Il Prendra plus de Trois Jours pour Me tuer

Most people never get the chance to see what campus looks like around 3a.m. Sadly many of the people who experience this tend to be drunk. Well I went for a walk around campus this morning, between 2a.m. and 3:15a.m. For the majority of the walk I was alone and had time to do some thinking (nothing too serious mind you). However, there were two instances I will not likely soon forget. The first was walking past a guy who I believe was drunk, even though I couldn't smell any alcohol. I really am not sure of what he was trying to say to me but from what I was able to gather it sounded like he was under the impression that I was high (I don't smoke so this clearly wasn't the case for those of you that were wondering). Basically he repeated the words sticky and rolling while occasionally pointing at me. Near the end it seemed that if I continued listening things might have gotten a little physical. I am pretty sure that if this did happen that I would be able to outrun him, even in my sleep deprived state. The second event occurred about five minuets after talking to the previously mentioned man. I was walking by Beaty and heard people talking behind me, so I stopped and looked to see what they looked like. However, to my surprise I did not see anyone. I stood there for about a whole minuet just looking to find people who were talking, since I could clearly hear voices, but still nothing. I soon began to think that the lack of sleep might be having some mental side effects. Just a few seconds later I heard the voices and for some reason decided to look back; I suppose this was in hopes of convincing myself that I was not going crazy. Sure enough there were people talking across the street. The reason I had not been able to see them before was because they were being hidden by a large truck. Now whether these people were real or were just created by my mind is a whole different story, one which I would prefer not to think about at this point in time.

After the walk I got back to the dorm and talked to people on AIM (I was just as surprised as you that people are), played a few games on addictinggames.com, and then finally downloaded and watched the first few minuets of the new Bleach episode.

The nap at 4:20 was greatly needed since for some reason I was unable to fall asleep during the scheduled 12:00 nap. Well needless to say I woke up from this nap completely refreshed...until I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 4:50a.m. (I should really stop doing that) Then it finally happened. Around 5:00 I had my first thoughts of quitting and returning to my "normal" sleep schedule. Really I don't know how I convinced myself to suck it up and continue but I did and am very proud.

Overslept. Don't know exactly how it happened since my alarm was right by me and my other alarm was across the room. O well, no use in dwelling on it too much, I should just accept that it happened and move on.

Due to the recent events (not getting up to my alarm) I have decided that I will not do this sleep cycle until I have taken my finals which last from 7:30a.m. to 12:00p.m. I know this will slow down my ability to adjust but I think that getting to my finals is just a little more important. Right now I am not 100% sure on whether or not I will actually stop, but it is just an idea.

Well I have decided to stick with the naps and just adjust the timing before my exams so that just in case I do oversleep there will only be a small probability of me missing the exam. 4:20p.m. nap was pretty good. Off to study right now. [Just in case you have not noticed every paragraph or so is written a short while after I have completed a nap or am about to start the next nap.]

The rest of the day nothing special or worth reporting occurred, so I shall end here.
The last of my finals for the spring term are on May 4th, wish me luck.

El Segundo Día

Let me begin with this trivial observation. Twenty-four hours is a long time. I know that I am only actually awake for twenty to twenty-one but it seems like an eternity. The night hours are not as bad as I had first imagined. This is because of sites like addictinggames.com and splashdot.com, if you do not know what splashdot is then I strongly recommend that you visit it in the near future. After some reading and application I have come to the conclusion that sleeping on your back helps you fall asleep faster. Other positions that I have experimented with include; on my left side, on my right side, on my stomach, and the fetal position (both facing left and right).
The time between 12:50a.m. and 4:20a.m. was filled with me trying to learn some linear algebra from a book that I had previously downloaded. However, I soon realized that I was not as fine as I would openly admit. I realized this when I started making basic addition errors and was also unable to retain material that I had just read no less than five minuets ago. Normally when this happens I know that I am in dire need of sleep and will head to bed, but because of the constraints of the schedule I was forced to find a way to keep myself entertained. Before going to addictinggames.com I played a game of Yahoo Spades, which consumed about half an hour. I find that playing puzzle games work the best since I have to keep my mind active. The 4:20 nap was subpar. This might be my fault actually, since even though it did feel like I had a full night's worth of sleep my mind quickly reminded me that in reality I had only been asleep for at most half an hour. While waiting for my next nap I started to play more puzzle games on addictinggames.com, hopefully I will be able to find one soon that is challenging but not so much that I give up after only two hours.
After I awoke from my 8:20a.m. slumber I did something I had not done since my first or second week at UF, I actually went to the dining hall for breakfast. Taking the advice I was given by my friend the previous day I avoided meats and excessively fatty foods. For some reason I chose to eat grits, it should be noted that I hate grits and have for the majority of my life.
The time leading up to my 12:00p.m. nap was hell. Well that is an overstatement but it was worse than the entire night cycle. I think it was because of the 4:20a.m. nap. During this period I experienced my first real case of fatigue. Every time I closed my eyes I was tempted to fall asleep, truthfully I do not know how I managed to hold out till noon. Well the nap at noon was AMAZING. I felt totally refreshed, but this elated state did not last long because I soon looked my clock and realized that it was only 12:50p.m. bummer. Around 2pm I started feeling very tired. It got so bad that I was afraid to even try and walk for fair that I would fall over. So I decided to take a nap even though it would not be at one of my scheduled nap times. I woke up from this nap disgruntled because I once again looked at the clock. I think I am noticing a pattern here, maybe I should try and test it with mathematical induction.
The 4:20p.m. nap was the best to date. I was in such a deep sleep that my alarm was going off for about a minuet before I was able to hear it. Also my roommate was about to wake me up just a few seconds after I heard the alarm. I think that this was the first nap where I was not hungry when I woke up. I was able to get a lot of studying done during the first two hours of the transition period between naps.
The final nap of the day could have been disastrous if it were not for my roommate's girlfriend. I don't know exactly how this happened but when the alarm that signaled the end of the 8:20p.m. went of I did not hear it at all. Luckily she was helping him move out and she just happened to walk in as the alarm was going off. The ensuing interaction took place. For the sake of privacy I will call her "L".

L: Nick.
Me: F**K!

Now, I didn't say that out loud, but it is how I felt on the inside for two reasons. One was because I did not hear my alarm go off. The second is that she woke me up from what felt like a ten hour nap. Luckily I did not over sleep, because from what I have been told and have read over sleeping makes it more difficult to adjust to the new schedule. To make sure that this never happens again I plan to use two alarms; one will be on my cell phone and the other will be an alarm clock with the volume near its maximum.
Overall today was not as horrible as I had originally anticipated.

The First Day

Today was my first day with the Uberman's sleep schedule. As I have previously stated I did not plan to start this till next week but today I just happened to take a nap at 12:20 for some reason. Usually I don't take naps, in all honesty this is probably my fist one since second grade, so me taking a nap today was kind of a big deal. After taking the nap I decided, what the hell might as well start a week earlier than originally planned.
So far it hasn't been too bad but then again it is only the first day and I had a whole night's worth of sleep the previous day. Just a little earlier I was talking to my friend who had tried this, he had to stop for a while because he got sick but plans to start back soon, and he advised that I try to become a vegetarian, cut out as much fat from my diet as possible, and to exercise during the night cycles. I had already planned on doing the exercise bit but the part about changing my diet seemed a little odd. However, after thinking about how your body digest fats this made perfect sense.
One obvious advantage is that I will have more time in the day to be productive, all I have to do now is draw up the will power. During the first half of the night cycle I am going to spend learning more about material that is not directly related to my class, then in the second half I will exercise most likely by going for a run.
Well it is almost nap time so I have to wrap this up. I guess I will keep a log of how I feel for the first week.

Uberman's Sleep Schedule

For those of you that do not know what Uberman's sleep schedule is I advise that you go look it up on Google or Wikipedia or just continue reading this post.
This is how the sleep schedule works. You take 20-30 minuet nap every four hours. Lets say that you chose to take your naps at 12, 4, and 8, the nice thing is that no matter what times you choose the time are the same regardless of am or pm. Obviously to stay on this schedule you need to be able to either adjust your daily schedule or take care in choosing nap times. Also at first it is going to be difficult to adjust from the normal mode of sleeping, where you get all your sleep at one time. Some sources claim that it takes about a week to get adjusted and even then you still need a lot of self discipline to remain on schedule. According to "Steve Pavlina" this purpose of this schedule is to help the user enter what is known as R.E.M. sleep faster.
After reading more about this from various sites and my friend's personal account of trying it, I have decided that I would like to try it. Unfortunately I will not be able to start this intense task until I am done with finals because right now I do not have a week to "waste" while getting adjusted to the new sleep pattern. As things are now I plan to start the week between finals and the start of summer classes. Hopefully I can find a job where I will be able to fit my naps in during my lunch hour. The only foreseeable to actually doing this is going to be convincing my mother that I will be "perfectly fine". Once I get past that staying awake is going to be a pain since I do not have anyone else who is willing to do it with me as of right now. Hopefully once I start I will not miss any of the naps because that will really fuck things up as you can imagine.
Wish me luck and if you are interested in doing this with me and will be in Gainesville over the summer feel free to let me know. I know that doing this while studying for the first Actuary exam isn't the smartest thing ever but the exam isn't till August so by June I should realize if this is for me or not.

Integration Technique

Today I was helping out at the Buchholz calculus team practice and there was only one problem that they had no idea how to solve. The problem was similar to the one below.

I have left of the limits of integration because for this kind of problem they are not very important. There are several ways to proceed when solving this, first you can write the denominator as one sine or cosine function. This is the most obvious way to proceed but is certainly not the best, I am not sure where it will lead but just with a little mental computation you should quickly realize that you have not made the problem any easier. The method I suggest is that you make an appropriate substitution. When I first mentioned to them that there existed a convenient substitution they looked at me in disbelief. I suggest that you try and think of the substitution before reading any further.
The substitution I am referring to is,

After some algebra and trigonometry you will arrive at the following,
After you replace each trigonometric expression with its corresponding algebraic one you should have an integral that is much easier to solve.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE,...

These past two days were a very much needed break from studying and stressing over REU. First off I did not get accepted to the REU program, but I am not too upset because the program was designed for students with more mathematical experience. This summer I will spend taking classes either at FSU or UF. Most likely at FSU assuming that the math department allows me to take Linear Algebra and have it count towards my major; if not then I will have to stay in Gainesville and find a summer job to help cover the cost, since my scholarships only pay for the spring and fall semesters.
Now that I have discussed that it is time to get back to the original topic.
On Friday I went to the Hands Down Showcase, which was a hip-hop dance competition. All of the performing groups did an awesome job. Yes Trina, I'll admit that the Assins performance was good, but only on a performance level. I think Sarah's description of their dance is the most accurate one that is possible with the English language (the description was: SEX, not sexy, it was sex). After the Hands Down event we (Trina, Joe, Gene, Sarah, and I) decided to have a wholesome meal at Subway. We had conversations about things I don't remember anymore, I hope that none of them were about anything serious. Boredom set in so we decided to go to "Club Joe". That was fun until we had to turn down the music because some girl on the second floor complained that our music was too loud. Her exact words were, "Could you turn it down, or at least the bass. I mean EVERYTHING IS FUCKING MOVING!" Honestly, what could she possibly have been doing that would require silence? It was Friday at around 11p.m. she needs to get out and have some fun. Well after she left we had some fun with the lights, hopefully no one in the room was prone to seizures because then I would feel bad about us putting them through that. We even watched about three or four episodes of Happy Tree Friends, if you do not know what that is then I suggest you go to YouTube and find out. Sarah had the best reaction to these videos. Trina was laughing at them which was something that I was not expecting at all. Later at around 3a.m. on Saturday we decided to watch Battle Royal at Beaty in Matt's room. The movie was somewhat disturbing, but overall I thought it was alright, definitely something that I would consider watching again in the future. The movie was bases off the manga which was bases off a book. I don't think that I will ever read the book but if I can ever find the manga I would love to read it and hope that it will help to clarify some of the things in the movie. By the end of the movie everyone was tired so we decided to call it a day and all went back to our respective rooms. I got back to my room and fell asleep around 5:00a.m.
After I woke up I went and saw The Man of Mode with Trina, Sarah, and Gene. The plot was somewhat original and very humorous. The only problem was that since I am not very good with names I do not remember the names of all the characters, I had to identify them by how they acted and the clothing that they wore. Medley turned out to be my favorite character in the whole play, because it was through him that many of the events were set into motion. Also everyone in the play was almost always willing to share their "secrets" with him. After watching the play we went at ate then went back to Weaver and watched a few episodes of Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The days events were concluded with about an hour of pool at the Reitz.
Well I need to head to bed now since I have to wake up early for church tomorrow.

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Video 2:

A Well Spent Day

Today was the first time in about a month that I have actually had the time to do math problems that I actually find interesting. When I say I have time I mean that there was not a test that I needed to be studying for, or an assignment that must be completed. Sure I have a differential equations test on Friday, but it's going to be easy so no need to waste time with studying for that.
I started off the free time by solving this problem;


If you are unable to read the above problem then just click on it and it will be displayed in a larger format.
The problem did not require too much insight. It was basically a routine exercise with Lagrange multipliers. Also if you did not know any calculus the problem was still solvable thanks to the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality. This about two minuets to think up the solution and then another five to write it all down.
The next three hours were spent doing problems that were more challenging and took a little more insight. However, there was one problem that took the majority of the time. The disappointing part is that I was not able to solve the problem.



I was able to develop a recursion formula and initial conditions but after this point i was not able to generate a closed form. My answer is split into cases depending on the parity of n and then it has the solution in the form of a product of terms.
Hopefully, I will be able to solve this problem, and the other problems on the three sheets (a total of 29 problems) before the end of the semester. This is the second set of problems that I am attempting. In the first set I was able to solve six problems on my own, I needed help on four, and have incomplete proofs for one. The source of the problems is the first compilation of 100 Mathematical Problems by Yang Wang, a professor at Georgia Tech., so I am working on the first fifty-one problems, and find it very rewarding even if I have to ask others for help. Asking for help and learning something new is better than being clueless for eternity. Obviously I only ask for help after I have put in a considerable amount of effort (normally a weeks worth at least).


Well I need to sleep now, early class tomorrow, so I shall leave you with a parting quote.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture.
-Bertrand Russell