10-705 Intermediate Statistics

I've had Machine Learning and Computer Science departmental talks during the morning, and I am now in Newell-Simon Hall 1305, at my first course lecture EVER on CMU!!!!! :D :D :D I'm so excited! The tedious paperwork and logistics from the past two weeks had obscured the AWESOME projects that are being done here... this is great!! I just came from a quick lunch with Dept. Head Tom Mitchell, and it was great!! He talked about some key features of his fMRI project, in which he is trying to figure out how does the brain work. Niiiiice!

And now, I'm looking at how Prof. Larry Wasserman explains the concepts of "basic" statistics to a whole class of about 40.

*INTERRUPTION*

And now, about 2 hours later, I say this: "I AM SCARED". MAN, I should know a lot more about statistics than I currently do. :S..... He explained the concepts so fast, he assumed "yeah, you should know Chapters 1-4", and I could barely keep up with what he was writing on his TWO rolling whiteboards (they roll up and down)! "I'm assuming, of course, that you're familiar with the usual distributions - uniform, binomial, the multinomial, Poisson, the normal, although I'm not sure why the textbook doesn't include the multivariate normal, that is weird. Anyway, be sure to know the spherical normal, that is going to be very useful...", and I was like WHAT???? I need some serious quick reading and studying, preferably among other people, to catch up with what's going on.

Now I'm skipping a Prog. Languages conference so that I can start up on my reading and to set up my online PNC bank account. I also have to read that paper so I can be ready for my appointment on Thursday... the year's starting with lots of stuff to do!