably less than working in the US. The only risk on the job is fucking it up. BP don't give second chances. You're either at the top of your game, or your entire company risks losing the contract with them.

But by all means, keep doing your studies about how dangerous it is. The more dangerous people make it out to be, the more money I get, so I'm cool with that. Also, I don't even know what benefits are. I certainly don't get them. My company doesn't love me enough.

 

i guess trickster grossly exaggerated SHARIA LAWWW OOOOOOOOO

 

But hey, they got freedom now after we liberated them right?

 

my sharia

 

Half of them are glad we went in, the other half aren't. On the whole, the general consensus is that they all hate Americans, but they're pretty friendly with every other nationality, especially the British.

One guy I spoke to laid it out pretty straight forward. He just said that before Saddam, they didn't have cars, didn't have phones, computers, and they had to follow what the regime said. But the fact is, if you didn't act out, you were safe. Crime was very rare and on the whole, you pretty much lived your life without any issues. Now a lot of them are far wealthier, but it's just so much more dangerous compared to how it was. He said he preferred it when it was safe, but that he understood why some prefer it now.

 

They will fit right in with the international community.