etc., etc., etc.

happy friday?

i just now got to watch last night's apprentice. toral is abrasive, but rebecca being adamant about why she did what she did spoke well for her even if she wasn't perfect either... jennifer w. just couldn't admit that she was wrong. oi. for not being able to do a good job with what she specialized in... yeah, she deserved to go for falling down on the event planning part of the task. major yay that the guys won while randall was PM... he's still my current favorite.

yesterday was long.... my students had their first exam this morning, so i had office hours for almost all day. no one from my first section came in... other than 1 or 2 students, i don't think that section likes me very much... my second and third sections are generally a bit livelier, and the people who did come in to ask me questions were from one or the other of those sections.

one guy thought he'd be funny... when we were talking about a problem with the squeeze theorem, and the largest function went to zero, and the smallest went to zero, i asked where the middle function was going, and he enthusaistically answered "TWO!", and i was amused and laughed and said "sure, if that's what you want the answer to be", knowing that he knew exactly what was going on... then when the other students in my office were all confused i had to go back and explain...

it happened on another problem too, where a bunch of things cancelled and the final answer was -1, and he answered that the answer was "negative... just negative, no one", to which i had to unconfuse the rest of the room too... but it was at least more entertaining than *just* working on problems with a non-excited audience.

i got free lunch from dimacs yesterday... they had a luncheon for all grad students who have done something through dimacs in the past year, and me being REU guru, i got free food too. :)

i meant to get a 4th person for my qual committee yesterday, but my pre-test office hours went too long and i didn't catch the 4th prof i want before he left the builing... i'll have to try again at his office hours next tuesday.

yesterday's exp. math seminar guest speaker was a prof from pitt. when i applied to grad schools 3 years ago several profs at pitt (this one included) wrote me several emails trying to convince me that attending pitt would be good for me and that i could work with them, and etc., etc., etc. it was flattering but once i visited rutgers i was set on going to the rutgers department instead. this was one of those professors. he actually has proved some really famous results. and he was a fantastic speaker. but hearing exactly what he's working on and what angle he's taking towards his work, i think i'm a much better fit with dr. z., my advisor here at rutgers - both personality wise and math-interest wise. affirmation that past decisions were good decisions is a very happy thing.

last night after dinner with the seminar speaker i went on my walk, and spent most of the time between getting home at 9, and going to bed at 12:30 answering last minute frenzied emails from my students who were last-minute studying for their test... i hope it went alright for them. i was actually praying for them all to be calm and clear-headed today while they were taking it and i was in combinatorics lecture. i'll see how they did when i pick up the tests to grade my share on tuesday.

anyhow, i've rambled lots and lots.

plan for the next 24 hours?
*pack a suitcase for the weekend
*go to department colloquium at 4... since dr. z. is hosting the speaker, free dinner with the speaker after, courtesy of dr. z.... since we had indian food last night, maybe tonight will be thai instead?
*sleeeeep
*get up super early to catch the 5:30am train to the airport in the morning, and fly to chicago
*meet up with roommate in the rental car area and truck it to good old valpo
*go to the valpo homecoming math dept. open house from 12-1, and track down all my favorite undergrad profs... go do something or another with margie... putz around campus and/or the hotel and hopefully get some of my work done
*i'm really pulling for dinner at el amigo tomorrow night... i'd kill for one of their log-sized burritos today.

sunday, the labyrinth that was built for nicole will be dedicated at the early church service in the chapel. it'll be nice to be there with nicole's parents, michelle, and roommate (too bad heather won't be there too...)... it'll be good to be back at valpo too. probably seeing a play on campus or who knows what else... probably doing some more of my own work, and also meeting up with a current valpo math major senior who wants to talk to me about what grad school is like. i'm now a rutgers math dept. ambassador whereever i go. ;-P

monday: to the airport early... lose an hour in the travelling east... get to jersey and get a ride straight from the airport to campus to be on time for my weekly research meeting with dr. z.... only i'll have nothing to show him unless brilliance strikes while i'm working on the plane rides... we shall see.

summary: it's been a busy few days... it'll be a good weekend... then already from the moment i get back, it'll be a crazy week next week. fun, right?

done rambling... this entry really had no coherent point.

later dudes.