today, when I wasn't teaching, I read. I read during my workout, read after lunch and before office hours, and now I'm reading again. I finished Love Walked In (and it was excellent) and now I'm re-reading the Twilight series, including the first part of the book from Edward's perspective on Stephenie Meyer's website. It's amazing how much time there seems to be when I'm not filling every second with studying or attempted studying!
The following just made me laugh out loud:
" 'I'll see you later then, ' I said, trying for casual again, staring down at the whirling lid. And, by the way, I adore you... in frightening, dangerous ways."
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Weekend!!!!
My A-exam is over and I passed! And my students prelim is written, given, and graded! Which means, starting Friday night, I've had no academic responsibilities whatsoever, and I love it! Yesterday, I read part of a book and made chocolate eclairs. Now, this was quite an adventure. First, I tried using the flour mix that the recipe suggested, provided by a Baha'i family here in town a few months ago. Well they turned out like pancakes... not tasty at all. So I threw it all out and tried again, after bringing 5 more eggs to room temperature and acquiring parchment paper from my downstairs neighbor. The chocolate custard for the inside was quite an adventure, but fortunately I only had to do it once. The next time I made the batter, I used my "cookie flour mix" (different from my bread/waffle flour mix), and they turned out pretty well. In the oven, they were beautifully puffed and everything, but as soon as they left the heat of the oven, they collapsed for the most part. The cream puff shaped ones (round and small, rather than long and skinny) didn't collapse as much, so next time I'll just make cream puffs. They were pretty delicious, once filled with chocolate custard and topped with chocolate ganache :). I had a few people over to help me eat them and just hang out for a bit.
This morning began with adventures with waffles - again I tried to use the baking mix I was given, and the dough looked like bread rather than waffle dough, and the waffles were terrible. So I threw the batter away and the bag of flour mix away and tried again. This time with much better success, and tasty waffles!
Later today, I'm headed to Syracuse for shopping and birthday dinner with the girls! I'm excited to just relax and hang out with the ladies, have some fun shopping, and eat some yummy food :).
I've been reading a book, Love Walked In, I got at the Friends of the Library book sale a couple months ago (a costly 25 cent purchase ;) ) and I'm enjoying it. I particularly liked this passage, from the point of view of a 5 foot tall woman around 30:
"So, I'm pretty - pretty enough. The trouble is that my kind of pretty is not the kind I'd have chosen. I've heard all those words: gamine, piquant, waifish, what have you. I've heard elfin; elfin stings. And pixie .... pixie? A word to the wise: The grown women who want to evoke pointy-eared beings scaling mushrooms and wearing acorn caps for hats are few and far between. We all know what those words truly mean; they mean I'm teetering on the edge of cute. And cute is death. Denigration, death, and decay."
I really enjoyed this because I also have issues with being called cute... I've wondered a lot about the line between cute and beautiful, as I'm usually going for pretty, beautiful, or even just "nice" and always get called cute. I was glad to see there was someone out there who understood my annoyance ;). True I'm not 5 foot tall, but I do get called cute far too often.
This morning began with adventures with waffles - again I tried to use the baking mix I was given, and the dough looked like bread rather than waffle dough, and the waffles were terrible. So I threw the batter away and the bag of flour mix away and tried again. This time with much better success, and tasty waffles!
Later today, I'm headed to Syracuse for shopping and birthday dinner with the girls! I'm excited to just relax and hang out with the ladies, have some fun shopping, and eat some yummy food :).
I've been reading a book, Love Walked In, I got at the Friends of the Library book sale a couple months ago (a costly 25 cent purchase ;) ) and I'm enjoying it. I particularly liked this passage, from the point of view of a 5 foot tall woman around 30:
"So, I'm pretty - pretty enough. The trouble is that my kind of pretty is not the kind I'd have chosen. I've heard all those words: gamine, piquant, waifish, what have you. I've heard elfin; elfin stings. And pixie .... pixie? A word to the wise: The grown women who want to evoke pointy-eared beings scaling mushrooms and wearing acorn caps for hats are few and far between. We all know what those words truly mean; they mean I'm teetering on the edge of cute. And cute is death. Denigration, death, and decay."
I really enjoyed this because I also have issues with being called cute... I've wondered a lot about the line between cute and beautiful, as I'm usually going for pretty, beautiful, or even just "nice" and always get called cute. I was glad to see there was someone out there who understood my annoyance ;). True I'm not 5 foot tall, but I do get called cute far too often.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
tomorrow's the big day
This blog is brought to you by the Gilmore Girls:
(Rory throws her pencil and puts her head in her hands)
Luke: Here.
Rory: What's that?
Luke: You look like you need pie.
Rory: I do?
Luke: Violent pencil tossing usually signals a need for pie.
Rory: What if I had thrown a pen?
Luke: I would've brought you a trout.
Rory: What?!
Luke: I don't make the rules, I just carry them out.
Today was one of those violent pencil throwing days, but instead of pie I had french fries and cookie dough. I'm so eager for this exam to be over with, and it will be in 19 hours! Tonight, there will be a tiny bit of studying, followed by Rock Band and s'mores with the math crowd, and then a good night's sleep! Prayers please tomorrow!
(Rory throws her pencil and puts her head in her hands)
Luke: Here.
Rory: What's that?
Luke: You look like you need pie.
Rory: I do?
Luke: Violent pencil tossing usually signals a need for pie.
Rory: What if I had thrown a pen?
Luke: I would've brought you a trout.
Rory: What?!
Luke: I don't make the rules, I just carry them out.
Today was one of those violent pencil throwing days, but instead of pie I had french fries and cookie dough. I'm so eager for this exam to be over with, and it will be in 19 hours! Tonight, there will be a tiny bit of studying, followed by Rock Band and s'mores with the math crowd, and then a good night's sleep! Prayers please tomorrow!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
July 23
My life is now focused on July 23 at 11:30 am. Finally got a date for my A-exam, and now it's time to finish studying. Every time I sit down to study I think, "I know this all already," and at the same time, "Oh my goodness, I know absolutely nothing." That is the mode of operation of Cornell - help you learn stuff but make you feel like you know absolutely nothing.
Prayers for studying, perseverance, and success on the day please!
Prayers for studying, perseverance, and success on the day please!
Thursday, July 09, 2009
almost decision time
tomorrow, i meet with my advisor to find out if i get to take my a-exam in two weeks from today. crossing fingers, praying, hoping, sending good thoughts that this will happen. i have been studying very intently for the past week, and have made HUGE strides!!!! i went through all my index cards throughout today (probably around 150 if i had to guess, most of them full), and i'm doing pretty well with knowing stuff. there's one main group of knowledge (the first stuff i learned last fall) not on index cards yet, but everything else is. plus a few theorems i'll have to prove and a few key examples that i'll just need to do over and over on the board.
my students have a prelim tomorrow morning, that i need to write... ahh procrastinating lesson plan until the morning of. i think about it in my free time the afternoon before and then put everything together in the time before 10 am the morning of, unless there's a quiz to write, then i do it the night before. this way i don't spend all my time on teaching and no time on math (it's so easy to do!).
i got to go swing dancing the other night, which i'm still just so happy about! it'll be my break during the week this week and next. tomorrow night i'm going to take a break and go to book group and games night, to have some time with people and to relax, before a weekend of studying (if i get the decision i want tomorrow). if i don't get the decision i want, then the notecards are going in a drawer for a few weeks, which kind of defeats the purpose of waiting.
I WANT TO TAKE THIS EXAM AND GET IT OVER WITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
malcolm cuddled with scissors today. yes i mean that. if you don't believe me, look at my flickr page. there's proof. i'm a mathematician, what do you expect?
my students have a prelim tomorrow morning, that i need to write... ahh procrastinating lesson plan until the morning of. i think about it in my free time the afternoon before and then put everything together in the time before 10 am the morning of, unless there's a quiz to write, then i do it the night before. this way i don't spend all my time on teaching and no time on math (it's so easy to do!).
i got to go swing dancing the other night, which i'm still just so happy about! it'll be my break during the week this week and next. tomorrow night i'm going to take a break and go to book group and games night, to have some time with people and to relax, before a weekend of studying (if i get the decision i want tomorrow). if i don't get the decision i want, then the notecards are going in a drawer for a few weeks, which kind of defeats the purpose of waiting.
I WANT TO TAKE THIS EXAM AND GET IT OVER WITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
malcolm cuddled with scissors today. yes i mean that. if you don't believe me, look at my flickr page. there's proof. i'm a mathematician, what do you expect?
Saturday, July 04, 2009
It's my birthday!
Today's my birthday! Yay! I realized this morning that this is my first birthday I haven't spent with my family since my year of service. Crazy. But they were with me in spirit - I got a phone call from Wisconsin and a phone call from Paris (my sister's at Notre Dame!!!!). Plus, I ate birthday cake for breakfast, have decreed that no dishes will be washed or math done today, because it's my birthday! I just finished watching a movie, I plan on relaxing and doing whatever I want until the ice cream sundae party this afternoon. Hollywood Video's gift to me is a free movie rental, so I suspect another movie in my future today. Plus, if Thai food is open today, there will be some of that too!Last night there was birthday cake as well as birthday s'mores and toasted marshmallows and lots and lots of yummy fruit!
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
oh boy...
today, it seemed like nothing was going right. my students aren't learning, despite all my time and effort and energy put into their education, i'm still exhausted after a few good nights of sleep, my math is either completely over my head or so easy I can't stand it, yet I can't seem to understand the stuff completely over my head. I've lost all enthusiasm and feeling hopeless about getting my exam done, and feeling like part of it is because I'm a girl (this is not plain and simple, there is a many faceted reason, all coming down to the fact that I'm a female and many things work differently.) plus all my food keeps ending up on the floor... last night's pot roast, last night's salad, tonight's taco shells, etc.
i thought a lot about decomposition groups, thought a little about power series of finite fields (they don't seem to be all that interesting, but they are different in that I need to require separability of extensions of the residue fields for things to make sense and be true). I miss the people who are gone right now, and my sister misses me, which is hard.
i'm excited about the cake I'm making for my birthday, and so glad I only have to teach one more day this week! Then I can do some math, maybe pick strawberries, and have lots and lots of sleep and fun!!!!!!!
i thought a lot about decomposition groups, thought a little about power series of finite fields (they don't seem to be all that interesting, but they are different in that I need to require separability of extensions of the residue fields for things to make sense and be true). I miss the people who are gone right now, and my sister misses me, which is hard.
i'm excited about the cake I'm making for my birthday, and so glad I only have to teach one more day this week! Then I can do some math, maybe pick strawberries, and have lots and lots of sleep and fun!!!!!!!
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