students here, there, and everywhere

when i was younger, it was always funny to run into my teachers outside of school. probably different for me since my mom was my 2nd grade teacher and my k-8 teachers were all her friends and coworkers (and still are)... shoot half of them get christmas cards from me to this date... so in elementary school it was a common thing to see my professors "in the real world". in high school if it happened, since i was already used to seeing the elementary teachers, again it wasn't a big deal. nonetheless, i remember other classmates of mine commenting how weird it was to run into teachers someplace where you don't expect to run into them.

this has been a week of running into students past and present.

while in the student center on thursday, i saw a girl studying in a corner, and as i did a double take i was trying to figure out "what section do i see her in on wednesday mornings?".. as she looked up and smiled at me with "hi lara", it dawned on me "none -- she's one of your REU students from this summer!" and we stopped and talked for a bit. that was fine since she and i got along in the summer and she was a good student, and it was good to run into her.

when i went to pizza seminar yesterday, another of my REU students was there. i could place him immediately since he was in my combinatorics class last fall and his REU project mentor was another grad student with an office down the hall from mine... nonetheless, he's kinda nodded at me throughout the semester without much to say -- he was a student who skipped a lot of things he was supposed to attend, and it was my job to "remind" them of their responsibilities to attend things this summer, so he looked a little startled when i said hello to him, but whatever.

last night, tired, cold, and in sweat clothes, i walked into riteaid to buy a steno pad and new pens for working on the train to NYC this morning... immediately i ran into one of my students from this semester -- (half of riteaid is a liquor store and it's the only one i know of in my neighborhood and he was buying beer)... it's one of my students who asks a lot of questions during class, but sits in the back and doesn't talk to me much before or after class, so when we both saw each other and both said hi, he looked a little startled to have run into his calculus TA while buying beer.

all this said -- it was never weird to me to see my teachers because my life was a special case (i am, after all, a teacher's kid!). but now that i'm on the other side of the coin (being the "teacher" whose presence startles the students who don't expect to see you) it's moderately entertaining to gauge reactions.

...................

in other news
* i had dinner at eric's house last night with him and his housemate laurie... tofu with mushrooms, brocolli, and every possible kind of spice from the spice cabinet... surprisingly good
* i wrote 50 out of my 108 christmas cards last night... yay lara!
* since i bought so many christmas cards at hallmark, they gave me a free book about snowbert and snowbelle the snowman family. :)
* in case you're wondering, i'm up so freakin early on a saturday (check out the time stamp) because josh, one of my valpo friends, and i are hanging out for the day in NYC today... and i have to be outta here by 7:40 to catch the right train and have time to get on the subway to where i'm meeting him and his brother. since josh is working in jersey city these days, he just has a 5 minute train ride, so he can *wake up* at 9:45 and still be on time. oh well... at least i can do hw on the train? other than freezing cold weather, it should be a fun day.

breakfast time... later dudes!