EPIC
An update
First up: School. I've been accepted into the new Math Education doctoral program in the Division of Science and Math Education. I have been assigned a temporary advisor, who I will be meeting in two weeks to start sorting out the path to a permanent advisor/committee chair and a guidance committee. The guidance committee will need to be composed of math and math ed folks, since I'm immediately going to start talking to them about the possibilities of a dual degree program in Applied Math and Math Education. I have a lot of math already, certainly more than most of my Math Ed peers. Due to that, it seems natural that I might find a compromise between the two programs. I have chosen my current coursework with this idea in mind, and we'll see where it goes. We need to come up with a plan that my committee, both department chairs, both deans and the dean of the graduate school will approve. Hopefully, the approved plan will feature a list of coursework that can be done in less than six years. That is the list of courses I'm looking at currently. Lots of schoolwork. Three classes per semester, and the math classes are only going to get harder.
What I'm taking right now: undergraduate numerical analysis, graduate real analysis, and graduate professional seminar. The undergrad numerical class is easy in comparison to the classes I've had in the past couple years. I had my midterm in there on Monday, and I think I did quite stellar. I know about half of the class (Evan, Dave Friday, Abra Jeffers, Eboni Harper, etc...) and I don't study it much, since it is rather simple material at a slow pace. That class is fine, and just a precursor to the fun of graduate numerical analysis next year. Real analysis is a pain in the ass. For the first couple weeks, I felt secure because the first couple of weeks is pretty much a review of all of your undergrad analysis courses, in case you've forgotten something since you took the courses. I took analysis in the Spring of 2001, so it has been a while. We have been done with the review for a little while, and we're now venturing into new and mind-boggling territory. I am having increasing difficulty in connecting this material to my previous experiences and find my mind wandering to other approaches to teaching the class besides reading the book to us. Thus far, time has prevented me from following up on any of my ideas. Professional Seminar is a lot of fun. We read a fair share of papers, do a rather in-depth analysis of each of those, and have some occasional input from the authors. The class is a broad overview of the field of math education, which doesn't help me a lot, since I've already had part II of the course. It is still a good bit of fun, and Joan Ferrini-Mundy is one of the professors directing the course, a faculty member I will probably ask to sit on my guidance and thesis committees. Coursework keeps me busy. I never have a solid grip on my analysis, which is rather frustrating.
While I'm near the topic: Work. I'm teaching two classes for MSU. I'm not teaching at all for LCC. My seniority with LCC was too low to get me any classes that would fit into my course schedule. At MSU, I'm teaching MTH 201, the number/algebra class for future elementary teachers. It isn't a teaching methods course, but it is a content course. I exist to help these people get a stronger understanding of the mathmatics they'll be teaching someday. We have had long conversations about what each of the operations mean, why the algorithms work and ways to explain them, the anatomy of a word problem, etc. I have a solid group of students. Some of them have friended me on Facebook. Some talk to me a bit after class. I like them, though I am hard on them. I don't want to be one of those people contributing to the problem of letting problem teachers slip through the cracks. If they make it past me and can't do the work, it's not because I wasn't looking at them HARD trying to see if they slip up. I think they understand why I am as hard on them as I am, because I try to turn a lot of their questions around on them, putting them into the teacher shoes.
While I'm teaching these two classes, money is still a bit tight. My desktop is dead. My laptop likes to die at random. Housing over the summer cost more than expected, and my summer job paid well but not enough. I'm still trying to get money together to pay my bills, my rent, and get a new computer and maybe go to NASCO. The new computer is a concern (since this one randomly shuts down), but since I have little time to actually play with it, I am not concerned about getting a bitchin system right away. I'm saving up for a powerful little computer so I can play some games on it over the summer. Mmmm... But for right now, I don't even have the money to finish decorating my apartment.
Speaking of which: My home. I'm living in a studio apartment a block from campus. Rent is $550 including most stuff, and I get to park there. I'm not home very much, and when I do I'm either getting clean, going to the bathroom or sleeping. My lamps have not been put up, my posters are still in the kitchen, I have groceries that have yet to be put away (non-perishables!). My place is a bit of a mess, but it's my crash pad. I kind of figured that I'd be spending less time there this year, since I'd be in class/work more often, and since staying with Em would actually be an option. So that's home. Not there much.
Next up: Recreation. What recreation? I read a book a couple weeks ago: The Battle of Corrin. It's a Dune book I didn't get my hands on a while ago. I've been listening to music (old school Metallica, Tool, The Faint, etc.)... I watch some movies in bed with Em (read: I watch them, she sleeps). I do some Sudoku, but not as much as last year. I have been plotting my Halloween costume (J.J. Masterson, and not Severus Snape) without party plans. My birthday party was totally low-key. I went to Mongolian BBQ with JR, Em and Adrien. Cass came along too. Looooow key. Warcraft has hit the back burner, and my guild has about died as a result. I plan to suspend my account and pick it up next summer, if I don't allow myself to get sucked into City of Villians instead. For the most part, recreation (besides sleep) is lacking.
Recreation usually goes hand-in-hand with being social. However, my social life is all but dead. I haven't seen most people since early summer. I have been exceptionally shitty at answering my phone and responding to voice mails. To some extent, it reminds me of when I was fighting with Abby in the fall of 2001. I see Dave Friday due to class and bowling. I see Em every day because we sleep in the same place most nights. However, my other ties have been getting strained. I haven't talked to some of my old co-op buddies in nearly a year, Tom has been calling me since early summer, my math friends have drifted away from me a bit, and my math ed friends are starting to get further into their programs and have other life events happening. I'm still hanging out, my 10th year in this college town, with a slowly changing social life. I drink infrequently, don't go to many co-op events besides Board stuff. As you might have noticed, I haven't been keeping up-to-date on livejournal at all. Boo.
As I've mentioned, Em is the only person I really see on a frequent basis. Even Dave Friday misses some classes here and there. Our relationship is going amazingly well. So well, really, that I can't even compare it to previous relationships. I love her (!), and we get along splendidly. We've been talking about what's happening in the next year: with me continuing my doctoral program(s) and her moving on to work on a JD and a MSW. She has contributed to my body modding habits, by getting me a gift certificate to Splash which I used on two ear piercings. I plan to use the rest of the certificate on a tattoo of Optimus Prime's head on my right side, just south of my rib cage. The imagery for that will be a modified version of that found in the comic books from the early 1980s. I purchased some of the comics from the story-line I have in mind... they should be here soon. ha HA!
At any rate, things with Em are great. We have such great conversations about EVERYTHING, and she helps me understand a lot of stuff about activism. We both get to rant a little bit about how we're glad that our significant other is a smarty. She doesn't agree with me... but she never does. :) Maybe I just have to keep on telling her.
So that's everything. Sorry I don't post more, but things are kinda nuts. Sorry I don't use my phone. Blah blah blah. E-mail is the way to be. :)
First up: School. I've been accepted into the new Math Education doctoral program in the Division of Science and Math Education. I have been assigned a temporary advisor, who I will be meeting in two weeks to start sorting out the path to a permanent advisor/committee chair and a guidance committee. The guidance committee will need to be composed of math and math ed folks, since I'm immediately going to start talking to them about the possibilities of a dual degree program in Applied Math and Math Education. I have a lot of math already, certainly more than most of my Math Ed peers. Due to that, it seems natural that I might find a compromise between the two programs. I have chosen my current coursework with this idea in mind, and we'll see where it goes. We need to come up with a plan that my committee, both department chairs, both deans and the dean of the graduate school will approve. Hopefully, the approved plan will feature a list of coursework that can be done in less than six years. That is the list of courses I'm looking at currently. Lots of schoolwork. Three classes per semester, and the math classes are only going to get harder.
What I'm taking right now: undergraduate numerical analysis, graduate real analysis, and graduate professional seminar. The undergrad numerical class is easy in comparison to the classes I've had in the past couple years. I had my midterm in there on Monday, and I think I did quite stellar. I know about half of the class (Evan, Dave Friday, Abra Jeffers, Eboni Harper, etc...) and I don't study it much, since it is rather simple material at a slow pace. That class is fine, and just a precursor to the fun of graduate numerical analysis next year. Real analysis is a pain in the ass. For the first couple weeks, I felt secure because the first couple of weeks is pretty much a review of all of your undergrad analysis courses, in case you've forgotten something since you took the courses. I took analysis in the Spring of 2001, so it has been a while. We have been done with the review for a little while, and we're now venturing into new and mind-boggling territory. I am having increasing difficulty in connecting this material to my previous experiences and find my mind wandering to other approaches to teaching the class besides reading the book to us. Thus far, time has prevented me from following up on any of my ideas. Professional Seminar is a lot of fun. We read a fair share of papers, do a rather in-depth analysis of each of those, and have some occasional input from the authors. The class is a broad overview of the field of math education, which doesn't help me a lot, since I've already had part II of the course. It is still a good bit of fun, and Joan Ferrini-Mundy is one of the professors directing the course, a faculty member I will probably ask to sit on my guidance and thesis committees. Coursework keeps me busy. I never have a solid grip on my analysis, which is rather frustrating.
While I'm near the topic: Work. I'm teaching two classes for MSU. I'm not teaching at all for LCC. My seniority with LCC was too low to get me any classes that would fit into my course schedule. At MSU, I'm teaching MTH 201, the number/algebra class for future elementary teachers. It isn't a teaching methods course, but it is a content course. I exist to help these people get a stronger understanding of the mathmatics they'll be teaching someday. We have had long conversations about what each of the operations mean, why the algorithms work and ways to explain them, the anatomy of a word problem, etc. I have a solid group of students. Some of them have friended me on Facebook. Some talk to me a bit after class. I like them, though I am hard on them. I don't want to be one of those people contributing to the problem of letting problem teachers slip through the cracks. If they make it past me and can't do the work, it's not because I wasn't looking at them HARD trying to see if they slip up. I think they understand why I am as hard on them as I am, because I try to turn a lot of their questions around on them, putting them into the teacher shoes.
While I'm teaching these two classes, money is still a bit tight. My desktop is dead. My laptop likes to die at random. Housing over the summer cost more than expected, and my summer job paid well but not enough. I'm still trying to get money together to pay my bills, my rent, and get a new computer and maybe go to NASCO. The new computer is a concern (since this one randomly shuts down), but since I have little time to actually play with it, I am not concerned about getting a bitchin system right away. I'm saving up for a powerful little computer so I can play some games on it over the summer. Mmmm... But for right now, I don't even have the money to finish decorating my apartment.
Speaking of which: My home. I'm living in a studio apartment a block from campus. Rent is $550 including most stuff, and I get to park there. I'm not home very much, and when I do I'm either getting clean, going to the bathroom or sleeping. My lamps have not been put up, my posters are still in the kitchen, I have groceries that have yet to be put away (non-perishables!). My place is a bit of a mess, but it's my crash pad. I kind of figured that I'd be spending less time there this year, since I'd be in class/work more often, and since staying with Em would actually be an option. So that's home. Not there much.
Next up: Recreation. What recreation? I read a book a couple weeks ago: The Battle of Corrin. It's a Dune book I didn't get my hands on a while ago. I've been listening to music (old school Metallica, Tool, The Faint, etc.)... I watch some movies in bed with Em (read: I watch them, she sleeps). I do some Sudoku, but not as much as last year. I have been plotting my Halloween costume (J.J. Masterson, and not Severus Snape) without party plans. My birthday party was totally low-key. I went to Mongolian BBQ with JR, Em and Adrien. Cass came along too. Looooow key. Warcraft has hit the back burner, and my guild has about died as a result. I plan to suspend my account and pick it up next summer, if I don't allow myself to get sucked into City of Villians instead. For the most part, recreation (besides sleep) is lacking.
Recreation usually goes hand-in-hand with being social. However, my social life is all but dead. I haven't seen most people since early summer. I have been exceptionally shitty at answering my phone and responding to voice mails. To some extent, it reminds me of when I was fighting with Abby in the fall of 2001. I see Dave Friday due to class and bowling. I see Em every day because we sleep in the same place most nights. However, my other ties have been getting strained. I haven't talked to some of my old co-op buddies in nearly a year, Tom has been calling me since early summer, my math friends have drifted away from me a bit, and my math ed friends are starting to get further into their programs and have other life events happening. I'm still hanging out, my 10th year in this college town, with a slowly changing social life. I drink infrequently, don't go to many co-op events besides Board stuff. As you might have noticed, I haven't been keeping up-to-date on livejournal at all. Boo.
As I've mentioned, Em is the only person I really see on a frequent basis. Even Dave Friday misses some classes here and there. Our relationship is going amazingly well. So well, really, that I can't even compare it to previous relationships. I love her (!), and we get along splendidly. We've been talking about what's happening in the next year: with me continuing my doctoral program(s) and her moving on to work on a JD and a MSW. She has contributed to my body modding habits, by getting me a gift certificate to Splash which I used on two ear piercings. I plan to use the rest of the certificate on a tattoo of Optimus Prime's head on my right side, just south of my rib cage. The imagery for that will be a modified version of that found in the comic books from the early 1980s. I purchased some of the comics from the story-line I have in mind... they should be here soon. ha HA!
At any rate, things with Em are great. We have such great conversations about EVERYTHING, and she helps me understand a lot of stuff about activism. We both get to rant a little bit about how we're glad that our significant other is a smarty. She doesn't agree with me... but she never does. :) Maybe I just have to keep on telling her.
So that's everything. Sorry I don't post more, but things are kinda nuts. Sorry I don't use my phone. Blah blah blah. E-mail is the way to be. :)