Victory. I am, at the end of the third week of the quarter, all caught up on my statistics assignments. Yippee! A celebration was executed in solitude: I allowed myself to read a little before sleeping even though it was already midnight.

I'm caught up on my assignments, but not on the reading. I'm a little frightened by the fact that I can complete homework without comprehension. I think the homework is too easy and the exam will test a level of comprehension for which the homework hasn't done a good job of preparing us (me). It's the beginning of the fourth week and, without looking at the syllabus, I sense such an exam right around the corner.

It's not that I don't understand some of what I'm doing; it's more that I couldn't do it without all the references piled around me. This is one class - well two that are tightly integrated - and I have seven books. I'm counting the four from last quarter too because readings from them are still referred to in our homework, though they mostly just act as reference now. I've been attending all the classes, even the stupid TA sections, and I'm forcing myself to go to TA office hours to ask embarrassingly simple questions. This quarter, my goal IS comprehension, but it feels like merely survival in a course whose concepts are grounded way out in space.