Spring at USC

I have always found the USC campus to be exceedingly beautiful.  Now that the weather has forced the area into bloom, it is breathtaking!  I snapped some quick photos just outside of LeConte this morning.

My classmate, Jia, and his wife recently arrived from China enjoying the beautiful day

View of LeConte

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?" - Dr. Seuss

View from LeConte

White Tree.  These are all over the place.  Anyone know what they are?

Spring Break

Last week was Spring Break.  I left Columbia early (though not quite as early as I had planned for reasons explained in another blog) so I could make it to Natchitoches for the LA/MS MAA section meeting March 2-3.  The conference was fun.  I got to hang out with old friends and make some new ones.  There are a lot of new faces that are active in the LSUS math department, not all math majors.

Doug Ensley was in from Shippensburg, PA to give the Plenary Address.  I met Doug last year at the Joint Meetings in New Orleans where we had a great time filled with drinks and live music.  (I later found out that he was, at the time, the 2nd Vice-President of the MAA.)  His talk was fun, as was his company.  I spent some time with him and Judith in Shreveport after the conference as well.

The Friday night banquet was in downtown Natchitoches and included a great talk by Erik Demaine.  After the banquet we headed to a local establishment for drinks and impromptu dancing.

Unfortunately (I guess), being in Natchitoches on a Friday night meant that the bar closed at 11.  Weird.  A group set out to a dance club while myself and a few others headed back to one of the many hotels that we were staying at.  The dancing group soon met us at the hotel.  I'm not sure what happened with the club, but we had a great time (a little too much fun, in fact) kickin' it in the hotel room.

I was concerned that after that night, some of the group might not make it back to campus for Dr. Mabry's 9:15 talk.  I made a big deal of this since last year all of the students attending the MAA meeting were too hungover to make his talk.  I was up and out early, but sending messages to make sure other folks were on their way.  Impressively, everyone made it, though just about everyone left immediately after Rick's talk.

Ask anyone other than the speaker himself and you will hear that the talk was a great success!

A few more fifteen minute talks, followed by an hour-long talk from last year's recipient of the section's Outstanding Teaching award, and then I hit the road back to Shreveport.  I didn't think about the Business Meeting (which I skipped) being the time that they announce this year's recipient of this award.  So, I missed the announcement that our very own Judith Covington was the educator being honored!  We are all very proud!

Twas a good section meeting, and I'm really glad it fell during my Spring Break. 

I spent much of the following week at LSUS.  My old friends at the math department allowed me the use of the "Jim Robert's Office", so I was able to get some work done.  With me hanging around, Rick saw a great opportunity to get out of some of his teaching duties by having me take over his number theory class one night!  This is the joke, but was not the real motivation.  I presented some earlier number theory research he and I had done.  (Three years ago! Gadz!)  I really enjoyed going back through the paper and relearning what we had done, and I had a blast presenting it to the students.  Best I can tell it was fairly well-received, but who would tell me otherwise?

I'm now back in Columbia.  I didn't accomplish nearly what I had hoped to over the week, but it was great finding myself back at LSUS for a few days.  I miss that place and those people!