through the inbox

oh the random emails i get... today was a grand assortment... here's 4

first thing each weekday, i get an email from arxiv, which is a site that lists preprints of math and science papers... i get a list of all the new papers in a few specific areas of math i'm interested in... today there was an article entitled On the entropy of LEGO, which is seriously about mathematics of building things with legos... i was impressed :-P

mid morning, i was working at my computer and grumbly abou the whole oil ordeal, when i got a survey email from a lady i know in memphis, who works at the office i worked at for a summer a few years back. angstful about the state of my morning so far, and since i actually like filling out surveys, i responded.
her answer to one question: "Favorite sport to watch: Football, men in spandex bending over!"
my answer to the same question: "Favorite sport to watch: football -- but not for
the same reason as you debbie :-P... i like betting on the next play, and my grandpa schumann (mom's dad) raised us all to be devoted steelers fans for the sake of the game, not the players :-P" -- honest answer... if you ask anyone who's watched football with me i seriously get really into game play, not players :-P
her email back to me? "Lara, Even the Steelers look good bent over!"
oi.

mid afternoon, a friend caught me on IM. she commented, "next time we're in the same place, i really should ask you what it is you do now". i don't think about this too much anymore, because in the general population most people comment "oh you do math... *gag*", when really, any decent scientist/mathematician should at least generally be able to explain what they do to someone who cares to listen. it's not like combinatorics problems are generally hard to formulate. just because you don't have to tools to solve something doesn't mean you can't try to understand what the QUESTION is. anyhow, i don't even think of it as something that bothers me (unless someone's being completely stubborn and extremely vocal in saying they don't want to hear anything because they don't have a chance of understanding), but it really completely made my day that i had a chance to write a 2-part email about the pattern avoidance stuff i've been working on. it's not like i'm an expert on other people's stuff either, but i try to read a variety of stuff and at least have a general idea of what my friends do; it's just extremely nice when it's actually reciprocated since i'm one of those weird aspiring mathematician type people :-P

finally, in our usual one sentence back and forth throughout the day about math stuff emails, eric commented to me this afternoon "Incidentally, here's a joke (of sorts) I came up with today: There's a Hungarian guy named Franz Conn. (Think about it:)"
hint 1: think of franz liszt (hungarian composer)... franz is his german name, but his first name in hungarian is a variation.
hint 2: once you have that, you should know that hungarians say their last name first.
those are your two hints... if you still don't get it, i'll make a comment to this post with the answer... we both laughed hard at it, but it's really exceedingly silly.

and that's a day in the life of lara.

oh, that and scrubs and office. scrubs as always as an excellent episode. office is growing on me. although i find the head boss and dwight abrasive, i really like pam, and the guy who likes her, and a few others of the characters a lot, so i still tune in :-) now i have 4 shows instead of 3... doht!

time for sleep.

night y'all!