go_team: (iggywithspiffy)

I just renewed my LiveJournal paid account. [livejournal.com profile] msmithma, this is all your fault! (And [livejournal.com profile] cubetime, you too, I think?) Okay, so Peter helped talk me into it too, mostly by guilting me about which of my userpics I'd have to give in and delete... I just can't do it! Ack! Also, I like wasting everybody's time with polls.

Right. I'm babbling because I don't want to go do laundry for my trip East, but I'm going to go do that now, really I am. Also I will have lunch. And I'm super-responsible in general, having left behind a lesson plan for the three days I'm not going to be meeting with my pre-algebra student as a result of this trip (even though the Learning Center's being really vague about whether they're going to find a substitute for me for those days or what) and gotten a bus ticket for getting to Portland ass-early tomorrow morning. Whee.... I mean, bleaugh. Ok, time to work on clean clothes now, and stop trying to figure out if it's possible to get to the 9 PM Amtrak Cascades if my plane gets into PDX at 8 PM....

go_team: (iggywithspiffy)

So yesterday, because I am insane, I got up at 6 AM to wake up [livejournal.com profile] theshytiger so we could drive [livejournal.com profile] pants_of_doom to the Portland airport, then drove back home, got changed, and rode my bike to work for about 9 hours. In my professional opinion, the nooner shift (from anywhere between 11 AM and 12 PM until far too late) can suck it. The 2 PM till far too late is okay, though, which is weird, but whatever. It probably would've been less sucky if I hadn't been so damn tired, but still. Being tired makes me a danger to myself and others, but mostly myself. If you don't want to read about my various and sundry work-related injuries and in particular if you hate reading about blood, skip this section. )

By the time I got home, mere moments after [livejournal.com profile] nedthealpaca and [livejournal.com profile] stereotype441 arrived to crash on our floor en route to the Humboldt Juggling Festival, which is this weekend, I was only barely human. So I washed my filthy exhausted body and went to bed.

Today I am resting and being nice to myself and pondering the chocolate cheesecake recipe in The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two, which Penny insisted I buy when we were at Smith Family earlier in the week (I also got The Vegetarian Epicure and The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley). I'll probably do laundry at some point, since my sock and underwear drawers are both pretty empty, BUT most importantly of all, I'm going to fill out an application to cook for Sundance Natural Foods! I'm so excited! )

But first I think I will have some lunch.

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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 15:03:01 -0700
From: Independent Study/Onlinecourse <indstudy@byu.edu>
To: A.T. van Cort <email address excised>
Subject: RE: question for Mary Greer

Tracy,
You found an error in my answer key and I appreciate you pointing this
out. the correct answer: D, should read: Both A and C are possible, even
though one or both are not realistic". This was a typo and I wonder why
it hasn't been found earlier. Thanks so much Mary Greer

I win! Unfortunately the student affected by this isn't coming to tutoring today, but still, woohoo! The evil problem of suckitude is explained! Hurray!

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Okay, so one of my students is a high school sophomore taking algebra and geometry in one year to catch up with her class. We're about halfway through the algebra course and she's got a quiz due tomorrow that she's going to submit online. One of the questions, though, has us both stumped --- mostly because it's so poorly worded. So here's the question, and a poll so you can tell me what you think the answer is/should be. I thought about adding a fifth possible answer, 'This is a really stupidly vague question, and all of these answers might be right since the wording of the problem is so bad', but I decided to give you guys the option of choosing multiple possible correct answers instead. )

I just emailed the independent study people to say "What the fuck?" and ask if answer D is a typo and it's meant to say "Both A and C are possible..." although that's not very satisfying, either.

Argle-bargle. She's hoping to submit this quiz tomorrow. Hopefully I hear back from somebody in independent-study land before then. Sigh.

Teehee.

Oct. 15th, 2003 09:57 am
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[livejournal.com profile] leech, apparently you're not the only one whose Friends list is obsessed with breakfast. Apparently everyone's an expert where oatmeal is concerned =).

In other news, I need to start getting up earlier so I can have more than one cup of tea before leaving the house to go tutoring. Especially when my throat is all icky and sore and needs the hot liquid desperately. Sigh. And rain can suck it. Have I mentioned how much I need fenders for my bike? Someday my jeans will dry... I hope.

go_team: (triumph)

Presenting my new National Novel Writing Month LJ icon! Any time you see this lady (from last year's "the red-panted novelist triumphant" t-shirts) on one of my entries, it means that entry contains blathering about NaNoWriMo, so you can skip it or skim it if you're not interested. Also, I'll be hiding entries that get too long behind cut tags for your convenience. )

I like how the "I signed up for NaNoWriMo. [livejournal.com profile] goteam made me do it!" meme keeps turning up on my Friends page. It's funny. Hopefully I will be able to use my recruitment powers for good... )

In other news (because it's hard for me to limit my posts to just NaNoWriMo stuff), I really need fenders for my bike. They might not've helped much today when it was actually raining (really lightly, more like heavy mist, though it felt like more when I was moving quickly), but I'm sure they could've saved me from the wet streets. I sure was glad to get back from tutoring (both my noon student and my 1:30 student cancelled, but at least the latter had the good grace to meet me and say "hey, I don't really have anything new to work on today", and the former hasn't met me yet, so I'm pretty sure it's not personal) and grocery shopping (I got scary toxic chemicals with which I plan to attack the bathroom and maybe kitchen, and so much ramen, though of course not enough --- it's hard to ever have enough ramen). Since getting home, I have put on dry clothes and a comfy sweater, and ingested a nice big mug of hot chocolate, and life is much better. Now it's time to think about making dinner maybe. And maybe more cleaning, or maybe some writing... mwa ha ha! You see? It is all about NaNoWriMo after all! That picture is there to warn you! Fools!

Uh, yeah. You get the idea.

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This afternoon I came home from tutoring to read Peter two chapters of Howl's Moving Castle. Eventually we got out and visited the GTFF union office, where we filled out some paperwork that makes me eligible for health insurance as his domestic partner. Rock! Then Peter went off to his office on campus, and I stopped by an ATM for some cash and hit Mother Kali's Books for their CD sale. There I got Independence Meal by Alix Olson, The Righteous Ones by Toshi Reagon, and End of the Summer by Dar Williams, which makes my CD collection much more complete (really, it's amazing I didn't already have those, especially the Dar). Yay! Outside Mother Kali's, a friendly butch lady perusing the super-sale rack told me they were giving out free ice cream cones at Dairy Queen, so that was my next stop (it's a promotional dealy celebrating the 100th anniversary of ice cream). Then I stopped by the Glenwood to pick up my tips, and so now I have small bills with which to do laundry. Then I wandered around and thought about getting a haircut, but decided it was a little risky to do so while wearing my Weird Al "Bad Hair Day" t-shirt (tempting fate and whatnot). So I stopped by Mother Kali's again and signed up to volunteer during textbook rush next week, because if they're really going out of business that could be my last chance to hang out and help out there. Then I rode my bike home, enjoying the beautiful weather all the way. All told, a most satisfying afternoon. Tutoring this morning went okay, too. I still need a haircut and we still need groceries, but I'll be getting on that aforementioned laundry in just a bit, and overall life is good.


Update, 18:45: Okay, so I know this isn't one big paragraph anymore, but I wanted to note that I've been updating the above paragraph like every 15 minutes or something ridiculous like that, and I have no idea why.

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So help me, I cannot remember figuring out the concept of mathematical inverses (multiplicative and additive), let alone when they were first introduced to me. I guess at the time I didn't even think it was cool, probably because it was only explained to me in terms of how to solve simple algebra problems, and not in terms of "ok, so this is one of those basic recurring concepts that'll keep turning up to interconnect all the math you know". Which is a shame. I'm trying to explain to my pre-algebra student about addition and subtraction are kind of the same, only opposite, and multiplication and division are the same, only opposite, and I don't know if I'm getting through at all. I'm trying to put it in terms of turning math problems inside out so they look prettier and easier to solve, but I don't know if that's the right thing to do. Part of the problem, I think, is that he's still struggling with complicated multiplication and division. Part of me wants to stop and work on those, but mostly I want to give him a calculator for the arithmetic and work on the concepts, since they're ever so much cooler. What I remember most about pre-algebra is Mr. Gelfand, who taught it: I swear, the man had a different suit for every day of the month, but he seemed particularly fond of a burgundy-red number that he wore with a yellow shirt. Also he apparently had a really bad toupee, but I never noticed. I'm kind of unobservant about that kind of thing; hairpieces have to be really, blatantly fake (like a different color from the rest of the person's hair), or else on someone I know to be bald, for me to pick up on them. But I digress. I digress so much, in fact, that I just took time out to write one of the few people I knew in middle school who might remember Mr. Gelfand and/or even be able to tell me when we learned inverses. I'm dork-tacular.

In other news, I still need a haircut, and Mother Kali's Books is probably going out of business, which means it's time for me to buy a copy of all the Alix Olson CDs they have in stock, because ack! Nowhere else has them in stock! I might complete my Dar Williams collection and finally get me some Toshi Reagon, while I'm at it. Did I mention waaaah? I knew Mother Kali's hadn't been doing well for some time, and that they'd gone through a horrific traumatic reorganization last fall, but wah!

Um, what else? Contact improv tonight (yay hippie dance!) and I should probably go get myself some binders and stuff to better organize my tutoring course materials and suchforth (plus, any excuse to go play in office-supplies land! Woo!) Maybe a trip to the library as well. Also food. Yes. Food would be good.

Whoa!

Jun. 10th, 2003 11:13 pm
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Ok, so one of my goals for today was to harass the Glenwood for more hours, but I ended up putting that off since I wasn't technically done tutoring yet. Tonight I was finishing up my laundry goal and the phone rang. It's my boss at the Glenwood, asking if I can come in Thursday and Friday mornings. Hell yeah I can! It's going to be bitch-ass early, but I'm gonna do it! Woo more hours!

Now I'm going to bed, since I'm meeting my student stupid early tomorrow (where "stupid early" is defined as 9 AM, which is not too early to cook but may be too early for number theory... I just hope I'm not completely useless).

I'm currently finishing my third pot of tea for the day. I don't think it will keep me up all night, seeing as right now I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I haven't made any progress in the packing to move department, but hey. We've got two weeks to move in, and as long as we get the big unwieldy furniture and heavy books done this weekend, the rest is relatively easy, with of course the big fat attention-demanding meowy exception that is Iggy Pop. Oh, life is nothing if not interesting. I'm tired, but I'm still feeling pretty good about that.

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  • Laundry

  • Clean cat box

  • Tutor my last student of the term at 1 PM (number theory, and find out how her analysis final went) This is about half-done, since it turns out her final got rescheduled, so we're meeting again tomorrow.

  • Maybe stop by the Glenwood and celebrate that I'm done tutoring for a bit and drop hints that I'd like more hours now that I've got all the free time Um, cancel that until I'm ACTUALLY done with my student, ok?

  • Clean the table in the living room, which is kind of out of control

  • Start packing to move (we get the keys to the new place on Friday or Saturday, but since I'm working on Saturday and can't be helpful then I'd better be useful before that)

  • Updated to add: Make hummus. Done! And deliciously so, I might add.

  • Updated to add: Pay for health insurance for the month of June (oops; I just found the bill in the living room table mess)

And now, a story about the last time Peter and I moved: <lj-cut> for everyone's convenience )

Okay, enough digressions. Time to do some laundry, I guess.

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...is a very, very good breakfast. It's also incredibly hippy and D-I-Y, but really, that's what makes it so good for me. I can't believe I went for so long thinking applesauce involved some kind of long, complicated process. But no! Apples, water, rice cooker, potato masher... and like an hour later I'm all set! Woo! Anyway, I got up this morning and tried to work on the rental application for the place we looked at on Wednesday, but I got all freaky-stressed out about it (that'll teach me to try to be productive before breakfast). I'm feeling much better (although still a little nervous) now that I've showered and had my tasty, tasty breakfast treat. Mmmm. All I need now is a pot of tea and I'll be ready to give the paperwork another shot.

In other news, I got paid yesterday! Woo! This tutoring thing is, like, a real job! Woo! My second student (the one I accidentally ditched on Tuesday) was totally cool about the fact that I stood her up, but I apologized about a million times anyway. And conic sections are my bitch. So if/when I get sick of working on the rental application or my renter's resume or the cover letter (we really like this place we're applying for, so we're going kind of buck wild trying to impress the landlord and lady) I might switch to working on business cards and/or posters advertising my tutoring services. Anything to distract me from stressing about my first day at the Glenwood tomorrow. I'm so nervous... ack! Must stop thinking about it! I know, I'll go make some tea...

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The title of this entry comes from an actual wine review published in today's New York Times. It made me giggle, especially when contrasted with the rest of the article, which was much more highbrow: "Reds Easy to Drink, Easy on the Budget" (I think you need a login to view it.)

In other news (longer discussion hidden behind <lj-cut> tags for your convenience), it turns out hormone replacement therapy increases risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. )

And finally, my generation apparently trusts the military a whole lot more than the baby boomers do/did. )

In news of my life, it sounds like I'm not in big trouble for missing my student yesterday. Another tutor filled in for me for a bit, then decided I wasn't coming and sent my student home. Unfortunately things are total chaos at the Learning Center right now, so they couldn't find my student's phone number, so I'm going to have to just apologize and reschedule tomorrow. So much randomness!

Today I think I'll go take a closer look at one of the potential rentals I played phone tag about yesterday. Also I will strive to return my much-overdue library book, pay my fines, and pick up the books they've got on hold for me: Kevin Crossley-Holland's book on the Norse myths (recommended by Neil Gaiman's bibliography to American Gods), and [livejournal.com profile] springbok1's sister's novel Fires of the Faithful. They had bell hooks' Feminist theory: from margin to center ready too, but I guess the hold expired because I didn't pick it up on time because I suck like that. Sigh.

Finally, I started writing this entry at 11:19 am but got distracted and did some dishes in the middle of writing it. I wish there was a "started writing" and "submitted" time stamp for entries. That'd be kinda neat.

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Or at least, I totally rock the house at playing with matrices, which is what my new student is doing in her high school pre-algebra class. Also, there was a beautiful, brief shining moment where I got to explain exactly what she was creating by computing the (multiplicative) inverse of a matrix, and how A-1(A) = I = A(A-1) is just like x-1(x) = 1 = x(x-1) where x-1 = 1/x, and both A-1 and x-1 are unique for A and x respectively. "Really?" she said, and damned if I didn't feel like the coolest thing since ice cream sandwiches, just for a second. Wooo!

Yep, I'm a dork. A big dork. But right now, I'm really proud of that fact.

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But I'm not alone, oh no. There's plenty of discussion on the InterWeb of, by, and for people similarly afflicted, and it's curing me of my obsession quickly enough, mostly because hot diggety people can't spell or punctuate worth a damn! Ack!

So far I've read through entirely too much of IMDB 's message boards on the movie (this was because I read in an AlterNet article that Cornel West has a part in Reloaded, which I had to verify, and sonofagun he does!) and wow. It makes me feel incredibly literate, really it does. Sigh. Anyway, I'm just about done rotting my brain on that, although I'll probably have to give in and download me the Animatrix episodes I've missed. And then maybe I'll be able to do some dishes and get to the library and generally approximate having a life. Maybe.

Edited to add: I'm still sorting out the plot of Reloaded at this point, since I think at times I got too distracted by the shiny to actually catch what the hell was going on. Of course, "what the hell happened?" blurs into "what the hell did that mean?" in my brain entirely too easily. Sigh. One thing is clear, though: Hugo Weaving rocks so HARD! Mitzi the Malevolent --- I mean, Agent Smith --- was one of my favorite things about the first movie, and in Matrix Reloaded he just looks like he's having all the fun! Yay actors looking like they're having a good time! Yay! Ok, done now.


In non-Matrix-related news, I might have another student soon --- this time, high-school pre-calc stuff. Whee!

And finally, a big LiveJournal welcome to [livejournal.com profile] poppydos.

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Note: I started this entry a little after 1 PM but couldn't submit it for some time because LJ was freaking out. So I kept adding to it. And now it's kind of long and boring but oh well. Anybody know why LJ kept giving me "database temporarily unavailable" messages all afternoon?

This morning my new student (the one taking number theory and prob/stat) cancelled; she decided she couldn't afford tutoring. Oh well. I had a good session with my other student, number theory this time, which sadly I don't remember as well as I'd like. My notes from Discrete Math are hilarious, though.

After tutoring, I stopped by the grocery store for the stuff I'd forgotten or missed in my fit of responsibility yesterday (how dare they run out of mushrooms when I'm there? how dare they?) and then I got home just in time to catch a phone call from Wes, who wants to go to Matrix Reloaded tonight. I'm down with that.

I had chips and salsa for lunch, which helped me get over my wooziness post-tutoring (I think because I'd been sitting in the hot hot sun while we worked?) and that was good. Then I made rice for nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice) for dinner tonight. Mmmmm, nasi.

I have an hour and a half until my interview with the owner of the Glenwood. Part of me wants to take a nap, but what I should really do is finish rereading Ain't I a Woman? Black women and feminism so I can return it to the library today. They're holding Feminist theory: from margin to center for me, which is all kinds of good. Yay bell hooks!

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...because I made almond biscotti and they're really good. Mmmm, biscotti. Once again, Moosewood Restaurant New Classics provides me with instructions for generating tasty goodness. Rock!

(I also made roasted red pepper hummus, but I already knew how to make that.)

Ok, should probably finish the pot of tea and sleep now. New student to meet, another student to teach, and a potential employer to impress tomorrow! Whee!

Updated to add: Ok, that "accomplished" mood icon is frrrreaky.

go_team: (earth)
I haven't done a bulleted list in awhile. )

Ok, I should probably go to bed now.

go_team: (iggywithspiffy)

So today I woke up to an exciting email discovery: I am now the proud recipient of a paid LiveJournal account, thanks to the generosity of [livejournal.com profile] msmithma! I'm still exploring all the bells and whistles, but already I'm excited to note that I have many, many user pictures, and uploading my old ones was enough to switch the pictures on the old entries that used them and had previously reverted to my default pic. Neat! Also I suspect there will be much shuffling of stylesheets in the weeks to come, although maybe not....

...because I have a job! Sort of. This morning I went in for my interview at the tutoring place I applied to work at a few weeks ago, and the lady I spoke to was really cool and friendly and basically said, "Well, from your resume I don't think you can be my successor as director of the tutoring program, but I liked your cover letter so much I wanted you to come in so I could talk to you and maybe ask you to be a tutor" and it was a big relief because I'd been trying to figure out how to say "Um, so, yeah, I'd be a good tutor but I don't know about that administrative stuff." Whee! So now I've got an application thingy to fill out, listing the classes I'd be interested in tutoring, includes subjects I'd like to learn more about as well as subjects I know well enough to tutor for sure. My list so far is math, obviously, and linguistics, but probably writing as well, and maybe basic biology/evolution/ecology since I keep surprising myself by both liking that stuff and being good at it to boot. Other suggestions are welcome (literature? feminist theory? reading? whee!)

A bit more about the job, although it won't really feel like a job until I'm actually teaching and getting paid for it.... )

So yay! Coming out of my interview this morning I felt a lot better about this job than I did coming out of the interview with the applied psychology people on Thursday, so it seems to me like it doesn't matter either way whether I get that job. Whee!

Oh, and since I promised Mart!n over IM a few minutes ago, let the record show that I promise to use my new LJ bells and whistles for the general entertainment of all, or something. That is, assuming I ever figure them all out. Whee! (Any suggestions?)

Whee!

May. 7th, 2003 01:27 pm
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Ok, so it's been a busy phone morning. I was talking to [livejournal.com profile] joyquality on IM and got interrupted no fewer than twice in the course of an hour, which is some kind of record, since usually we get that many calls maybe in a week. Maybe. One of the calls was for Peter about homework he's working on with some classmates, but the other was for me, and it was good news! The people from the tutoring job I applied to last week want to interview me! Whee!

So the deal is they're a private tutoring company that specializes in helping learning-disabled kids with their coursework so they can stay in public school instead of going to private school. They work with high school and college students, and the director of the high school student program is going off to a Ph.D. program in the fall, so they need someone to train to take her place, and that might be me. I'd be doing a little tutoring, a little scheduling, a little talking to parents and students to help them figure out what they need and what we can provide, and it sounds like a lot of responsibility but like it could also be very cool. And it's not like I don't have years of experience working with learning disabled students, what with being a full-fledged member of Team "get my severely dyslexic brother through middle and high school" for 5+ years.... and I actually kinda like tutoring. Standing in front of a class sucks my soul, but working one-on-one with students who actually want to learn (or are at least under parental pressure to get their money's worth out of a session) is cool with me.

So dude! Two job interviews in a week, for jobs that actually sound pretty cool, after months and months of nothing! About time, I say, and also yay!

Ok, now that I've gloated about this a bit I can go back to searching the classifieds for places to live (crossing out all the ones that say "no pets" sure does make life easier....) I should also return the key to the place we looked at yesterday, and tell the realtor "thanks but no thanks". And finally it's about time I wrote Personal Journaling a query letter about my bookmaking article. Whee!

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