Biggest Meow's Ramblings

We had all of 10 kids today at the after school program. It made for a very relaxed day. As I was collecting the cards from the kids as they came in I noticed that J., R., and A. are all in the same class. I think that must be a very interesting classroom to be in. I also think that in the interest of getting actual work done that they must sit in three different corners of the room. All three of them have quite a sense of humor and it is not unusual for me to tell one of them to stop doing something and for me to be laughing on the inside when their humor comes out at an inappropriate time. Today the three of them all had a good time hanging out together.

N. was doing his math homework while talking to R. so he wasn't getting it done very quickly. I kept taking his paper when he wasn't working on it to see what kinds of problems he was working on. They are working on algebra basics. I'm not sure they actually understand what's going on or if they've just memorized how to answer the questions. At any rate they were talking about the subjects that they enjoyed the most. Neither of them enjoy Science because of the individual that is teaching it. I had my two Algebra books with me and got them out because they wanted to see them. As they were paging through them one of the kids came over and said to N., “You're not smart enough to understand that”. When I told him to be nice he looked at N. and said, “Don't worry I'm barely smart enough to understand it”. It was our only incident for today.

P. was absolutely off the wall today. He and his friend sat and played Legos for the whole time. I don't think he sat down once though. He was jumping all over the place and in general being a crazy 8 year old on a Friday afternoon. He came over and asked N. if he could do N.'s homework. I mentioned something about plagiarism and copying work and P. said, “I know you will never learn it for yourself and you'll fail the test, so I know, I know, and you don't have to tell me”. This all came out in the span of a second and a half. He went back to playing Legos. He was quite happy when his mom came and picked him up.

For those of you who are keeping score I was hit in the arm by a 5 year old, 3 5th grade girls tried to play hide and seek with me in the hallway, and the word of the week was “discipline”. It wasn't a horrible week, but it was a long week. Next week will be different and hopefully I won't have to deal with those things again. At least for a little while.

I've been writing graduate applications again and the list looks like this in no particular order:
1. Brown
2. Maryland
3. Michigan
4. Boston U.
5. UMass – Amherst
6. UIUC
7. Florida
8. Georgia
9. Kansas
10. Missouri – Columbia
11. Iowa
12. Iowa State
13. Arizona
14. Ohio State
15. North Carolina – Chapel Hill

What a day! We had a lot going on at the after school program today. There are two 5th grade girls in particular that like to test the staff and play games. Earlier this year they had both decided to drop out of the line as we were going out to recess. So, I've been watching them ever since to make sure they actually make it outside. Today I was standing where I always do and watched the line go outside. These two girls were not in the line. So, I went outside to make sure and then went back inside. I saw the two of them running through the hall up toward the office. I went outside to wait for them and after some time I went back in and there they were with another 5th grader talking in the hallway. We went down to the classroom and had a very one sided conversation about the importance of the staff knowing where the students are at all times and following instructions.

There was some part of this that had been brewing for quite some time. Early on in the year one of them had asked me why I decided to come back this year. She made it clear that she was not glad that I had come back. I let it go and tried as hard as I could not to take it personally. She won't let anybody tell her anything, and every time someone corrects here she puts this look on her face like we're all crazy and starts stating excuses. She loves to pretend that she misheard something I said and change the words around to her own liking and that drives me mad. Some day she will learn that it is not possible to talk her way out of something she acted her way into; though I fear that she will learn that lesson the hard way.

L., J., and W. are all brothers fairly close in age. There are times that they are not at all nice to each other. Today W. was running around with some of his friends. He fell and landed on his backside on the cement. He cried and cried. L. came over and stood next to him as I was talking to him trying to find out what had happened. We found a spot to sit down after walking around a little bit and W. was still crying a little bit and L. just sat next to his youngest brother and rubbed his back. Later on I saw J. pushing W. in the swing. For whatever their history together has been in the past today they were actually quite sweet to each other.

When we came inside and the boys were standing in line to wash their hands the other J. had a moment where his frustration overcame his better judgment and he cut the entire line. When I got back down to the classroom I asked him to step outside so we could talk about it. He was rather upset and said, “Just because I cut some kid in the line doesn't mean I have to go out into the hall”. I let him sit and collect himself for a couple of minutes before I went and talked to him. He said, “Why should I wait for them when the line isn't moving?” I was at a lack for words and said a few words about waiting his turn and following instructions.

So after dealing with all of that we finally got around to passing out snack and watching a little TV. We're watching Brady Bunch at the moment. Once playtime rolled around we didn't have very many kids left. There were two groups. One group was playing Life with my colleague and I was playing Apples to Apples with the rest of the kids. It was nice to be able to just sit down and play with the kids instead of watching over the entire classroom. One of the red cards that I had was “Girls”. I'd held onto it and only had two cards left. When the green card “Silly” came down I played my other card which was “Hugs”. The only card I have left is “Girls” and what is the green card that falls? It was “Stinky” and since it was the only card I had I played it. Since the judge was a 4th grade boy he thought this was the best of all selections of course.

As we were playing A. started munching on some animal crackers. I asked her to put them away. She kept sneaking them out of her backpack and I kept asking her to stop eating them. So I put her in timeout. I was she was moving around the whole time, switching seats, and in general trying to make light of her timeout time. Her mom came and so I talked to A. when her mom came over to pick her up and she was instantly subdued.

The rest of the day went on without incident. We continued playing Apples to Apples until clean up time. Our group this year is, in a lot of ways, pretty easy going. We deal with minor issues here and there from time to time and move on. On the other hand there are behavior issues that I am beyond tired of dealing with. Is this year easier than last year? It is in the sense that I'm more experienced and can deal with the situations more effectively. On the other hand things are simply different than they were last year. A different group of kids that lends itself to a completely different dynamic. Last year I was able to eventually connect with the kids that we had behavior issues with. This year that has not been the case and I'm hoping that is because the year is 7 weeks old and not because it isn't going to happen.

This week in some ways was extraordinarily long. There are some kids that deal with stress by exploding and some that deal with it by melting down. It seems like we've been dealing with more than our fair share of meltdown this week. A 4th grader claimed that everyone was trying to make him miserable, a 3rd grader who decided everyone was out to sabotage his building, and a 5 year old who decided the best way to deal with life was to put his fingers in his ears and close his eyes. Catastrophic meltdown is hard to deal with simply because it is so irrational. Not to mention getting actual words between choking sobs isn't easy.

There was a lot of testing this week as well. On Friday patience had run out and there was a lot of sitting going on. All week siblings tested each other, students tested teacher's resolve, teachers tested student's understanding, and the weather tested our moodiness. So, while one day was about "shoes" and another day was about "being 9" the week was about "testing". Testing everything possible: limits, teachers, students, patience, resolve, siblings, decisions, and on and on...

I'm hoping for a better week coming up. It will certainly be a different week.

Laters,

Big Meow

Today was an interesting day. A. decide that he was going to test me today. I told him to stop sitting on one of the balls. A little while later he yelled at me from across the gym. "Mr. E. I'm sitting on one of the balls". So, I walked over and put him in time out and told him he was going to sit for 5 minutes. He held up six fingers and said, "I'm this old so I should be in timeout for six minutes." Very well. Not only did he tell on himself he voluntarily added to his punishment.

I saw a couple of the kids playing ball tag and wanted to put an end to it. So, I was sitting on my heels talking to that and the little boy started crying. He cried and cried. I think he must have had a bad day and we'd reached meltdown. Later on I found him crying on the bleachers. One of the 3rd grade girls was sitting next to him and said, "This little boy is crying". I never did find out what was really wrong.

N. said, "The worst thing for a kid on a Friday afternoon is PM". He was ready to go. He was excited for Saturday. He and J. are going to see a movie tomorrow. He said the two of them hadn't really had a chance to hang out together before and he was quite excited. He was the last one to leave today. I think he kind of enjoyed hanging out with the teachers a little bit. We sat around telling stories about storms since it had been raining all day.

C. said that she was making $10,000 per day as the castle inspector. I never quite figured out what a castle inspector does beyond judging the artistic quality of the castle. I was willing to play along with this, but M. was in her serious mood and said, "I know that's not true". N. volunteered to be the fortress inspector. We never did discuss what that entailed.

It's nice when we are able to have a relaxed Friday afternoon. Sometimes we have too many kids, but we only had 9 kids by the time snack rolled around. We were able to hang out together and have an easy Friday. Certainly the kids that we had made a difference to. They all were easy to get along with. Time to enjoy the weekend.

Laters,
Big Meow

Today was an easy day. Two of the girls who have been difficult to deal with were no there today. We didn't have very many kids today either. All-and-all things went smoothly today and we had a good time.

The J. and W. got into an argument today. They are brothers; the youngest of three. The result was that J. took W.'s shoe and filled it full of sand. I was unhappy about this. I put J. in timeout and let him sit for a little while. He knew he shouldn't have done it and suggested alternative approaches to disagreements with his brother. The younger two are spitting images of each other in more than just looks.

A. likes to climb up everything. He shimmies up the A-frame of the swingset, climbs to the highest point on any piece of playground equipment, etc. Today he decided to climb over the fence that separates the concrete from the rest of the playground instead of going around it. I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself one of these days. Those fences aren't stuck in the ground that well.

G. likes to play this game where he climbs up onto something hich and kicks his shoes off onto the ground. I then have to put his shoes back on his feet and have a little coversation about shoes on our feet while outside. He's a funny little boy in a lot of ways. On the other hand he can be very trying.

So, the word of the day was "shoes". I don't know if a larger portion of the Kindergarten kids could tie their shoes last year or if somebody esle tied them all. Whatever the case I've spent a lot of time tieing shoes this year. So, with the younger kids this year it has been all about shoes.

It has been great seeing the kids grow and mature from where they were last year. Some of them have changed in really big ways. In all but two cases the kids take responsibility for their actions more this year. It has been semi-rare that I ask if somebody did something and they deny it. There are two kids who seemed to have taken two steps backward with regard to this and since they are both 5th graders it drives me a little mad.

We're having a good year for the most part. There is a part of th administrative side of things that drives me a little crazy. Decisions that I would have made differently. That's inevitable though. I've come to realize that it is a no win situation for me. If I don't do what I'm told to do I get yelled at by my boss. If I do what I'm told I get yelled at by a child. I'm getting yelled at either way.

This year in so many ways is a lot smoother than last. I think this is partially due to the fact that the staff has some consistency to it. The turnover has gotten small which helps immensely. Next year will be something different for all of us. For now I'm enjoying the community that we have. The vast majority of the time it is easy to enjoy our time together.

Laters,
Big Meow

Today was a good day, but it was a long day at work. I went to Hy-Vee and saw J. with his dad. J. apparently wasn't feeling well and they'd just gone to the doctor. They were after chicken soup and ice cream. J. hasn't been coming to the after school program this year so it was nice to see him. I'm sure he enjoyed kicking back for the day with his dad.

Thursdays are always a long day at work. The kids get out an hour earlier so we have two hours of recess. At the end of recess one of the kindergarten kids had been accused of throwing a walnut. All I wanted to do was tell him to leave the walnuts on the ground. He ran under the slide area. When I got down to tell him to come out he started throwing wood chips at  me. When I walked up to the time-out area with him he decided to walk away from me again and said, "There's no reason, no reason for this", over and over again. He is the child with the most challenging behaviors this year.

A. is also in kindergarten this year and likes to climb up everything. If there is a pole he will climb up it. If there is a higher place than where he is he'll get there. If he is up high he'll flip upside down. I asked him if he climbed trees at home and he said that his mom did not allow him to climb trees. He's a nice boy and quite a conversationalist.

So, it was a mixed bag today. We had 32 kids today. It is semi-difficult for two people to manage that many kids. We were successful in that endeavor. It is easier in some respects with this group. For the most part they are easy to get along with and follow directions well. Though we still have our moments.

Tomorrow is Friday which means we won't have very many kids. I'm glad the end of the week has come. For a short week it really hasn't been very good. Some rest and a good run will be nice. I'm hoping for an easy day with the kids. Next week is a new week with a whole new set of possibilities.

Laters,
Big Meow

The other day I was talking to one of the Kindergarten kids out on the playground. He said, "When I get angry I turn into a lion". I said, "That's what happens when boys get angry isn't it?" He replied, "When I'm not angry anymore my lion power goes away and I go back to being myself". Our conversation ended because it was time to go line up.

We've had a great start to the school year. We had 28 kids yesterday and it was a good day. I think part of our success is because the vast majority of the staff was also here last year. We have a good relationship with a lot of the kids already. It has made this year easier. Certainly the fact that the kids are generally well behaved makes things go smoothly as well.

My colleague and I have noted that the kids all get quieter faster this year. One day they were being far too loud and we made them wait to. For the most part they follow instructions pretty well. there are plenty of things to be positive about.

It's interesting to see how the kids have changed. J.'s frustration still overwhelms his better judgment at times, but he does a much better job expressing that frustration appropriately. Last Fall L. would shove, push, and in general was somewhat of a bully. I still remember sitting next to him as he cried and told me he didn't have any friends. This year he is quite well behaved for the most part. D. and I. have learned how to get along with their siblings. 

We are getting to know the kids that were not with us last year. N. is a quiet boy who is beginning to interact with the other kids more. His brother is a sweet kid. R. is both a sports fanatic and high energy.

I don't have regular access to the internet so blogging is an every once in a while thing. Sometimes I put in out of date entries as well so if you get these by RSS you should scroll down and see if their is an entry you haven't read yet just to make sure.

Laters,
Big Meow

We had an equally good second day of work. The kids are still adjusting to their school year, but things are still fairly calm. We did not do a good job going through the hallway quietly so when we got to the gym I made them all sit down. Over half the kids were able to get up when the younger ones brought the balls in. There were though that had to wait a little while because there talking was rather constant. I can wait as long as they can. That's exactly what we did to. Waited for everyone to stop talking.

Coordination is a little different now and I'll never try and walk at the back of a line ever again. The worst thing about that is when somebody catches you and needs to talk about something. The kids just get too far ahead to still have enough control over what's going on. I knew we'd have to adjust as the days rolled on and this is one example. 

It is kind of nice that the kids have been all new for the most part. It has given me an opportunity to learn names and get to know some of them. We have a lot of 3rd graders this year. They are a diverse group. Some of them are very easy going and some have an aggressive nature. It'll be interesting to get to know them more as the year goes on.

Well, class starts on Monday and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that or not.

Laters,
Big Meow

We had a good first day at the after school program. With it being Thursday we had two hours of recess. I had a number of kids tell me that they were bored. A couple of the older kids engaged me in lengthy conversations as I was watching the playground. With the first day of class a number of kids were adjusting to their new classmates and the new school year.

It didn't seem like we had very many of the kids we had last year. Certainly none of the dominant personalities from last year were there today. It maybe a whole new group with a whole new dynamic. I'm glad that we started this year off with 22 instead of the 35 we started last year off with. This group is fairly easy going which is nice.

N. was the first to arrive. He had an extremely angry look on his face. I must say I feared the worst. However, he had a pretty good day. When he decides to stop being angry and have a good time with his friends he does. I was glad that a number of adults were nice to him because he responds positively to that. I was glad when he chose to get along with those around him.

The first day got rolling well and it'll be interesting to see how the year progresses. There are only two of us in the 3-6 room. Coordination is a little more difficult with only two people but that's OK. We got along well last year and have gotten off to a good start this year. I think it'll be a good year.

Laters,
Big Meow

We had our in-service day at school. I decided to get up early enough to go to breakfast. I figured that eating breakfast and talking to people would mitigate the boring 2 hours that would follow. One of the things that was noted about orientation at CTY is that it gets everyone back into the bubble. I think that is true of in-service days at school to. If nothing else it puts you and all of your colleagues in a room and you can get reacquainted with everyone. There has been some staff changes to and it was good to meet them at least once before the school year started. 

Otherwise I'm trying to put myself in the proper state of mind to deal with my own school work. I'm hoping for a good semester where I will deal with a minimal amount of BS. There is no doubt that I'm extremely tired of dealing with the departmental garbage here. I think that this semester will have a large determining factor in whether or not I decide to apply to Iowa at all when I start writing applications again.

Otherwise things around here have been fairly normal. I'm sitting in the Coralville library and using the public internet. It is disappointing that the uiowa wireless system does not support connecting with Linux. I think they are trying to make connecting as automated a process as possible and they haven't come up with an easy way to do that in Linux. The case may very well be that they don't care and haven't tried to.

It's time for me to find some dinner.

Laters,
Eric

For the most part I have readjusted to life here. However, my afternoon nap is still far too long and leaves me up until all hours of the night. I don't know why, but the afternoon is always my lowest point energy wise. Especially between 3 and 5 pm. Which interestingly enough is essentially the hours I work with kids. Hmmm....

I managed to get a few things done today. I took all of my milk bottles and got the deposit back. It totaled $55. Yes, I had a lot of them. However, it isn't very hard to get a large dollar figure at $2 a piece for the large ones and $1 a piece for the small ones. I barely even think about the fact that I'm paying the deposit when I buy milk. However, when it becomes deposit time it is very clear that I paid quite a bit. Yes, it is true, $2 here and there adds up over time.

I got my haircut today. It had gotten far too long really. So, I went in the opposite direction and got it cut really short. Not PSAB short mind you, but it is probably the shortest I've had it in a long time. I like it for now. Don't know that it will stay that way permanently.

It's bed time. I need to be able to get up tomorrow and go to the in-service day at the school. School starts on Thursday for the kids. I'm very curious to see what this year has in store for us. Very curious indeed!

In other news the open wireless connection that I had been using has gone away. This means I have Internet access on a limited basis.

Tschüs,

Big Meow

Well, school starts on a Thursday this year. It will be interesting to see how things will be at the after-school program. I'm curious as to what the final decision was in regards to the staffing plan. I ran into one of the people I worked with last year as Adam and I were headed to the coffee shop. It was after 6:30pm and there was very few people in the Java House. I'm sure that will be coming to an end. We were headed to the Java Juice, but unbeknownst to me it has vacated. I was surprised really to see that it was gone. I may have to find some place in Coralville to hang out.

I've been reading some Algebraic Geometry lately. Mostly from Hartshorne and Hassett but a few other sources as well. I can tell that my brain is actually functioning again. That along with that material fermenting has made things easier to understand. I was doing some proofs to examples Hartshorne gives without proofs and they came out like butter. I've also been doing some of the first problems in Hassett and they are nowhere near as problematic as they were before. I'm starting to get interested in toric varieties which have applications to solving combinatorial problems. My entire math career has been about delving into a subject that didn't seem particularly interesting on the surface and I just wanted the tools to finding out that the context behind the tools is incredibly interesting.

University starts on the 24th which is next Monday. I'm taking a 2nd year Algebra course and Algebraic Topology. I'm finally getting to the point that I'm getting a hold of the tools I need to study the topics that are interesting to me. I was talking about this at CTY with one of the instructors there. He told me that he had gone into CS because he had no desire to take two years of math just to begin to understand the open problems. I have to agree with him that it is frustrating that it takes so much background to get on the edge of research in mathematics. However, math is so much more interesting that CS... to me. An important qualification to that statement.

FACT: Two Vector Spaces are isomorphic if and only if there bases are of equal cardinality.

So, one can think about what it means to have degree 2 homogeneous polynomials in 4 variables and degree four homogenous polynomials in three variables and what do we get? Left to the reader.

So, as I'm sitting here at the library because my heisted internet has also vacated it is time for me to move along and do something else.

Big Meow

Well, I made it home without any incidents. I decided to go home in a different route that I went out on so I wouldn't have to deal with all of the tolls. It worked out pretty well though it was about 100 miles longer according to Google maps. I took off from Springfield, OH at 8:00am EST so it was a good and early start. Since it was the 2nd day of driving I had a lot harder time going on for endless miles without stopping. Once I got to Peoria, IL I decided to see how things had changed since I'd last been there. I was more than tired of the interstate to. So, once I got done exploring town I headed West. It was the right general direction. I went through such places as Farmington, Middle Grove, and Roseville. Once I got to Roseville I was 30 some odd miles from the border so I just decided to keep on going and caught 218 at Mt. Pleasant. There was very little traffic as I was exploring the countryside. I got back to Iowa City around 4:30pm CST.

I called up brokencomb to see what he was up to. I hadn't eaten much all day and thought we could do dinner. Which is exactly what we did. We headed to The Edge here in Coralville. I got a hamburger and some onion rings. It was hands down the best burger I've had in quite some time; that was a plus. However, the best part of all was that it was a magnificent change from eating chow hall food with the noise of 300+ teenagers around. CTY is great, but there are parts of the daily grind that really get old. That's one of them.

So, now I'm organizing my stuff and I'll have to do laundry soon. It feels great to be back. I have 7 days to relax and then I have orientation for work on the 18th. Life is good.

Laters,
Big Meow

This morning I was rather irritated. It had been previously stated that there would be an administrator on deck at 8am to check people out of the dorms. Turns out that we didn't need to check out with and administrator at all and just had to give our keys back to C&E. Hence, I couldn't get out of town until 9am. There was a point that my frustration was let out in the form of a four letter word; rather loudly. At any rate I got gas and coffee and hit the road.

I had a couple of missteps as I was traveling, but fortunately none that were a large waste of time. Just a couple of incidents where the signs were less than clear. Or at least my interpretation of the signs was not what was intended. I made it to the other side of Colombus, OH in good shape. I'm settled into the Holiday Inn in Springfield, IN. Tomorrow I'll be headed to Indy in order to take a few laps around the brickyard and then it is a straight Northwest shot up to I-80.

After second session last year I swore up and down that I would not come back as an instructor. My feelings right now are that I would never do two sessions again. I don't know that there is really any truth to that. It was a very enjoyable experience for the most part. Again my largest problem was with the administration, I would get pissed off, go teach study hall, and all in the world would seem right again. Things look a lot different in January once six months has passed by. We'll see what happens when I apply again.

Last year the summer came to a very natural end. This summer came to a very tiring end. I was absolutely exhausted during second session and that made it hard to teach well. On the other hand they were a great group of students second session. Some of them purposely took on things that were hard and stretched their abilities to their limit. I was particularly impressed that one took on inaccessible cardinals and the other dissected a journal article. Those kinds of things are always great to see.

It would be an interesting class to TA again. Not just to refine the way that it is taught, but also to refine the topics. If it were up to me we would completely leave out the Number Theory and RSA. I think those are things that should be left to the Number Theory and Cryptography class. I would replace it with Algebraic structures such as rings and fields which would lead naturally into an axiomatic development of ordered fields.

Proposition: Let F be a field. Then F either contains an isomorphic copy of Q or an isomorphic copy of Z/pZ.

I think this is an interesting fact that can be proven defining the characteristic of a field. Which takes a little ring theory to get it done. Then we could go on and prove that every ordered field is infinite. These are topics that would be appropriate to a class that is trying to introduce students to the axiomatic process.

I think graph theory is both and interesting topic and a topic that the students enjoy. It falls at a place after a heavy amount of abstraction that typically frustrates students to no end. So having it come after that helps calm the students down. I would like to have some more time to develop graph theory in a deeper way.

Overall it was a very good experience. The topics went this way:

• Logic, Quantifiers, and Proof Techniques

• Sets and set operations

• Partial Orders, Equivalence Relations, Quotient Sets

• Graphs, Planarity, Map Coloring, and Platonic Solids

• Functions, Iterated functions, and Fractals

• Number Theory, Continued Fractions, and RSA [Wilson's Thm, Little FLT, and Euler's Thm]

• Cardinality, Countability, and Schroder – Bernstein

• Ordered Fields, Completeness Axiom, and Sequences

• Zermelo-Frankel with the Axiom of Choice

An interesting set of topics. We also showed the movie Dangerous Knowledge which was put together by the BBC. It's an interesting movie about Cantor, Boltzman, Godel, and Turing. However, it is incredibly dramatized and light on the math. However, this did inspire a student to investigate Godel's incompleteness theorem.

I think that's all for now. It's time for me to think about going to sleep.

Laters,
Big Meow

I feel wasted. My body aches, I'm extraordinarily tired, and my brain has ceased to function in any meaningful way. We had presentations today and a couple of them were technical enough that I simply couldn't follow them all of the way. However, they were good presentations for the most part. The topics that were chosen were:

• Inaccessible Cardinals
• Ross' Urn
• Godel's Incompleteness Theorem
• Continued Fractions
• Mobius Strips
• Fractal Dimension
• Classifying square forms in the Game of Life
• Sudoku graph colorings
• K-Maps and Truth Tables

So, we had a wide variety of topics to talk about today. I was glad that I had brought all of the journal articles and text books with me. They were heavily used for this project. Two out of the three worksheets that I'd spent a lot of time were extended for this project to. It was really nice to see all of that prep work pay off and be useful for the students.

I went out looking for a cake for a class celebration tomorrow morning. My two options were half a cake and a 1/4 sheet cake. I hope my students are hungry for some sugar tomorrow. Reality is that I'll be able to put it in the lounge fridge and it'll be gone by Saturday morning. That is if there is any left.

Tonight is my night off and I'm very glad about that. I need the rest. If nothing else I'll be able to get to bed at a decent time tonight. So, for now I'm off. I'll be back on the road again westward bound before you know it.

Laters,
Big Meow

I taught my last study hall tonight. It was semi-bitter-sweet. This has been such a great group to teach. They're humour is a little off kilter, and they like to have fun. They don't complain too much when the problems get hard, and they are deep thinkers. They wanted to be challenged by the material, and they wanted to challenge the results. We had critical thinking going on and that's worth enough all by itself. I said in the first week during study hall one night that I was more concerned about having the conversation than producing a lot of paper. The conversation has been a lot of fun to have this session.

Tonight we did the Zermelo-Frankel with Choice (ZFC) axioms. I put together a worksheet on that along with some problems to build things with the axioms. It went really well. As an application of the Axiom of Choice I showed that a countable collection of countable sets was countable. I was really pleased that we got through that proof and students were understanding it. Then we talked about Banach-Tarski which always gets an interesting response.

Then we had 3 minutes of random questions (it was all of the time we had left). They ranged from "Did you choose this book because you're always complaining about it?" to "What do you like to do on the weekends?" and "How did you get interested in math?" They enjoyed the randomness of it.

So, our time together here is growing very short. Tomorrow is my night off which will include all of the things required to get packed up and getting some things for an end of the class celebration.

On that note I've got to say that when I'm not in the classroom I feel like I've run sprints. A lot of them. I'm tired to the point that everytime I lay down I have to set the alarm clock for the next thing to ensure that I'll get up in time. My body aches from the intensity of it all. It'll be nice to get back to my own bed and to have a few days for things to slow down.


By The Way: What an emotional win for Denny Hamlin at Poccono on Monday. I was seriously beginning to wonder if he was going to win this year and to do it in such dramatic fashion is awesome. Also a shout out to the reporter in Victory Lane who backed off and let the moment happen instead of trying to get another quote. I was pleased to see that the media still has at least a little bit of class.

Laters,
Big Meow

Tonight is my night off and I had every intention of sleeping it away. I've been very tired, punchy, and irritable this week and was ready to have some time to catch up. I decided instead to disappear out into town for a little bit. I went to Barnes & Noble and then to Borders. At Borders I splurged for a cappuccino and some carrot cake. It was nice to get away for a little bit. It was what I needed to do. A number of us are at the point that we're worn out and daily life is starting to wear on and on. We're coming to the end naturally enough though.

Class is going well and I'm quite happy with the things we've done and where we're headed. They keep consuming the material well. It is so easy to want to teach to a group who goes about learning diligently. That's not to say that there isn't frustration or days that someone gets a little irritated with the others. It makes it easier to progress as a community though and in our little microcosom of a classroom that's what we do. Progress as a community and it is a joy to be a part of that.

I've been sitting here listening to the music of a monastic choir tonight. I've heard some say that the slowness and the way that it is sung is dreary to them. I love the intentionality behind how the words are sung. At such a pace one can not help but to have the words work on them. As I sit here rocking back in forth in this chair I always get lost in the rhythm of the Alleluias at the beginning and the Amens at the end.

It wasn't sleep that I needed to come to peace again tonight. It was spending some time away from math, away from students, away from work, and redirected towards settling my spirit. Something that usually happens as I sit in silence. Tonight I'm getting lost in the rhythms of the voice of the choir.

Sometimes renewal is hard to come by. Sometimes it comes to us because we choose to separate ourselves from the usual and everyday and get lost. Sometimes that means disappearing to a family reunion, sitting by ourselves, or getting lost in the rhythms of nature. Whatever it is we choose to do in order to make the change it is important that we take the time to do it so we can let our liturgy work on others in its own way.

Laters,
Big Meow

One cannot help but to have fun with this group. There are times that they are a little goofy, but doing math at 8pm in the evening has that effect on some people. They all have such a great attitude it is unreal. I heard several comments tonight that were of the tone that made me believe they are learning and discovering a side of mathematics that they've never seen before. Of course, this makes me incredibly happy.

I have one student who will consume everything that is put in front of him plus some. He communicates with other students well and is very down to earth. Tonight I gave them some time to read and he decided to pick up the Topology book off the shelf and read bits and pieces of it. So, I got to talk a little topology tonight which also made me happy.

Monday has ended well. Mostly I hate Mondays because of the staff meeting. However, it is always the case that I go and teach Study Hall and somehow all is right in the world again.

Laters,
Big Meow

I already know what one of the topics for tomorrows staff meeting is. If you want to get respect you are required to give a little first. When adults act like they're ten then they'll get treated like they're 10. I so don't want to go to this meeting because I will have to listen to a bunch of whiny 20 year olds.

I gave out the most abstract worksheet that we have the kids do all session tonight. There was an adequate amount of frustration for seeing this kind of work the first time. However, there was not any threats to go out and burn the book like there were first session. The problems take some playing with in order to get them and doing it in this kind of environment is difficult. In college one would have an entire week to deal with a problem set that large. Here the problems get done in two hours and we move on. It makes things hard when the problems aren't obvious to a student. So, I try not to give out very many of these kind of things and definitely won't do it twice in a row.

Not a whole lot else going on here. I need to find something about two valued boolean algebras and partial orders.

I enjoy being in the middle of PA for the summer. Hopefully the last two weeks will be enjoyable to.

Laters,
Big Meow

We had a good day today. The kids are so amiable it's amazing. It's also really awesome. They want to be here, they want to learn, and they all enjoy each other. They are very respectful and do what's asked of them without complaint.

Tonight was one of those nights that was unique all too itself. At one point somebody said something that made me laugh and I tried to be serious and calm the class down. At the point that I had the class more or less calm I laughed again. At that point I couldn't stop laughing. Which, of course, the class enjoyed to know end. That got me to telling a Marine Corps boot camp story. So, we talked for a little bit and the class had at least stopped laughing.

I don't know that we ever made it back doing problems exactly. I finally decided to review some problems with the class. We talked about taking arbitrary unions and arbitrary intersections of intervals. That was really the big topic for tonight. I'm pretty sure we're at the point that 90% of the class understands what is going on with that so I'm pleased. That took us up to the end of class.

The only thing about teaching late at night is that I'm all amped up when I get back to the dorm. Study Hall ends at 9pm so it takes me a while to wind down. Especially on a night like tonight where we had such a great time.

Big Meow