The Life of a Mathematician

Wednesday is now my big tutoring day. I have a student from 16:45 to 17:45, then three students in a row from 19:00 to 22:00. I ought to be tutoring the second student right now, but he hasn't shown up. He was notified of the time on Monday, but maybe he's one of those people who doesn't check email regularly. It's kind of a pain, because I'm meeting the 21:00 student downstairs in the same building. I don't want to just hang out here for an hour, but if I go anywhere else I have to come back. And I don't have any math books with me, because I was expecting to spend the whole time tutoring.

Random fact: You only need basic math skills to be a pet groomer. This is according to a poster here in the math lab, which shows what level of math is necessary for various careers. It also says that to be a computer programmer, you need "three to four years -- more math in college". But I'm not sure if I'd trust what the person who made this poster says about computer programming. The cartoon illustration shows a woman writing some kind of Star Wars game with a Tie-Fighter in it, but the screen is just covered in ones and zeroes. That's more low-level than machine language. I'm not sure if anyone has ever programmed like that. Also, her hands are on the main part of the keyboard, not the numerical keypad. In fact, looking closely, it doesn't have a numerical keypad. And it's only got three rows of keys, so it doesn't even have a top row with numbers. So how is she typing all those ones and zeroes? Her computer doesn't have a mouse, either. I guess it doesn't need one.