Winning the war...

People seem to be very concerned in the US about winning the "War on Christmas," as if the two seconds a pimply faced Wal-Mart clerk wishes you a festive winter solstice really matters. Seriously, does anyone care if they hear "Happy Hollidays" from the teenaged wasteland sitting across the check-out counter as opposed to Merry Christmas? Why isn't everyone just content with the typical yearly empty gesture of goodwill of "Have a nice day" from these corporate bar-code monkeys. Do we really care when it "fits the season"?
Well the "War on Christmas" has spread to other countries as well, and with soldiers like these, I think Christmas is bound to lose... no matter who wins.

"fairly average behavior" from "a well organized group of idiots."
Yes, I believe that sums up much of Christmas here in the States.

Feliz navidad. :)

GPA Watch 2005

Math Theory: A-
Micro Theory: C+
Macro Theory: B
Stat Theory: A-

Current GPA: 3.175*

*Quijote is in trouble if it goes below 3.0

Comment December 5:
Just got my first official grade in. A- in my math class, which is a huge relief. That means I have some breathing room with Micro and Macro.
The Statistics Final is tomorrow. Considering I have turned in all the homework, and did extremely well on the midterm, AND I know this material, I'm hoping to pull off another A. If I can get an A in Math Theory, I can sure as hell get an A in stats.

Update December 6:
Correction on the date added (it sure as heck wasn't the 12th yesterday).
Finished the Stat final in good time. Feel pretty good about it except for one particular problem. Find me a man who can give you the Fisher's Information value for the mean and variance of a normal distribution... and I'll show you a man who is smarter than me.
It would've helped if we could have taken a formula sheet into the final with us with certain formulas on it (i.e. Fisher's Information; as we did in Math Theory of Statistics back at Kansas, which was a more rigorous course by the way than this one) so we didn't have to spend so much time memorizing the formulas (and concentrating instead on the process of deriving them, etc.), but such is life. I knew what the right answers were, I just used some "mathe-magic" in deriving them (I love that wonderful "implication arrow" =>, which explains everything).
But that's just my particular issue. Otherwise... not a bad test at all.
Still waiting on Micro and Macro results.

Update Dec. 7:
C + in Micro. Not unexpected but still disappointing. So at least I got a B on that final, which is good.
That leaves stats and macro yet to be posted. GPA is at a 3.0 even right now.

Update Dec. 8:
Looks like I will survive to fight another day. The B in Macro ensures at least a 3.0 for this semester (although I guess technically we're still waiting on the grade for stats). So I will return to SMU next semester with "good standing" status. This also means that according to the work I've done so far, I have a good chance of passing the qualifiers. Rock on. This calls for some celebration.
I'm a happy little grad student right now.

Update Dec. 9:
Finally got the stats in. A-. So that leaves me this semester with a 3.175 GPA. Alright. So stay in "Good Standing" with the department, and now all I have to worry about are the qualifiers in May.
Further update: Went in to my advisor's office to ask about the open TA position left by my friend who dropped earlier this semester. He said they hadn't considered it yet, but they figure it out sometime. Hopefully soon.