Proof that I am Psychic

As I prepared my breakfast this morning, I poured some juice and thought to myself, "I should make a GraphJam of `mind on my money and money on my mind' from the Gin & Juice song..."

However, I read that somebody beat me to it. Today.

Attractive Locomotion

This evening, we celebrate the most recent class of JDE seniors, including Katie. Congratulations, everyone! Especially to Katie, who has maintained a GPA I have not seen since freshman year.

The event is a little fancy. Fancy enough for shiny pants. However, I did not want to risk ruining my nice pants while biking to work, so I fastened the pant legs with office supplies. It was classy.

Exercise Restraint

While reading for what seems like the hundredth time tonight "the proof is simple and hints are given as Exercises 1-5," I had the incredible urge to throw my heavy Algebra book violently against the wall. Quicker than my arm could fly, my brain reminded me that those kinds of things get people in trouble and I refrained.

Back to the worst take-home exam ever.

Davis, CA in all its glory

While waiting for my shuttle from the Sacramento Airport to Davis, I met a guy wearing a tweed jacket. Since he was also heading to Davis, I thought it a natural question to ask if he was attending the Graduate Student Combinatorics Conference. So I asked, "Are you going to the conference as well?" He replies, "Why yes! You are too, how fascinating? What is your research area?" I respond "Graph theory and complexity!" Suddenly, his eyes go wide open and he says "My paper talks about graph theory, too!"

During this part of the discussion, he says a bunch of stuff very quickly that sounds sort of like math, but nothing I can understand. I find it odd that he was surprised that I do graph theory, though. My questions were resolved when I told him about my presentation, and he realized that I am going to a math conference, and he is going to a religion and media conference or something. He then begins to ramble about how some philosopher came up with a way to represent all existence in set theory, and worse yet, all understanding of relationships in category theory. Categories, of all things, do not help with the understanding of anything, not even math.

That strangeness aside, it has been a relaxing day off. The weather here is on par with a Minnesota summer day: that is, perfect. I was able to wander the expansive campus for a while, including the very diverse arboretum that inhabits the southern border of the campus. Pictures will follow, once I go home and retrieve my USB cable...

The conference starts tomorrow bright and early. My presentation is in the earliest time slot, and my abstract is the second shortest by only two words. Wish me luck! I'll need to talk extra slow to push 20 minutes!

Out-Wikipediaed

I had recently been looking at the Wikipedia entry for Futurama and read the section on Futurama in Popular Culture. Tonight's brand-new Simpson's episode had a Futurama reference that I knew was not in there. I rushed to put it in the article, but was beaten. The internet is so epic.

On a side note, I find the episode hilarious for several reasons. Not only are they taking credit for every single fad of the '90's, but also they depict the scourge of literature arts professors. The only critique that could apply to me is the use of elbow pads as some kind of stereotype of professors! Can you believe that?

A Depressing Job

Grading calculus exams is one of the most depressing things one could ever do. It involves balancing the sadness of causing others grief (by significantly reducing their course grade in mere minutes) with the anger of their lack of understanding of "basic" concepts. I perform limit comparison tests in my sleep, why shouldn't they be able to do it once? The most depressing part is that either they are completely stumped by the calculus that they forget basic algebra, or they just did not maintain their skills, thinking they would never be needed.

For instance, consider this gem of a problem. It took me a while to see what they did wrong.

Another interesting one is the following. Try to see if you can see how they got the final answer. It may surprise and shock you how they simultaneously violated two operators.

These moments are not infrequent. At least it doesn't feel as bad when they are not my students, but it really hurts when I know I did this exact problem with them in class.