Uncooperative Crickets

Fireworks

I'll try to post more frequently. I have heard from more than one of you about my lack of postings, and I am listening. I've just been really busy, what with the Fourth of July and summer school starting today.

First, I'd like to welcome iamacamera to our little portion of the weblsphere. He hasn't traditionally posted much on his previous weblogs, but I am hoping to encourage him by linking to him on the right. I had the pleasure of speaking on the phone to him tonight, and I am looking forward to his posts.

I finally sold my condo in Madison. I got a phat check in the mail on Monday, and I decided to splurge and treat myself to the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album. I think that I will use the rest of the money to pay down the second mortgage on my current condo, with the hopes of paying off the second mortgage before the 2007-2008 school year starts.

World Cup Soccer is fantastic. I'm not thrilled with the final four teams, since I am not particularly attached to any of them. Of course, I am not particularly attached to any of the World Cup teams, so maybe that was a stupid thing to say. I'm not going to say who I want to win in the final, since iamacamera doesn't know who is in the finals yet.

Skye and I went to a friend's parents' home in New Hampshire yesterday for the Fourth. There was swimming and World Cup action. When we returned to Boston, we went to the esplanade by the Charles River to view the fireworks. The music was provided by the Boston Pops, with help from Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. The host of the event was Dr. Phil. Coming from smaller cities, I am not used to that kind of star power. Fireworks don't typically thrill me, and these weren't that much of an exception (although they were the best fireworks I have seen). Mainly, the fireworks were not worth the cost of dealing with the ridiculous crowd for me. So we left early, although it was a mutual decision.

We also went to the ocean on Saturday for a day at the beach. It was good, although my hackeysack broke.

Let's talk about work stuff briefly: I moved offices today. I now have my own office, as opposed to sharing the office with the lovely AVC. This has its benefits, but the office is smaller. I like the size of the office, since I meet with a lot of students, and many of them come to see me at the same time.

What I don't like is that AVC and I were replaced by one person. AVC and I are a certain class of professors that specialize in teaching (although we also do research), whereas the person moving into our office is a certain class of professor that specializes in research (although he also teaches). He started the same year that I did. This is another tiny example of how teaching is not particularly valued at colleges: two teaching professors are apparently worth one research professor. The worst thing is that this was not a practical decision: we were certain to make better use of the space than he is going to. This frustrates me just a little.

On the bright side, summer school is reminding me of how great teaching can be. I have the flexibility in summer school to ask my students open-ended questions where they actually have to think. This is much more fun for me, it is more challenging for me, and I learn more from this. Some people could argue that the students learn less under this format, but that is only because they are taking a not-very-well thought out definition of "learn." The students are going to learn a ton of theorems, but they were gain a deeper understanding of the material, and they will learn how to think mathematically on their own much better than in a traditional classroom. I am certain of this, although I do not currently have data to back me up. I hope to do this full time some day.

I had my first text message experience on the 3rd.

I have a paper that needs to be submitted tomorrow, so I should probably start looking at the data.

"Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is."

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 12:11 AM