go_team

So yesterday, because I am insane, I got up at 6 AM to wake up theshytiger so we could drive 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 nedthealpaca and 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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

• 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.

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 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.

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.

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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 poppydos.

...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.

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 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?)