I heart i*

Know that I am an honours math student, my prof turned to me and asked if I had taken any complex number analysis classes. I wasn't sure if he was looking at me since the class was in a lecture theatre and there was about 10 other people he could have been looking at. Maybe he misunderstood the sudden joy** of hearing there was such a class at the university as that I already had taken it.

I'm not sure why he singles me out in a class of over a hundred students. This is the third time he has done it. The first time he ask me specifically if I understood the theorem he just explained. The second time I dropped my eraser he he leaped off the stage to retrieve it. It maybe because the first time I met him I asked how his name was pronounced which he appreciated. Or maybe my dad told him I do a wicked awesome impression of him. Who knows.



* i = sqrt(-1)
**Yes Kate, I know that I am a nerd.

What I read instead of Abstract Algebra...

Shia LaBeouf Models the Latest in Cow Couture - pictures not used from his recent SNL appearance.

From Gawker: Science Proves You Just Like Music Because It's Popular - I knew it! You conformist sheep.

Stephen Jay Gould Speaks Out Against Science Paparazzi

I'm such a nerd...

I finished working on homework early so what does Janice do? Catch up on her TV shows? No. Go to bed early? Nope. Read a non-school book? Not even close. I decided to work on a bonus question from my computer programming class. I know, I'm ridiculous.

Man Braves Freezing Weather To Cross Parking Lot

Man Braves Freezing Weather To Cross Parking Lot

Top Ten Campaign Promises

Book Meme

1. Name one book that changed your life.
The Information by Martin Amis. I really started to look at the world differently after reading it.

2. Name one book you have read more than once.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Has to be the most pleasant book ever. It makes me happy in the same way Amelie and Pushing Daisies do. Everyone needs to be reminded what it is like to be a little kid.

3. One book you would want on a desert island.
The Bible. It is the Book of books you know.

4. Two books that made you laugh.
Joe's Apartment by Gordon Korman
The Information (it realy made me realize what a dark sense of humour I have).

5. One book that made you cry.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. A little boy named Oskar finds a key in hidden vase by his father who died on 9/11. The boy begins to search to see what the key is for. I loved this book even more than Everything is Illuminated.

6. One book you wish you’d written.
Can't think of any.

7. One book you wish had never been written.
Fifteen by Beverley Cleary. Seriously the worst book I've ever read in my entire life. A teenage girl wants a yellow rain slicker but her mom buys her pick one. Said teenage girl gets so upset she puts roses in the garbage disposal. Parents can't handle such a rebellious girl so they decide to send her way to live with her mom's friend. Teenage girl finally gets a boyfriend who just happens to be a popular basketball player. He starts failing classes so they aren't allowed to see each other anymore. One her last day before going home she realized that she really truly loved this random boy who is barely in the book. She is devastated. There was a lot of "You got to be kidding me!" while reading this book.


8. Two books I am currently reading.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. I'm about 2/3 done which means I've read over 600 pages. This book is never going to finish. A coworker remarked "What? Only Tolstoy's second longest book?".
I'm currently also reading Physics: Principles with Applications and Programming and Problem Solving With C++

More Than Anyone Would Want to See...

I have the unfortunately incident of seeing an old man's butt on the bus. My seat was facing the door and his pants exposed at 3/4 of his old man hairy butt. Gross.

Apple as an Economic Indicator

Follow this logic: analysts say since Apple had the most profitable quarter of its history (and sold the most amount of product), the American economy is not in a recession. The only difference between the good times and the bad are the number of companies that are profitable. Now there is a company that is so tied into our culture it alone is considered the economic indicator. Hear that? That was my mind being blown.

Source: Analysis: Apple's best-ever quarter is no disappointment by MacJournals.com,Jan 23, 2008 5:48 pm

For Those Who Like to Doot Doot D.A.N.C.E.*

Did you that Downloads.com has a music section (music.download.com)? I discovered it recently. Most music you can only stream but there are some free MP3s you can download. Here is one of my favourite songs of the moment:
Justice featuring Mos Def and Spank Rock - "D.A.N.C.E." (Benny Blanco Remix)





*That's an in joke.

You know you are tired when...

You fall asleep on the bus, miss you stop and have to walk 4 blocks in January.

I think Jerry O'Connell just redeemed himself...

A Short Rant About My Physics Lab

1. The physics dept got the bright idea to have reports due two days after lab instead of a week. They did not tell us this until the lab. Even though I lucked out and enrolled in a Thursday lab (meaning a Monday due date), this still is not enough time. It gives a student no time to go to the lab instructor for clarification.

2. This is the first time that they have ever had this particular experiment for this class. I really don't think they realized how long it would take non-physicists to do this lab or this report. I going on to the 7th hour of working on this lab and I'm no where close to being done.

3. They changed the format of the lab so they give the student less directions. They want students to figure out more on their own. Dude, how about you teach us how? they reworded the whole lab book and the instructions are confusing. We get questions like: what is the volume of atmospheric pressure? The volume of atmospheric pressure? Let me think, most of the Earth's atmosphere is within 10km of the surface, the Earth has a a radius of approximately 6,371 km. V=(pi)(6371km - 10km)^3 = [maternal expletive] nothing to do with this experiment!

4. I'm tired and I'm making stupid mistakes. It is nearly 2 am and I wanted to go to bed at 8 pm. I have been averaging less than 6 hours of sleep a night and I look and feel like death. Now I have the tough decision of do I go to bed now and try to wake up early or stay up until it is done?

Overheard in a Call Centre

Coworker1: Oh, you're a musician? What do you play?
Coworker2: Steel drums
Coworker1 [shouting]: HOT!!!
Coworker2: [crickets chirping]

I know I should be asleep but...

I had to tell you my seamed nylons arrived today courtesy of her Majesty's mail. That's right fellow babies, they're imported from England. Not only are they seamed nylons but they are seamed nylons for the big and tall girl.

Blogger's note: I'm not awake from excitement, I'm awake with a case of the "too much homework". That seems to be going around lately. I'm allergic to eggs so I couldn't get the shot for it.

The Student Commutor Workout

Equipment Needed: Shoulder bag containing at least one large hardcover textbook, various food filled plastic container, a travel mug, one clipboard, one package of loose leaf, cell phone and various miscellaneous office supplies

The Workout:
Phase One: Trip to the University
Leave your house in the morning at the last possible minute so it is guaranteed that you will nearly miss your bus. Run like your life depended on it to catch the bus or you will be late for school. Motivation is the key to this workout.

Phase Two: Trip from Class to Class
To get the full benefit, make sure that your professor never end class on time and your next class is on the opposite side of campus, up several flights of stairs.

Phase Three: Trip to Work
Before catching your bus to go to work, purchase lunch from the most popular food establishment to guarantee the longest line thus the longest wait time. Try to eat your food as quickly as possible and underestimate how much time you will need repack your equipment (see above). Run like your life depended on it to catch the bus or you will be late for work.

Once you arrive downtown, get off at least 4 blocks away from work because transferring to the bus that would take you right to work would make you late. To ensure greater motivation, walk to work in the middle of a winter storm. Strong winds not only encourage you to increase your pace but also provide excellent resistance training.

Phase Three: Trip Home
Make sure your boss give you too much work so you have to leave late so you have approximately 8 minutes to cover 3 blocks. This will ensure that you will in fact miss your bus forcing you to run to the next stop two blocks away like your life depended upon it. In fact your life does depend upon it because it is after 9pm, you are downtown and the next bus doesn't come for another hour. As with phase three, winter weather is still a great motivating factor.

The results: Even the fittest person will feel the burn in their abs, legs and shoulders.

Just Call Me Student Lady

Hello Blogosphere! I hope you missed me. I really need to be in bed but we have so much to catch up on.

This week was Teacher Lady's triumphant return to university and what a week it was. I'll try to break it down into categories.

The Bus
I decided not to get a university parking pass and opted instead for a student bus pass. It will also save me gas money. I had a transit pass in Calgary that cost me $75/month and I was amazed that a student pass here is only $48/month (there is no such thing as a student pass in Calgary and an adult pass is for anyone over 14). After studying the routes, I figured out that driving 5 minutes and parking my car at a nearby mall would save me about a half hour of travel time. I was pretty used to this concept since I always used to drive my car to a nearby train station in Calgary.

The first day I took the bus was on Tuesday. After classes, I take the bus downtown to work. As of this week I've shifted to part-time hours and Tuesday was my first 1-9 shift. The plan was to catch the 9:15 bus at Victoria Park which is a couple blocks north of work. As I arrived at the bus stop (early) the bus started to pull away. Since I was coming from behind the bus driver didn't see me. The next stop is at Cornwall and because of the one way streets the bus has to go to Broad and loop around to 11th. Cutting through Scarth Street Mall, "I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid." I beat the bus there. Actually, I beat the bus there but didn't know it and had to check about 7 other buses to see if they were the right number. I had to double back when my bus arrived. (See illustration below. My path is black, the bus' path is blue). I had two text books in my bag and I was wearing winter boots and the impact on the pavement and the lack of proper footwear bruised the bottoms of my heels.

Excuse the crude path drawing, I'm still learning GIMP

In other news, the route on the way home from the university makes me motion sick. I don't know why but I suspect it is because it winds so much. Today I took Gravol to combat but since I couldn't swallow, it got stuck at the back of my mouth. So gross. Once swallowed, I had a peppermint to get rid of the taste. Bad idea, you should not mix peppermint and Gravol. Peppermint relaxes the esophagus opening* and I think it messed with Gravol working properly. It also made my throat numb. I should have known better.

Classes
This semester is going to kick my butt, as my former roommate used to say. I have five classes (one of which is an honours math class) and two labs, all of which are faculty of science classes. Every week I will have 4 assignments, 2 labs and 1 quiz. Four out of my classes seem like the work will be easy but just a lot of it. My honours class probably will make me cry and make me cry often. I'm struggling with the review material (does not help that I took the prerequisite class over ten years ago). I was slightly comforted by the fact that I have more of a clue of what is going on than the rest of the class (comforting but does not help the grade). A fellow student found notes from a different prof as well as his old assignments and tests. I hope this will be a help since I've only had two classes and I fell like I'm a semester behind.

They restructured the math requirements for Education, Science and Engineering so now everyone takes the same classes (For example: they used to have specific Engineering Calculus classes). I'm not used to such big classes, especially 3rd year math classes. Three out of my five classes are held in lecture theatres. My honours math class only has five people in it and the class room is comically large.

As of today, I am officially an honours student. I had enrolled as one but through a clerical error I was not registered as one. The Department of Math recognized me as one but the university did not. There is a summer research job I'd like to apply for but it needs to say on my transcript that I am an honours student.

Making Myself Known
I'm trying to be bold and make myself know to my professors, lab instructors and people in the math department. I figure it can only help me in the long run so I had to bite the bullet and overcome my shyness. The acting department head is the only professor I have this semester that I've had before. I asked him a question after class and we got talking about his markers (as in people who mark). When I mentioned I previously had been a high school math teacher who has taught Calculus, he encouraged me to apply to be a marker in the fall (too late now). I also randomly ran into the former dept head who I've had many dealings with when I was previously at the university and after as a teacher at conferences. He is retired from teaching but still works at the university running a math education website. He gave me his card because he wants me to come visit him. He wants to talk about my academic future and get my feedback on the website. He was one my favourite profs, second only to Jimmy P (but who can ever complete with a soulful tenor?**) He is so awesome, he has a great bushy beard and wears cable-knit sweaters.

I Am So Old (But I Don't Look It)
Nobody has called me a Narc yet, so that is a plus. Even though I am probably the oldest person (besides the prof) in the class, I don't look it. Some of my classmates look 12 but some look older (poor premature balding boys). It helps that I am mostly taking 3rd year classes.

The university had to reissue my student card since my purse was stolen after the last time I took a class. The girl gave me the option of using my old picture since I "look the same" (her words). I could not believe they would let me use an ID picture from 1996 of an 18 year old Janny. Almost 30 year old Janny approves and will take that as a compliment.

The math dept head looks exactly the same as he did ten years ago. I think he is in his late 40s (judging from how long he has had his PhD). I'm pretty sure he has the same clothes too (or he buys his clothes in bulk). His Dr Martens circa 1994 would be the dead give away.

More stories for another time.....

*gastro-oesophageal sphincter if you want to get technical
**An April Fool's Edition of the U of R newspaper ran an "article" about a boy band comprising of beloved faculty. The nickname, Jimmy P, stuck. Jimmy P, kicking it to you history style.

Wisecracking Applications

I was converting some avi files to mpeg-4 when iSquint kept on switching how long it was going to take. First it would say 7 minutes then less than a minute then back to 7 minutes again. Finally it said:


When you go into advanced settings it announces "What? You think you're better than me?"