a week in the life

Here are some snippets (quotes/pics) from a typical busy, varied week!

I gave a lecture to a first-year calc class on Monday, and according to the two undergrads sitting in front of my prof during the lecture (he asked them afterward what they thought of me): "Deniz [the usual lecturer] is mathematically organized, she seems personally and spiritually organized."

Housemate Sonya brings home desserts for the rest of us!  :)

in discrete math, more fun with words...
Professor: A regular graph is strongly regular if  it's regular and... *pauses*
Classmate: It's strong.

The day *after* Halloween, the pumpkins were free.  So I brought one home and carved it up a day late...

Thursday afternoon: a hailstorm.

Also Thursday afternoon:
Christina (at 5:00): "So I'm going to go work on measure theory with my classmates.  I'm hoping to be home by 7:30."
Christina comes home at 1:30. 

This is what math looks like: four people collaborating on one proof.

My supervisor, today: "So I realized we had that nice long chat about research and so on on Wednesday...and I'm going to be on sabbatical next year." 

The distribution of grades on a rather challenging algebra midterm: 

Going for a walk in the afternoon before the time changes and it gets dark at 5:30...also taking advantage of the rare full sunshine. 

new knowledge

So now that the madness of a house-hunt, move, guests, starting grad school in math and surviving midterms is mostly over, I will hopefully be carving out a wee bit more time to update this thing. But until then, have some quotes from the first half of this first term of big kid grad school.

Wisdom from discrete math...
- On solutions: "After finding it, it is trivial."
- Also on solutions: "It might not be extremely difficult, but it's rare that it's extremely easy."
- On questions: "It's a nice--well, it's a question of taste--question in combinatorics."
- On trial and error: "There is a positive chance I will fail badly. Doesn't matter."

Funny words in algebra...
- While describing large simple groups: "The largest is called...the monster. Denoted capital M."
- On the Sylow (pronounced variously) theorems, of which there are three: "See-low, sigh-low, see-lov, sigh-lov, pee-laf, pi-laf. First theorem, second theorem, red theorem, blue theorem."
- "This strange embedding is going to come from something called mystical pentagrams."

And good times in math 599, the teaching of university math classes...
- On first year students' perception of 'if and only if': "if this, then definitely, definitely!"
- "Seven is a ridiculous number. So is thirteen."
- We've had several guests, who have all been subjected to a quiz including the following question: "To what foodstuff would you compare the teaching of mathematics?" Their answers:
G: "I'll say pufferfish. Because if you prepare incorrectly, it's poisonous."
J: "sugar [...] if you have too much of it, you fall into a coma."
S: "Curry...spicy, yet sustaining at the same time."

But my personal favorite (overheard from my office), has to be:
"It turns out math is hard."

overheard in...

- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
"Don't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn't marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help?"

Lady Beekman: "It's a tiara."
Lorelei Lee: "You DO wear it on your head. I just LOVE finding new places to wear diamonds."

- New Testament Foundations
"Dick and Jane. The ice cream people. No? Ben and Jerry's? I'm not up on my North American culture..."

re: Moses confronting Pharoah
"What does his staff turn into? Not a beaver, sorry Canadians."

- Christian Thought and Culture
"Mennonites rule! Calmly, peaceably, quietly..."

- in the Atrium, today, at lunch
"We're in charge of the US!"
Followed by
"We are gullible sheep!"

Re: the last two: A fellow student and I are organizing the United States contingent of Regent's "Taste of the World" aka international potluck extravaganza.