When 1 day of lots of class just isn't enough....

Woke up at 7:15ish after snoozing, got into class plenty early.

First class today was AAL, or Advanced Abstract Algebra, taught by Peter Hermann. The class will cover advanced theories of groups. We started off by review groups- order, subgroups, index, the normalized, and factor groups. We went on to homomorphisms, permutations -- in which the right way, such as x(Pi) was voted against 2-14 :( -- the symmetric group. We then started what he called was new material. This included group action, which is not a very difficult concept, and after some examples, including trivial ones (i keep on remembering.... trivial examples earn trivial points!), we talked about the stabilizer and the orbit. Apparently next class, which is tomorrow, we will talk about the Orbit-Stabilizer Theorem, another topic I covered last term. Apparently that is a very important theorem in our studies this term.

This is a great class. I feel very prepared for it, and have done even more than other students whose professors stick clearly to the textbook. Hermann is a great professor. I remember him saying something about "this is how groups live and breathe", and I thought that was so great. I will definitely be taking this.

Afterwards I sat in on Theory of Computing (THC) taught by Gyula Katona. I didn't come in with many expectations- I had little to no desire to take the class, but the lecture was quite interesting. We talked about finite automaton- and how machines can be built to answer questions such as whether or not a string contains 001 as a substring, when the computer has 2 choices. It was very logical but also very different, and I have never seen anything like it before. We then briefly touched on non-deterministic finite automaton, or NFA, and these seemed even more interesting. I wonder how they choose. Terminator, anyone?

Katona is not the greatest professor- he copies a lot from the book, but the course is unique and is now on my would like to take classes. I'll also see how the next lecture, which isn't until next week, goes.

Then I got a tasty lunch of rice and pork with vegetables (tasting a bit like pot pie mix), and sat in on Galois Theory (while eating!), taught by the interesting prof Szabo. He spent the first 45 min talking about Galois' exciting life, then we discussed the last 45 min what a polynomail was, and what fields and rings are. I don't exactly known what they are myself, and I don't feel that confident about them. He was much more relaxed today, only pacing back and forth a lot, and his writing was much neater too, but I don't think I have the background to take the class. It is an exciting subject, though- but I still have grad school! I'll give it one more shot tomorrow.

Then it was 2, and I had my Intro to Hungarian class. It was 2.5 hr long. We learned basic pronounciations, grammar, the to be verbs, some basic vocab, and the numbers. It is interesting since some conjugation depends on whether the words are front or back, which depends on the last vowels in the word.

Finally got home 5:30ish. Went to the mall, eating a McDonalds chicken nuggets and a large coke (this was actually large!). I tried to order the meal with fries but I guess they didn't understand me. Then got a piece of cake at another place, and did some shopping at match. Then went home to look at some math!

Tomorrow is another algebra class, my first number theory class (which I will surely take), and more galois theory. The characteristic theory of finite groups is canceled on Wed, and the first class of that will be Friday.

Its almost the weekend! ha~