Blog # 1--"Getting to Know You"

1-9:

            My name is Katherine McCort, but I go by Katie. I am 70 inches tall and I am 19 years old. My ideal time to arise is between 7am and 9am. It depends if I was participating in a movie marathon the night before. I am obsessed with milk chocolate covered raisins (Sun-Maid or Nestle will do. It does not matter). Following up on my chocolate covered fruit obsession, my favorite snack food is more dried fruit (preferably pineapple and cherries). Dried fruit is just the best thing on the planet.
            I am also obsessed with Muse. They are my favorite band and I have gone out of my way several times to see them live including traveling 10 hours to see them in Chicago at Lollapalooza. I was a music journalist for 4 years so covering music festivals was something near and dear to my heart….until I got utterly bored of the music industry (Seriously. It’s bad. I don’t understand why it hasn’t failed yet). Currently, I still do a few articles/interviews for Substream Magazine and Rockedition.com. However, I refuse to interview more “up and coming” artists. It’s all inflated ego and not too much innovation (or even worse--washed up pop stars. I interviewed Ryan Cabrera once. Yikes).
             Having the opportunity to interview producers, engineers, managers, etc. led to my immense love of copyright and intellectual property law after interviewing two copyright lawyers. So, in my spare time I love to see who is suing who and for what. I also love to watch movies (usually the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies again…and again..and again…with the occasional art house film or critically acclaimed commercial flick throughout) and explore the entertainment business. I do not believe in nationalism, but I will be a nationalist when it comes to American cinema. When that gets a bit tiring, I love going through CIA documents and comic books. I read Marvel, Image and Darkhorse. I have a strange aversion to DC unless the comic was written by Alan Moore or Frank Miller.



  10.)
            I have taken basic math, algebra I, and algebra 2 in full, proper courses. In my senior year of high school I was taking pre-calculus, trigonometry and AP statistics. Due to two separate medical leaves, I was unable to complete the classes. The school I was at could not provide home schooling for me for an AP class and I was unable to get instruction for trigonometry and pre-calculus due to a teacher’s strike and the overall inability of public schools to handle medical absences.

11-12)

Equations (V)

Factoring (C) 

Adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing fractions/rational expressions (C)

Simplifying expressions (V)

Operations on roots and fractional exponent expressions (U)

Operations involving whole number exponent expressions (C)

Finding common denominators (V)

Inequalities (V)

Functions (C)

Absolute value (C)

Linear functions (C)

Systems of equations (U)

Domain and range (V)

Inverse functions (U)

Transformations (shifting, scaling, stretching, etc) (U)

Quadratic functions (C)

Completing the square (C)

Exponential functions (U)

Logarithmic functions (C)

Base e (C)

Graphing (U)

Trigonometric concepts (C)

I recognize all of these concepts and I believe I can understand them once I am reminded of them. My biggest fear is, and has always been, graphing. I’m not terrible at it, I simply irrationally fear it. I am also a little uneasy when it comes to fractions, depending on the context.

I am confident about factoring. While I need a reminder, I always enjoyed factoring. With the exception of graphing and certain things that are done on graphs (i.e. transformations), I am confident in grasping the other concepts. Certain functions (i.e. exponential) I have found easy in the past. However, I do not remember how to do them now.

13-14:

            I am familiar with texting, Facebook (which I have recently deleted), wordpress, blogspot, tumblr, twitter and google plus. Recently, I have grown fond of twitter and tumblr. I have only used wordpress and blogspot for internship-related purposes. Google Plus gives me a headache.

15-19:

            I am majoring in Business Administration with a specialization (hopefully…I have to create it) in entertainment management. I am also minoring in political science. I am taking this math class because, for future career goals, I wish to become more proficient in mathematics.  I will be taking statistics and applied calculus. I want this class to prepare me for applied calculus and I hope to get a better grasp on graphing as I believe that graphing is a very important skill used in many fields.