Into the Minds of Bored Female Physics Students

My friend Alana and I were texting during our math class today. We are the only non-engineering students in and the class and the only ones who don't need everything explained 3 times to understand. This is our story:

jannymaire: Your shoe lace is untied
alana: Your face is untied
jannymarie: Your mom is untied
alana: Your mom's face is untied
jannymarie: Good one. Now i'm the fool laughing to herself in class
alana: Aw but I had more

alana: Teddington Penish*
jannymarie: Your mom dated Teddington Penish in high school.
alana: Who told you? :(
jannymarie: Teddington and I are total bff

Problem was written on the board:

Captain Ralph is in the trouble near the sunnyside of Mercury. The temperature of the ship's hull at (x,y,z) is given by

where x, y and z are measured in metres. He is currently at (1,1,1). In what direction should he proceed in order to decrease the temperature rapidly?

alana: He's in the trouble!
jannymarie: Cpt Ralph is your secret lover
alana: Can you blame me? He can go to mercury!
jannymarie: But it must be worrying when he gets in the trouble
alana: Well its a good thing he knows calc and magically has formula for such things
jannymarie: Sigh. He is so smart and so brave
alana: Someone has has a cruuuuush


*In a lab a couple months ago we determined Teddington Penish to be the worst Scottish name ever. Alana, Blond Derek and I randomly text each other Teddington Penish to make each other laugh at inappropriate times. Today Alana knew how giggly I was all class so she was really trying to set me over the edge.