Feeding my neuroses with technology

First TiVo, then Netflix. There really is no better way to watch television series if you're a little OCD. Either pick a show and start recording, or (better yet), pick something out on DVD and get it. Then sit down and watch a bunch of episodes at once. Total immersion. It's the only way to watch. (Actually I subscribed to Netflix originally because my TiVo was missing a season of Smallville.) Thank goodness everything comes to DVD now. And if you're looking for more details about a series, there is no greater resource for all your pop-culture trivia than Wikipedia.

At the moment I'm "OCD"-ing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed, which are oddly enough pretty similar when you think of it. (Basically both featuring somewhat reluctant chosen ones with special powers fighting supernatural baddies of the week. And both featuring kick-ass women as the leads, come to think of it.) It's somehow just easier once you start on one thing to keep watching that one thing. And keep watching. Even previous obsessions drop by the wayside.

Thank goodness there are past shows that I like but didn't already watch.

Where does time dissapear to?

This week I had to get together another set of assignments for my pre-calculus class, and I'm really struggling to get to the end of the material. I keep trying to squeeze (and SQUEEZE) the schedule, cutting out more and more stuff, trying to make a mad dash to the end of the semester. And I'm realizing how little there is left. It's hard to find space for what's required.

It seems like everything drags, but somehow I'm more than halfway through the semester. This was a hell week anyway. I had a flu shot plus two meetings Monday, an academic club fair Tuesday afternoon then College Bowl all Tuesday night, meetings all week with students, plus all the usual stuff. I've started using my PDA again to keep track of stuff. I was glad to get to the end. But how will I get to the end of everything else?

I'm also now looking towards spring semester and trying to get planning done for new courses there. Plus a talk over break at the Joint Mathematics Meetings of the AMS and MAA which has to get done at some point.

Where does all the time get away to?

Projects

I gave my numerical analysis students this week off to work on their projects (which they start presenting next week). I told them I would be available during class time for them to ask questions. The difference between doing this with upper level and lower level students is that the upper level students will actually do it. (I was actually a little surprised at how many people I saw.)

I'm actually really pleased with my numerical students right now. Most of them have been working hard on interesting projects. Most of my work in meeting with the students up to this point has actually been in getting students to scale down their proposals to a manageable size. One group of students was originally starting with an ambitious project of figuring out how to guide a robot through an obstacle course using GPS guidance. I initially got that scaled down to just working with the GPS, then got them to massively reduce the number of factors they include in their GPS model, and finally we have settled on doing linear least squares fitting, which is simpler than the non-linear least squares fitting that GPS requires. I'm relieved, and so are they. I knew at the beginning of the semester that this was simply too big, and I think it's finally something they can finish in a reasonable time. (Actually, they are almost finished now.)

Almost all of the projects are progressing nicely and look really interesting. I have student showing how calculators evaluate functions like sines and cosines, another student solving linear systems using iterative techniques, one studying efficient matrix multiplication for graphics applications, a pair of students working on Bezier curves and their use in graphics, a group of three presenting on a numerical simulation of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, one doing arbitrary precision arithmetic, and one doing on the fly polynomial interpolation to compensate for lag in networked computer games. All of the presentations look good. I just need to make sure they don't run too long.

Sometimes I really like teaching.

How old are my students again?

I have a group of students who seem to think it's very funny that one of them saw me having lunch with one of my colleagues a few times. This is not surprising, since she and I probably have lunch more days than not. (I'm reminded of an evaluation from a student years ago which said "I see him out eating all the time." I wondered if that one might have meant that I ate out way to often. Either that, or the student was stalking me.)

My students this semester like to ask how my date was and then giggle. I'm not sure if it's funny to think of their professor having a date at all, or that it's funny to suggest I'm going on a date when I'm not. I'm not sure why either would be that funny, actually. All I know is it baffles me and it feels very much like junior high (or earlier). But then students seem to get younger all the time. Why, every year it seems like the new first years are another year younger than me.

Come to think of it, by this point many of my students probably grew up with Harry Potter, which is in my recent memory. Ack, I just made myself feel old.

Nonetheless, my students' obsessions with my lunchtime habits are just plain weird.

The grass is always greener

I subbed a class for someone who was out sick this morning. It was an algebra class and the second day the prof was out, so I was asked to try to actually teach something. Unfortunately, I never found out what he was doing in class, so I ended up having to ad lib something about graphs of transformations. (You know, a little algebra improv. "Now pretend you're a function translated to the left two units! OK, now you're getting stretched, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d... AAAAANNNNND freeze! Reflect about the y-axis!" Well, something like that, anyway. Only less entertaining.)

After class I had several students asking me more about who I was and if I taught various courses. (And not in the "Ye gods, I must be sure of who you are so as to avoid scheduling you at all costs, you weirdo!" way, either. They seemed to like me.) This is always a little weird, because usually my own students aren't that crazy about me. They would probably like someone else who came in to sub for me and did some free-form math jazz better. I can just imagine my students all crowding around the other prof, asking if he ever taught the next course they needed to take.

This is why I don't take sick days.

College students can be less than adorable

I was unimpressed on Halloween night by the number of college students I found trick-or-treating at my door. (Seriously, college students? It's questionable by the time the kids are 13 or 14.) I'm thinking I might construct a more age-appropriate treat for college students next year, like a really interesting pamphlet on a cool math problem, and tell them it's their intellectual treat for the night. If they want candy, they (unlike the six year-olds) can drive down to the grocery store and buy some.

But today my math class for elementary education students was working on an activity involving adding and subtracting integers. It uses a cute little paper copy of a clown who walks forward and backward on a number line "tightrope". It's a nice activity. When I was cleaning up after class I found a left-behind clown that some student had taken upon themselves to add genitalia to and portray performing an obscene act. (These students want to teach grade school?)

I am not overwhelmed with the cuteness of my students at the moment.

The waiters are younger than I remember

I went to pick up Chinese food for dinner tonight. The family that runs the restaurant has a few children that are usually present, including a small girl. She was entranced to discover I would say "Hi" back when she said "Hi" to me, but I was a little nonplussed when she switched to "Ho Ho Ho". From that point she said many things, but I have no idea what. Possibly because she was speaking Chinese, or maybe because she was about three years old. I don't know which.

I sat down in a chair to wait for my food. The child toddled over, retrieved a melamine plate, and set it in front of me. "Thank you, but I don't need a..." The child was headed across the floor again, returning with a napkin. She kept one for herself to play with for a while. "Thank you, but no I don't..." Shortly thereafter she left and returned with plastic utensils. Then another place setting appears, and she even brings a fried noodle for herself (I don't know where that came from) which she starts trying to cut up with a plastic fork. By this point I'm starting to look around hopefully for someone to re-emerge from the kitchen and at least make some comment on all of this.

Lacking much success with her noodle, the child went over to her McDonald's play set in the corner. (I have to admit there is something that just strikes me as weird that there is a McDonald's play set in the corner of another restaurant.) She returns unfolding an actual dollar bill which she attempts to present to me. (I think some aspects of business may still be eluding her.) Unable to convince me to take it, she gleefully tears an edge from it and laughs. Before too much else happens, the mom comes out of the kitchen with my order, and I get to escape. I told the lady that the waiters here are so young, and pointed out the partly set table and her daughter. She laughed. I didn't mention the dollar.