it's fairly well impossible to run 3 identical classes.
my first section -- responds well, but it's early. they're answer questions, but they're not jumping out of their seats to do so.
my third section -- stares at me like i have 3 heads whenever i ask a question. when i add "i already did this in front of rooms of people twice this morning... you all need to tell me what *you* know", then i get sheepish responses... i don't know if they're hungry, shy, hate calculus, or some combination of those, but they're very reluctant to participate a large percentage of the time
my second section (currently my favorite) -- unlike sections 1 and 3, which have a decent mix of guys and girls, i have like 3 girls in my 2nd section, all nice but relatively quiet... and a LOT of rowdy boys -- boys who stay on task and ask good questions, but make a lot of noise... we get math done, but we get a lot of laughs out of the hour too.
my first and third sections were quite similar in the material we covered today, but my second section was in a totally different ballpark. good, coherent questions all around, just different groups of people need to see different things. and i'm more prone to cater to what the studnts are asking me than to cater to forcing them to participate in mirror image classes of each other. maybe i'm wrong, so shoot me.
quote of the day:
(as i was handing out today's quiz at the end of my second section, one guy asks)
student: so, do you give partial credit?
me: if you show you know what you're doing, but make an arithmetic error, yeah, i give partial credit
student: (quite loudly and excitedly) YOU'RE THE MAN!!!!!!!!!
(room laughs)
student: (looks around sheepishly) i mean... you're the woman!?
(i just let him keep going for another minute as i continued to hand out papers)
student: is there a way for me to dig myself out of this one?
me: um, no harm done, no offense taken, just quietly get started on your quiz.
dude... students are funny.
the end.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
misc.
* there's a world of difference between students with different motivation. i had two students with appointments to come in for extra homework help this afternoon. the first said she wanted good pictures to help understand the ideas behind things. she was looking for the intuition behind problems and ways to put all the big ideas together. she got really excited about some things when she saw them clearly for the first time. it was fun to watch her figure things out. student #2 came in also to talk about homework, but seemed to just be looking for a "formula" for how to solve each type of problem. no motivation wanted, just wanted the path to the answers. my way of teaching is to make every 3rd sentence into a question so that whoever i'm working with has to think and pay attention, and so i can sense how much they're actually catching on... the first student, whether she was right or wrong, wasn't afraid to make informed guesses... the second frequently looked at me like i had two heads or made guesses that didn't make sense. actually wanting to understand the big picture instead of just a bunch of formulas to do cookie cutter example problems makes a world of difference. calc 1 and calc 2 are survivable by either method, but i really don't think the latter works for calc 3... we'll see...
* i hate feeling controlled. i commented how last week the professor i TA for visited my 2nd two sections and completely interfered with classroom pace. he's stopped me twice in the past week to tell me topic by topic what he's covered by lecture, and listed all the examples of types of problems he's done too... tonight, i got a long email from him telling me exactly which problems to cover and asking that i make all 3 of my recitation sections as identical as possible. this frustrates me, since seriously, 3 different rooms full of different people have 3 different class personalities and different questions they need to get answered. last semester, my 1st section didn't talk much, my 2nd section was all over the place.. they asked similar questions to my 1st section but were much more interactive in helping me work through them at the front of the room... and my 3rd section generally asked questions completely disjoint from the other two... it wasn't uncommon in there that we'd start making models of things out of paper to illustrate what we were doing and talk about ideas instead of the chalkboard driven explanations the other 2 sections needed. in theory i have no problem with the professor expressing preferences in how he wants the recitations for his class to be run, but really, i don't know that his requests are completely feasible, or even if they are, how beneficial they are to all the students... we'll see.
* conversation earlier:
me: "leigh, there's too much math in the world"
leigh: "ok, let's get rid of some of it"
me: "really? ok, modules are gone!"
leigh: "score! i'm ok with that!"
pros: 1/3 of the minor topic for my qualifying exam would be gone and leigh would have no more representation theory homework
cons: colleen wouldn't have a research area anymore... oops.
* last week, i was feeling pretty calm about pending exam... over the weekend, when i started getting some of the deeper details of things straight, i got a better picture of how much more there always will be to learn... even restricting to the specific topics i need to know for my exam and considering the amount i already know about them, there will ALWAYS be more to figure out, and i just hope i get enough figured out before the exam. i've gone from serene a week ago, to high tension mode for the past several days... we'll see how the darn thing goes, and in the mean time, study, study, study.
* my homework in the next week for my one and only graduate class this semester (my advisor's bioinformatics/exp. math class) is to write a program that solves sudoku puzzles. next monday, everyone will run their program on the same 10 puzzles and whoever has the fastest average run time wins $10. my advisor is funny, and that means we get fantastic homework. (if you're wondering how sudoku relates to bioinformatics, it doesn't... but the programming technique we just used for an actual abstract biology related problem also applies to solving puzzles like that.)
* i think that's it... i get to teach from 8:30-1:30 tomorrow, then studying, office hours, grading 75 quizzes, and more studying. i know, you're totally jealous.
later dudes.
* i hate feeling controlled. i commented how last week the professor i TA for visited my 2nd two sections and completely interfered with classroom pace. he's stopped me twice in the past week to tell me topic by topic what he's covered by lecture, and listed all the examples of types of problems he's done too... tonight, i got a long email from him telling me exactly which problems to cover and asking that i make all 3 of my recitation sections as identical as possible. this frustrates me, since seriously, 3 different rooms full of different people have 3 different class personalities and different questions they need to get answered. last semester, my 1st section didn't talk much, my 2nd section was all over the place.. they asked similar questions to my 1st section but were much more interactive in helping me work through them at the front of the room... and my 3rd section generally asked questions completely disjoint from the other two... it wasn't uncommon in there that we'd start making models of things out of paper to illustrate what we were doing and talk about ideas instead of the chalkboard driven explanations the other 2 sections needed. in theory i have no problem with the professor expressing preferences in how he wants the recitations for his class to be run, but really, i don't know that his requests are completely feasible, or even if they are, how beneficial they are to all the students... we'll see.
* conversation earlier:
me: "leigh, there's too much math in the world"
leigh: "ok, let's get rid of some of it"
me: "really? ok, modules are gone!"
leigh: "score! i'm ok with that!"
pros: 1/3 of the minor topic for my qualifying exam would be gone and leigh would have no more representation theory homework
cons: colleen wouldn't have a research area anymore... oops.
* last week, i was feeling pretty calm about pending exam... over the weekend, when i started getting some of the deeper details of things straight, i got a better picture of how much more there always will be to learn... even restricting to the specific topics i need to know for my exam and considering the amount i already know about them, there will ALWAYS be more to figure out, and i just hope i get enough figured out before the exam. i've gone from serene a week ago, to high tension mode for the past several days... we'll see how the darn thing goes, and in the mean time, study, study, study.
* my homework in the next week for my one and only graduate class this semester (my advisor's bioinformatics/exp. math class) is to write a program that solves sudoku puzzles. next monday, everyone will run their program on the same 10 puzzles and whoever has the fastest average run time wins $10. my advisor is funny, and that means we get fantastic homework. (if you're wondering how sudoku relates to bioinformatics, it doesn't... but the programming technique we just used for an actual abstract biology related problem also applies to solving puzzles like that.)
* i think that's it... i get to teach from 8:30-1:30 tomorrow, then studying, office hours, grading 75 quizzes, and more studying. i know, you're totally jealous.
later dudes.
stuff i more or less know now that i didn't know 24 hours ago
* why the hilbert function of a monomial ideal is eventually a polynomial
* radical monomial ideals have square free generators
* prime monomial ideals are generated by variables
* irreducible monomial ideals are generated by powers of variables
* as associated prime to ideal I, is a prime ideal P for which P=(I:f) for some f
* a primary monomial ideal is an ideal with only one associated prime
* you can always find an irredundant minimal primary decomposition for a monomial ideal, by finding an irreducible decomposition, intersecting all the components that have the same radical, then throwing out redundant components. moreover, the associated primes of the ideal are exactly the associated primes of each of the primary components
* altogether you can tell if a monomial ideal is primary because it is if and only if for each variable that shows up in a minimal generator of the ideal, some power of that variable should also be a generator of the ideal (which is more along the lines of the general ab, b^n definition of primary than the associated prime condition)
seriously, people, my blog is going to be exceedingly boring for the next 17 days, modulo the super bowl. i wake up saying math proofs out loud... when i'm not actively studying new ones, i'm reciting what i've learned in the past few days out loud (as eric says, i'm leaking math)... i'm generally not in a frame of mind to talk to anyone about not math until i'm about ready to go to sleep, which is fairly late, so all my social interactions have to do with math...
here's an analogy for you:
check this picture out -- the chinese soldier jumping rope is math, the dog being forced to jump along is me.
woohoo for qual studying.
* radical monomial ideals have square free generators
* prime monomial ideals are generated by variables
* irreducible monomial ideals are generated by powers of variables
* as associated prime to ideal I, is a prime ideal P for which P=(I:f) for some f
* a primary monomial ideal is an ideal with only one associated prime
* you can always find an irredundant minimal primary decomposition for a monomial ideal, by finding an irreducible decomposition, intersecting all the components that have the same radical, then throwing out redundant components. moreover, the associated primes of the ideal are exactly the associated primes of each of the primary components
* altogether you can tell if a monomial ideal is primary because it is if and only if for each variable that shows up in a minimal generator of the ideal, some power of that variable should also be a generator of the ideal (which is more along the lines of the general ab, b^n definition of primary than the associated prime condition)
seriously, people, my blog is going to be exceedingly boring for the next 17 days, modulo the super bowl. i wake up saying math proofs out loud... when i'm not actively studying new ones, i'm reciting what i've learned in the past few days out loud (as eric says, i'm leaking math)... i'm generally not in a frame of mind to talk to anyone about not math until i'm about ready to go to sleep, which is fairly late, so all my social interactions have to do with math...
here's an analogy for you:
check this picture out -- the chinese soldier jumping rope is math, the dog being forced to jump along is me.
woohoo for qual studying.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
happy saturday?
here's my day
*up at 7, out the door by 8:15 to meet up with bonnie and alexus at church and clean/set up everything for tomorrow morning... since it's the last weekend of the month, we got to polish all the communion silver too... lots of fun (actually, totally a highlight of my day)
*back to my corner of the world around 10, then grocery shopping then home
*studied from 10:30-1:30ish, during which time i
(1) remembered how to show an exponential bound on the number of 1324 avoiding permutations of length n
(2) learned how indecomposable 1342 avoiding permutations are in bijection with beta(0,1) trees
(3) learned the proof of how the furedi hajnal conjecture implies the stanley wilf conjecture
*around 1:30 i was super excited about understanding (3) for the first time in my life, so i called eric and told him he had to have lunch with me during which i'd explain the proof... he agreed and we walked to quiznos, talking about my studying the whole time
*around 2:30 i was back to learning new stuff -- mostly
(4) the proof of the furedi hajnal conjecture works -- it takes a minute to work through it, but once you see it, it's awesome.
*that took me up til 4:30 by the time i was happy with it, and then i went off on a 5 mile walk to think through the proofs better, when i came back..., before dinner, it was
(5) the proof that a ring is noetherian if and only if every ideal is finitely generated
*then dinner, and then
(6) the proof of the Hilbert basis theorem
after that i got tired and grumpy... i tried to understand primary decomposition of ideals better, but got irritated and put it off til tomorrow... it was 9:30pm already anyhow.
instead, around 9:30 i totally switched gears to
(a) read 3 sections in my bioinformatics textbook and do most of the programming assignment that's due on monday
and
(b) read a section in my students' calc 3 book and do the last 12 homework problems i needed to look at before i teach them on tuesday.
... and that brings me to now.
you'd think after all this i'd feel quite accomplished, but actually, i feel rather overwhelmed.
my qual is in 18 days, and although there are spurts of the day (most of it) i feel pretty good about what i know, towards the end of each day when i get tired, i look over my syllabus and get worried that there's plenty more i don't know as well as i wish i did, and the next 2.5 weeks are going to be mathematical hell. we'll see... right now i'm definitely in a grumpy mode.
it would be nice if i'd finished either (a) of my own homework, or (b) of my stuff to prepare to teach before i totally gave up for the night just now, but alas (a) there's still a bit more programming to do before monday, and (b) i still have to write a quiz tomorrow to run off monday to give to my students on tuesday, and then tuesday i get to have fun grading too.
add to that that this wednesday i have my first meeting with the undergrad i'm supposed to mentor this semester, and students begging to see me on monday for office hours too, not just the tuesday and thursday i'm officially supposed to have them, and it's gonna be a heck of a month to get through.
word to the wise: don't try to call me before february 17; you're not going to get an answer.
night y'all.
*up at 7, out the door by 8:15 to meet up with bonnie and alexus at church and clean/set up everything for tomorrow morning... since it's the last weekend of the month, we got to polish all the communion silver too... lots of fun (actually, totally a highlight of my day)
*back to my corner of the world around 10, then grocery shopping then home
*studied from 10:30-1:30ish, during which time i
(1) remembered how to show an exponential bound on the number of 1324 avoiding permutations of length n
(2) learned how indecomposable 1342 avoiding permutations are in bijection with beta(0,1) trees
(3) learned the proof of how the furedi hajnal conjecture implies the stanley wilf conjecture
*around 1:30 i was super excited about understanding (3) for the first time in my life, so i called eric and told him he had to have lunch with me during which i'd explain the proof... he agreed and we walked to quiznos, talking about my studying the whole time
*around 2:30 i was back to learning new stuff -- mostly
(4) the proof of the furedi hajnal conjecture works -- it takes a minute to work through it, but once you see it, it's awesome.
*that took me up til 4:30 by the time i was happy with it, and then i went off on a 5 mile walk to think through the proofs better, when i came back..., before dinner, it was
(5) the proof that a ring is noetherian if and only if every ideal is finitely generated
*then dinner, and then
(6) the proof of the Hilbert basis theorem
after that i got tired and grumpy... i tried to understand primary decomposition of ideals better, but got irritated and put it off til tomorrow... it was 9:30pm already anyhow.
instead, around 9:30 i totally switched gears to
(a) read 3 sections in my bioinformatics textbook and do most of the programming assignment that's due on monday
and
(b) read a section in my students' calc 3 book and do the last 12 homework problems i needed to look at before i teach them on tuesday.
... and that brings me to now.
you'd think after all this i'd feel quite accomplished, but actually, i feel rather overwhelmed.
my qual is in 18 days, and although there are spurts of the day (most of it) i feel pretty good about what i know, towards the end of each day when i get tired, i look over my syllabus and get worried that there's plenty more i don't know as well as i wish i did, and the next 2.5 weeks are going to be mathematical hell. we'll see... right now i'm definitely in a grumpy mode.
it would be nice if i'd finished either (a) of my own homework, or (b) of my stuff to prepare to teach before i totally gave up for the night just now, but alas (a) there's still a bit more programming to do before monday, and (b) i still have to write a quiz tomorrow to run off monday to give to my students on tuesday, and then tuesday i get to have fun grading too.
add to that that this wednesday i have my first meeting with the undergrad i'm supposed to mentor this semester, and students begging to see me on monday for office hours too, not just the tuesday and thursday i'm officially supposed to have them, and it's gonna be a heck of a month to get through.
word to the wise: don't try to call me before february 17; you're not going to get an answer.
night y'all.
Friday, January 27, 2006
how's this for a celebration?
when jared passed his oral qualifying exam last fall, he had his girlfriend to celebrate with... when scott, sam, and john each passed at various points in the past year, they gathered as many people as possible and went out drinking.
me, i'm not that much into large groups anymore, but while out for dinner tonight, scott agreed to what i think it the ultimate super-exciting reward if i pass my exam 20 days from now.
if i pass my oral qualifying exam on thursday, february 16, on friday, february 17, scott will find a large empty parking lot and teach me how to drive stick on his car.
since driving stick as been a life goal of mine for the past... oh, 10 years (seriously), and i've never had a *chance* to learn, i'm totally pumped.... scott, on the other hand, i realize, is being totally generous and brave to try to teach me, who has never driven anything but an automatic ever before (and am moderately agressive at that... doht).
this ought to be fun.
now, i definitely need to pass the stupid test. :P
the end.
me, i'm not that much into large groups anymore, but while out for dinner tonight, scott agreed to what i think it the ultimate super-exciting reward if i pass my exam 20 days from now.
if i pass my oral qualifying exam on thursday, february 16, on friday, february 17, scott will find a large empty parking lot and teach me how to drive stick on his car.
since driving stick as been a life goal of mine for the past... oh, 10 years (seriously), and i've never had a *chance* to learn, i'm totally pumped.... scott, on the other hand, i realize, is being totally generous and brave to try to teach me, who has never driven anything but an automatic ever before (and am moderately agressive at that... doht).
this ought to be fun.
now, i definitely need to pass the stupid test. :P
the end.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
doht
i think i'm pretty sure i left my IM away message on
"in the people cleaner"
all day.
i won't be home til 4ish to change it, so to some, it appears i've been in the shower for 8+ hours.
rest assured, i have not been.
for as much as i pick on other people for untrue away messages about being in the shower too long or asleep at midday, i guess i'm guilty too.
oops.
"in the people cleaner"
all day.
i won't be home til 4ish to change it, so to some, it appears i've been in the shower for 8+ hours.
rest assured, i have not been.
for as much as i pick on other people for untrue away messages about being in the shower too long or asleep at midday, i guess i'm guilty too.
oops.
ode to teaching
3 sections of calculus survived and i'm on the verge of hoarse, but oh well... that'll fix itself later.
all things considered, things went well, BUT, i was right... my professor visiting was strange.
my first period (8:40-10:00) went fine. we covered all 7 problems in the lab that we were supposed to and i conducted the whole period on my own, uninterruped. i was pleased with the pace and amount of info we covered even if i think the maple labs could be better designed.
my second period (10:20-11:40), went... differently. the prof. i teach for came in around 10:30 and throughout the period asked questions that were good for the students to know, but a little bit off tangent to the main point of the class. he also would go to help students one on one when they had questions and 75% of the time would stop me while i was in front of the room and ask for "the expert help". it totally altered the pace, and we finished at 11:50 instead of 11:40. between the 2nd and 3rd period he told me i was doing a fantastic job, and he knew his questions were wasting class time, so he apologized, but said he was curious and was certain students would wonder the same thing. fine.
my last period (12:00-1:20) started off with the professor there. i tried to anticipate his questions before he asked them at strange times so that there was a better flow to my interaction with him during the lecture. he left around 1:10, and i managed to finish at 1:19 since i was better able to anticipate my interaction with him.
i felt a little bad though... during the 3rd section especially, i kept trying to get started on the lab, and the prof kept helping students who had come in late and interrupted me to get my help when he got stuck. but it was a bigger production than if i just had to field the questions on my own. i felt bad because some of the students picked up on that his "help" was totally messing with my pace, and were quietly laughing/talking amongst themselves about it. i want them to respect both the prof. and me, and i mostly just didn't say much about him interrupting me since he's technically above me, and responded with the answers he wanted. the students dealt fine, but i think some of them picked up on that their professor was being more disruptive than helpful.
i hope the professor didn't catch on to that too seriously more than what he commented to me after the 2nd period. it was trying my patience, but i hope i covered that sucessfully well too.
we'll see.
anyhow, crazy maple lab class over, i get to go back to a chalkboard and doing homework problems next week... woohoo! :P
later dudes.
all things considered, things went well, BUT, i was right... my professor visiting was strange.
my first period (8:40-10:00) went fine. we covered all 7 problems in the lab that we were supposed to and i conducted the whole period on my own, uninterruped. i was pleased with the pace and amount of info we covered even if i think the maple labs could be better designed.
my second period (10:20-11:40), went... differently. the prof. i teach for came in around 10:30 and throughout the period asked questions that were good for the students to know, but a little bit off tangent to the main point of the class. he also would go to help students one on one when they had questions and 75% of the time would stop me while i was in front of the room and ask for "the expert help". it totally altered the pace, and we finished at 11:50 instead of 11:40. between the 2nd and 3rd period he told me i was doing a fantastic job, and he knew his questions were wasting class time, so he apologized, but said he was curious and was certain students would wonder the same thing. fine.
my last period (12:00-1:20) started off with the professor there. i tried to anticipate his questions before he asked them at strange times so that there was a better flow to my interaction with him during the lecture. he left around 1:10, and i managed to finish at 1:19 since i was better able to anticipate my interaction with him.
i felt a little bad though... during the 3rd section especially, i kept trying to get started on the lab, and the prof kept helping students who had come in late and interrupted me to get my help when he got stuck. but it was a bigger production than if i just had to field the questions on my own. i felt bad because some of the students picked up on that his "help" was totally messing with my pace, and were quietly laughing/talking amongst themselves about it. i want them to respect both the prof. and me, and i mostly just didn't say much about him interrupting me since he's technically above me, and responded with the answers he wanted. the students dealt fine, but i think some of them picked up on that their professor was being more disruptive than helpful.
i hope the professor didn't catch on to that too seriously more than what he commented to me after the 2nd period. it was trying my patience, but i hope i covered that sucessfully well too.
we'll see.
anyhow, crazy maple lab class over, i get to go back to a chalkboard and doing homework problems next week... woohoo! :P
later dudes.
is it just me?
or is this not an optimally designed competition?
the following is an excerpt from an email to all Rutgers university people earlier today:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Members of the University Community:
In keeping with Rutgers' environmentally friendly initiatives, I am very
excited to announce the university's participation in RecycleMania 2006,
a national recycling competition open to colleges and universities.
RecycleMania's goal is to increase awareness and involvement in campus
recycling efforts. Schools compete by measuring the weekly amount of
paper, containers (plastic, glass, and cans), and cardboard collected
for recycling during a 10-week period from January 29 to April 8. The
school with the largest cumulative total wins.
Born out of a challenge between Ohio University and Miami University in
2001, RecycleMania grew to 47 competitors in 2005, and the 2006 school
participation is expected to be even greater. This year, Rutgers will
be competing against the University of Michigan, Princeton University,
and Boston College, just to name a few. We have been a leader in
recycling for many years, and I encourage you to continue your efforts
to recycle and help Rutgers rank among the program's top competitors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
surely, recycling is a good thing. but is cumulative total of recycled items really the right way to judge? if people wanted to do well, they could buy more soda in cans, purposely use more paper up, etc. not that people will, BUT, it seems like mere QUANTITY of recycled stuff is not the best measure. ratio of recycled matter to trash matter would be much better because that encourages the choice to use recyclable over nonrecyclable things.
summary: i overanalyze things and was amused.
the end.
the following is an excerpt from an email to all Rutgers university people earlier today:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Members of the University Community:
In keeping with Rutgers' environmentally friendly initiatives, I am very
excited to announce the university's participation in RecycleMania 2006,
a national recycling competition open to colleges and universities.
RecycleMania's goal is to increase awareness and involvement in campus
recycling efforts. Schools compete by measuring the weekly amount of
paper, containers (plastic, glass, and cans), and cardboard collected
for recycling during a 10-week period from January 29 to April 8. The
school with the largest cumulative total wins.
Born out of a challenge between Ohio University and Miami University in
2001, RecycleMania grew to 47 competitors in 2005, and the 2006 school
participation is expected to be even greater. This year, Rutgers will
be competing against the University of Michigan, Princeton University,
and Boston College, just to name a few. We have been a leader in
recycling for many years, and I encourage you to continue your efforts
to recycle and help Rutgers rank among the program's top competitors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
surely, recycling is a good thing. but is cumulative total of recycled items really the right way to judge? if people wanted to do well, they could buy more soda in cans, purposely use more paper up, etc. not that people will, BUT, it seems like mere QUANTITY of recycled stuff is not the best measure. ratio of recycled matter to trash matter would be much better because that encourages the choice to use recyclable over nonrecyclable things.
summary: i overanalyze things and was amused.
the end.
Monday, January 23, 2006
random
so while i may love teaching and love research, i definitely don't enjoy paperwork... but i guess that goes with the territory.
i was the graduate coordinator for last summer's REU (research experience for undergrads) around here, and i will be again next summer. one of my ever so fun duties was to edit the 25 page report that we need to send into NSF (national science foundation) by the end of the month to show them that we've been using their grant money wisely. i like to tell stories... i don't like to read and write formal reports.
but after 2 hours of working through it in detail (thankfully i didn't have to write much of it), i think my editing job is done -- that's an exciting way to spend a monday night, right?
i said i love teaching above... that's true most weeks... tomorrow morning won't be quite the same kind of fun though.
tomorrow's the day when i have to teach my students the contrived maple labs that have been used for years. so much of the maple code is already written for them that it's like we're holding their hands a little too much; whereas on the other hand, the problems they're supposed to solve & the goals of the lab aren't nearly clear enough stated to figure out quickly, so in that sense we're not holding their hands enough.
on top of that, the prof i'm teaching for plans to come in and observe me halfway through the 2nd section tomorrow morning. he self admittedly doesn't know much at all about maple, so he will be watching me, and coming in late will have missed the initial half of the instructions for the day, so i don't quite know the purpose. it's interesting... last semester when i was observed (twice) it was unambiguous why the professor was there, and it was fine. it was also true that for both people who observed me, i was comfortable with how i interact with them outside of the classroom. uncomfortable with my current prof isn't the right word at all, but i haven't figured him out yet. he seems to answer comments/questions from me just a little too quickly and comes off as nervous when i know he's not. i have the general impression that he likes just about everyone wonderfully, and there's no reason i should be an exception to that rule. colleen's comment was he's not nervous, just eager to please and really concerned that *everyone* be on the same page and happy. i just need to figure out how to read him a bit better so i can be more comfortable dealing with him since even though i know he's not nervous, when i perceive him to be so, it puts me on edge a little too.
oh well... i can't change the system, just work with it... and next week i get to do "fun" teaching again -- i.e. go in and say "ok, so what homework questions do y'all have?" and do a song and dance at the chalkboard for an hour and a half per section. people interaction when i can teach things in a way that feels more instructive is fun.... lecturing and being made to teach something in a way i feel is confusing and not instructive even for someone who *knows* the material is what gets to me... *and* being observed on top of that.... just wait til i get to run my own classroom... *that* will be fun.
oh well... done rambling. i should be asleep.
night y'all.
i was the graduate coordinator for last summer's REU (research experience for undergrads) around here, and i will be again next summer. one of my ever so fun duties was to edit the 25 page report that we need to send into NSF (national science foundation) by the end of the month to show them that we've been using their grant money wisely. i like to tell stories... i don't like to read and write formal reports.
but after 2 hours of working through it in detail (thankfully i didn't have to write much of it), i think my editing job is done -- that's an exciting way to spend a monday night, right?
i said i love teaching above... that's true most weeks... tomorrow morning won't be quite the same kind of fun though.
tomorrow's the day when i have to teach my students the contrived maple labs that have been used for years. so much of the maple code is already written for them that it's like we're holding their hands a little too much; whereas on the other hand, the problems they're supposed to solve & the goals of the lab aren't nearly clear enough stated to figure out quickly, so in that sense we're not holding their hands enough.
on top of that, the prof i'm teaching for plans to come in and observe me halfway through the 2nd section tomorrow morning. he self admittedly doesn't know much at all about maple, so he will be watching me, and coming in late will have missed the initial half of the instructions for the day, so i don't quite know the purpose. it's interesting... last semester when i was observed (twice) it was unambiguous why the professor was there, and it was fine. it was also true that for both people who observed me, i was comfortable with how i interact with them outside of the classroom. uncomfortable with my current prof isn't the right word at all, but i haven't figured him out yet. he seems to answer comments/questions from me just a little too quickly and comes off as nervous when i know he's not. i have the general impression that he likes just about everyone wonderfully, and there's no reason i should be an exception to that rule. colleen's comment was he's not nervous, just eager to please and really concerned that *everyone* be on the same page and happy. i just need to figure out how to read him a bit better so i can be more comfortable dealing with him since even though i know he's not nervous, when i perceive him to be so, it puts me on edge a little too.
oh well... i can't change the system, just work with it... and next week i get to do "fun" teaching again -- i.e. go in and say "ok, so what homework questions do y'all have?" and do a song and dance at the chalkboard for an hour and a half per section. people interaction when i can teach things in a way that feels more instructive is fun.... lecturing and being made to teach something in a way i feel is confusing and not instructive even for someone who *knows* the material is what gets to me... *and* being observed on top of that.... just wait til i get to run my own classroom... *that* will be fun.
oh well... done rambling. i should be asleep.
night y'all.
resolution update
if you look back to my january 1st post, this year there are 3 of them
(1) pass my oral qualifying exam.
this one won't be in the bag until it's over with, but i have a date arranged to take it (for many people, finding and scheduling a time when 4 professors are all free is the hardest part). i know just about everything on my syllabus, even if i need to learn many things more in depth. so,... it's going.
(2) read the one year Bible cover to cover.
3 weeks into the year and i haven't missed a day yet. i realized last year that for as much as I used to read the Bible, i really haven't made an effort to do so in years, and i wanted to get back into the habit of doing so. this time around it's actually reading more like a really interesting story instead of a dry history... maybe that's because i'm older by quite a bit than the last time i sat down and tried to read it sequentially, so grammar/occasional big words aren't as much of a distraction. ;) at any rate it's going well... as of last night's reading, in the old testament, joseph revealed himself to his brothers in egypt when they came in search of grain during a big 7 year famine... in the new testament, jesus just fed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. pretty dramatic, eh? ;-)
(3) lose 40 more pounds.
this takes time, but...
here's me yesterday after church:
5 pounds down since new years, which is nice, since i had stayed put since about thanksgiving at the same weight.
10 more pounds and i won't be "obese" anymore... that's something, right?
here ends the update.
happy monday?
(1) pass my oral qualifying exam.
this one won't be in the bag until it's over with, but i have a date arranged to take it (for many people, finding and scheduling a time when 4 professors are all free is the hardest part). i know just about everything on my syllabus, even if i need to learn many things more in depth. so,... it's going.
(2) read the one year Bible cover to cover.
3 weeks into the year and i haven't missed a day yet. i realized last year that for as much as I used to read the Bible, i really haven't made an effort to do so in years, and i wanted to get back into the habit of doing so. this time around it's actually reading more like a really interesting story instead of a dry history... maybe that's because i'm older by quite a bit than the last time i sat down and tried to read it sequentially, so grammar/occasional big words aren't as much of a distraction. ;) at any rate it's going well... as of last night's reading, in the old testament, joseph revealed himself to his brothers in egypt when they came in search of grain during a big 7 year famine... in the new testament, jesus just fed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. pretty dramatic, eh? ;-)
(3) lose 40 more pounds.
this takes time, but...
here's me yesterday after church:
5 pounds down since new years, which is nice, since i had stayed put since about thanksgiving at the same weight.
10 more pounds and i won't be "obese" anymore... that's something, right?
here ends the update.
happy monday?
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Saturday, January 21, 2006
ode to new textbooks
so my advisor is teaching a class this semester out of this book (an introduction to bioinformatics algorithms).
besides some programming, which i did yesterday, our homework was to read chapters 1 & 2 by monday, chapter 3 optional.
the book gets credit for humor points. chapter 1 is all of 5 pages and serves as an intro story of why the book might potentially be interesting.
chapter 2 is "computer science notions" for bio people -- i.e. stuff i learned much more in depth as an undergrad computer science major, but at least humorously put.
my favorite quote from that chapter was the following footnote:
"Fibonacci faced the challenge of adequately formulating the problem he was studying, one of the more difficult parts of bioinformatics research. The Fibonacci view of rabbit life is overly simplistic and inadequate: in particular, rabbits never die in his model. As a result, after just a few generations, the number of rabbits will be larger than the number of atoms in the universe."
(heh)
now, chapter 3 is entitled "molecular biology primer". as i read the first page, i am 100% confident that any biology person would laugh their way through it as the "baby version" of things, as i did with the CS chapter.
indeed, the first serious sentence of the chapter reads, "Biology at the microscopic level began in 1665 when a maverick and virtuoso performer of public animal dissections, Robert Hooke, discovered that organisms are composed of individual compartments called cells."
but hey, it's a math algorithms class, and learn algorithms with outside-of-math applications we shall... in the meantime, even if it is just the "baby version" it's kinda fun to read some non-math for a class for the first time in years, and still have it related to my work.
i wonder if it's possible to write chapters 2 and 3 at a deeper level and not loose half your audience... i'm guessing the bio people really would get scrambled with a more hardcore intro to CS, and i'm guessing that, having not studied bio since 10th grade, i wouldn't do well with a deeper treatment of molecular bio on the spot either. bioinformatics is a mystery to me as it's a synthesis of two fields that i don't normally picture as hand in hand -- i know it's out there, but most of the CS people i know aren't as into bio/chem/physics, and most bio/chem people i know aren't as in to math/CS (although there are notable exceptions to the rule).
summary:
(1) while i'm in the "baby chapters" it's a humorous read for a graduate class
(2) it'll be an interesting semester branching out a little from the purely abstract algorithms i normally consider... instead of just counting permutations, we'll be playing with virtual DNA, or something of that sort... go figure.
the end.
besides some programming, which i did yesterday, our homework was to read chapters 1 & 2 by monday, chapter 3 optional.
the book gets credit for humor points. chapter 1 is all of 5 pages and serves as an intro story of why the book might potentially be interesting.
chapter 2 is "computer science notions" for bio people -- i.e. stuff i learned much more in depth as an undergrad computer science major, but at least humorously put.
my favorite quote from that chapter was the following footnote:
"Fibonacci faced the challenge of adequately formulating the problem he was studying, one of the more difficult parts of bioinformatics research. The Fibonacci view of rabbit life is overly simplistic and inadequate: in particular, rabbits never die in his model. As a result, after just a few generations, the number of rabbits will be larger than the number of atoms in the universe."
(heh)
now, chapter 3 is entitled "molecular biology primer". as i read the first page, i am 100% confident that any biology person would laugh their way through it as the "baby version" of things, as i did with the CS chapter.
indeed, the first serious sentence of the chapter reads, "Biology at the microscopic level began in 1665 when a maverick and virtuoso performer of public animal dissections, Robert Hooke, discovered that organisms are composed of individual compartments called cells."
but hey, it's a math algorithms class, and learn algorithms with outside-of-math applications we shall... in the meantime, even if it is just the "baby version" it's kinda fun to read some non-math for a class for the first time in years, and still have it related to my work.
i wonder if it's possible to write chapters 2 and 3 at a deeper level and not loose half your audience... i'm guessing the bio people really would get scrambled with a more hardcore intro to CS, and i'm guessing that, having not studied bio since 10th grade, i wouldn't do well with a deeper treatment of molecular bio on the spot either. bioinformatics is a mystery to me as it's a synthesis of two fields that i don't normally picture as hand in hand -- i know it's out there, but most of the CS people i know aren't as into bio/chem/physics, and most bio/chem people i know aren't as in to math/CS (although there are notable exceptions to the rule).
summary:
(1) while i'm in the "baby chapters" it's a humorous read for a graduate class
(2) it'll be an interesting semester branching out a little from the purely abstract algorithms i normally consider... instead of just counting permutations, we'll be playing with virtual DNA, or something of that sort... go figure.
the end.
Friday, January 20, 2006
i have a date!
no, not the socially interesting kind of date... i now have a date for my big scary oral qualifying exam. it took me 50 minutes of stalking dr. b. this afternoon to finally catch him for 5 minutes to get his schedule for the semester and find a time that works for him, but with that done, the big scary qualifying exam will be:
thursday, february 16, from 10:20-11:40am.
27 days and counting... we'll see how this goes!
thursday, february 16, from 10:20-11:40am.
27 days and counting... we'll see how this goes!
Thursday, January 19, 2006
misc
* my advisor loves me -- meeting with him makes me feel good about math... this is a good thing. :)
* eric and i were reading over the questions on the recommendation forms i have to get filled out for a fellowship i'm trying to get for next year... one of them was to rate my emotional stability... eric claims that i'm not the most stable person on earth. then again eric doesn't express emotion (and admits to that) and i do... so eric thinks just about anyone on earth is less stable than he is unless they're as stoic as he is. also he told me 5 minutes later than i should write a GTM (graduate texts in mathematics) book on my analysis of what makes certain clothes cooler than others. oi, so if i'm emotionally unstable, he's at least partially mentally unstable because it was the most nonsensical unrelated tangent he's ever gone on. :P
* one of the TAs i covered for yesterday is trying to convince me to trade teaching assignments with him permanently so he can attend a class. i had requested not to teach on wednesday AM so i could regularly attend pizza seminar this semester. he wants to take a class now that he didn't put on his schedule last fall, so it's his own doing for not planning ahead. i almost feel guilted into it because i *could* just not attend the seminar (it's for fun, and free pizza, not for a grade/class) and let him have his schedule as he wants it, but then again i shouldn't really have a responsibility to do it either. i've been brainstorming other ideas for him, so we'll see if any of those work out instead... this is causing me minor stress since somehow as "head TA" i'm supposed to help make these sort of decisions... oi.
* i did let myself get talked into being a mentor for the department's graduate/undergrad math mentor program this semester... we'll see how *that* goes when it gets started in a couple weeks...
* first day of dr. z.'s class today. there's one undergraduate freshman who got permission to attend the class. he's a clever kid, but he knows he's clever for his age and hasn't quite matured to the level of not being a bit cocky about it. don't get me wrong, he's a good kid, but his people skills are a bit younger than most of the people i regularly deal with. some days, after a bit, i just want a break, or to put him on mute temporarily, even though i think it's a good thing that professors and other older students (including me too) encourage him to keep being inquisitive and working on the math stuff he's interested in (he's published some things already with his dad... as a high schooler!)... ironically though, today, in class (which is in a computer lab all semester since it's my advisor's class and we write programs together during the lecture), this kid came in late, and beelined right to the computer next to me... after stepping IN my bookbag and signing in, he proceeded to ask me questions every 60-90 seconds throughout the class. eric's favorite comment he overheard from across the room was my, "dude, it's maple, NOT java, that's why"... but this kid (still unnamed) was also stunned when after he had me troubleshoot his code and asked me another 2 minutes of questions and then i was unable to tell him what dr. z. had moved on to talking about instead of what he was lecturing about 2 minutes before... unfortunately i don't have multitasking mastered to the point of listening to and fully processing two people at once. it'll be an entertaining semester...
i think that's it. after 3 long days on campus, tomorrow i have no responsibility outside of the house whatsoever... well, almost... one of my qual committee members has been MIA and i plan to show up at 11:40 when his class is done and corner him to schedule a date for the big scary exam... wish me luck.
later dudes.
* eric and i were reading over the questions on the recommendation forms i have to get filled out for a fellowship i'm trying to get for next year... one of them was to rate my emotional stability... eric claims that i'm not the most stable person on earth. then again eric doesn't express emotion (and admits to that) and i do... so eric thinks just about anyone on earth is less stable than he is unless they're as stoic as he is. also he told me 5 minutes later than i should write a GTM (graduate texts in mathematics) book on my analysis of what makes certain clothes cooler than others. oi, so if i'm emotionally unstable, he's at least partially mentally unstable because it was the most nonsensical unrelated tangent he's ever gone on. :P
* one of the TAs i covered for yesterday is trying to convince me to trade teaching assignments with him permanently so he can attend a class. i had requested not to teach on wednesday AM so i could regularly attend pizza seminar this semester. he wants to take a class now that he didn't put on his schedule last fall, so it's his own doing for not planning ahead. i almost feel guilted into it because i *could* just not attend the seminar (it's for fun, and free pizza, not for a grade/class) and let him have his schedule as he wants it, but then again i shouldn't really have a responsibility to do it either. i've been brainstorming other ideas for him, so we'll see if any of those work out instead... this is causing me minor stress since somehow as "head TA" i'm supposed to help make these sort of decisions... oi.
* i did let myself get talked into being a mentor for the department's graduate/undergrad math mentor program this semester... we'll see how *that* goes when it gets started in a couple weeks...
* first day of dr. z.'s class today. there's one undergraduate freshman who got permission to attend the class. he's a clever kid, but he knows he's clever for his age and hasn't quite matured to the level of not being a bit cocky about it. don't get me wrong, he's a good kid, but his people skills are a bit younger than most of the people i regularly deal with. some days, after a bit, i just want a break, or to put him on mute temporarily, even though i think it's a good thing that professors and other older students (including me too) encourage him to keep being inquisitive and working on the math stuff he's interested in (he's published some things already with his dad... as a high schooler!)... ironically though, today, in class (which is in a computer lab all semester since it's my advisor's class and we write programs together during the lecture), this kid came in late, and beelined right to the computer next to me... after stepping IN my bookbag and signing in, he proceeded to ask me questions every 60-90 seconds throughout the class. eric's favorite comment he overheard from across the room was my, "dude, it's maple, NOT java, that's why"... but this kid (still unnamed) was also stunned when after he had me troubleshoot his code and asked me another 2 minutes of questions and then i was unable to tell him what dr. z. had moved on to talking about instead of what he was lecturing about 2 minutes before... unfortunately i don't have multitasking mastered to the point of listening to and fully processing two people at once. it'll be an entertaining semester...
i think that's it. after 3 long days on campus, tomorrow i have no responsibility outside of the house whatsoever... well, almost... one of my qual committee members has been MIA and i plan to show up at 11:40 when his class is done and corner him to schedule a date for the big scary exam... wish me luck.
later dudes.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
my day
up again at 6:45, out the door by 8:10 to help teach at 8:40
when i arrived at the computer lab classroom on campus at 8:30, aek, another calc 3 TA was already there...apparently mike, the TA who was out of the country and i was replacing, had asked aek to help cover, oblivious that he hadn't told dr. g. (the prof who asked me to cover)... so dr. g. was pleasantly surprised to find *both* me and aek there to help, and between the two of us we covered mike's 3 sections of calc 3.
as i was finishing with the last group, dr. g. was helping alex, his other TA, in the next room over. dr. g. came back to me complaining that he was going to kill alex -- alex hadn't made copies of the lab for his students or worked through the lab, so he had no idea how to help them, and dr. g. was doing all the work. i offered to stay and help so that dr. g. wouldn't have the urge to kill his TA, and after i ran to the student center for a 10 minute lunch, i came back and stayed with alex in the lab until 5. by the 3rd of his three sections, he was mostly able to answer questions on his own, but he still called me for help periodically too...
SO, that amounts to 5 hours teaching my own 3 sections of students yesterday and 8.5 hours of teaching mike and alex's sections (with help from aek in the morning and alex in the afternoon) today.
realize though, my assignment was only to teach yesterday, and at dr. g.'s request, i agreed to 8:40-1:20 today... the staying for alex's sections was decided on the spot this afternoon when dr. g. seemed especially distressed with alex and desperate for help.
at 5pm, as i was bundling up to head out into nasty weather again, alex commented to me "man that was a long day!", to which i replied "dude, none of that, you were here for half of it", and he agreed "i guess it was longer for you"... um yeah... 8.5 consecutive hours of teaching *is* awhile... i enjoyed it, but i'm EXHAUSTED.
dr. g., a man of grand sarcasm and few words, wrote me the following email this afternoon:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think your presence and help and good humor contributed materially to
any success that the Maple labs had today.
Thank you very much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for dr. g. to be completely serious and sincere for more than one sentence in an email is a HUGE compliment from him.
so, after teaching 9 sections of calc 3 in 2 days, i'm totally ready to crash, but dr. g. can't be anything but nice to me from now on, so i've gotten something out of it too. :)
so, if you're a rutgers calc 3 student this semester, there's a SIXTY percent chance you've had to put up with me for at least an hour already this semester and it's only the 2nd day of classes... how scary is that?!
time to crash.
later dudes.
when i arrived at the computer lab classroom on campus at 8:30, aek, another calc 3 TA was already there...apparently mike, the TA who was out of the country and i was replacing, had asked aek to help cover, oblivious that he hadn't told dr. g. (the prof who asked me to cover)... so dr. g. was pleasantly surprised to find *both* me and aek there to help, and between the two of us we covered mike's 3 sections of calc 3.
as i was finishing with the last group, dr. g. was helping alex, his other TA, in the next room over. dr. g. came back to me complaining that he was going to kill alex -- alex hadn't made copies of the lab for his students or worked through the lab, so he had no idea how to help them, and dr. g. was doing all the work. i offered to stay and help so that dr. g. wouldn't have the urge to kill his TA, and after i ran to the student center for a 10 minute lunch, i came back and stayed with alex in the lab until 5. by the 3rd of his three sections, he was mostly able to answer questions on his own, but he still called me for help periodically too...
SO, that amounts to 5 hours teaching my own 3 sections of students yesterday and 8.5 hours of teaching mike and alex's sections (with help from aek in the morning and alex in the afternoon) today.
realize though, my assignment was only to teach yesterday, and at dr. g.'s request, i agreed to 8:40-1:20 today... the staying for alex's sections was decided on the spot this afternoon when dr. g. seemed especially distressed with alex and desperate for help.
at 5pm, as i was bundling up to head out into nasty weather again, alex commented to me "man that was a long day!", to which i replied "dude, none of that, you were here for half of it", and he agreed "i guess it was longer for you"... um yeah... 8.5 consecutive hours of teaching *is* awhile... i enjoyed it, but i'm EXHAUSTED.
dr. g., a man of grand sarcasm and few words, wrote me the following email this afternoon:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think your presence and help and good humor contributed materially to
any success that the Maple labs had today.
Thank you very much.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for dr. g. to be completely serious and sincere for more than one sentence in an email is a HUGE compliment from him.
so, after teaching 9 sections of calc 3 in 2 days, i'm totally ready to crash, but dr. g. can't be anything but nice to me from now on, so i've gotten something out of it too. :)
so, if you're a rutgers calc 3 student this semester, there's a SIXTY percent chance you've had to put up with me for at least an hour already this semester and it's only the 2nd day of classes... how scary is that?!
time to crash.
later dudes.
happy wednesday?
yesterday my students, today someone else's: by 1:30pm today, 40% of rutgers calc 3 students this semester will have had to listen to me teach for at least an hour... how scary is that?
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
"oh thank God, you speak english!"
indeed, that's the first thing any of my students said to me this morning.
i was up at 6:45, chugged theraflu with my breakfast and was sniffling my way out the door by 8:15 to go teach this morning.
i walked into my first class, set down my bag and said "good morning" to the dozen students who were 10 minutes early, and immediately the girl sitting in the first row in the middle of th room said "oh thank God, you speak english".
my response was "well, only 1 of the 5 calc 3 TAs this semester isn't a native speaker, so you had a good chance".
for 8:40 am, my first section was impressively awake. not excited about being there, but they were functional and responded to my questions.... my second section was full of chatty guys who wanted to make smalltalk about math dept. people before and after class, which was moderately entertaining... my last section seemed the least happy to be there and it took them a little longer to come up with the right answers to my questions, but maybe that's a lunchtime class thing? we'll see.
my first week last semester, my 1st section struck me as the most awake and interactive section, but as the semester progressed they were the most quiet and stubborn section... we'll see how the personalities of the sections play out this time.
it's a world of difference talking to a room of 20 2nd or 3rd year students who are all engineering, physics, or math majors instead of a room of 35 1st semester freshmen who have non-math related majors. they just interact differently, and i was pleased with the level of response i got to my questions all morning. i gave them sample problems to solve to guide us but basically said "tell me what you remember about limits? about derivatives? about integrals?" and it was a party all around. already according to my math website statistics counter, i've gotten 2 dozen hits from rutgers computers this morning, which means they actually went to look up the useful links/ideas in the webpage i made for the course, which makes me feel useful already too.
so, even though i'm sniffly and sneezy, for a first day of teaching and not knowing any of the students (i take that back, one of scott's last semester students who failed then is in my 3rd section and recognized me, and vice versa but i don't know his name), it went really well.
btw, the last thing i was asked by a student today, was on the way out of my 3rd section, one of my students stopped me and asked "so, our professor, does he actually speak clear english too or is that wishful thinking?"
wow.
so calc 3 students at rutgers apparently are used to being foiled by accents, and lucked out this semester... whatever that means... i just know i was popular today because english is my first language, and that's a fairly easy way to get on peoples good side.
go figure.
lunch, then back to campus for a bit.
later dudes.
i was up at 6:45, chugged theraflu with my breakfast and was sniffling my way out the door by 8:15 to go teach this morning.
i walked into my first class, set down my bag and said "good morning" to the dozen students who were 10 minutes early, and immediately the girl sitting in the first row in the middle of th room said "oh thank God, you speak english".
my response was "well, only 1 of the 5 calc 3 TAs this semester isn't a native speaker, so you had a good chance".
for 8:40 am, my first section was impressively awake. not excited about being there, but they were functional and responded to my questions.... my second section was full of chatty guys who wanted to make smalltalk about math dept. people before and after class, which was moderately entertaining... my last section seemed the least happy to be there and it took them a little longer to come up with the right answers to my questions, but maybe that's a lunchtime class thing? we'll see.
my first week last semester, my 1st section struck me as the most awake and interactive section, but as the semester progressed they were the most quiet and stubborn section... we'll see how the personalities of the sections play out this time.
it's a world of difference talking to a room of 20 2nd or 3rd year students who are all engineering, physics, or math majors instead of a room of 35 1st semester freshmen who have non-math related majors. they just interact differently, and i was pleased with the level of response i got to my questions all morning. i gave them sample problems to solve to guide us but basically said "tell me what you remember about limits? about derivatives? about integrals?" and it was a party all around. already according to my math website statistics counter, i've gotten 2 dozen hits from rutgers computers this morning, which means they actually went to look up the useful links/ideas in the webpage i made for the course, which makes me feel useful already too.
so, even though i'm sniffly and sneezy, for a first day of teaching and not knowing any of the students (i take that back, one of scott's last semester students who failed then is in my 3rd section and recognized me, and vice versa but i don't know his name), it went really well.
btw, the last thing i was asked by a student today, was on the way out of my 3rd section, one of my students stopped me and asked "so, our professor, does he actually speak clear english too or is that wishful thinking?"
wow.
so calc 3 students at rutgers apparently are used to being foiled by accents, and lucked out this semester... whatever that means... i just know i was popular today because english is my first language, and that's a fairly easy way to get on peoples good side.
go figure.
lunch, then back to campus for a bit.
later dudes.
Monday, January 16, 2006
more news headlines
* Fire razes Hemingway's bar -- a little strange, but mostly just sad
* Two patients in surgical slip-up -- sounds like a scrubs episode, only unfortunately it's real...
... and mostly this is posted because i don't understand exactly why yahoo has been listing it under "oddly enough" news as well as celebrity news all week:
* Rapper Eminem, ex-wife remarry ... go figure.
happy monday?
* Two patients in surgical slip-up -- sounds like a scrubs episode, only unfortunately it's real...
... and mostly this is posted because i don't understand exactly why yahoo has been listing it under "oddly enough" news as well as celebrity news all week:
* Rapper Eminem, ex-wife remarry ... go figure.
happy monday?
all the men have failed... let's try a woman
i just saw this interview on TV with the newly elected president of liberia -- the first woman president ever in africa... it was an interesting news spot, you should read the interview too.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
news rundown of the day
* Sober driver flees police drink check, crashes
* Photos Show It's True: No Two Snowflakes Alike
* Thief on horseback steals cell phone
* Rather be famous than brainy? (not me!)
... and the most entertaining of all:
* Most Popular Myths in Science -- do you really know the truth?
in Lara news, i'm bonding with a nice warm mug of thermaflu and hoping denver beats new england (i like any team who can beat new england and denver is my uncle bob's team so all the better)... tomorrow go carolina, and more importantly GO STEELERS!
i've decided teaching tuesday will be a discussion math class. i'm not going to come in with a prepared lecture per se. i'll have review problems i'm willing to work, but i'll convince them to teach me what they know. those of you i've IM surveyed so far seem to think this is a good idea... we'll see how it works out.
new pastor's first NJ sermon tomorrow... one of these days i'll start calling him by name instead of just "new pastor", but it has a nice ring to it for now. :P
night y'all. :P
* Photos Show It's True: No Two Snowflakes Alike
* Thief on horseback steals cell phone
* Rather be famous than brainy? (not me!)
... and the most entertaining of all:
* Most Popular Myths in Science -- do you really know the truth?
in Lara news, i'm bonding with a nice warm mug of thermaflu and hoping denver beats new england (i like any team who can beat new england and denver is my uncle bob's team so all the better)... tomorrow go carolina, and more importantly GO STEELERS!
i've decided teaching tuesday will be a discussion math class. i'm not going to come in with a prepared lecture per se. i'll have review problems i'm willing to work, but i'll convince them to teach me what they know. those of you i've IM surveyed so far seem to think this is a good idea... we'll see how it works out.
new pastor's first NJ sermon tomorrow... one of these days i'll start calling him by name instead of just "new pastor", but it has a nice ring to it for now. :P
night y'all. :P
errrrrrrrrgh
teaching calc 3 is already more trouble than it's worth, and the semester doesn't start until tuesday!
after altar guild this morning (which was fun because we got to change out the colors of the linens on the altar again (we made them red last week afternoon for the new pastor's intallation) today and change out the banners up front), i've spent the past 2.5 hours in a computer lab in the math building figuring out the maple lab i'm supposed to teach my students next week. i have a week and a half for this, but i want it out of the way... this isn't even thinking about preparing a lecture for tuesday yet.
while working i get the following email (names deleted) from a professor who i know well who is teaching 2 of the 5 calc 3 lectures:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DEAR Ms. P------:
I hope you can help me. Here is the situation. I am to teach two lectures
of 251. I have two recitation instructors. My first lecture is on Tuesday.
The first recitations are on Wednesday for all six secvtions. Here, in
fact, is the schedule:
I had intended to meet with Mr. ------- and Mr. --------- at 11 AM on
Monday to discuss the course, and specificially to discuss the first
"recitation" meetings, in the Maple labs. I sent e-mail to both of them
about 10 days ago.
Errr ... I just got a first response from Mr. -------. He is traveling
(out of the country) and will not be back until early Wednesday. This is a
bit ... unexpected. (I am trying to be diplomatic.)
Well, I was planning on attending and helpinig to supervise the first
recitations at least of each person (sections 5 and 8). I could do more,
but (due to having just one body) not help in both sections 7 and 8, which
meet at the same time. Indeed. Could you help with sections 5 and 6 and 7?
That is, if you have no conflicting classes? If section 5 meets too early,
I can do thatg by myself, and would be willing to work with you in section
6, but would have to leave you to solo (?) with section 7. This is a lot,
and I will owe you or something.
Let me know, please, if this is possible. If you have conflicting
responsibilities, I'll understand. Grump.
Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this is a professor who has helped me out a lot with things in the past, and i don't have class on wednesday, but that means, due to another TA just not coming back in time to teach, i get the joy of teaching from 8:40-1:20 not only on tuesday, but also for someone else on wednesday... besides that, the professor who just wrote me asking for help is doing a different version of the maple labs than i just spent 2 hours working through for my sections, so that means even more prep time. people are lucky that i'm nice to pinch hit for things like this... because especially with fighting the beginnings of a cold, this week is going to majorly suck.
wish me luck.
after altar guild this morning (which was fun because we got to change out the colors of the linens on the altar again (we made them red last week afternoon for the new pastor's intallation) today and change out the banners up front), i've spent the past 2.5 hours in a computer lab in the math building figuring out the maple lab i'm supposed to teach my students next week. i have a week and a half for this, but i want it out of the way... this isn't even thinking about preparing a lecture for tuesday yet.
while working i get the following email (names deleted) from a professor who i know well who is teaching 2 of the 5 calc 3 lectures:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DEAR Ms. P------:
I hope you can help me. Here is the situation. I am to teach two lectures
of 251. I have two recitation instructors. My first lecture is on Tuesday.
The first recitations are on Wednesday for all six secvtions. Here, in
fact, is the schedule:
I had intended to meet with Mr. ------- and Mr. --------- at 11 AM on
Monday to discuss the course, and specificially to discuss the first
"recitation" meetings, in the Maple labs. I sent e-mail to both of them
about 10 days ago.
Errr ... I just got a first response from Mr. -------. He is traveling
(out of the country) and will not be back until early Wednesday. This is a
bit ... unexpected. (I am trying to be diplomatic.)
Well, I was planning on attending and helpinig to supervise the first
recitations at least of each person (sections 5 and 8). I could do more,
but (due to having just one body) not help in both sections 7 and 8, which
meet at the same time. Indeed. Could you help with sections 5 and 6 and 7?
That is, if you have no conflicting classes? If section 5 meets too early,
I can do thatg by myself, and would be willing to work with you in section
6, but would have to leave you to solo (?) with section 7. This is a lot,
and I will owe you or something.
Let me know, please, if this is possible. If you have conflicting
responsibilities, I'll understand. Grump.
Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
this is a professor who has helped me out a lot with things in the past, and i don't have class on wednesday, but that means, due to another TA just not coming back in time to teach, i get the joy of teaching from 8:40-1:20 not only on tuesday, but also for someone else on wednesday... besides that, the professor who just wrote me asking for help is doing a different version of the maple labs than i just spent 2 hours working through for my sections, so that means even more prep time. people are lucky that i'm nice to pinch hit for things like this... because especially with fighting the beginnings of a cold, this week is going to majorly suck.
wish me luck.
Friday, January 13, 2006
on the agenda tomorrow...
* up and out the door by 8:15, to be at church by 8:45 for altar guild (i.e. i'm on the crew that vacuums and dusts the altar area and sets up for communion every week this month)
* work through lab0 here so i can teach it next week. unfortunately it's written for maple 10 and my computer only has maple 9.5 so that means i'll be locked in a computer lab in the math building for part of the morning...
* plan a 60 minute calc 1/calc 2 review lecture for tuesday
* study... i'm getting tired of the clements-lindstrom, macaulay, and kruskal-katona theorems which i've been trying to figure out for the past few days... i need to understand them in algebra terms, but most of the references i can find for them are in set theory terms... i'm chipping away but getting annoyed.... chances are tomorrow will be permutation stuff again which i haven't really looked at since december
aren't you jealous? :P
later dudes.
* work through lab0 here so i can teach it next week. unfortunately it's written for maple 10 and my computer only has maple 9.5 so that means i'll be locked in a computer lab in the math building for part of the morning...
* plan a 60 minute calc 1/calc 2 review lecture for tuesday
* study... i'm getting tired of the clements-lindstrom, macaulay, and kruskal-katona theorems which i've been trying to figure out for the past few days... i need to understand them in algebra terms, but most of the references i can find for them are in set theory terms... i'm chipping away but getting annoyed.... chances are tomorrow will be permutation stuff again which i haven't really looked at since december
aren't you jealous? :P
later dudes.
hallelujah, my car is back :-)
hopefully the couple of you pastors- in- training who i know read this aren't offended by my subject line. ;-)... but seriously.
so my car went into the shop on monday to get a badly scratched door fixed before it rusts... luckily for me, i was home alone this week and neither of my roommates is crazy enough to drive home like i do, so i had both of their keys.
here's the rundown though.
* leigh drives a mid-90s pontiac bonneville (this is basically her car, only hers is green). she likes it, but the general consensus among everyone else is that it's totally a boat. so given my choice i'll ride in it, but i won't drive it if i have another option.
* colleen drives a 2000 (give or take a year) chevy malibu (basically this, but again different color). it's much more similar to mine, but driving or riding in it i can't help but feel it's a little too box-shaped... the gear shift always feels too stiff like it's about to snap if i try to move out of park... the steering feels like you have to pull harder to get the car to turn, etc. it's more similar to driving my car, but it just feels... stiff and boxy to me... nonetheless, given my options, i've been driving colleen's car to campus this week.
* i drive a 2000 mitsubishi galant (basically this, but yet again different color). after i survived a 1990 ford tempo and a 1987 chevy nova (both of which i loved but drove to their deaths), my parents helped me chip in on getting a wholesale one of these fully loaded... when i have to drive other cars, i totally miss it. it's a reasonable size car to manage and it handles smoothly... it makes me happy.
each of us likes our own car best, but seriously after driving the others for a week, i couldn't wait to get mine back... and finally it's ready for me... today is a happy day. :)
later dudes.
so my car went into the shop on monday to get a badly scratched door fixed before it rusts... luckily for me, i was home alone this week and neither of my roommates is crazy enough to drive home like i do, so i had both of their keys.
here's the rundown though.
* leigh drives a mid-90s pontiac bonneville (this is basically her car, only hers is green). she likes it, but the general consensus among everyone else is that it's totally a boat. so given my choice i'll ride in it, but i won't drive it if i have another option.
* colleen drives a 2000 (give or take a year) chevy malibu (basically this, but again different color). it's much more similar to mine, but driving or riding in it i can't help but feel it's a little too box-shaped... the gear shift always feels too stiff like it's about to snap if i try to move out of park... the steering feels like you have to pull harder to get the car to turn, etc. it's more similar to driving my car, but it just feels... stiff and boxy to me... nonetheless, given my options, i've been driving colleen's car to campus this week.
* i drive a 2000 mitsubishi galant (basically this, but yet again different color). after i survived a 1990 ford tempo and a 1987 chevy nova (both of which i loved but drove to their deaths), my parents helped me chip in on getting a wholesale one of these fully loaded... when i have to drive other cars, i totally miss it. it's a reasonable size car to manage and it handles smoothly... it makes me happy.
each of us likes our own car best, but seriously after driving the others for a week, i couldn't wait to get mine back... and finally it's ready for me... today is a happy day. :)
later dudes.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
feelings
* tired
there's a heck of a lot for me to study before my qualifying exam, and i am chipping away at it... but it seems like it's never ending. i hoped to figure out 3 theorems today, and i kind of understand one of them... there's always tomorrow... but there's only so many tomorrow's before the text... so yeah, tired of studying
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* overwhelmed
i don't know what i got myself into when i agreed to be head TA for calc 3. right now, just figuring out how to be a good TA in general is going to be a lot of work. if the format was like calc 1, where students do homework, and come in prepared and i answer questions for an hour or so, then i'd be set... even though the beginning of calc 3 is vector stuff that'll be straightforward for me to remember, my first two weeks teaching this semester are going to be a lot of work. classes start tues (1/17) here. my students will have lecture with the professor on mondays and thursdays and see me on tuesday mornings. that means i run 3 80 minute recitation periods where they haven't been to any classes whatsoever ahead of time... what to teach them? i'm supposed to come up with an 80 minute review of calc 1 and calc 2 lecture to give 4 days from tomorrow... not excited. not impossible, but still a lot more work than just answering questions... the second class i teach will be crazy too, since it'll be in a computer lab and i'm supposed to teach them how to use maple (a math programming language). i was given the job of calculus 3 head TA because i know maple, but i get along well with maple 9.5, and don't like maple 10, which, as of a couple months ago is what all the university labs have... so in the next week i need to learn the new version and be ready to teach a whole class on using it for calc 3 stuff too... the maple part won't be as hard for me as for people who don't use maple at all, but it's still considerably more work than calc 3.... and this isn't even thinking about my extra work as *head* TA yet... i'm sure that there have to be other calc 3 TAs this semester who are more experienced with teaching calc 3 than me, so i'm not quite sure what makes me get the job ahead of them... i feel underqualified and overwhelmed... and figuring this out so i can present myself well to 3 rooms full of students each week is going to take a decent chunk out of the qual studying time, thus enhancing tired.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* amused (at least 1 out of 3 isn't that bad, right?)
beauty and the geek 2 season premeire was on tonight. i saw all of season 1 as a marathon one day when i wasn't feeling well and spent the afternoon curled up on the couch in our living room... it was cute... then i've caught bits and pieces of the marathon of season 1 last week on the WB, so tonight it was worth a shot to watch again.
in particular about this week: chris is going to get on my nerves because instead of thinking he can learn from others he seems to be so sure of himself to a fault. his appearance on this first episode showed he has lots of brainiac knowledge and quite a bit of pop culture knowledge, but even if he knows things, he doesn't have the "plays along well socially with others" going at all, which is exactly what he's supposed to be learning... i hope he calms down soon, or gets out of the house...
in general: i find this show entertaining to watch because seriously i can relate so much more to the guys on it than to the girls... i wonder if a gender-reversed version of the show would be equally fun to watch or just weird... i don't know... but also, the further they get into the show and bond and bring the best out in one another, the more satisfying it gets to watch them all grow and branch out, from both sides of the coin. it's a lot more entertaining and worthwhile in my estimation than i would have guessed from previews last year. we'll see how it goes.
so tired, overwhelmed, and amused... i think that sums it up.
night y'all
there's a heck of a lot for me to study before my qualifying exam, and i am chipping away at it... but it seems like it's never ending. i hoped to figure out 3 theorems today, and i kind of understand one of them... there's always tomorrow... but there's only so many tomorrow's before the text... so yeah, tired of studying
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* overwhelmed
i don't know what i got myself into when i agreed to be head TA for calc 3. right now, just figuring out how to be a good TA in general is going to be a lot of work. if the format was like calc 1, where students do homework, and come in prepared and i answer questions for an hour or so, then i'd be set... even though the beginning of calc 3 is vector stuff that'll be straightforward for me to remember, my first two weeks teaching this semester are going to be a lot of work. classes start tues (1/17) here. my students will have lecture with the professor on mondays and thursdays and see me on tuesday mornings. that means i run 3 80 minute recitation periods where they haven't been to any classes whatsoever ahead of time... what to teach them? i'm supposed to come up with an 80 minute review of calc 1 and calc 2 lecture to give 4 days from tomorrow... not excited. not impossible, but still a lot more work than just answering questions... the second class i teach will be crazy too, since it'll be in a computer lab and i'm supposed to teach them how to use maple (a math programming language). i was given the job of calculus 3 head TA because i know maple, but i get along well with maple 9.5, and don't like maple 10, which, as of a couple months ago is what all the university labs have... so in the next week i need to learn the new version and be ready to teach a whole class on using it for calc 3 stuff too... the maple part won't be as hard for me as for people who don't use maple at all, but it's still considerably more work than calc 3.... and this isn't even thinking about my extra work as *head* TA yet... i'm sure that there have to be other calc 3 TAs this semester who are more experienced with teaching calc 3 than me, so i'm not quite sure what makes me get the job ahead of them... i feel underqualified and overwhelmed... and figuring this out so i can present myself well to 3 rooms full of students each week is going to take a decent chunk out of the qual studying time, thus enhancing tired.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* amused (at least 1 out of 3 isn't that bad, right?)
beauty and the geek 2 season premeire was on tonight. i saw all of season 1 as a marathon one day when i wasn't feeling well and spent the afternoon curled up on the couch in our living room... it was cute... then i've caught bits and pieces of the marathon of season 1 last week on the WB, so tonight it was worth a shot to watch again.
in particular about this week: chris is going to get on my nerves because instead of thinking he can learn from others he seems to be so sure of himself to a fault. his appearance on this first episode showed he has lots of brainiac knowledge and quite a bit of pop culture knowledge, but even if he knows things, he doesn't have the "plays along well socially with others" going at all, which is exactly what he's supposed to be learning... i hope he calms down soon, or gets out of the house...
in general: i find this show entertaining to watch because seriously i can relate so much more to the guys on it than to the girls... i wonder if a gender-reversed version of the show would be equally fun to watch or just weird... i don't know... but also, the further they get into the show and bond and bring the best out in one another, the more satisfying it gets to watch them all grow and branch out, from both sides of the coin. it's a lot more entertaining and worthwhile in my estimation than i would have guessed from previews last year. we'll see how it goes.
so tired, overwhelmed, and amused... i think that sums it up.
night y'all
do i just expect too much?
watching "who wants to be a millionaire?" while i ate my lunch just now, the following $8000 question just came up:
of the numbers from 2 to 10, how many are prime?
A: 2
B: 3
C: 4
D: 5
the contestant looked distressed, then took a poll of the audience... showing both the audience poll and an AOL poll, the correct answer and one other were fairly comparably high, and the other two choices each had a 10-15% following.
then, the contestant admitted he was leaning towards one of the less popular answers, so he phoned a friend who voted for a wrong answer but said he was very confident that he was right.
i was amazed. to me that's a really easy question, but then again, i'm a math person.
so my question to you all is -- do you know the answer? how hard was it for you? (HINT: leave me comments on this post!!! :P)
the end. :P
of the numbers from 2 to 10, how many are prime?
A: 2
B: 3
C: 4
D: 5
the contestant looked distressed, then took a poll of the audience... showing both the audience poll and an AOL poll, the correct answer and one other were fairly comparably high, and the other two choices each had a 10-15% following.
then, the contestant admitted he was leaning towards one of the less popular answers, so he phoned a friend who voted for a wrong answer but said he was very confident that he was right.
i was amazed. to me that's a really easy question, but then again, i'm a math person.
so my question to you all is -- do you know the answer? how hard was it for you? (HINT: leave me comments on this post!!! :P)
the end. :P
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
blast from the past
mostly i think i like filling out forms because i like typing (i don't care what i'm typing, i just like typing... :P) and i like filling out answers to things i know the answers to :P either way, ruthie's blog provided me with another one to fill out... enjoy :P
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
25 years ago: my dad had a 20 acre farm in NE Illinois less than a mile from his parents house' and worked for a nearby florist. my mom was a Lutheran grade school teacher in the next town over. me? i wouldn't be born for another 6 months. i was born in june 1981.
20 years ago: at age 4, since we lived in a farm town where school began with kindergarten, i spent the day at babysitters' houses while mom was teaching, and then made trouble around my parents' farm with whatever dad let me help him do (from feeding birds and cats to helping with plants) when at home. when my dad got offered the job of general foreman and horticulturist at the memphis zoo (in TN), i totally thought he had made up the name Tennessee when he asked what i would think of living there. we moved in july 1986, just after my 5th birthday.
15 Years ago: age 9, i was halfway done with 4th grade. since for K-8 i went to the lutheran school my mom taught at, she had been my 2nd grade teacher, and all my teachers along the way ever since were all her friends.
*that year, during the 1st 6-week academic period after christmas, my teacher had a contest where she kept a chart of all the As each of us earned in any class and for every 10 As you got some sort of reward (candy bar, extra computer time, etc.). at the end of the 6 weeks i had the most As in the class, so my extra reward was having lunch at the place of my choice away from school with the teacher. i chose taco bell. :P
*my dad bought 2 turkeys that year that we named after my principal and his wife (who happened to be my teacher),... they made the yearbook when mom brought them into her 2nd grade class to visit the week before thanksgiving.
*my two remaining great grandparents died during may of 1991... we had just been to visit both of them the previous summer, so i'm lucky to have fairly clear memories of both.
*besides school, i played basketball (not my favorite, but i was tall for my age which helped with making baskets), volleyball (which i adored, and had nearly a perfect underhand serve naturally), and was in girl scouts.
10 Years ago: january 1996, i was halfway through my freshman year of high school. after attending the same parochial school with 25 kids per grade level all the way through 8th grade, high school with a class of a five or six hundred was insanely huge, but after a week or two, i was ok with it and making good friends who i still keep in touch with. i played flute in the school band and was already scoring well on state-wide math contests. 1996 was also the year i discovered contact lenses, which was a very good thing. late 1996 was one of the roughest times of my life though -- both my grandfathers died, 2 weeks apart, over christmas break of my sophomore year of high school and it took me years to start to deal with that satisfactorily...
5 years ago: january 2001, i was halfway through my sophomore year of college. the last 2 years of HS went well, as did my 1st year of college, but when my grandma started having strokes in the fall of 2000, my unresolved angst w/ my grandfathers deaths coupled with my worries about my grandma sent me into one of the darkest years of my life. for spring semester, several of my friends, worried about me and how i was reacting to stresses, convinced me to go to counseling for the semester, which turned out to be a really good thing. when not stressed and freaking out about my grandmother's health, i ran several math camp type programs through the university math department and was a team leader for altar guild at the university chapel, both of which i fairly well enjoyed.
3 years ago: january 2003, i was starting my final semester of college. i had enough credits to graduate in 3 years, but decided to stay an extra year so that i could spend a semester abroad. i spent fall 2002 in budapest, hungary studying math. it was the best 4 months of my life to date and i adored every minute of it. in a way i've never had simultaneously before, i was (1) in a really challenging but really supportive math community AND (2) in a really supportive and encouragaing faith community of people my age, along with the added bonus of (3) having a whole other culture to intrigue me and to explore. i've not had both (1) and (2) to such that degree simultaneously at any other point of my life, and haven't had (3) for more than a few weeks ever since. when i came back and began my last semester of college in the states, i had a really bad case of reverse culture shock and didn't at all like trying to fit back into america when i felt that europe had changed me a lot and i wasn't the same person coming back. i spent a LOT of time wishing i was still in budapest for awhile. i also spent the spring visiting grad schools (i applied to 8 and got into 7), with the criteria that when i visited schools i wanted the math community to remind me of budapest... luckily, rutgers did just that.
1 year ago: january 2005, in the middle of my 2nd year of grad school at rutgers, i passed my first round of qualifying exams, and began my resolution to lose 100 pounds between 2005 and 2006. i also started working with my thesis advisor. after passing my qual, i got hired to run the rutgers/DIMACS research experience for undergraduates in mathematics which provided me with a free summer trip to prague for a conference, after which i revisited budapest for the first time since my semester there. however, after lots and lots of death during my first year of grad school and standing by my best friend through her mom getting really sick and then dying the week before my 2nd year of grad school started (august 2004), i stopped really hanging out with people. i maintained friendships in one-on-one settings, but started avoiding group situations as much as humanly possible.
This year: the social trends i started a year and a half ago haven't changed and i don't know when/if they will. i have managed to lose 65 pounds out of that goal of 100 so far. research with my advisor is going stellarly well, and now i'm studying to pass my 2nd set of qualifying exams. this fall, i got rehired for the same summer job next year, so that means another free trip to prague and budapest. i started teaching this past fall, so it's interesting to be at the front of a classroom instead of in the back quietly taking notes. most weeks i enjoy it. after a little over a year with a vacancy pastor, my NJ church finally has a permanent pastor as of this past week, but the interim has been interesting...
Yesterday: i took my car to the body shop to fix damage that happened while i was home over christmas... then, since eric was my ride home after that, i studied on campus with him and then we had lunch before i was home to finish loading my new ipod.
Today: grocery store shopping, then 2 hours in the math library finding references for things on my oral syllabus that i don't remember yet... since the library i've remembered what a gray code is and what the prufer bijection between sequences and labelled trees is... tonight i'm greatly looking forward to 2 new episodes of scrubs... otherwise dinner and studying,... woohoo :P
Tomorrow: (literal tomorrow): studying the day away.... dinner with eric most likely, but not sure what/where.
(figurative/grand scheme tomorrow): i hope to pass my oral qualifying exam in february, and hope teaching this semester goes as well as last semester... looking forward to budapest and prague this summer and possibly reykjavik too, all funded by math grants. ultimately, i plan to finish my Ph.D. by may 2008, (2007 if i'm really really really lucky), hopefully land a post-doc, and then get a professorship at a university i can feel at home in and live happily ever after in search of mathematical truth. :P
the end.... wasn't that fun?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
25 years ago: my dad had a 20 acre farm in NE Illinois less than a mile from his parents house' and worked for a nearby florist. my mom was a Lutheran grade school teacher in the next town over. me? i wouldn't be born for another 6 months. i was born in june 1981.
20 years ago: at age 4, since we lived in a farm town where school began with kindergarten, i spent the day at babysitters' houses while mom was teaching, and then made trouble around my parents' farm with whatever dad let me help him do (from feeding birds and cats to helping with plants) when at home. when my dad got offered the job of general foreman and horticulturist at the memphis zoo (in TN), i totally thought he had made up the name Tennessee when he asked what i would think of living there. we moved in july 1986, just after my 5th birthday.
15 Years ago: age 9, i was halfway done with 4th grade. since for K-8 i went to the lutheran school my mom taught at, she had been my 2nd grade teacher, and all my teachers along the way ever since were all her friends.
*that year, during the 1st 6-week academic period after christmas, my teacher had a contest where she kept a chart of all the As each of us earned in any class and for every 10 As you got some sort of reward (candy bar, extra computer time, etc.). at the end of the 6 weeks i had the most As in the class, so my extra reward was having lunch at the place of my choice away from school with the teacher. i chose taco bell. :P
*my dad bought 2 turkeys that year that we named after my principal and his wife (who happened to be my teacher),... they made the yearbook when mom brought them into her 2nd grade class to visit the week before thanksgiving.
*my two remaining great grandparents died during may of 1991... we had just been to visit both of them the previous summer, so i'm lucky to have fairly clear memories of both.
*besides school, i played basketball (not my favorite, but i was tall for my age which helped with making baskets), volleyball (which i adored, and had nearly a perfect underhand serve naturally), and was in girl scouts.
10 Years ago: january 1996, i was halfway through my freshman year of high school. after attending the same parochial school with 25 kids per grade level all the way through 8th grade, high school with a class of a five or six hundred was insanely huge, but after a week or two, i was ok with it and making good friends who i still keep in touch with. i played flute in the school band and was already scoring well on state-wide math contests. 1996 was also the year i discovered contact lenses, which was a very good thing. late 1996 was one of the roughest times of my life though -- both my grandfathers died, 2 weeks apart, over christmas break of my sophomore year of high school and it took me years to start to deal with that satisfactorily...
5 years ago: january 2001, i was halfway through my sophomore year of college. the last 2 years of HS went well, as did my 1st year of college, but when my grandma started having strokes in the fall of 2000, my unresolved angst w/ my grandfathers deaths coupled with my worries about my grandma sent me into one of the darkest years of my life. for spring semester, several of my friends, worried about me and how i was reacting to stresses, convinced me to go to counseling for the semester, which turned out to be a really good thing. when not stressed and freaking out about my grandmother's health, i ran several math camp type programs through the university math department and was a team leader for altar guild at the university chapel, both of which i fairly well enjoyed.
3 years ago: january 2003, i was starting my final semester of college. i had enough credits to graduate in 3 years, but decided to stay an extra year so that i could spend a semester abroad. i spent fall 2002 in budapest, hungary studying math. it was the best 4 months of my life to date and i adored every minute of it. in a way i've never had simultaneously before, i was (1) in a really challenging but really supportive math community AND (2) in a really supportive and encouragaing faith community of people my age, along with the added bonus of (3) having a whole other culture to intrigue me and to explore. i've not had both (1) and (2) to such that degree simultaneously at any other point of my life, and haven't had (3) for more than a few weeks ever since. when i came back and began my last semester of college in the states, i had a really bad case of reverse culture shock and didn't at all like trying to fit back into america when i felt that europe had changed me a lot and i wasn't the same person coming back. i spent a LOT of time wishing i was still in budapest for awhile. i also spent the spring visiting grad schools (i applied to 8 and got into 7), with the criteria that when i visited schools i wanted the math community to remind me of budapest... luckily, rutgers did just that.
1 year ago: january 2005, in the middle of my 2nd year of grad school at rutgers, i passed my first round of qualifying exams, and began my resolution to lose 100 pounds between 2005 and 2006. i also started working with my thesis advisor. after passing my qual, i got hired to run the rutgers/DIMACS research experience for undergraduates in mathematics which provided me with a free summer trip to prague for a conference, after which i revisited budapest for the first time since my semester there. however, after lots and lots of death during my first year of grad school and standing by my best friend through her mom getting really sick and then dying the week before my 2nd year of grad school started (august 2004), i stopped really hanging out with people. i maintained friendships in one-on-one settings, but started avoiding group situations as much as humanly possible.
This year: the social trends i started a year and a half ago haven't changed and i don't know when/if they will. i have managed to lose 65 pounds out of that goal of 100 so far. research with my advisor is going stellarly well, and now i'm studying to pass my 2nd set of qualifying exams. this fall, i got rehired for the same summer job next year, so that means another free trip to prague and budapest. i started teaching this past fall, so it's interesting to be at the front of a classroom instead of in the back quietly taking notes. most weeks i enjoy it. after a little over a year with a vacancy pastor, my NJ church finally has a permanent pastor as of this past week, but the interim has been interesting...
Yesterday: i took my car to the body shop to fix damage that happened while i was home over christmas... then, since eric was my ride home after that, i studied on campus with him and then we had lunch before i was home to finish loading my new ipod.
Today: grocery store shopping, then 2 hours in the math library finding references for things on my oral syllabus that i don't remember yet... since the library i've remembered what a gray code is and what the prufer bijection between sequences and labelled trees is... tonight i'm greatly looking forward to 2 new episodes of scrubs... otherwise dinner and studying,... woohoo :P
Tomorrow: (literal tomorrow): studying the day away.... dinner with eric most likely, but not sure what/where.
(figurative/grand scheme tomorrow): i hope to pass my oral qualifying exam in february, and hope teaching this semester goes as well as last semester... looking forward to budapest and prague this summer and possibly reykjavik too, all funded by math grants. ultimately, i plan to finish my Ph.D. by may 2008, (2007 if i'm really really really lucky), hopefully land a post-doc, and then get a professorship at a university i can feel at home in and live happily ever after in search of mathematical truth. :P
the end.... wasn't that fun?
in today's news...
* Sad, on so many levels.. -- can *you* cook?... really?
* The blind feeding the blind.. -- literally
* It's hemp, court tells cops -- again
* Study: Guppies Have Menopause, Too
* Scientists Predict What You'll Think of Next
* Older Elephants Smell Sexier
* Bees Recognize People
enjoy!
* The blind feeding the blind.. -- literally
* It's hemp, court tells cops -- again
* Study: Guppies Have Menopause, Too
* Scientists Predict What You'll Think of Next
* Older Elephants Smell Sexier
* Bees Recognize People
enjoy!
Monday, January 09, 2006
4189
that's how many songs are now on my new ipod.
i swear, it's like my new best friend.... it's a completely wonderful little gadget.
the end. :)
i swear, it's like my new best friend.... it's a completely wonderful little gadget.
the end. :)
how great a story is this?
d***beagle: www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/08/mouse.fire.ap/index.html
d***beagle: since you like weird stories
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
l******42: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/08/mouse.fire.ap/index.html
hockey***3: wow
l******42: don't ever make a mouse mad at you
hockey***3: words to live by
d***beagle: since you like weird stories
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
l******42: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/08/mouse.fire.ap/index.html
hockey***3: wow
l******42: don't ever make a mouse mad at you
hockey***3: words to live by
here's a question:
read here to learn about the world's longest concert -- 639 years long.
for an organ concert at least, i thought it was rude to come in or leave in the middle of a piece, so how do you get around that without dying during the piece? ;)
later dudes.
for an organ concert at least, i thought it was rude to come in or leave in the middle of a piece, so how do you get around that without dying during the piece? ;)
later dudes.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
according to silly online quizzes....
i'm a tranquil sociophobe with a stolen ipod... not the ipod thing, but the rest of it? sure! (i'm not in a weird mood at all tonight ;-P)
| |
Your Social Dysfunction: Schizotypal You display social deficits and oddities of thinking. Your perception and communication are similar to those of a schizophrenic. | ||||
| ||||
Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com Please note that we aren't, nor do we claim to be, psychologists. This quiz is for fun and entertainment only. Try not to freak out about your results. |
The Picto-Personality Test When alone, you like to spend your time doing something that will better yourself. You are intelligent. You use your time to its fullest potential and will go very far in life. In the future you will be wise and healthy. |
| Take this Test at QuizGalaxy.com |
i bet i'm weirder than you
as seen on ruthie's blog...
"The first player of this game starts with the topic five weird habits of yourelf and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals."
i'm not into tagging people, but i have tons of weird habits/things, so here goes the fun:
(1) i have a fear of mirrors after dark. i never used to, but at a halloween party in 2004, i heard stories that freaked me out about mirrors. unfortunately, in my dining room here in NJ, one whole wall is a giant mirror and it's the first thing you see when you come to the house. so if i come home to an empty house at night and my roommate leigh (who thinks about such things) hasn't been home to leave the dining room light on for me, there's a whole routine of what to turn on in what order before dashing across the dining room to turn the dining room light on without looking at the wall sized mirror. my friends laugh at me for it.
(2) i am extremely anal retentive about how my board games get put back in the box. so if you play one of my board games with me, there's probably equally much of a game to put it away again. monopoly and rummikub are the two that annoy people the most. when i stack rummikub tiles to put them back in the box, i make whoever is playing with me put the tiles face up, the same direction in stacks of 5, and if i can, i try to make a pattern in the box with the colors of the tiles that are on the tops of the stacks. with monopoly, house rules that my brother and i play at the end if one person or the other isn't bankrupt is that you go around the board in order and sell houses and properties back to the bank and then the person with the most cash, once everything is redeemed is the winner... selling the properties to the bank in order means the banker has all the property deeds in order for the next game too.
(3) i have 14 pillows on my bed. each of them has a very particular spot on the bed during the day, so when i get up, i throw the pillows on the floor in a certain order, make my bed, and then put them back on the bed in another certain order (the reverse of how i throw them on the floor). similarly, i have 5 calendars in my room -- a dry erase board monthly calendar that i mark off an x on each day, 3 "quote a day calendars" that aren't for any particular year on my bookcase, and a weekly planner calendar on my desk... after the making the bed routine, there's a routine to marking each calendar to the next day too that i can't bring myself to do out of order.
(4) whenever i open a box of candy/food/whatever that has multiple flavors, even if it's a giant size bag/box, i dump the whole thing out and sort it by colors, and then arrange it into groups with the same number of each color.... and *then* i eat it in that order...
e.g., say i got a bag of skittles with 5 purple, 5 red, 7 green, 8 orange, and 8 yellow, then i would put 5 of each back in the bag for later.... i would put 2 green, 2 orange, and 2 yellow somewhere near the bag in a group, then put the remaining orange and the remaining yellow together elsewhere. i have to eat the 1 orange 1 yellow first... the 2 green/2 orange/2 yellow next, and eat the 5 of each kind last
(5) when i'm driving long distance in the car by myself and cross state lines, i actually audibly say hello and goodbye to whatever states i'm crossing into and out of and tell them when i'll see them again.
and you thought *you* were weird... i think i definitely take the cake... not many people, short of in asylums, can outweird mathematicians. :-P
the end.
"The first player of this game starts with the topic five weird habits of yourelf and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals."
i'm not into tagging people, but i have tons of weird habits/things, so here goes the fun:
(1) i have a fear of mirrors after dark. i never used to, but at a halloween party in 2004, i heard stories that freaked me out about mirrors. unfortunately, in my dining room here in NJ, one whole wall is a giant mirror and it's the first thing you see when you come to the house. so if i come home to an empty house at night and my roommate leigh (who thinks about such things) hasn't been home to leave the dining room light on for me, there's a whole routine of what to turn on in what order before dashing across the dining room to turn the dining room light on without looking at the wall sized mirror. my friends laugh at me for it.
(2) i am extremely anal retentive about how my board games get put back in the box. so if you play one of my board games with me, there's probably equally much of a game to put it away again. monopoly and rummikub are the two that annoy people the most. when i stack rummikub tiles to put them back in the box, i make whoever is playing with me put the tiles face up, the same direction in stacks of 5, and if i can, i try to make a pattern in the box with the colors of the tiles that are on the tops of the stacks. with monopoly, house rules that my brother and i play at the end if one person or the other isn't bankrupt is that you go around the board in order and sell houses and properties back to the bank and then the person with the most cash, once everything is redeemed is the winner... selling the properties to the bank in order means the banker has all the property deeds in order for the next game too.
(3) i have 14 pillows on my bed. each of them has a very particular spot on the bed during the day, so when i get up, i throw the pillows on the floor in a certain order, make my bed, and then put them back on the bed in another certain order (the reverse of how i throw them on the floor). similarly, i have 5 calendars in my room -- a dry erase board monthly calendar that i mark off an x on each day, 3 "quote a day calendars" that aren't for any particular year on my bookcase, and a weekly planner calendar on my desk... after the making the bed routine, there's a routine to marking each calendar to the next day too that i can't bring myself to do out of order.
(4) whenever i open a box of candy/food/whatever that has multiple flavors, even if it's a giant size bag/box, i dump the whole thing out and sort it by colors, and then arrange it into groups with the same number of each color.... and *then* i eat it in that order...
e.g., say i got a bag of skittles with 5 purple, 5 red, 7 green, 8 orange, and 8 yellow, then i would put 5 of each back in the bag for later.... i would put 2 green, 2 orange, and 2 yellow somewhere near the bag in a group, then put the remaining orange and the remaining yellow together elsewhere. i have to eat the 1 orange 1 yellow first... the 2 green/2 orange/2 yellow next, and eat the 5 of each kind last
(5) when i'm driving long distance in the car by myself and cross state lines, i actually audibly say hello and goodbye to whatever states i'm crossing into and out of and tell them when i'll see them again.
and you thought *you* were weird... i think i definitely take the cake... not many people, short of in asylums, can outweird mathematicians. :-P
the end.
misc.
* we have a new pastor! and he has an amazingly deep booming voice for an average height, average build man. (random)
* new pastor's wife remembered me from when they visited 2 months ago and says i have a beautiful smile. :)
* steelers win 31-17... the first half had me worried but the 2nd half was amazing! can they beat indy next weekend? i sure hope so, but we'll see....
later dudes.
* new pastor's wife remembered me from when they visited 2 months ago and says i have a beautiful smile. :)
* steelers win 31-17... the first half had me worried but the 2nd half was amazing! can they beat indy next weekend? i sure hope so, but we'll see....
later dudes.
for those of you keeping score,...
today should be an awesome day!
today, my NJ church installs a new pastor. in november of 2004, pastor j retired, and we've had a vacancy period since then. since january of 2005, we've had a vacancy pastor.
however, our particular vacancy pastor wasn't involved in anything more than sunday morning worship services, made no effort to learn names, and in an interesting twist of fate, 30 years ago he was the pastor of a different NJ church, and quite a few people left that church and joined this one on account of him. don't get me wrong, it's been nice to have a minister around for the past year, and he's done alright. by the same token, he's not been encouraging of church growth because he refuses to do some parts of the worship service since he doesn't like the hymnal we use, because he doesn't generally encourage discussion (it's his view or you're wrong), and because he has not made a bit of effort to learn the names of people he's been working with for the past year. it's not *all* on the pastor to lead a church, and our lay leaders have been fantastic, but it definitely helps and encourages to have a pastor who's a bit more energetic and involved with the congregation. if i had found this church while he was the minister, i probably wouldn't have joined it... but having seen what it can be like with good leadership, and the congregation more or less being a home away fom home for me, i have no reason to give up on it even if we haven't had an optimal leader for the past year.... it's just been... interesting...
so anyhow, today things begin to change. this morning will be our vacancy pastor will lead his last service at my NJ church, and there will be a coffee hour after to say goodbye to him. in my memphis church (which also installs a new pastor today), they had a potluck last month to say goodbye to their interim minister, and it was PACKED... he also chose to be much more involved in the congregation... heck, he met me only twice ever and knew and remembered more about me than my NJ temporary pastor does... i doubt this coffee hour will be as well attended. our temporary pastor's done alright, but he hasn't built up relationships in the church, so it's hard to give a hearty farewell to someone you don't know tons well, but it will be fine just the same.
the real excitement though is this afternoon. at 3pm, we install our new pastor. the last time i remember being at an installation service was when i was 15 and my memphis church installed pastor mike. it's a really cool kind of service where all the pastors in the area are involved and say a blessing over the new pastor. most people in my NJ church, if they've ever been to an installation, haven't been to one in 30 years (when pastor j was originally installed), so they don't remember well, if at all, how awesome an installation service can be. i'm excited to be there. :)
...and... starting next week, we have a pastor who cares quite a bit more about who we are as a congregation and will be a substantially more involved... i can't wait!
so, yeah, today will be a fantastic day. :)
the end.
today, my NJ church installs a new pastor. in november of 2004, pastor j retired, and we've had a vacancy period since then. since january of 2005, we've had a vacancy pastor.
however, our particular vacancy pastor wasn't involved in anything more than sunday morning worship services, made no effort to learn names, and in an interesting twist of fate, 30 years ago he was the pastor of a different NJ church, and quite a few people left that church and joined this one on account of him. don't get me wrong, it's been nice to have a minister around for the past year, and he's done alright. by the same token, he's not been encouraging of church growth because he refuses to do some parts of the worship service since he doesn't like the hymnal we use, because he doesn't generally encourage discussion (it's his view or you're wrong), and because he has not made a bit of effort to learn the names of people he's been working with for the past year. it's not *all* on the pastor to lead a church, and our lay leaders have been fantastic, but it definitely helps and encourages to have a pastor who's a bit more energetic and involved with the congregation. if i had found this church while he was the minister, i probably wouldn't have joined it... but having seen what it can be like with good leadership, and the congregation more or less being a home away fom home for me, i have no reason to give up on it even if we haven't had an optimal leader for the past year.... it's just been... interesting...
so anyhow, today things begin to change. this morning will be our vacancy pastor will lead his last service at my NJ church, and there will be a coffee hour after to say goodbye to him. in my memphis church (which also installs a new pastor today), they had a potluck last month to say goodbye to their interim minister, and it was PACKED... he also chose to be much more involved in the congregation... heck, he met me only twice ever and knew and remembered more about me than my NJ temporary pastor does... i doubt this coffee hour will be as well attended. our temporary pastor's done alright, but he hasn't built up relationships in the church, so it's hard to give a hearty farewell to someone you don't know tons well, but it will be fine just the same.
the real excitement though is this afternoon. at 3pm, we install our new pastor. the last time i remember being at an installation service was when i was 15 and my memphis church installed pastor mike. it's a really cool kind of service where all the pastors in the area are involved and say a blessing over the new pastor. most people in my NJ church, if they've ever been to an installation, haven't been to one in 30 years (when pastor j was originally installed), so they don't remember well, if at all, how awesome an installation service can be. i'm excited to be there. :)
...and... starting next week, we have a pastor who cares quite a bit more about who we are as a congregation and will be a substantially more involved... i can't wait!
so, yeah, today will be a fantastic day. :)
the end.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
ode to competant people
even if the customer service is kind of blah, the cablevision techs that came by my house today were fantastic. in 15 minutes they found the problem and fixed it, and when i asked out of curiousity what it was, they explained it clearly and concisely.
if you have analog cable instead of the whole digital cable array of channels that they promote (we have analog), you get something put on the line from the street to your house called a trap that just lets the frequencies through that you're paying for. our trap was water-logged, and therefore dysfunctional and needed replacing. all better, and our TV channels are the clearest they've been in months.
yay for good techs.
now, studying with eric for the rest of the afternoon... lots of fun, right?
later dudes
if you have analog cable instead of the whole digital cable array of channels that they promote (we have analog), you get something put on the line from the street to your house called a trap that just lets the frequencies through that you're paying for. our trap was water-logged, and therefore dysfunctional and needed replacing. all better, and our TV channels are the clearest they've been in months.
yay for good techs.
now, studying with eric for the rest of the afternoon... lots of fun, right?
later dudes
Friday, January 06, 2006
ipod, ipod, ipod!!! :-P
it's here, and i've been bonding with it for awhile this afternoon/evening. it's my new friend. :) i've heard other people with ipods talk about them like they're people and thought they were ridiculous, and here i've been doing the same. it's a beautiful machine.
anyhow, here's the connundrum. it's so nice and shiny that i don't want to screw it up, so i plan to get a cover/skin/case for it as soon as i get paid next (in a week)... there are lots of different random kinds of covers out there... any recommendations (with reasons why)?
thanks!
anyhow, here's the connundrum. it's so nice and shiny that i don't want to screw it up, so i plan to get a cover/skin/case for it as soon as i get paid next (in a week)... there are lots of different random kinds of covers out there... any recommendations (with reasons why)?
thanks!
lara's favorite news headlines of the day...
* Soda-Cancer Link Revealed as Myth -- interesting... glad they pointed out that, "The researchers warned against chugging diet soda as a ward against cancer, however, since it carries its own health risks, such as damaging tooth enamel." though... because i wouldn't have figured *that* out on my own. ;-)
* Ocean view -- as soon as the poison works -- some people truly amaze me...
* Miffed man pays bank bill a penny at a time -- good way to make a point?... and actually i think he has a fairly good one...
* Kazakh president does anthem his way -- interesting...
* Ben Franklin Turns 300: Twice -- see how much you really know about calendars in the 18th century.
* Free booze makes homeless healthier? --... but, "Three of the 17 participants died during the program, succumbing to alcohol-related illnesses that might have killed them anyway, the study said."
* Call it his 'constitutional' rights? -- ""Perhaps, our mothers never explained to us that it was not a good idea to play with handguns whilst using the restroom. But then again, maybe that was supposed to be a given," the Mounties said in a press release."
but here's the headline that got me looking at news this afternoon....
* Did Jesus exist? Italian court to decide -- how can this be an actual court case? i understand the case of intelligent design vs. evolution in the states. and even though i believe evolution happens, i still believe that in God and that he created the world and everything in it. I understand that non-Christian scientists don't adhere to the latter part of that statement and that religion and science answer different questions. I personally believe that you need *both* to understand the universe or anything about it, and that focusing on *just* one or the other allows for partial understanding at best. (not that you can have perfect understanding of most things even using both relgion and science). nonetheless, i understand why that case came to trial and while i have mixed feelings about it, i'm ok with it.
on the other hand "did Jesus exist?" coming to trial? give me a break. i can understand that people don't agree on who Jesus was. I fully believe that Jesus was the Son of God come to earth in human form, and I understand that there are many many people on earth who don't believe that. But regardless of what you think of who he was, surely we can all agree that he did exist? there are plenty of other religions even who, while not arguing that Jesus is the Son of God have him in their history as a prophet of some sort. You don't have to be a Christian to understand that many bodies of people around the world, Christian and not, agree that Jesus existed.
There are plenty of cases in literature where a "name" is given as the author of a famous work when it's uncertan if there actually was a person with that name, and no one accuses the literary community of impersonation or conning the masses. it's religion that always gets everyone's goat.
i don't think in this day and age, anyone would argue that the italian man bringing up this lawsuit is being forced by the church in italy to agree with what they teach. the church serves people who believe in what it teaches and should maintain the ability to clearly teach and explain its doctrines to any who are interested in finding out more. but just as i can't tell this italian man that he has to believe the same as me, he can't tell me that i have to believe the same as him. there is no place for trying to give the "final blow" (quoting the news article) to an organization you're not required to be a part of and is not out to damage you. arguing about something taught in public schools which does necesarily serve the masses and can't necessarily be opted out of, i can see a debate about; arguing about an organization that you're not made to be a part of is a bit out there.
and all that said, the man isn't even just arguing about what the church teaches, he's arguing against the history that tells us Jesus *existed*. how can you take history to court? and shoot, if he personally doesn't want to believe that, again, who's making him go to church, forcing him to hear what the church teaches, or getting into his head and forcing him to believe that jesus existed? no one.
summary: i know what i believe, i understand not everyone believes what i believe, and i think it can make for good chats, but i don't think that you can bring doctrine and/or history to court when you're talking about it being taught/explained in an organization that it is not compulsory to be a member of.
people truly baffle me sometimes.
other thoughts?
the end.
* Ocean view -- as soon as the poison works -- some people truly amaze me...
* Miffed man pays bank bill a penny at a time -- good way to make a point?... and actually i think he has a fairly good one...
* Kazakh president does anthem his way -- interesting...
* Ben Franklin Turns 300: Twice -- see how much you really know about calendars in the 18th century.
* Free booze makes homeless healthier? --... but, "Three of the 17 participants died during the program, succumbing to alcohol-related illnesses that might have killed them anyway, the study said."
* Call it his 'constitutional' rights? -- ""Perhaps, our mothers never explained to us that it was not a good idea to play with handguns whilst using the restroom. But then again, maybe that was supposed to be a given," the Mounties said in a press release."
but here's the headline that got me looking at news this afternoon....
* Did Jesus exist? Italian court to decide -- how can this be an actual court case? i understand the case of intelligent design vs. evolution in the states. and even though i believe evolution happens, i still believe that in God and that he created the world and everything in it. I understand that non-Christian scientists don't adhere to the latter part of that statement and that religion and science answer different questions. I personally believe that you need *both* to understand the universe or anything about it, and that focusing on *just* one or the other allows for partial understanding at best. (not that you can have perfect understanding of most things even using both relgion and science). nonetheless, i understand why that case came to trial and while i have mixed feelings about it, i'm ok with it.
on the other hand "did Jesus exist?" coming to trial? give me a break. i can understand that people don't agree on who Jesus was. I fully believe that Jesus was the Son of God come to earth in human form, and I understand that there are many many people on earth who don't believe that. But regardless of what you think of who he was, surely we can all agree that he did exist? there are plenty of other religions even who, while not arguing that Jesus is the Son of God have him in their history as a prophet of some sort. You don't have to be a Christian to understand that many bodies of people around the world, Christian and not, agree that Jesus existed.
There are plenty of cases in literature where a "name" is given as the author of a famous work when it's uncertan if there actually was a person with that name, and no one accuses the literary community of impersonation or conning the masses. it's religion that always gets everyone's goat.
i don't think in this day and age, anyone would argue that the italian man bringing up this lawsuit is being forced by the church in italy to agree with what they teach. the church serves people who believe in what it teaches and should maintain the ability to clearly teach and explain its doctrines to any who are interested in finding out more. but just as i can't tell this italian man that he has to believe the same as me, he can't tell me that i have to believe the same as him. there is no place for trying to give the "final blow" (quoting the news article) to an organization you're not required to be a part of and is not out to damage you. arguing about something taught in public schools which does necesarily serve the masses and can't necessarily be opted out of, i can see a debate about; arguing about an organization that you're not made to be a part of is a bit out there.
and all that said, the man isn't even just arguing about what the church teaches, he's arguing against the history that tells us Jesus *existed*. how can you take history to court? and shoot, if he personally doesn't want to believe that, again, who's making him go to church, forcing him to hear what the church teaches, or getting into his head and forcing him to believe that jesus existed? no one.
summary: i know what i believe, i understand not everyone believes what i believe, and i think it can make for good chats, but i don't think that you can bring doctrine and/or history to court when you're talking about it being taught/explained in an organization that it is not compulsory to be a member of.
people truly baffle me sometimes.
other thoughts?
the end.
in case i've neglected to mention...
i'm not always angry at incompetancy (my general philosophy is that (1) i generally try to do my job well and expect others to try to do theirs well too or find a different job... (2) i also try to encourage others when they do things related to what i do, rather than belittle them and point out what i know that they don't, and expect the same. i get frustrated when i feel either of these two axioms is violated.)
that's not the point of this post though... there are things that make me happy too.
here are a few as of late:
* i like experimenting with stuff in my kitchen and today i came up with a definite winner. i was in the mood for pancakes for lunch. once i made the batter (straight out of a box, no effort required), i felt creative, so i threw a bunch of cinnamon into it (not enough to overpower, but enough to taste it well even after the pancakes were made) and used apple butter instead of real butter. *quite* tasty.
* i finished the silver chair last night... you'd think that after 4 volumes you'd start to tire out about some aspects of a series even if you still enjoy it... (even in series i've enjoyed and read dozens of volumes of, there's just something more magical about the first few you touch before you start seeing the trends in every one), while there's a little truth to that with EVERY series, i think, c.s. lewis is amazing at packing in really cool double meanings into every book that you don't expect... what aslan does with caspian at the end of the silver chair is awesome and though the whole book was a good read, that last bit made it *completely* worth it... the whole quest thing is fine and intriguing, but there are wonderful gems of ideas buried in that are new to each book of narnia too... the horse and his boy is next...
* i got invited to give a talk at the REU my undergraduate university is running this summer... we'll see if it actually works out between their summer calendar for the program and the very limited window of time i could actually be there for a talk before my own program begins... it's kinda cool to be *invited* to be a speaker instead of the "submit a talk" algorithm that usually happens, so that made me happy. :)
i think that's the end.
later dudes.
that's not the point of this post though... there are things that make me happy too.
here are a few as of late:
* i like experimenting with stuff in my kitchen and today i came up with a definite winner. i was in the mood for pancakes for lunch. once i made the batter (straight out of a box, no effort required), i felt creative, so i threw a bunch of cinnamon into it (not enough to overpower, but enough to taste it well even after the pancakes were made) and used apple butter instead of real butter. *quite* tasty.
* i finished the silver chair last night... you'd think that after 4 volumes you'd start to tire out about some aspects of a series even if you still enjoy it... (even in series i've enjoyed and read dozens of volumes of, there's just something more magical about the first few you touch before you start seeing the trends in every one), while there's a little truth to that with EVERY series, i think, c.s. lewis is amazing at packing in really cool double meanings into every book that you don't expect... what aslan does with caspian at the end of the silver chair is awesome and though the whole book was a good read, that last bit made it *completely* worth it... the whole quest thing is fine and intriguing, but there are wonderful gems of ideas buried in that are new to each book of narnia too... the horse and his boy is next...
* i got invited to give a talk at the REU my undergraduate university is running this summer... we'll see if it actually works out between their summer calendar for the program and the very limited window of time i could actually be there for a talk before my own program begins... it's kinda cool to be *invited* to be a speaker instead of the "submit a talk" algorithm that usually happens, so that made me happy. :)
i think that's the end.
later dudes.
another ode to incompetancy
here are things that have annoyed me lately.
* i have all my CDs (i own hundreds) copied into windows media player, so that if i want i can just have my computer play all my music on shuffle. i own the CDs, i have the right to play them. fine. it took quite some time to copy them all in last year, but once i did, i was set.
brother got me an ipod for christmas, which i'm totally pumped about. however, ipods don't accept windows media player files, so i need all my music to go into itunes. one would hope that i could just convert all the files already on my computer, but no such luck. when you copy things into windows media player direct from CD, windows media player marks them as "protected" and doesn't let you convert them to anything else. so guess what i get to do this week? that's right, i'm copying my whole CD library into itunes, one disc at a time again. itunes copies slower than windows media player and i like the windows media player interface better, but itunes is a means to an end to use the gadget i've been waiting for awhile to get... after 2.5 days of sticking a CD in to copy to itunes every time i walk into my room i've made it nearly through 1/3 of my collection... but time consuming indeed. if you *own* the files, why have the powers that be made it impossible to convert the files???
* the math department told me on wednesday that i was reassigned to teach calc 3, and all day i've still been getting emails about teaching calc 1... the new semester starts in a week and a half... i really should know the correct info by now and i don't... i emailed the dept. chair and asked for the straight story... we'll see if it works. (correction: the dept. chair just wrote me back as i typed this explaining concisely why i'm getting info about the old assignment AND the new... he's not incompetant... university politics are)
* cablevision... my internet connection was on for 30 minutes, off for 30 minutes all day tuesday... when i first came back, i couldn't run it through a splitter and rewired cable so that it came in here from colleen's room... i emailed customer support on wednesday to say "here's what's going on, any thoughts?" they replied that my house was giving "weak signals", and i should call them live to troubleshoot the problem. after 20 minutes on hold, a customer service rep answered, and tried to be helpful, but it was an infuriating phone call.
since we got cable and internet from them before we had a home phone line, the number they have as the main number for our house is colleen's MN cell phone. once we figured that out so they could pull up the account, he asked all kinds of things to check (the things that were repeated ad nauseum by the electronic voice you hear while on hold for 20 minutes), and i told him that that wasn't the problem and i'd tried them all.
he finally did agree with email help (which was efficient and concise) and said that my signals were weak, and did i have fuzziness on channels 2-5, which i do, but not bad enough to have gotten upset about it and call... he said most likely it's a problem with a bad splitter somewhere in the house and a tech would come out tomorrow to fix it.
problems? the only time frame they could give me for tomorrow is 8am -6pm. that's a 10 hour window i'm supposed to be on call to let a cablevision tech into my house. i'm on altar guild at church this week, so i'll be half an hour south of here in old bridge from 8:30-9:30 and i'll be driving there from 8-8:30 and back from 9:30-10. if they come before 10, they're just going to have to wait (i called my brother, who installs and does repairs for dish network in TN and he said customers periodically do that to him and if you're a tech, especially working with a 10 hour window, you understand that people have lives) ok... so if they call while i'm in old bridge i'll tell them something came up and i'll be home from 10 onwards, and just cross my fingers that they call after that.
even though i gave them our house phone and my cell phone to contact me on, the customer service rep insisted that they'd call colleen's cell first because it's the main number on record for the house... i told them they'd get my roommate who is currently in MN, but he said that's what they'd do anyhow. oi.
mostly, if i call someone for help, i don't want them to talk to me like i'm clueless, or to give me a runaround about times. i'm home alone this week -- as if i can guarantee to be home for 10 consecutive hours just waiting on the phone? i'm willing to do that for 8 hours to be nice, but i have responsibilities too... and to not be smart enough to make a note that the tech should call a NJ number instead of a MN number to do a repair in NJ... oi. brother even said the call sounded ridiculous, and he's in the TV business. ergh.
lunch, then study time... eric and me are having a pizza party tonight. :) time to learn more about syzygies in the meantime.
* i have all my CDs (i own hundreds) copied into windows media player, so that if i want i can just have my computer play all my music on shuffle. i own the CDs, i have the right to play them. fine. it took quite some time to copy them all in last year, but once i did, i was set.
brother got me an ipod for christmas, which i'm totally pumped about. however, ipods don't accept windows media player files, so i need all my music to go into itunes. one would hope that i could just convert all the files already on my computer, but no such luck. when you copy things into windows media player direct from CD, windows media player marks them as "protected" and doesn't let you convert them to anything else. so guess what i get to do this week? that's right, i'm copying my whole CD library into itunes, one disc at a time again. itunes copies slower than windows media player and i like the windows media player interface better, but itunes is a means to an end to use the gadget i've been waiting for awhile to get... after 2.5 days of sticking a CD in to copy to itunes every time i walk into my room i've made it nearly through 1/3 of my collection... but time consuming indeed. if you *own* the files, why have the powers that be made it impossible to convert the files???
* the math department told me on wednesday that i was reassigned to teach calc 3, and all day i've still been getting emails about teaching calc 1... the new semester starts in a week and a half... i really should know the correct info by now and i don't... i emailed the dept. chair and asked for the straight story... we'll see if it works. (correction: the dept. chair just wrote me back as i typed this explaining concisely why i'm getting info about the old assignment AND the new... he's not incompetant... university politics are)
* cablevision... my internet connection was on for 30 minutes, off for 30 minutes all day tuesday... when i first came back, i couldn't run it through a splitter and rewired cable so that it came in here from colleen's room... i emailed customer support on wednesday to say "here's what's going on, any thoughts?" they replied that my house was giving "weak signals", and i should call them live to troubleshoot the problem. after 20 minutes on hold, a customer service rep answered, and tried to be helpful, but it was an infuriating phone call.
since we got cable and internet from them before we had a home phone line, the number they have as the main number for our house is colleen's MN cell phone. once we figured that out so they could pull up the account, he asked all kinds of things to check (the things that were repeated ad nauseum by the electronic voice you hear while on hold for 20 minutes), and i told him that that wasn't the problem and i'd tried them all.
he finally did agree with email help (which was efficient and concise) and said that my signals were weak, and did i have fuzziness on channels 2-5, which i do, but not bad enough to have gotten upset about it and call... he said most likely it's a problem with a bad splitter somewhere in the house and a tech would come out tomorrow to fix it.
problems? the only time frame they could give me for tomorrow is 8am -6pm. that's a 10 hour window i'm supposed to be on call to let a cablevision tech into my house. i'm on altar guild at church this week, so i'll be half an hour south of here in old bridge from 8:30-9:30 and i'll be driving there from 8-8:30 and back from 9:30-10. if they come before 10, they're just going to have to wait (i called my brother, who installs and does repairs for dish network in TN and he said customers periodically do that to him and if you're a tech, especially working with a 10 hour window, you understand that people have lives) ok... so if they call while i'm in old bridge i'll tell them something came up and i'll be home from 10 onwards, and just cross my fingers that they call after that.
even though i gave them our house phone and my cell phone to contact me on, the customer service rep insisted that they'd call colleen's cell first because it's the main number on record for the house... i told them they'd get my roommate who is currently in MN, but he said that's what they'd do anyhow. oi.
mostly, if i call someone for help, i don't want them to talk to me like i'm clueless, or to give me a runaround about times. i'm home alone this week -- as if i can guarantee to be home for 10 consecutive hours just waiting on the phone? i'm willing to do that for 8 hours to be nice, but i have responsibilities too... and to not be smart enough to make a note that the tech should call a NJ number instead of a MN number to do a repair in NJ... oi. brother even said the call sounded ridiculous, and he's in the TV business. ergh.
lunch, then study time... eric and me are having a pizza party tonight. :) time to learn more about syzygies in the meantime.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
fun with math?
here i am in my office, using chalkboard space instead of paper at home to get some work done. an hour ago, i went downstairs to the undergraduate office to pick up a textbook for the version of calculus 1 that i was assigned to teach this spring. i turned around to leave the office, and 1 foot in front of me was the department chair,... he stuck his hand out to shake mine and commented "i'm dr. speer, have we met?"... i introduced myself and he replied "i thought so... i need to talk with you... come into my office."
the story is, even though i was perfectly happy with my teaching assignment, he and chuck (our grad director) decided i would be an optimal choice for the head TA for calculus 3. calculus 3 is one of the most challenging courses to TA for especially since it's not coordinated between sections like calc 1 and calc 2, so there's more variation between what different professors do... also the calc 3 syllabus involves a lot of work with maple, a math program that i know well from my work with dr. z. but most other grad students don't. since i did fine as a TA and get along with people PLUS i know maple forwards and backwards, they decided i was the person to peg the job on.
if it weren't head TA i would have refused, but along with the extra responsibilites of head TA there's a slight pay increase, which i could totally use for paying off all my car costs... for example i went in yesterday to get an oil change and ended up spending $275 instead b/c of other things that needed doing... this extra bit would really help, even if it's not a ton...
so there goes a semester of working with the same prof again and of practically being able to do lectures in my sleep... instead i have a TON of studying to do to be able to come in on tuesdays and make remote sense to my students.... but on the other hand at least i'll have students who have some interest in math and the sciences, whether they necessarily like calc or not... who takes calc 3 except math majors, physics majors, and engineers, really?
so yeah, newer harder teaching assignment for me... woohoo.
now to get some work done in my office before it gets to be dinner time.
later dudes.
the story is, even though i was perfectly happy with my teaching assignment, he and chuck (our grad director) decided i would be an optimal choice for the head TA for calculus 3. calculus 3 is one of the most challenging courses to TA for especially since it's not coordinated between sections like calc 1 and calc 2, so there's more variation between what different professors do... also the calc 3 syllabus involves a lot of work with maple, a math program that i know well from my work with dr. z. but most other grad students don't. since i did fine as a TA and get along with people PLUS i know maple forwards and backwards, they decided i was the person to peg the job on.
if it weren't head TA i would have refused, but along with the extra responsibilites of head TA there's a slight pay increase, which i could totally use for paying off all my car costs... for example i went in yesterday to get an oil change and ended up spending $275 instead b/c of other things that needed doing... this extra bit would really help, even if it's not a ton...
so there goes a semester of working with the same prof again and of practically being able to do lectures in my sleep... instead i have a TON of studying to do to be able to come in on tuesdays and make remote sense to my students.... but on the other hand at least i'll have students who have some interest in math and the sciences, whether they necessarily like calc or not... who takes calc 3 except math majors, physics majors, and engineers, really?
so yeah, newer harder teaching assignment for me... woohoo.
now to get some work done in my office before it gets to be dinner time.
later dudes.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
tofu suggestions anyone?
here's the scoop:
i don't often buy meat. part of that is because i don't like too many different kinds of meat. the list i'll willingly choose on my own is basically chicken, turkey, seafood, and ground beef. so when i do my own shopping and don't want a ton of meat (most of the time), i buy canned tuna, or canned chicken or turkey just because one can is about how much i want in a meal and it keeps for a long time.
when i went shopping this weekend though, i eyeballed the tofu. i've had tofu plenty of times before when other people were making it or at restaurants, just never made it myself. but the price is right -- you get more of it for less money per ounce than some of the canned meat, so it's worth a shot, not as a replacement, but as another protein source for a little more variety... so first off, i was surprised at the soft, firm, extra firm designations, and second of all, i've never really seen anyone do anything with it except kinda stirfry it with vegetables, which was fine for tonight, but...
all this is to say: any tofu-afficionados out there who have some serving suggestions and/or advice on what the different kinds are best for?
the end.
i don't often buy meat. part of that is because i don't like too many different kinds of meat. the list i'll willingly choose on my own is basically chicken, turkey, seafood, and ground beef. so when i do my own shopping and don't want a ton of meat (most of the time), i buy canned tuna, or canned chicken or turkey just because one can is about how much i want in a meal and it keeps for a long time.
when i went shopping this weekend though, i eyeballed the tofu. i've had tofu plenty of times before when other people were making it or at restaurants, just never made it myself. but the price is right -- you get more of it for less money per ounce than some of the canned meat, so it's worth a shot, not as a replacement, but as another protein source for a little more variety... so first off, i was surprised at the soft, firm, extra firm designations, and second of all, i've never really seen anyone do anything with it except kinda stirfry it with vegetables, which was fine for tonight, but...
all this is to say: any tofu-afficionados out there who have some serving suggestions and/or advice on what the different kinds are best for?
the end.
here's what i learned from reading math for the past 5 hours straight...
* how to prove dickson's lemma (which says monomial ideals are finitely generated)
* how to prove the hilbert basis theorem (which says ideals (monomial or not) in k[x1,...,xn] are finitely generated)
* what a grobner basis is, as well as minimal and reduced grobner bases and that reduced grobner bases are unique
* the S-polynomial criterion
* buchberger's algorithm
* how to use grobner bases to solve systems of equations, to test for membership in an ideal, and how to implicitize an ideal
* how to improve buchberger's algorithm with a few tricks with syzygies
don't you wish this was your afternoon too?
my brain hurts... time for mindless TV and eventually dinner ;-)
later dudes
* how to prove the hilbert basis theorem (which says ideals (monomial or not) in k[x1,...,xn] are finitely generated)
* what a grobner basis is, as well as minimal and reduced grobner bases and that reduced grobner bases are unique
* the S-polynomial criterion
* buchberger's algorithm
* how to use grobner bases to solve systems of equations, to test for membership in an ideal, and how to implicitize an ideal
* how to improve buchberger's algorithm with a few tricks with syzygies
don't you wish this was your afternoon too?
my brain hurts... time for mindless TV and eventually dinner ;-)
later dudes
scrubs season five begins TONIGHT!!!
i've seriously been waiting for this since last season ended last MAY!
in case you haven't gathered over time, scrubs is my absolute favorite TV show on the planet anymore. i fell in love with it partway through season 2, and have watched just about every episode since. it's the only TV show i've ever shelled out money to buy dvds of. when NBC decided that they'd air their new shows all fall and scrubs would have a "delayed start", it wasn't just "wait through the summer, it'll be back"... it was "wait the better part of a year"
at least they're making up for lost time -- TWO new episodes tonight, two new episodes next week and the week after... we'll see if this is a long term thing or just a january plan?
meanwhile, joey, which i had been following but not as enamored with as other shows i watch, appears to be gone -- i'm not sure if that's temporary or permanent? again, we'll see...
every season i start out disappointed in myself for watching, but then end up hooked to the apprentice. apparently season 5 has already been filmed this past fall, but there's been no advertising for when it will air... i saw something dated jan 27, 2005 that claims it'll air in winter 2006, while something dated in june said it will run in "early" 2006. without anything on nbc.com about it though, who knows.
hopefully the office will get better... i thought early episodes were hilarious, and some later on, but more recent ones have disappointed me.
but regardless of my other shows, MAJOR YAY for scrubs in about 8 hours... i can't wait!
in case you haven't gathered over time, scrubs is my absolute favorite TV show on the planet anymore. i fell in love with it partway through season 2, and have watched just about every episode since. it's the only TV show i've ever shelled out money to buy dvds of. when NBC decided that they'd air their new shows all fall and scrubs would have a "delayed start", it wasn't just "wait through the summer, it'll be back"... it was "wait the better part of a year"
at least they're making up for lost time -- TWO new episodes tonight, two new episodes next week and the week after... we'll see if this is a long term thing or just a january plan?
meanwhile, joey, which i had been following but not as enamored with as other shows i watch, appears to be gone -- i'm not sure if that's temporary or permanent? again, we'll see...
every season i start out disappointed in myself for watching, but then end up hooked to the apprentice. apparently season 5 has already been filmed this past fall, but there's been no advertising for when it will air... i saw something dated jan 27, 2005 that claims it'll air in winter 2006, while something dated in june said it will run in "early" 2006. without anything on nbc.com about it though, who knows.
hopefully the office will get better... i thought early episodes were hilarious, and some later on, but more recent ones have disappointed me.
but regardless of my other shows, MAJOR YAY for scrubs in about 8 hours... i can't wait!
Monday, January 02, 2006
ode to all the incompetent people
today has been a rat race. i've been out and about for the better part of 5-6 hours and not done anything at home since i left at 9:30 this morning.
what have i been up to and who are "all the incompetent people"? let me explain.
while i was home in TN last week, my car got scratched up. i'm not one for having to have the most shiny car ever, but a scratch entirely across one of my doors clear down to the metal is not good... it'll rust eventually and i can't have that. my insurance company was closed that day, so i filed a claim on their website, and they called me back the next day and said if i got two estimates once i was back in NJ, and faxed them, they'd send me a check to fix the darn thing.
saturday i got back to NJ, yesterday was sunday and a holiday, so today was "get 2 estimates and fax them" day.
bad hypothesis number 1: if i find two auto body shops that are open today, i can get two estimates in a timely fashion... maybe 30-40 minutes at each place tops.
this was false.
maaco had me in and out in a reasonable amount of time, even dealing with other customers first... they're the only national chain in the area that i recognize...
then it was back to my neighborhood which is overflowing with auto body shops if you go in the right direction. not a one of them would help me though. the worst was acme auto body (in edison, NJ). after i parked in the (nearly full) estimates parking area, and sat in the office for 5 minutes, an older man (my parents' age) came in for the garage and asked "what do you want?" "i need an estimate on my car" "who are you? did i give you an appointment?" "nope, i just need an estimate though, most places don't need appointments, so i thought i'd stop in" "well, i'm too busy for you this week and most of next week... where are you from anyhow?" "my insurance is in TN" "i'm not taking new customers, especially ones who aren't from edison, right now anyhow. and i don't know who you think you are thinking guys are gonna have their shops open today anyways. bye" (and he opened the door as he spoke signaling i should leave.) i don't want to do business with someone like that anyhow, but sheesh... we're not taking new customers right now? what a way to encourage business and a good word getting spread around. in case you didn't catch that and you're in middlesex county NJ, avoid acme auto body in edison.
turns out i did manage to find a 2nd shop... a few miles away in new brunswick and they were friendly as could be.... but acme autobody in edison is incompetent group of people number one.
bad hypothesis number 2: since, (1) according to the rutgers library website, you can get faxes sent from the alexander library and the library of science and medicine (LSM), and furthermore, since (2) the rutgers library website claimed the LSM is open from 10-5 today, i assumed that i could get a fax sent from LSM without a problem if i showed up by 5.
this wasn't quite true, but not as bad of a story as the car place. i showed up around 2:30, 6 pages of car stuff in hand, and beelined for the circulation desk and asked the girl there "i haven't been in here before, where can i go to send a fax?".... english is not her first language so she asked me to repeat 3 times before i said "fax machine?" and held up my hand of papers. she went in the back to check with older employees who said they don't do that. i replied that it said on the library website that they did, so she went back to her supervisor again and repeated what i said, and then two older staffers came out to talk to me. they said if i could show them where on the rutgers website it said that they'd do it for free, but they didn't know that they did fax services for the public. in about three clicks, i pulled up this blurb to which they were utterly amazed. they faxed my 6 pages with a smile, and said it was free since i did a service for them by pointing out that they're supposed to send faxes, which they were previously unaware of.
go figure.
not incompetent, just confused, but reacted quite well to it. :)
acme auto body: incompetent
rutgers library of science and medicine staff: wonderfully nice and happy people, even if they're not fully aware of what the university at large claims they do. :)
the end.
what have i been up to and who are "all the incompetent people"? let me explain.
while i was home in TN last week, my car got scratched up. i'm not one for having to have the most shiny car ever, but a scratch entirely across one of my doors clear down to the metal is not good... it'll rust eventually and i can't have that. my insurance company was closed that day, so i filed a claim on their website, and they called me back the next day and said if i got two estimates once i was back in NJ, and faxed them, they'd send me a check to fix the darn thing.
saturday i got back to NJ, yesterday was sunday and a holiday, so today was "get 2 estimates and fax them" day.
bad hypothesis number 1: if i find two auto body shops that are open today, i can get two estimates in a timely fashion... maybe 30-40 minutes at each place tops.
this was false.
maaco had me in and out in a reasonable amount of time, even dealing with other customers first... they're the only national chain in the area that i recognize...
then it was back to my neighborhood which is overflowing with auto body shops if you go in the right direction. not a one of them would help me though. the worst was acme auto body (in edison, NJ). after i parked in the (nearly full) estimates parking area, and sat in the office for 5 minutes, an older man (my parents' age) came in for the garage and asked "what do you want?" "i need an estimate on my car" "who are you? did i give you an appointment?" "nope, i just need an estimate though, most places don't need appointments, so i thought i'd stop in" "well, i'm too busy for you this week and most of next week... where are you from anyhow?" "my insurance is in TN" "i'm not taking new customers, especially ones who aren't from edison, right now anyhow. and i don't know who you think you are thinking guys are gonna have their shops open today anyways. bye" (and he opened the door as he spoke signaling i should leave.) i don't want to do business with someone like that anyhow, but sheesh... we're not taking new customers right now? what a way to encourage business and a good word getting spread around. in case you didn't catch that and you're in middlesex county NJ, avoid acme auto body in edison.
turns out i did manage to find a 2nd shop... a few miles away in new brunswick and they were friendly as could be.... but acme autobody in edison is incompetent group of people number one.
bad hypothesis number 2: since, (1) according to the rutgers library website, you can get faxes sent from the alexander library and the library of science and medicine (LSM), and furthermore, since (2) the rutgers library website claimed the LSM is open from 10-5 today, i assumed that i could get a fax sent from LSM without a problem if i showed up by 5.
this wasn't quite true, but not as bad of a story as the car place. i showed up around 2:30, 6 pages of car stuff in hand, and beelined for the circulation desk and asked the girl there "i haven't been in here before, where can i go to send a fax?".... english is not her first language so she asked me to repeat 3 times before i said "fax machine?" and held up my hand of papers. she went in the back to check with older employees who said they don't do that. i replied that it said on the library website that they did, so she went back to her supervisor again and repeated what i said, and then two older staffers came out to talk to me. they said if i could show them where on the rutgers website it said that they'd do it for free, but they didn't know that they did fax services for the public. in about three clicks, i pulled up this blurb to which they were utterly amazed. they faxed my 6 pages with a smile, and said it was free since i did a service for them by pointing out that they're supposed to send faxes, which they were previously unaware of.
go figure.
not incompetent, just confused, but reacted quite well to it. :)
acme auto body: incompetent
rutgers library of science and medicine staff: wonderfully nice and happy people, even if they're not fully aware of what the university at large claims they do. :)
the end.
