one of those days....

it's been a bad math day... actually a bad couple of math days.

one could see movies like good will hunting or a beautiful mind or proof and get the picture that all brilliant mathematicians eventually go crazy in the process of things... but really, after a weekend like this one, it's completely evident to me how math really *can* drive someone mad.... and i'm not even one of the super brilliant type people.

to make things easier for me, here's your math definition of the post: bijection
technically a bijection is a map that's one-to-one and onto, but in less "math-y" terms it's a special kind of function from one set to another set used to show that they're the same size. (please don't be afraid just yet)
for example
say i have a bunch of people in a room and i have the numbers 1-10 written on notecards, and i start giving notecards to people.

if i don't give more than one notecard to the same person AND i give a notecard to everyone AND i use up all my notecards, then that says there are exactly 10 people in the room (because i paired them up with the notecards), so the "giving notecards to people" function is a bijection from the set of notecards to the set of people.

that wasn't too scary, right?

math people use bijections all the time to show two sets of complicated things are the same size. usually it's not notecards and people. in my case it's a special kind of permutation and a special kind of sequence.

ok, so i can now safely say "bijection" in the rest of this post.

timeline:
december: i came up with a bijection from thing A to thing B. i was super excited

january - february: i studied for my oral exam and thought nothing about research

march: i wrote up a nice 4 page paper explaining my bijection from december

april: in anticipation of the conference i plan to go to in june, i double checked several places to make sure i was the first person to come up with this bijection (i don't want to present someone else's old result at the conference in front of a lot of people who are older and smarter than me, right?). abstracts for talks are due tomorrow (may 1).

two weeks ago: i hear back from one mathematician that yes, he proved the same result 8 years ago in his thesis, but he did it analytically, NOT with a bijection. he also commented that thing C and thing A have the same size and to his knowledge there's no bijection between them.

one week ago: i go to the wisconsin conference armed with this knowledge and think hard and come up with an idea for a bijection from thing B to thing C (since i already have a bijection from thing A to thing B, putting these together would give me a bijection from thing A to thing C)

for the past 7 days: i work hard trying to figure out the kinks... when my bijection idea works for 2815 out of 2814 cases, i have a hunch that i'm on the right track and just have some small detail to figure out, but after several days of trying, no luck... i spent 8 hours on this yesterday and 6 hours on friday not to mention other days before that spent thinking about this.

today, 4pm: while doing one more literature search to be extra sure i've come up with something new, even if i don't find the bijection from B to C before the conference, i come across a paper from last year that has a bijection from A to C. it's much shorter than what i have from A to B even, so i'm crushed

today, 5-8pm: chatting with eric about it, he convinces me that unless they're identical i still have something useful to show, especially since my bijection actually gives a way to count the darn things, not just show that they're the same size. i counter that it's much clunkier than the other bijection i found and only goes half as far. i don't want to give a whole talk on one bijection if it's been partially done already.

today 8:30-9:45pm: frustrated with math, i beat my time for walk/jogging 5 miles from yesterday by 10 full minutes... at least being irritated is good for something.

today 9:45-10pm: i vent to leigh about the same irritations with proofs/what to actually submit to the conference tomorrow, etc. she disappears.

today 10pm-now: still trying to figure out my bijection from thing B to thing C, and things look moderately promising but i'm still not convinced how significant of a result it is anymore now that it's more or less been done bijectively before even if my bijection is a new one... leigh reappears around 10:30 with ice cream.

seriously, teaching is one thing. that's a performing art of sorts, and you can get good at it if you want even if you suck as a researcher, but math research is a creative art... but not even just creative and please the critics... creative and either it's true or it isn't, not just some people like it and some don't... true or false. it's really frustrating to put many many hours into the "creative" bit and have nothing to show for it, or to discover you've been out-creative-d by someone else. i did hear stories last weekend of grad students who always would prove things, then search the literature and find their results had been proven before, but in the 19th century, and they'd be really excited about when they made it to proving things that had already been done but in the 20th century. i guess i can be happy that the relevant related material to what i'm doing was just done in the last decade? it's just such a rollercoaster ride between irritated for working so long at no result, elation at thinking you have something to show for your time, and defeat at finding it already done. (and no, i'm not extreme in feeling like this... every math person i know does in spurts)

end of rant.

in moderately amusing news, mental floss (my favorite magazine ever) has a "mad scientist of the month" column every issue... this time around is erdos (most published mathematician ever, and quite a colorful character)... so mental floss gets major kudos from me.

in other amusing news, i saw someone with this shirt at the conference last weekend and i found it hilarious. i ordered myself one yesterday, and hope it comes in time to wear to either my students' review session or final this week. :P (because i'm ever so encouraging of a TA).

seriously, done ranting... it's not like any of you will make it past my attempt at explaining "bijection" in everyday words paragraphs and paragraphs ago anyhow.

night.

dude

if you haven't heard/seen what the president did at the white house correspondents' dinner last night, you should definitely check out the video. it's freakin hilarious.

mrs. pat...

click

things that make me smile...

(1) emails from happy students:

besides what happened in my 2nd section today (see previous post), in the last half hour i've gotten these emails from two different students...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even though you were completely dead tired this morning, you did an
awesome job teaching and somehow you still managed to get all of the
answers right and still answer everyone's questions.

Thanks

P.S. I think being in Calc III with you as our TA was more our pleasure
than it was yours. Thank you more than you can ever imagine.

P.S.S. Keep up the good work you math machine!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

... By the way, thanks for being a great TA, you helped me understand multivariable
calculus much better than I thought I could!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(2) fun pictures with old friends:

click here for my wisconsin pictures from this weekend

how yay is this?

back in NJ, and i just taught for 5 hours straight on 4 hours of sleep.... this is also the last tuesday of classes, so other than an optional exam review session next week, i'm done teaching for the semester.

despite sleep deprivation, my second section totally made my day though. they're the ones who usually make me laugh, (and they still did today).

2 students stayed after class to ask me questions about my research...like they sincerely cared and wanted to hear about it after listening to me yack about calculus for the whole semester....

BUT what got me even more than that was:
when i finished the last homework problem, and announced "ok! you're free to go... no more calculus recitation this semester", one kid looked sad for a split second and then started clapping, and the whole section joined in to give me a standing ovation.

exhausted, but a standing ovation from my entertaining section TOTALLY made my day. :)

yay for cool students. :P

happy tuesday. :)

no more wisconsin....

here's the first of many photos:



so far i just have the digital ones aek took on the trip... mine (regular manual film) should get developed tomorrow..

i SO wish i was still gone... oh well... tomorrow teaching should be *loads* of fun on little sleep... wish me luck!

some interesting reading...

while aek packs for the airport, i have half an hour to kill... here's the most entertaining headlines i've found so far:

* Comet Won't Hit Earth (Or Anything Else)

* Black Holes are Actually Green

* Interstellar Deathray Not Likely to Hit Earth

and last but not least:

* Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

enjoy!

in case you're wondering...

it's fun to end up on a field trip with a bunch of wisconsin 4th graders for the morning.

and yes, that, (and lunch with amanda) is what i've accomplished today.

go figure.

off to the airport in a couple hours... too bad this weekend is nearly over.

new jersey people, see you again soon. :P

day 3 of crazy wisconsin fun...

today...

* several more talks... my advisor was even louder and more enthusiastic in today's keynote talk than yesterday's

* upon entering the math building at 9 this morning, one guy i hadn't met came up to me and said he overheard me say i was going to the iceland conference in june... we talked about that for a few minutes since he'll be there too, and when i heard where he goes to school, i asked if he knows my friend steve, who is also a student there. he said no, but....

* the guy sitting in front of me turned around and said "steve!? i know steve... my little brother was his roommate at valpo... how do you know him?"... small world.

* after the conference, seeing patrick one more time, and dinner with the few conference people who didn't head out of town straight off, there was ice cream with aek's thai friends (i didn't understand much of their conversations but they were all nice), exploring the capital building with aek, studying for awhile on a terrace over one of the lakes here (i think i came up with the proof i've been looking for for a couple weeks! so yay for good spaces for studying and being insightful!!! :P), and then i ended up....

*having dinner with kate of all people... kate is one of scott's friends from his undergrad here and she's been out to visit NJ a few times and she's exceedingly friendly. i didn't have a way to get in touch with her, but several of the wisconsin math grad students who were at the conference told her i was around, and then helped us get in touch... here's the ultimate small world kicker of the whole weekend:

* after dinner and ice cream, kate, aek, and i all headed back to our respective places to stay the night... kate lives directly across the street from aek's friend that i'm staying with... totally unplanned to see her, and to find out that we've been *that* close all weekend is totally crazy!

tomorrow is:
*actually get a tour of the capital building
*lunch with amanda (budapest semester roommate)
*then off to the airport and back to jersey.

completely exciting right?... (not so much on the third one... i like being out of town... doht...)

happy almost monday to all y'all. :P

& etc.

so i was totally wrong about the no email for the weekend gig., whatever.

conference is tons of fun.... you'd think 12 math talks by grad students and one super long talk by my advisor makes for a long boring day but it's rather fun. since aek and me followed dr. z. for lunch instead of eating with other students, we ate with 3 really famous math profs who teach at wisconsin here, which was a once in a lifetime deal -- extremely cool.

this evening at the conference dinner, etc. i've made friends with dot -- a 27 year old grad student from north carolina but at school in san francisco. it was the most beyond "hi, where are you at school? what do you study? are you giving a talk for the conference?" i got with anyone all day, and we had a fabulous time chatting it up for 4ish hours... half of that at the conference dinner and half of that at my REU friend ben's house party.

that's right... for the first time literally in years, i was in a house full of crazy people and loud music and several kegs of beer, and didn't totally flip out about it. i chatted with my friend ben (from my REU in texas who i hadn't seen in 5 years) for awhile, and i chatted with dot for most of the rest of the time... then aek and me made the 2 mile trek back to his friend's place.

i'm branching out (i.e. i tolerated being in a large group for social activity for several hours), making new friends, and learning lots of cool new math. definitely a quality weekend, and tomorrow's even more of it.

go ahead, be totally jealous... math conferences rock! :P

3 things are certain in life....

death, taxes, and if lara has a plane ticket, that flight is *guaranteed* to be delayed.

case in point: yesterday, i should have been out of new jersey by 1:45pm, and we took off at 5:15 instead.

now, i've spent an evening wandering around downtown madison with patrick (Budapest friend)... it took us 5 minutes of walking past each other to recognize one another at the airport... i have much longer hair than in budapest, have changed body shape by a lot, and don't wear glasses anymore... patrick on the other hand went from being clean shaven with very short hair and no glasses to very long bushy hair, and even more bushy beard, and wearing glasses... i guess it's good that we both recognized the other's eyes? oi...

it's fun to catch up... now i'm staying in an apartment with three thai guys... one who i know from rutgers, one who is that guy's college roommate, and one who is my friend's ex-roommate's current roommate... they all speak thai most of the time except the one who knows me to talk to me, and his ex-roommate to make sure i don't need anything. it's an entertaining dynamic for the weekend.

conference all day. bound to be a blast.

happy saturday from wisconsin!

on the road again...

i wish it could literally be "on the road" and not on a plane instead, but whatever... this weekend is a break.

in 13 hours i'll be on a plane to wisconsin for a math grad student conference. my advisor's paying (*and* he's the keynote speaker, so that'll be entertaining)... 1.5 days of socializing with other math grad students who like the same kinds of math that i do (sounds like the epitome of fun, right? :P). the conference is just saturday/sunday, but i'll be in WI tomorrow afternoon up through late monday... i'm staying with a friend of a friend, so hopefully we'll all get along alright.

there's also definite plans to have lunch with amanda (my budapest semester roommate, now a bio grad student at madison, haven't seen her in 1.5 years), there's hope to meet up with patrick (math grad student at madison, friend from budapest semester, who i haven't seen in 3.5 years), and there's a slight chance of crossing paths with ben (madison math grad student and REU friend from my summer in texas, haven't seen in 5 years).

no matter what, no computer for the weekend means no answering tons of emails, and no ability to work on half my homework (since a large part of it is programming), which means i'll be forced to just relax for a few days (and be swamped when i get back, but whatever...)

here's my one problem: i like driving. if i'm travelling within the same continent, 90% of the time i drive. i'm used to being able to throw everything i could possibly need for 4 days into the trunk of my car. if i take an airplane, it's generally for a LONG trip to another country (although there are exceptions). summary: i'm NOT good at packing 4 days of stuff into one carry-on. i feel lonely without at least 6 books with me and unprepared that i can't have an extra layer of clothes in the trunk of my car "just in case"... i'll get over it.

i should have sooo been asleep hours ago... oops.

back monday -- a fantastic weekend to all y'all!

people are... fun

i think that i, a lowly TA, have inadvertently instigated an email war amongst all this semester's calc 3 profs. how much talent does that take?

oi...

be nice to your TAs....

3 sections, 3 times going over the exact same material and announcements, 3 totally different responses.

3rd section was quiet, just like last week, but a little more interactive. their response was somewhat of a non-reaction.

2nd section was in fairly good spirits. the student who stayed longest at my review session the weekend before the most recent exam got her paper back, was really excited about the grade, and immediately went to whisper in my ear something along the lines of "you're the best TA ever! you're so helpful! i can't believe i got such a good grade this time, thank you thank you thank you for everything!" that made me smile. another student in that section commented inbetween homework problems "what are you teaching next semester? you actually make math fun!"

1st section was fairly standard. giving back tests in there was actually kinda fun since there were a few students who scored *significantly* higher on this exam than last one. (i'm talking like a 30 point difference in grades or more) and it was rewarding to see their reactions to getting back good papers. they've been working hard and it's fun to see their expression when they realize how much it's paid off. however, one student in that section got just about the same grade as last exam. not a bad grade, but not what he wants for an average either. when he got his paper back at the end of class he yelled in the corner of the room for a few minutes then came and showed me one problem and asked "what on earth was he thinking to take of 3 points here?", to which i responded "not HE, *i* graded that one, and here's why you lost points. your answer was on the right track but missing some details. you still got most credit for the problem." he stood there and hollered at me/argued with me for a few minutes before leaving, still noticably upset.

i can understand being frustrated. i can understand wanting to know why points were assigned as they were, etc. it just frustrates me that a student would approach those questions by taking their frustrations out on me. it's not like i take off points just for fun. i grade consistently over 75ish exams and don't assign things arbitrarily.

unlike professors,
(1) TAs are not just dealing with lots of students, we're also in our own "end of semester crunch time" with our own grad classes. so we have similar homework stresses to the undergrads with our own work, PLUS have to field the questions of dozens of other students. don't get me wrong: i love teaching students. but end of the semester, lots of frustrated students trying to figure out how to get the grade they want, lots going on right before finals, crunch time is stressful on all of us.
(2) TAs have to grade a lot more of the students' work than profs. this means that (a) students should know what i'm looking for in a complete answer perfectly well by now, and (b) it's not just my own work and teaching -- this is another couple hours a week pulling on my time, and i take it seriously. -- yelling at me and telling me i was unfair honestly does offend me. it's not just an arbitrary mark of red pen... it's hours of work and thinking about how to most fairly assign credit.

some students are very careful to let profs/TAs know they appreciate their help. but ones who take the time to be loud and imply that i take points of arbitrarily and am just being stubborn or mean frustrate me. i'm tired. i'm ready for summer break too. but i've been trying to put 110% into my students all semester. i don't care if they all like me or not. that's impossible to expect or predict, and it's nice when we do get along well, but that's not the point. i DO care (1) that they realize i've tried to be a consistent grader throughout the course and (2) that they feel that i'm approachable for questions. people who attack me on either of those counts give me a headache.

end of rambling rant.

Happy Easter!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!!!!!

Easter has always been my favorite holiday, even when I was tons younger... That's right: not my birthday or Christmas for presents, not Halloween for candy. From little on, Easter was tops... not even for the candy and bunnies that go with it in the secular version of the day -- there's always been something horribly exciting from little on about walking into church earlier than normal, the church being PACKED and full of lilies, and really happy music, and even better than all of that getting excited about *why* everything is covered in white and flowers and we're singing such happy things: Jesus was totally dead (hence the singing in the dark and pondering the cross on Friday night), but he's ALIVE and RISEN. There's absolutely nothing cooler in this world than Christ overcoming death and sin and the grave and all the things that go with it.

For as many times as I wonder if I've become too overanalytical to have the wonder of a kid anymore, (and for many things I know I have), Easter's one day that I *still* wake up giddy, with my first thought "Jesus is Risen!" and it sticks with me throughout the day. :). Easter's the one thing I hope I never lose the joy of.

at any rate: to all y'all:

JESUS IS RISEN!!!!!!! ALLELUIA!!!!!!!!!!!!

may you all have a joy-filled easter too :)

so maybe that's the trick...

background: i pride myself on being *not* a "cheap drunk". i like the taste of all kinds of alcohol... a LOT, but i also like knowing when to stop before my interaction with the world at large becomes impaired.

i also used to have a record for being able to drink insane amounts of vodka without being light-headed or tipsy in the least.

on the roadtrip last month with scott, we had beer, whiskey, and brandy at various points in the trip, the latter two of which i really liked (czech beer is much better than american beer...), but drank to no effect.

but today, scott and i discovered the one kind of hard liquor that gets to me in no time... half a glass of gin and i instantly went from coherency to transposing words throughout dinner,... (which was burgers at scott's house.... after studying at a new park most of the afternoon, we decided that the best way to get home was to turn on any street that had a funny name... when we inevitably got lost, rather than asking for directions we stopped at a grocery store and bought a lot of ground beef to grill into burgers whenever we found his house again... total sense, right? this is how hanging out just me and scott goes... it's never normal, which is why we both enjoy it. :P)

conclusion: apparently gin is the trick.

that's good to know for future reference, right?

a fantastic 5 minute study break

click here

a small rant

margie sent me this quote a couple of weeks ago:
No matter how good teaching may be, each student must take the responsibility
for his own education. ~ John Carolus S.J.

at the time i read it focusing on the first part and posted accordingly. that i'm putting in my all to try to be a clear TA for my students, and that's what i have control over. i can try to be creative to reach them, continue to strive to be clear, but i can't always take it personally when they don't do well.

today though, it's the other side of the coin that's bothering me. "each student must take RESPONSIBILITY for his own education."

i've been grading midterms all week. there are generally three categories
(1) students who do well on weekly quizzes/homework, and are doing well on the exam
(2) students who do poorly on weekly quizzes/homework, and still do poorly on the exam
(3) students who do well on weekly quizzes/homework, and are doing poorly on the exam.

category (1) is good. generally these students ask questions and participate well. they care, and they're trying, and they're fun to interact with. they're getting the grades that both they and i wish everyone would get, and they're generally helpful to their other classmates... not a problem.

category (2) has me frustrated for one reason and category (3) has me frustrated for another.

often, (not always, but often), students in category (2) tend to sit in the back, or not come to class at all, avoid interaction with you, etc. they occasionally ask questions, but not often (there are many venues outside of the classroom to do so if they're shy, i totally get that). i've tried to make myself as approachable as possible for questions, and i get the feeling that students generally perceive me as such... the thing that bothers me here is that repeatedly i've heard (some) students in this category express shock when they get their grades back. it's as if they think they should get "effort points" and they deserve to pass because they're paying tuition... if they can't pass then it's the fault of the course and/or professor somehow. yes, there are hard classes, BUT really, even if i'm nice and give partial credit, i can't reward telling complete lies on quizzes and exams. it's MY responsibility to make sure their grade means something so that they (a) don't get to harder classes unprepared, or (b) get to the job market as an engineer/business person/whatever they choose to do who can't do basic algebra or clearly express themselves on technical things. for that reason, i wish there were more acceptance of responsibility.

yes, students pay educational institutions for an education and should expect good teachers. but educational institutions are also responsible for what the diplomas they hand out mean. just because a student pays tuition and comes to class does not ENTITLE them to a passing grade.

students in category (3) frustrate me for a different reason, which has more to do with me than with them. frequent interactions with them, and their week to week work, and the kinds of questions they ask convince me that they're paying attention and the right ideas are in their head... that they're capable of doing the work... but their exam answers say otherwise. it's like they freeze for the large cumulative work, even if they're paying attention and working hard in general.

i honestly don't know how to help these students get over that and i wish i did. they're working hard and showing effort. their weekly work speaks well of them, but i don't know how to make that translate to exams.

case in point: there's a student from a different professor's section who i've been tutoring for a month and a half. after working intensely with me twice a week all that time, this student had a midterm within the past week and came to our meeting today commenting "so, i've been wasting your time", and showed me a midterm grade exactly the same as last exam, and not a happy one. we sat down and i asked him about the exam questions one by one, and with only one exception, he told me exactly what he should have done next. most of the points he lost were not from telling false things but from leaving entire problems blank that i've seen him ace in the past. both he and i KNOW he knows the stuff... we just don't know why it doesn't come out on the paper during timed exams...

summary:
(1) it bothers me when students don't take responsibility for their own bad grades and feel they're entitled to points for being there
(2) it bothers me even more (since i feel like there should be more i can do about it... unlike the first point) when students who i firmly believe know what's going on and see working hard freeze on exams, and i really wish i could find a way to encourage them to shine in that venue too.

done venting... several more hours of grading to go.

thoughts?

it's been a loooong day...

... but at least this email made me laugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lara i know that you said that the exams won't be ready until next week
but did u grade mine yet???? Just kidding, i figured one of us section 02
people had to harass you about it.

Thanks for everything during the semester
Your favorite section
02

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the (non) joy of teaching

oi... what a day.

3 class periods, every single one completely different.

period 1: 8:40-10:00... fairly standard. they answered my questions. they paid attention, they worked. we got stuff done, but nothing out of the ordinary

period 2: 10:20-11:40... the time flew. we laughed, we got equally much done to first hour, we laughed some more... it was a good time.

quote:
me: so if F is a vector field and we can write it as the gradient of f, then fill in the blanks... we say F is....
several students: conservative
me: awesome... and we say little f is a what kind of function for F?
several students: (laughingly) liberal!
me: well, that, but what's the math word?
(answer: potential, but that's beside the point.

period 3: 12:00-1:20... don't get me wrong... i'm not one to complain, BUT... every 5 minutes they asked me if i could stop lecturing and just let them go early. when they weren't asking that they sat there and just glared at me.... normally they're quiet, but they usually don't have so strong of a negative vibe. one of them came to my office hours later in the afternoon to turn something in, and on his way out, he came back and said "wait, i do have one question for you"
me: "what's that?"
student: "why was everyone giving you so much crap today?"
me: "not a clue, i was wondering that too... no matter what i did, you all looked unhappy to even think about participating... did i do something different that i'm unaware of?"
student: "no... i was just wondering if something happened before class that i didn't know about... it was weird"
me: "well, there's always next week. hopefully it'll be back to normal!"
student: "yeah, i hope so. we shouldn't be mean to you."

even the students picked up on it... i have no idea what was going on, but that section drained me... if i could have reversed sections 2 and 3 today it would have done wonders for my mood.

for the first time ever since i got it in like august, my pedometer battery is dead, so i don't know how many steps i've gone today... off to fix that, back eventually.

happiness!

rewind 2 months... february 16 i passed my oral qualifying exam, and then had 6 days to complete a detailed application for a fellowship i hoped to receive for next year... they said they would announce the national winners on may 1st, so i've been patiently waiting and wondering.... i have a history of applying for big national scholarship type things and getting "honorable mention" but never winning.

when today, april 7, (i.e. 3 weeks before the announcement of winners date), i had a letter from the fellowship organization, i totally expected it to say "sorry, but you've been eliminated, thanks for trying".)... instead, i opened an envelope of this:



how yay is that?

out for a jog... back later

abnormal, as usual

seriously, i don't think i can go a whole week in my second section without something strange happening...

this week?

i'm writing a problem on the board when all the sudden i notice a kid in the front row is making strange noises... i turn and look at him and realize he's giggling uncontrolably but trying to muffle the noise.

i stop what i'm doing and ask "dude, are you ok?"

to which he laughed out loud and said "yeah, i'm great, you and calculus are just so darn entertaining."

i totally don't get it.

go figure.

a day in the life...

... of a calc 3 TA's email inbox.

selected quotes:

> Hi Lara,
>
> Thankyou for the great office hours on Thursday, it really helped me to
> get the maple done, and it was nice to have everyone working as a big
> group.
>
> Just to clarify, the quiz is going to cover integrals in polar
> coordinates, triple integrals, Jacobians, and vector fields according to
> the last email you sent us. Is this the same as studying sections 15.7,
> 15.8, 15.9 and section 16.1? I just want to make sure that there isn't
> anything hiding in any other sections. Thankyou again for all of the
> great help and I'm looking forward to the quiz on Tuesday.

my reply:

> also make sure you're comfortable with 15.4 (this is the section on
> integrals on polar coordinates). Otherwise, your list below covers it.
>
> "looking forward to" is an interesting choice of words for a quiz...
>
> See you tuesday.
>
> Lara

at the end of the next email from the same student:

> P.S. I always look forward to your quizzes, they are normally fun in a
> wierd math kinda way. Besides they are only 20 mins. long and you normally
> give a good idea of what is going to be on it by the problems that you
> pick.

from a completely different student:

> Lara
>
> Thank you very much for your well thought out and time consuming answer! This is
> such a big help!
> Thank you!

and my personal favorite:

> Lara,
>
> you're god!
> thank you~

you have *got* to be kidding me

lately, i've gotten the sense that the chemicals in my body are completely out of wack.

i attribute this to the fact that my shape/weight has changed drastically in the past year, and figure that once i stay consistently at a good size, things will balance out again.

but here's the latest in that saga.

went to the eye doctor today. my eyes still see as well as they did before, so same prescription.

but apparently, when you blink, your eyes get covered with a layer of tears. for most people it takes 12-15 seconds before this layer starts to break down. the eye doctor put dye in my eye and checked... for me, it's breaking down in 7-8 seconds, which means apparently my eyes aren't making the right consistency of tears right now to keep my eyes well-lubricated... hence why they've felt dry a lot lately.

his suggestions were
(1) "if you weren't a grad student and had more substantial health coverage, i'd prescribe $100/month eye drops to fix it", but
(2) "since you don't have that, we'll do the more cost-effective version: two kinds of over the counter drops, plus a new vitamin you should take to convince your body to make better tears"

how much fun is that?

apparently i'm temporarily broken... we'll see how long this lasts. :P

things that have amused me today

* Boy's pancake breakfast delayed the end of WWII

* Crafty Sea Lion Befuddles Fish Biologists

* my advisor's april fool's trick of the year:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 11:11:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Proof of Goldbach's Theorem


Dear friends and/or colleagues and/or students,

You may be interested to know that I have just succeeded in
proving Goldbach's Theorem.

The paper can be viewed/downloaded from

http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/goldbach.pdf


Best wishes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

things that don't amuse me...

* i've been grading papers for the past 2 hours (because what else does one do on a saturday), and it's a workshop week. i'm supposed to grade their papers both on (a) mathematical correctness and (b) writing clarity... it's part (b) that's screwy. i'll easily give 8 and 9 out of 10s, but out of the 75 papers i graded on the first workshop i gave 0 10s, and on the 2nd one i gave 1 10 in all. many times there are mathematical errors that contribute, but there have been students who have all the right ideas, but don't express themselves clearly and i give 9s too.

in an attempt to get those rarely given 10s, students are writing in painstaking detail, but it's hard find papers that bridge the gap between (a) not explaining what you're doing and just doing computations and (b) explaining plenty, but in doing so writing with such formal and unnatural grammar that it's equally frustrating to read.

it's *really* hard to give good tips on how to explain technical things well in good prose.

* i have an eye doctor appointment this afternoon. last year he was concerned that my eyes seemed too dry and switched me to another kind of contacts... i didn't think they were dry then, but now i know my eyes definitely are way dryer than they should be even with the new contacts and only leaving them in 8-9 hours a day... crossing my fingers that he doesn't get so worried as to tell me he won't renew my contacts prescription and will only let me have glasses... we'll see.

gotta love it....

(one of these is way more sarcastic than the others, can you tell which? :P)

* i have my first rate my professors.com rating ever... i wonder if students realize that profs check the site too... really, not just grad students; i know actual professors who have their rating page bookmarked and check it every month or two. :P

* aek and me are officially funded to go to GSCC06 next month. our plane tickets are paid for by the university, and we're going to stay with aek's undergrad roommate... since we bought tickets late and flying on monday instead of sunday made a large difference, we have a whole day at the end to kill just hanging out... whether i hang out with aek and his old friends, or track down old budapest friends in madison is TBA (hopefully some of both), but it should be a good weekend.

* i gave leigh a blurb yesterday morning that since colleen was already gone to MN and leigh was leaving for canada for the weekend, i'd be sad and lonely all weekend... while i was out on campus all day yesterday, she left me a bag of craisins trail mix to keep me company. leigh is fantastic.

* i managed to keep myself up til 2am last night, and had the sheer pleasure of being woken up before 9... i'm home alone, didn't set any alarm clocks, and the phone was turned off, so how does that happen? my landlord decided to ring the bell every 5 minutes until he got an answer starting at 8:45AM... when i came downstairs on the 3rd attempt, he seemed surprised to see me in PJs with my glasses on, and looking like i had just rolled out of bed (i had... i needed to make the bell STOP). he had come over to be a little friendlier about the lecture we got last tuesday about the furnace bill... but timing... could have been a little later. at least he's in a moderately better mood about it.

today's agenda?
* i never quite got around to grading workshops yesterday, so post-breakfast, it's scrubs season one DVD (i practically have both season one and season two memorized... it's a good thing season three comes out soon) and grading fiesta until i get that done with...
* my own homework
* 5 miles (it's a beautiful weekend, how can i *not* make sure i get my walk/jogging in every day)
* groceries

i plan ever so much weekend fun, don't i?

later dudes.