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.

Today they put me on expediting with just one other person on the food line. And they started training Adam on the drivethrough register. Considering we were both inexperienced, it was pretty impressive that our average time was around 1:05. Cruchwraps are still the most fun things to make.

It's always hard to get this thing updated again after leaving. Um...family camp was good. My roommate's family (all 11 of them) went. There were a lot of people there this year, and not just because of that. We probably had between 50 and 100, at a guess. It was good to get away from the usual routine, and I always enjoy spending time with those guys. On Saturday night we played board games. I played The Farming Game for the first time -- it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I also brought Clue: The Great Museum Caper, which was a big hit.

Another thing that's been going on is tutoring. I now have a calc I student on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and starting this Wednesday I'll have a second student on those days, but I haven't found out what class he's in. I've also probably got a basic algebra student early on Wednesday evenings, and another potential calc I student for I'm not sure what time.

This week was Promotion Sunday, when they move all the kids into their new classes. I lost four or five and gained that many or more. This week I had nine students. I think I've only got two boys. Eric is really glad that Bradley moved up, since John, Torey and Jordan are all in Junior High now. The new curriculum is starting in Deuteronomy, and will continue through Joshua and Judges, finishing up with a series of lessons on the birth of Christ (which will happen around December). I tried something new this week: I had each of the kids take turns reading part of the passage. Some are better readers than others, but they were all coherent. It think I'll keep doing that; it engages them more. I also need to talk to the boys about not whispering when someone else is reading.

They tried to teach my how to take orders at Taco Bell today. I took one inside order and accidentally punched it up as a drivethrough order without noticing. That created a minute or two of panic when someone figured it out.

I'm going on a church camping trip this weekend. I might be online sometime later today, but after today I'll be gone until Monday or Tuesday.