it is fun...

...to surprise/confuse students outside of campus.

today, on the way home from church, i stopped at sports authority to buy lights for my bike so that i can ride it after dark if i want. as soon as i walked in the door, i ran into an employee -- one of my smartest students from the calc 3 course i TAed last fall. he was absolutely stunned to see me and to my "hi chris!" responded with "what are you doing out here?". we chatted for 5 minutes before i went to get my bike lights and move on with my day, but it never ceases to amuse me:

students are happy to cross paths on campus outside of class, and seem content to see you there. students are always surprised to run into you "in the real world" as if you don't exist when not within several hundred feet of the math building... and yet we do. :P

i guess i never had this problem since i grew up with my mom being one of my grade school teachers. i knew she had a life away from school, and furthermore, many of my teachers early on were her friends, so i saw them informally a lot. it seems for a lot of the world though, school and away-from-school life are two things that don't occur to them actually mix. this amuses me.

the end.