A cursory update

It's been a while since I've updated, and I haven't spoken with too many folks, so those of you who haven't forgotten all about me are probably wondering what the heck is up! 

Well, the semester is well underway.  I changed offices just after my last post, so I am now on the fourth floor sharing an office with Alex, another first-year from Russia, and an upper-level grad student from China.  I have only seen her a couple of times.  I don't know what year she is, what area she is in, or how to pronounce her name! 

LeConte, home of the USC Department of Mathematics, my second home.

I usually get to campus early, around 7am.  It's a great time to be up here and be productive because there are very few people around. 

Taken while walking into the office early on a wet morning.

It's also easier driving in at that time.  I've got about a 15 minute drive, as opposed to a 30 minute drive if I come in between 8 and 930ish.  And after 10, parking is not a given.  There is not a lot of parking here.  There are a couple of lots that are close to LeConte, but they are very small and are usually full.  From where I park I've got a 15 min (or so) walk in.  It's a good time to unwind.  When it rains I'm grateful that I'm comfortable walking barefoot as I find myself trudging through 6-10 inches of running water at several points in my journey!  That would really suck in tennis shoes! 

I'm taking analysis, modern algebra, and graph theory.  Analysis is a blast, graph theory is pretty cool, and algebra is going to be the end of me!  The whole situation surrounding that course is challenging for all of us, so I'll just do what I can to plug through.  It is definitely a pretty major concern right now.  But, when I spend time on my own going through the material I always get a kick out of it, it's pretty cool stuff.  Unfortunately, we all find the class itself seem to be counter-productive. 

The classes that I'm teaching are a lot of fun.  It can be time consuming to prepare, but I enjoy my time with the students.  They seem to enjoy it as well.  Many of the students see me as their last hope to survive calc II.  Unfortunately I've already had dealings with the Office of Academic Integrity.  I knew I would have to deal with it eventually, but I didn't expect it three weeks into my first "assignment".  The students that I reported were respectful of my obligations, and my rapport with them even seems to have grown stronger. 

Outside of school...well, there really isn't much.  There's Wednesday and Thursday night trivia with students from the department and Friday evening happy hour with students and professors from the department. 

Departmental Happy Hour at Jake's in Five Points

But, I've been laying low the last couple of weeks.  I've never been big on going out a lot, and I've just been exhausted lately.

We had the annual departmental picnic a couple of weeks ago.  It was a good time and included all of the professors, grad students, and their families.  It was held in a park on the Saluda River, so I showed up early with another first-year and the kayaks.  We spent some time playing on the river.  The water was gorgeous, but we were limited to a stretch of about 400 meters of river.  There were rapids upstream. Naturally, we tried to paddle up them and coast back down, but we couldn't get too far. :-|  I wanted to portage the boats up a ways, but Ed wasn't too keen on the idea.  I guess it might have had something to do with the fact that he left his shoes in the car.  And, there were rapids downstream.  I was tempted to take the ride and then call someone to pick us up, but we weren't familiar with the river, didn't know what we would find, or if there would be anywhere to takeout that wasn't twenty miles downstream.  Of course, all of the "rapids" I am speaking of might be better described as swift water.  I almost ended up in the drink a couple of times when I was trying to paddle up them, but that was more due to submerged boulders stealthily jumping in my way. I've got photos of the river, and a wicked awesome tree house that was actually a real, full-size (little dilapidated) house up in the treetops on the bank.  I've kept the camera with me in hopes of finding time to share some images on here, but this weekend I took it out at the house to try to catch some photos of my otter, and it is still at home.  (All of my blog posts are done from the office since, for the time being, I do not have internet at home.)  I guess those photos are better placed on the 'yaking blog anyway.

Last weekend I finally made it to the local zoo.  It's not bad.  I'm not crazy on the crowds, and I've come to realize I'm not crazy on animals locked up in cages.  It's been a very long time since I've been to a zoo.  But, we had a good time.  We were there for a little under an hour and a half and I think we pretty much saw everything that they have to offer.

Alex feeding the goats at the zoo.

It is actually a join zoo/botanical gardens kinda thing.  I'd like to go back and checkout the gardens some time, but we were out of time that weekend.  We had to get up to school to get some work done.

In a little over an hour I'll be giving my first exam---that is, the first exam that I've written.  It doesn't really count as far as I'm concerned, as it is a lab exam.  I've employed some techniques that I've learned from my days as an undergrad, and there is no reason everyone shouldn't earn an exceptional grade.  But, not everyone will.  Hopefully most will, though.  The professor of record has given me carte blanche, and it would be nice if the lab helped the students' final grades rather than hurting them.  We shall see...


Oh, here's a random photo that I took while at trivia in the Vista...