Fabulous (ultimately geeky) Quiz!!!

If I were a Springer-Verlag Graduate Text in Mathematics, I would be Frank Warner's Foundations of Differentiable Manifolds and Lie Groups. I give a clear, detailed, and careful development of the basic facts on manifold theory and Lie Groups. I include differentiable manifolds, tensors and differentiable forms. Lie groups and homogenous spaces, integration on manifolds, and in addition provide a proof of the de Rham theorem via sheaf cohomology theory, and develop the local theory of elliptic operators culminating in a proof of the Hodge theorem. Those interested in any of the diverse areas of mathematics requiring the notion of a differentiable manifold will find me extremely useful. Which Springer GTM would you be? The Springer GTM Test

A few things that are stressing me out right now...

... so I can stop thinking about them because they are right there in front of me:

1) presentation Nov 14/15 that was once two months away and is now (less than!!!!) two weeks away.

2) figuring out the program that makes slides for said presentation.

3) unfinished bathroom.

4) general clutter and upheaval caused by the unfinished bathroom (for a while I couldn't get to my vacuum cleaner because the bathroom sink was in front of that particular closet. The sink has since been pulled far enough away from the closet to get the vacuum out).

5) $$$$$ (always).

6) making hotel and flight reservations for my cousin's wedding in December.

7) planning bf's birthday party Nov 20th. Mostly trying to figure out if it's worth the $$$ to rent the hall for the party, ie will more people show up than will fit in my apartment. Alternately, is it worth it to not have to stress about finishing the bathroom before then? I am leaning towards "yes" on both of these.

8) am I forgetting something that was stressing me out before and has now fallen off my list of things to stress about? Probably, but this list has out-lived its usefulness as a de-stressor, and will now end...

Success

So far this week I've made lentil soup, a meatloaf, and baked macaroni and cheese from scratch.

Caught a random episode (two actually) of Bones tonight and got to see David Boreanaz walking around pants-less in a button up. Pretty sure he was wearing briefs. Hells yeah!

Week 4

Just had a big wave of missing everyone. Wish I could take a month and travel around visiting people. Sigh... Thinking of you, mystery reader.

Sunshine Day!

It's sunny. I'm wearing a pink pleated miniskirt. The world is a happy place again :)

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I just thought of a beautiful analogy. It stems from my growing frustration with the quality of math education in high schools. I've come in contact with a large range of high school, middle school, and elementary school students lately while tutoring at Sylvan, and with every student I meet, I am less impressed. My overall impression is that these students are being taught by people who have barely begun to comprehend real mathematics for themselves.

My analogy: the mathematics that the majority of college graduates learn is comparable to learning to do a paint by number. There is no sophistication, there is no why, there is no reflection.

I don't blame high school students for hating math. I only liked it because it was easy and I liked patterns. They're being taught to fit shaped pegs into the proper holes by people who tell them that the red block goes in the second hole from the left, without mentioning that they have the same number of sides. I have seen so many lightbulbs go on once I explain something from the bottom up.

So for those of you who "don't like math," you don't know math unless you at least have a respect for the ordered beauty of pure logic.

It's also been raining for the past two and a half weeks.

World, world, go away...

I was finally over the flu. I'd spent a week catching up on my work and sleep, and was starting to feel halfway sane. I was on the way to take my first full ballet class since surgery, the paperwork for which I think has finally been straightened out after about a month on the phone with insurance companies.

Then the guy in front of me decides not to be assertive merging into the Concord rotary, stops halfway into an intersection, and I rear-end him while watching incoming traffic. Now I have more confusing paperwork to fill out and mail, and I end up with higher monthly car insurance payments. Like I'm not broke enough already.

Fantabulous. Just the way I wanted to finish off my spring break.

Spring Break!

Hey all,

I am finally on spring break and am very excited/relieved about it. This semester is a bit on the crazy packed side. I'm "taking" 4 classes, teaching a math class, teaching ballet, and, of course, trying to work on my research for my dissertation. When I say that I'm "taking" 4 classes, what I really mean is that I am attending the classes and will be doing a presentation for most of them. I don't do homework anymore, so at least I'm not bogged down with all of that. But the classes themselves take up a decent amount of time. And I do occasionally do reading for them.

I'm not upset to be busy again. It's how I spent the majority of my life up until a few years ago, and there is a part of me that functions best when I am over-scheduled and just have to keep going 24/7. I do like being able to sleep in, play with my cats, and generally chill out every once in a while, though.

I think my saving grace this semester is that I am not doing the spring Dance Prism show. I miss everyone, but I am really glad that I get my weekends to myself. And honestly, I don't like performing, especially ballet. It's stressful and the costumes always make me feel like I need to diet (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but on the whole, fuck that shit). My last year of college I really made an effort not to schedule things on the weekends. It gave me some time to myself, but mostly served as time when I knew I was free to do all the random stuff that didn't fit into a busy week. I think I need to make that my policy again; no regularly scheduled weekend activities.

I had my phone interview with the Johns Hopkins CTY program this morning, who I want to teach for this summer. I have no idea if it went well. I think so. They'll be getting back to me in a week or two. I really hope I get a position. I don't even care where at this point. Once I sat down and started planning the enrichment course I realized that I really really want a chance to teach it. I'm being considered to teach a class called "Individually Paced Math Sequence," which is exactly what it sounds like. I think the class basically consists of the students doing their own work while I walk around and answer questions. Not hugely challenging. I get 45 minutes every day to do "enrichment material," which is supposed to be something that they can all manage. I decided to do some very elementary group theory, which really is not as complicated as it sounds. Mostly they will be working with cutout squares, circles and triangles.

I am also going to Bates Dance Festival this summer. If I get hired by CTY, I will be away from home for a straight 6 weeks (3 weeks at wherever CTY sends me and then 3 weeks in Maine at Bates). My cats are going to be pissed. But I am super psyched about going to Bates. I don't care if I have to answer phones or whatever for the rest of the summer, as long as I have those three weeks in heaven.

So yeah, that's my life right now. Oh yeah, hip's doing well. I've been to a few dance classes but mostly I've been running. It's actually surprisingly enjoyable. Up until about two months ago, if someone asked me if I wanted to go running, I would reply, "Only if a bear is chasing me." The fact that I actually like running now is rather embarassing. Ah well, we all change as we get older. I have my first physical therapy appointment today at 4 actually. I really hope that I like the PT and that she doesn't make me do exercises that don't really help with what I care about. I suppose I should defer to someone whose career is fixing people's bodies, but the vast majority of physical therapists I've come in contact with have no idea how to deal with dancers. I have actually uttered the phrase, "No, my ankle is supposed to do that..." during a PT session where I was stretching out my thigh by holding onto my foot. They also don't seem to realize that my legs have to go all the way up/back/to the side. This office is supposed to be good for non-sport athletes (ie gymnasts, dancers). So here's hoping.

Theraband Care

When I googled "theraband care," I failed to find any websites with useful information. As a result of my own experimentation, however, I have found a solution that I would like to share.

I have a light grey theraband that I got in college that is now somewhat grubby and sticky. I tried washing it, thinking that the dirt and stuff on it would make it sticky, but that only made it worse (and did not get rid of the dirt streaks). The solution I found is to rub baby powder into the band - I didn't really have to rub the powder "in," just coat the band with a thin layer. I imagine that talc would work just as well. I get some powder on my hands when I use it now, but for the most part it's back to new. And it smells nice (no more feet smell!).

So there, hope that's useful...

PS- I get my stitches out tomorrow!

Gimp post!

Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I haven't posted for over a month. December was a black hole of busy. Nutcracker performances went off practically without a hitch, despite a plethora of sprained ankles (5 or 6 people, including myself?) and other various injuries. Kraig and I also spent about a week doing the family/friend holiday thing.

Since then, I had a party on New year's eve and surgery on the labral tear in my hip. So far so good: I am up and walking around and generally not in pain (though the band-aids that I keep covering my stitches with itch like hell!). I feel like I must be recovering quickly since my follow-up with the surgeon isn't until next Friday but I am already climbing flights of stairs with relatively little trouble and occasionally finding my leg in positions that I wasn't aware of putting it in. I'm still a little leary of rotating my hip open too far (think sitting cross-legged) but I've managed to rotate my knee open past the point where it hurt pre-surgery, and with no sharp pain. As long as there isn't much for scar tissue, I think I'm good to go.

I am, however, a bit torn about actually going to a PT for recovery. My sensible side knows that of course I have to go to a PT! One does after surgery! But then my thrifty, impulsive side reasons that it probably wouldn't be all that helpful: I havn't lost much muscle in my leg since I was only off of it for a few days, I already know a buttload of strengthening exercises, and I'm very aware of the difference between good pain and bad pain. Plus they are so freaking expensive, even with health insurance. Except for the lady who diagnosed my hip (she's moved to another practice a bit too far away), I have had only mediocre experiences with PT's. I figure that I will discuss this with the surgeon, he will tell me to see a PT, and I will make up my mind based on anything new he can add to my reasoning.

PS- I'd like everyone to give Kraig a big hug next time they see him, because he's been just wonderful helping me through all the post-op stuff. I was so out of it after surgery at the hospital, they didn't even bother talking to me anymore, they just told him all of the post-op instructions.