i survived!

dude,

so glad this morning is over... will be super glad when a few more days are over.

i got so many stories from so many people of what it's like to be put unconscious for getting teeth out. none of them applied.

they got an IV in me (after several attempt... apparently my veins are super hard to stick so i've got quite an array of bandaids on my arms).

my face/mouth were completely numb, and there was an IV in me the whole time to keep me calm, but i was completely conscious and aware of what was going on the whole time. i made unhappy noises at them when i heard the teeth popping out. i kept hearing i would be completely unaware, and yet i remember it all quite clearly. very odd experience. i think i'm actually happier that i wasn't knocked out completely. i was the most paranoid about that.

so now, i'm not drowsy, just unhappy with how my jaws feel and with having a ton of gauze in my mouth for the rest of the day.

eric wins a prize for being super helpful today. the worst is apparently over, and i'm glad i survived. :P

and that's the update.

the end.

it's wisdom tooth day....

we are NOT excited....
on the upside, in 3 hours, it'll all be over.

update eventually.

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.

$$, crashing, and other such fun

other roadtrip inspired post:

when i left TN, the average price of gas was $2.93, in kentucky $3.07, and in southern indiana gas was $3.28. overnight, while i was in indy, gas jumped 30 cents and the lowest i could find for most of tuesday and wednesday was $3.59 for regular grade. luckily prices went down the further i went east, and in NJ i got it for $2.89 today, but this is motivation.

last year, when the prices in NJ briefly spiked above $3 i started taking the bus to campus. now, they're certainly going to go above $3/gallon and for even longer. i love driving, and i'm glad i have my car for getting to church and longer trips, but... i've finally motivated myself to do what leigh did last year: buy a bike. with a front basket, it'll be able to handle most of my local errands, and it should be able to get me to campus and back, unless i need to be super nice looking for a talk or something... the summary is, i wanted to cut down on gas by switching to a bike for as much as is reasonably possible.

so today was bike purchasing day. scott is a bike expert so i brought him with me to look. amazingly enough, the sales interaction went something like this.
store manager: "hi, can i help you?"
me: "yes, i'm just looking for a hybrid to get around highland park... hopefully not more than $300-400."
store manager: "ah! wait! you are a tall woman! i have the perfect bike for you!"
she immediately ran over to a corner and pulled out a 2006 gary fisher tiburon ( see http://www.fisherbikes.com/bikes/bike_detail.asp?series=path&bike=Tiburon and click on the picture for the stepthrough model, then picture it in blue and silver instead of black and silver)
it's a 20" bike, and it's apparently hard to find people tall enough to buy that size of a women's bike, so she was stoked to have me in her store, and i was happy for a good deal: $249!

scott thinks i got a good deal, i'm happy it's blue and comfy, so life is good.

i think i posted months ago about riding leigh's bike and having issues with brakes and not understanding gears... got that out of the way today too. while riding and experimenting, instead of grabbing the brakes i accidentally upped the gear and crashed into a tree (oops). at any rate, yay for a new cheaper way to get around town. really, once i've gone the equivalent of 8 tanks of gas (or even sooner as prices rise) in miles on the bike, it will have earned its money back.

hooray for new bike.

end of ramble. :P

what now???

so, alas, i'm back in jersey. it's been a long but fun week: 3 days in the car, interspersed with a day in indy with tammy and a day in toledo with alliswan, both of which were great visits.

while driving on the indiana toll road on wednesday though, i was listening to the radio, and heard the following:
36 percent of men on online dating websites are looking for a woman who......

(can you guess it?... scroll for answer....)












































...makes more money than he does.

reaction: what the heck?

i can totally understand not wanting to date a gold-digger, or whatever have you, but whether you're the guy or the girl, i find seriously looking for more money than you have as a top dating priority atrocious. it's nice to have means to do things, but... whatever happened to pride in work, and valuing what you've earned? and just because you find someone with more money than you (regardless of gender) doesn't mean it's yours to spend. heck, i'm a grad student, i make close to zero money, so just about everyone makes more than me, but i don't expect anyone to support me but me.

people never cease to amaze me.

am i alone on this? are the statistics people crazy? what's your reaction?

the end.

plans... and reality

oi... what a day.

the plan:
(1) wake up early enough and call scotland during business hours to reserve a room at the same place a friend of mine is staying my last night there in june
(2) lunch with my friend rose
(3) run through city vehicle inspection quickly
(4) work for several hours at the central library (i've been hanging out there all week typing up math)

instead
(1) i got up early and called the hostel my friend cathleen got a reservation at 2 days ago, and they insisted that i was crazy and that they don't have openings then because students are still in school in the dorms... so attempt to secure lodging for 30 pounds for the night (about $60) failed... i'm to the point of not caring and just booking with the holiday inn express that's a 2 minute WALK from the glasgow airport for the one night. it may cost 70 pounds, but i won't have to worry about finding transportation at 3-4am, and they start serving breakfast at 4am too... it's a lot of money, but it may be worth it for a 6am departure on an international flight.

(2) i did have lunch with my friend rose. she's from my church in memphis, and although she's retired, you wouldn't know it with all the things she does... she truly has the gift of organization. plus, she went to high school with elvis (they were in the same graduating class), so she's full of fun stories from the past too. i like going out with her the one or two times a year i'm in town.

(3) i DID go to vehicle inspection too, but it sucks. if you live in the memphis city limits (i still am a TN resident as long as i'm a student), you have to take your car through city inspection to renew your license plate. this isn't like in most states where you go to a certified mechanic. they have a garage with city employees who (a) check that all your headlights/turnsignals/etc work properly, (b) check your emissions levels, and (c) do an emergency brake test. this test consists of putting your car in drive, pulling up the emergency brake, and then hitting the gas... and your car isn't supposed to go anywhere.

i got in line at 1pm, and made it into the garage at 1:45. they started with the emergency brake test, and the lady insisted that my car was smoking whenever i hit the gas, so she instantly failed me.

~~~that's one hour down the drain.~~~

so, irritated, i drove back to my suburb and went to my parents' mechanic... they checked the car out, adjusted the brakes as tight as can be so that there was no way they'd fail, but said that the car inspection woman was crazy because there was absolutely no signs of oil leak or anything else that could cause smoke, and they couldn't recreate the problem. luckily i had my laptop with me, so i got a little work done, but mostly gossiped with the other people in the waiting area.

~~~that's two hours down the drain.~~~

i went back home to get some water, and check how late the inspection station was open before going out again. on my way out of the driveway, i ran into my next door neighbor. he's nearly 90 years old, and i hadn't seen him around the last two times i'd been in town, so we sat at the foot of the driveway for 30 minutes and chatted. this is by no means a waste of time, but it explains how it was nearly 4pm before i got back to the inspection station for more fun...

at 4pm i got in line at the vehicle inspection station. i was 20th in line. i got into the inspection garage at 5:02, and passed the test without a problem. in the lane right next to the lady who failed me before. with absolutely nothing done about the smoke. everyone knows city inspection is a joke. i just hate that it cost me most of an afternoon that could have been profitably spent getting work done!

now?
the office and scrubs season finales are tonight... I CAN'T WAIT!... and tomorrow can't be nearly as annoying as the past 4 hours were. SO GLAD it's freakin over with.

the end.

home is where...

see, i think i've made this post before, and come to a completely different conclusion than i'm about to make.

the dictionary has many definitions for home:
applicable ones being:
1 a : one's place of residence
2 : the social unit formed by a family living together
3 a : a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment; also : the focus of one's domestic attention
4 a : a place of origin home to spawn>; also : one's own country home and abroad>

tennessee used to be all four of those to me. with as much as i traveled back and forth for college, i then said i have two homes.

now, with as much as i travelled in early grad school, for years, i've totally adopted definition 3 as the prominent one: home is anywhere where my friends or family are, so the world is my home.

but now, i think my definition is changing.... this is a first.

yesterday i went to my old grade school to pick up my mom's paycheck (she's gone with her class on their class trip to st. louis, she teaches 8th grade at the school i went to for K-8). i know almost all the faculty and staff, so the office manager, the daycare manager, and the few teachers nearby were all very excited to see me, and all gave me hugs. then one of them asked:
"so, does this still feel like home?"
and without thinking for even a second, i answered the reflex answer of
"no, not really."
to which one of them said
"oh, of course, you're kidding!"
they wouldn't believe me! and i was being honest!

let's look at the definitions one at a time, shall we?

1 a : one's place of residence

really, i live in NJ now. sure, that's temporary until grad school is done, but the bulk of my stuff, the bulk of my people interaction, the largest concentration of my friends in one place is now there.

yes, i have my own room in tennessee still, but it's largely empty, and the family uses it for other things while i'm gone (brother for an escape room, dad for a plant greenhouse, mom for an alternate place to get ready in the morning when dad takes too long in the downstairs shower.) i don't get mail here. i don't have many obligations here. although i'm still a tennessee resident legally speaking as long as i'm a student, let's face it, it's not where i really live.

2 : the social unit formed by a family living together

for many many years, that's where TN was. the thing is, my family DOES live here, and have their social unit. but the longer i'm gone, the less i really am a part of that. they rearrange things and do things differently and i'm at a loss for where to find basic stuff around the house. i don't fit into their schedules. sometimes dad tries to just assume i'm back to being high school me as soon as i walk in the door; show no interest in what i should be up to for work, and try to make me want to go back to doing tons and tons of chores for him, but that's not me. i don't really fit into this paradigm anymore.

furthermore, the friends that were my extended family while in town have largely spread out to new locations too, so even those circles, though familiar and fun, are located elsewhere too.

funny as it is to say, the "family unit" i'm most a part of these days is my grad school circle, not my blood family.

3 a : a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment; also : the focus of one's domestic attention

here's the argument that's kept me saying tennessee is home for the past 8 years since i moved out: "home is where the heart is, so everywhere my friends and family are is my home". tennessee certainly is familiar to me. i know it full well. i know many people around here. people get excited to see me. really, and that's good.

but i'm only around 2-4 weeks out of the year. a lot of people have moved away, a lot of new people have moved in, and even the old ones get married, divorced, have kids, etc. there are some constants, but SOOO many of the people that are now part of the local close-knit community are strangers to me. the people who have been around and know me forever assume i just fit, but really, in context, i feel like an extra puzzle piece. like maybe even a puzzle piece of the same scenery as here, but belonging to a different puzzle. i don't feel unwelcome or like i don't fit. but life has moved on in my many absences, and i don't feel like i just have a natural spot anymore. this is a recent revelation.

4 a : a place of origin home to spawn>; also : one's own country home and abroad>

i guess this is the one definition that tenneessee will always have. it's where i grew up from age 5 on, and for all intensive purposes, it will always be my "place of origin" that shaped me growing up. but that's not a home you feel or don't feel, that's a fact that just is.

so really, if a place used to be home, and now only is "home" in the past, can you really still call it home if it's not "home" in the present tense? i'm starting to think not.

the end.

it's official....

... my wisdom teeth are coming out tuesday, may 29th at 11am.

let the paranoid panicking begin!

walking in memphis, etc.

what a week!

friday and saturday i was in chicago, sunday back in jersey, monday and tuesday driving to TN, and now i'm here for a couple weeks.

highlights
* i had lunch with jenny (one of only a very small handful of HS friends i still keep in touch with regularly) in DC on monday.  i was SO excited it worked out.

* stayed with roommate in durham, NC on monday night.  this included dinner with some of her NC friends, and minigolfing... lots of fun :)

* tuesday, we visited the american museum of science and energy in oak ridge, TN on the way over.  i hadn't been there in like 10 years, but it's still as fun as ever

* eric's with me for the next week just to see memphis, so i'm having fun playing tour guide.  yesterday we actually saw the march of the ducks at the peabody hotel (they keep 5 ducks in a duck-penthouse on the hotel roof, and every morning they play the king cotton march while the ducks ride down the elevator then run across a red carpet and dive into the fountain in the hotel lobby... i'd seen the ducks in the fountain before, but not their grand morning entrance.  it was hilarious).  we met elvis presley's personal tailor at his shop in the same hotel.  we visited the national civil rights musuem (which has expanded to a second building since i was last there.  they now own both the hotel where king was shot, and the building that the shooter was believed to have shot from), and walked the riverwalk on mud island.  it was a quality day.

* dad is already making life interesting.  i'll ignore all the anecdotes from yesterday i could share and just put the most recent one.  last night, mom moved dad's truck to a different spot in the driveway because it was blocking hers.  dad got ready to leave for work this morning, and couldn't figure out how to start it since the steering wheel was turned, which had locked the ignition.  after 10 minutes, he came back inside and glared at me and asked if i could skip showing eric around today to drive him to work and on the errands he needed to run.  i asked if i could try to start the truck instead.  he told me he doubted i could, and he would be really mad if i broke the key, but i took the key out of his hand, went outside, and in 10 seconds had it going just fine.  he was shocked.... and irritated with me for succeeding.  to his "how on earth did you do that?" i replied "dad, i drove an ancient nova for 6 years... i can convince old cars to do lots of things."  he groaned and left.  my dad.  ha.

but now, here's the real connundrum of the day:
i got a call from one of the rutgers graduate school deans yesterday offering me the chance to apply for a more active role in the graduate school.  namely they have a program specifically running pedagogy programs for teaching assistants and one of the 2 graduate student staff people who works on that is graduating this summer, so they want me to apply to be her replacement.  i'm excited about this and it sounds like fun, but....
they want a writing sample to include in my formal application.

i write a lot, but most of it is either (a) informal, such as blogging, writing mass emails, etc., or (b) technical... because, face it, math papers are a very different kind of prose than humanities/social science papers.

so i write, i'm fully capable of writing, but what does a mathematician submit as a writing sample?  i really don't know!  current best thought is that maybe i'll write a short essay about something random (suggestions?) and submit that as well as one of my recent papers. any better ideas?

the end... for now. :P

be parties one and all.

hooray!

me: yo eric!!!
eric: yo!!!
me: i'm excited! guess what!
eric: um, you like talking to me on the phone?
me: yes! but guess what else!
eric: it's sunday?
me: yes! but guess what else!
eric: we're going to tennessee tomorrow?
me: yes! but guess what else!
eric: hmm, i don't know what could be more exciting than that... what?
me: it's sunday, we're going to TN tomorrow, AND we see roommate in north carolina tomorrow night.... AND now we have super exciting lunch plans with memphis jenny in washington DC!!!!
eric: really, she's the one who studies spiders, right?
me: yep! see, aren't YOU excited too?
eric: i AM. yay, tennessee.

what do you think?

i just had an hour long debate with two of my grad school friends about artificial intelligence.

my advisor purports that one day computers will be doing all the math, and will be thinking on a higher level than us, so scott asked me why that doesn't seem to especially bother me. if my advisor's prediction of the future is true, we'll all eventually be out of jobs as mathematicians, and i should be worried.

i responded that i'm not particularly worried because i'm not 100% convinced that artificial intelligence, in the sense of consciously independent machines is guaranteed to happen, and even if it did it would be so off in the future as to be unreal. i'm not arguing that it's impossible, but i'm skeptical about whether it's guaranteed. mostly, because i'm not 100% sure what "creativity" really is. scott or eric would define it to be something algorithmically complex and computationally irreducible, but still realizable out of a sufficiently complex program. whereas i'm not convinced one way or the other that it's something that can be automated.

halfway into the conversation (eric and scott both believe conscious machines will happen, eric puts it a at least a hundred years away though), eric commented "oh! of course! you refuse to believe in AI because you're religious! that would kinda negate your whole idea of soul."

which bothered me but took me 15 minutes to phrase myself. honestly, religion didn't enter my mind in the conversation until he threw out that idea. my response?
i believe that there's a physical world that we interact with daily, and the physical world contains many abstract concepts, a moral code, etc., but that there's a whole other spiritual world as well. what makes humans have a "soul" is that we have a spiritual world analog, whereas i don't think that dogs, insects, etc. have a spiritual world analog. the question of AI doesn't become a religious question to me unless thinking machines somehow have a spiritual world analog, which i don't think they would. so to me, the key question is still: "what is creativity? is it algorithmic, given a complex enough computational environment? or it is independent of computation and can be simulated, but not wholly redeveloped?" i'd need to be convinced that creativity can be an emergent property of an automated system before i believed 100% that conscious machines are possible, and i'm not convinced yet.

what do you think?

(or have i scared you all away from words? :P)

sometimes life is like... the apprentice?

dude.

so today is the last day of classes. my advisor had assigned a program involving q-analogs of an algorithm we'd been learning about all semester, so we assumed that would be our last lecture. alas, no such thing.

instead, he announced "today we will do something more exciting -- software development! everybody will have a little part to do, and you will have lieutenants to report to. if you don't do your work, your lieutenant has to cover for you. i've already picked the leaders. my most senior graduate students are lara and eric."

someone interrupted "but what about aek?!" (aek is currently a 5th year, eric and i are 4th years).

z. got back to his project pitch "oh aek, i'm sorry, but you're too nice, you're not good at bossing people around, and actually, eric you do too much of your work in mathematica instead of maple, so lara is the boss! ok! and aek, eric, and baxter report to her. here's what the rest of your do."

apparently we're writing a program to solve kakuro puzzles.
* aek's team is in charge of writing a program to generate random test puzzles (although when i went around and harassed teams to make sure that their programming data structures were consistent with each other aek was taking a nap while his team did all the work).
* eric's team is in charge of taking a puzzle and translating it into a ridiculously huge system of diophantine equations.
* baxter's team is in charge of writing a program to solve the equations.
* i'm in charge of putting it all together interfacing it and making sure it works nice. it's due monday, and i'm going to be traveling friday and saturday to chicago and not so much online to receive parts of the program or work on fitting it together.

we'll see how this goes...

but apparently, i'm the ideal choice for a "project manager" to network people, interface work, and scare them into meeting deadlines. too bad there's not a competing team to take down. ;)

wish me luck with my week!

the end. :P

another smile :)

what a week! monday and tuesday were cancelled due to rain, but since then i've been running like crazy. today featured attending a luncheon where i was the guest speaker -- to a group of ladies who raise money for women in graduate school, going back to college, etc. etc. when i finally got home tonight, i had the following waiting in my inbox:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject: HOORAY FOR TODAY

Hi, Lara---

Were you ever a hit! Everybody loved you (of course) and couldnt stop talking
about how well you speak, how easily you handle being "on", how great your
"presence" is. In short, they really loved you.

Thank you again for coming; you made the day for the whole chapter and we
really look forward to seeing you again next week.

~~~~~~~~~~~

this made me smile! :)

now, after 2 days of working hard on the coolest research slides i've ever made :P, i'm headed to seattle tomorrow for a math conference. soooo excited to see many math friends again who i haven't seen in months/years. it shall be a party!

back here on monday. :P

be parties one and all. :)

:)

Hungarian motorway blocked by escaping rabbits

stuff about teeth?

survey question of the day:
* have you had your wisdom teeth removed?
if so,
* how many days did it knock out of your schedule?
* how painful was it afterwards?

(i currently have 3 of them in, and probably need 2 of them removed... NOT excited... actually, moderately freaked out is a more apt description...)

let's talk about... rain!

so, we all knew a big storm was coming for several days. most of the country has seen it in some form or another. rain is nothing new. campus is along a river, so minor flooding and choosing routes carefully is nothing new. however, in my 4 years of grad school, i've seen night classes delayed, but never day classes cancelled. this wasn't even a blizzard, so i was all prepared to go about my traditionally hectic monday as usual.

instead. drama.

i woke up an hour before my alarm to colleen and leigh talking right outside my door. when i overheard:
colleen: "classes are actually cancelled for once. how exciting is that?"
i jumped out of bed, opened the door, and replied, "you're kidding!"
leigh: "nope! now who wants waffles?"

free waffles and less to do than planned already makes for a happy day. my advisor, who lives half an hour south of campus managed to be in his office by 9:30 and expected that unless roads prevented it that we'd still come have our regular research meetings with him. so i went in to see him, had very late lunch around 4 with eric, and then headed home around 7.

then, too excitable to sit still, i went for a walk to the park at the end of my street (which lies right along the river). check it out:

usually there are several soccer fields there, and the water only comes up to the very far treeline in the back!



fuzzy, but you get the idea



...and how.



ok, so dusk-time pictures don't turn out the best if you so much as breathe while the shutter's open, but, see the light in the middle? it's on top of a park pavilion that's 2/3 full of water!



not that elucidating, but i liked this shot:



a very grainy shot of the water compared to the NJ transit train bridge.



while i was wandering out and about and gawking at the water, i actually made a new friend! i was minding my own business taking pictures when juliana started talking to me, telling me just how much worse the flooding was in 1999 instead. she works for rutgers dining services and asked what i study. when i said math, she commented that she's hungarian and knows there are many famous hungarian mathematicians, then delightedly told me lots of things about hungarian language, history etc., 2/3 of which i knew, some of which was new. :) she has a 21 year old son, so she's basically old enough to be my mother, but she was so delighted to talk to an american who has been to hungary several times before, and loves it. she told me which cafeteria she works in, and said if i stopped by to chat with her sometime she'd set me up with a good meal. :)

so summary:
(1) yay for days that start off with cancelled work and free waffles!
(2) i am in awe of powerful weather.
(3) i seem to attract hungarian friends wherever i go, and that makes me smile. :)

oh, how i laugh...

i've long known about The Mechanical Contrivium -- click the link, and you can plug in any noun you want. the website picks 10 random facts from a large database, and replaces a word in each sentence with a noun you picked.

my best one to date was plugging in my advisor's algorithm and getting:

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Z's algorithm!
1. Z's algorithm is the sacred animal of Thailand.
2. In Chinese, the sound 'z's algorithm' means 'bite the wax tadpole'!
3. The opposite sides of z's algorithm always add up to seven.
4. The international dialling code for z's algorithm is 672.
5. Z's algorithm can drink over 25 gallons of water at a time.
6. On stone temples in southern India, there are more than 30 million carved images of z's algorithm.
7. The only Englishman to become zeilberger's algorithm was Nicholas Breakspear, who was z's algorithm from 1154 to 1159.
8. Most bottles and jars contain at least twenty-five percent recycled z's algorithm.
9. In its entire life, z's algorithm will produce only a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.
10. If you drop z's algorithm from the top of the Empire State Building, it will be falling fast enough to kill before reaching the ground!

...but i had read that list several months ago. 5 minutes ago, i was plugging in random things, and i now officially have the BEST LIST EVER. by the end of it, i couldn't contain myself, i was laughing so hard. i hope it cracks you up too! enjoy!

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Stupid boys!
1. Stupid boys have 118 ridges around the edge.
2. Never store stupid boys at room temperature.
3. Forty percent of the world's almonds and twenty percent of the world's peanuts are used in the manufacture of stupid boys!
4. Two thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in stupid boys.
5. California is the biggest exporter of stupid boys in the world.
6. The colour of stupid boys is no indication of their spiciness, but size usually is!
7. Antarctica is the only continent without stupid boys.
8. A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but stupid boys can not!
9. Humans have 46 chromosomes, peas have 14, and stupid boys have 7.
10. If you kiss stupid boys for one minute you will burn six or seven calories.

happy monday!!!

AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

excitement, joy, etc.

i just got word that i am one of FOUR people in the whole university to receive a 2007 school of arts and sciences award for distinguished contribution to undergraduate teaching. i had no clue i was nominated.

i get excited when the math department gives me awards for various things, because even though i do the work i do because i enjoy it, it's cool to know that other people recognize i put a lot in. but to be nominated without my knowledge for an larger more competative citation... and receive it. i'm bouncing off the wall. :)

yay for teaching math!!!!!!!!!!!! :P

the end.

10 things...

ok, so maybe not 10. i was brainstorming to myself and thought it would be an interesting exercise to make an actual list of things i believe in and things i don't. i expected to think a bit to list 10 things each, but not to be horribly put out by the exercise. the trouble is, i found one list super easy to do -- i had 11 things i believe in in less than 5 minutes. the other list, 10 things i DON'T believe in, took me on the order of 45 minutes, and i came up with even more things i DO believe in while trying to fill the second one out.

as i was thinking, i asked a friend, who commented that it's easier to be negative so the "list of things i don't believe in" should be easier. he immediately spouted off: "fairies, the loch ness monster, elves, communism, capitalism, gnosticism, donatism, santa claus, easter bunny, and buddhism", but when pressed, 2 minutes later gave a list of things he believes in as "God, creation, gravity, light, single predestination, the Real Presence, efficacy of baptism, reason, family systems theory, and the Chicago Cubs" (if you actually know me and my circle of friends you know who it was by now :P)

it surprised me that for as much as i struggled with one list and not the other,
(a) someone else found the other one harder to do
(b) making both lists took me 45 minutes, and took someone else 5.
i know what i believe in, but have a harder time being firm about things i don't believe in (the first 5 on that list came easily... the last 5 were more contrived after much thought).

anyhow, after much ado, here's my lists:

things that i believe in
(1) God
(2) heaven
(3) mathematics
(4) natural beauty
(5) honesty
(6) the power of laughter
(7) the power of true friendship
(8) the pursuit of knowledge
(9) the joy of travel
(10) scientific method/ logic/ being analytical
(11) hugs
(12) the pittsburgh steelers
(13) doing what you love (see numbers 3, 8, 9, 10 :P)
(14) being independent
(15) myself (usually)

things that i don't believe in
(1) romantic love -- agape (God) love? yes... friendship love? yes... that other people have real true romantic love for one another? yes... that i have the capacity for it? not yet convinced.
(2) ghosts
(3) horoscopes
(4) getting excited about celebrity gossip
(5) reincarnation
(6) being cocky
(7) being reckless
(8) being rich -- yes, i want to be able to pay my bills and be comfortable, but i have no desire to have excessive amounts of money.
(9) being famous -- i think it's just more trouble than it's worth. i highly value minding my own business.
(10) myself (occasionally)

so now, your turn: discussion time:
(1) what do you believe in? what do you not believe in?
(2) which list is easier for you to write?
(3) how much time would it take for you to come up with both lists at least 10 things long?

1,2,3, go!

students are fun. :)

not teaching this semester, but i finally got around to reading my teaching reviews from fall 2006 this afternoon.

most were standard with comments like
"lara actually made me WANT to learn calculus."
"lara made recitation fun, so i never felt the need to sleep in class."
"lara explains things clearly."

however, one in particular stood out this time. i'm fairly sure i recognized the handwriting too, even though it's anonymous. enjoy.

question: "what was the best part of this class?"
student response: "picking up chicks. how about you and me baby integrate all the way to 2*Pi?"

question: "if you were teaching this class what would you do differently?"
student response: "i would teach with flames ALL OVER my body."

question "how has this class encouraged your intellectual growth?"
student response: "take more drugs (you should try it.)"

dude. so apparently, i should light myself on fire before i start class in the future.
student evaluations,... always a learning experience. :)