studying quotes

a song sent to me by steve klee this afternoon:
)to the tune of cecilia: )
non-abelian, you're breaking my heart
you're shaking my multiplication
non-abelian, i'm down on my knees
i'm begging you please to commute

algebra in the afternoon
non-abelian groups in my classroom
there are things that cannot be done
when a b inverse a inverse b is not one

:-)

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actual fun with studying:

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leigh: has anyone seen my hungerford? (note: thomas hungerford is the author of our main algebra textbook)
me: you mean you have a clone of good old tom and he got out of his cage?
leigh: yeah, i took him home and i'm afraid i might have left him there
me: oh, i see, you brought him home and your mom got so attached that you left him there for a bit
colleen: that's one way to break up
leigh: huh? so where IS humphreys? (note: humphreys is the author of our lie algebras text book)
me: humphreys... wait which one is that?
colleen: see, leigh has so many boyfriends none of us can keep them straight
leigh: why are we talking about multiple ones, i just want hungerford
me: you said humphreys
leigh: oh dear
colleen: and the guys think we don't have any boyfriends to speak of... ha

me: see, wasn't that one of the funniest things you've done all day?
eric: and the chocolatiest!
(there are pictures to illustrate this... eric took a freakin huge hand full of chocolate covered raisins and ingested them all at once, much to the entertainment of all)

leigh: so then we can always find a sup within epsilon of that pizza hut!
(this is what happens when you let lara name the variables in a problem instead of calling them x, y, z, etc. as usual)

me: wow leigh! what are you doing here? i like it when i see you at my house!
leigh: wow, you must be happy a lot because guess what?
me: what?
leigh: i live here!
eric: wow! i have no idea what just went on here
me: you don't tell your roommates that you're amazed and so happy to see them all the time?
eric: um, no
leigh: that's because they don't have anyone in that house near as cool as you lara

once i spent a whole day doing that... you know,
putting + and - in front of zero and watching it
disappear... it's like 'look! it did it again!' every
time. ~eric

note: the door to the graduate lounge in the math
building locks and has no recycling bin in it, so it's
a fun game to throw the door open, run to the
recycling bin to get rid of trash and run back before
the door closes
me: shoot, the bins are further down the hall, i don't
know about this
eric: well, you can cheat and prop the door and we'll
all laugh or you can be brave and try it
leigh: c'mon we'll both go... let's do it!
(leigh and i run out the door, i get back in just
before it shuts and leigh's still outside... eric
gives me a high five and a "see told you you could do
it!"
...just as the door is closing in front of leigh, we
hear "lara! you missed and threw yours in the paper bin!"


who says studying ALL DAY long in the math building isn't fun? all your meals in the graduate lounge using leftover plates from a semester of pizza seminar... all the hot drinks you could want out of the shady machine in the basement.... all day in a dusty 7th floor room with 2 walls of chalkboards, 3 good friends, and a freakin lot of math books... then studying all evening until bedtime at our house or eric's house alternately.... oh man, what a week...

3 more days to study, then 2 of insanity.

here's to hoping for survival

night y'all