Day

Just a list of things. Because I feel like it.

Ran--a lot more than I usually do. I'm thinking it was probably 4 miles. Trying again tomorrow.

Vegan cream cheese--its' pretty good, actually. My mom even likes it!

Wheat-free bagels--alright, could be better. I'll tweak the recipe next week or this weekend.

Orchestra concert--eh, it was okay.

Villani's class--not as exciting lately, oh well.

Calc--Parametric and polar equations. Ohmygosh, Epicycles are ridiculously awesome. And taking integrals with polars is...interesting. I'm writing a log about cycloids. I find them pretty awesome.

CHSAA-- I need to be practicing more before then!

Oh, gosh. I want to sleep. Being out in the sun for so long today really made me tired. But it felt so good :)

Finally

Today I felt like I did something, something small but perhaps important.

There's a kid in the math II class, his name (I think, not sure) is Dimitri. Mostly he just doesn't get it. He raised his hand and asked for help, but he couldn't even ask me what it was that he wanted help with. Miss Villani talked to him and asked him if he wouldn't mind working with me one-on-one, so for the rest of the period I sat with him

We didn't do the problem the rest of the class was doing, but we backed up and talked about finding X- and Y- intercepts and slopes of lines. I walked him through it, I tried not to just tell him all the answers. And I'm almost possitive he gets it now. He seemed so apathetic before--I wish I could show him why math is so exiting. I wish I could give him my passion for it, because if he loved it he would be more willing to work. He looked exhausted and he was so lethargic that I doubt he had gotten more than 6 hours of sleep. (Granted, I got about 4 last night, and I'm nearly always chipper until 5; but then, I'm Molly, and crazy) What frustrates me is that I could tell he knew what to do when he didn't think too hard about it, but then he became unsure of himself and reached for his calculator and just wanted to make the technology do everything for him. I watched him do the correct steps twice, and then the third time he just got stuck. So I asked him, "How would you want to get X by itself?" and he kept saying things that almost made sense (but really didn't.) So I finally asked him how he had done it before, and he looked back and said he had divided by three. I think it might have been the negative sign throwing him off. He knows what to do; he just doesn't know he knows.

The funny thing, was that even though it frustrated me, I really felt that that was the best part of my whole day. I want this kid to have hope. I don't want him to fail this class and have to retake it because he couldn't ask the right questions. I don't want him to think he's no good at math when the truth was that he was never shown that he is--or that it can be interesting.

I don't know how much I helped him, but I feel like I really could. I would love to do that.

Just talk

Never before this year have I found school so engaging; that is to say, I am finally, finally taking the classes that I'd like to be in. Those being: Calc II, which I enjoy far more than is normal (teehee), AP Lang, which is interesting and challenging, Choir, and Orchestra (2 of them!). Physics and L2k I could live without quite easily. Physics bores me on a regular basis, but at least I get a chance to draw and plot bunny. For L2k I've been exploring various topics in mathematics and teaching math; my most recent log was about the irrationality of pi. Before that I was writing about Taylor Series, which we actually started today in Calculus (I'm so excited!), and before that I was exploring teaching styles, which I will admit was kind of boring. I'd rather try to understand proofs and ideas that are way above my head (Calc III and advanced number theory, anyone?).

I'm having a blast in Calc. I wouldn't mind if the rest of the year was about infinite series, taylor series, indeterminate forms--and espescially conditionally convergent series! Mr. Dietel showed us Riemann's series theorem (that might be the wrong name...hmmm) today and I basically flipped. How can a convergent series be proved to equal half of the actual answer? I went and talked to Mr. Dietel after class (I was very late for AP Lang, but I don't much care) and he told me that the alternating harmonic series, when added together, converges on ln(2), like we had originally proved. The fact that you can make it add up to 2ln(2) or (1/2)ln(2) is very strange indeed. He reminded me of the graph which, when rotated around the x-axis, had finite volume (1?) but an infinite surface area. Oh, it boggles my mind. But I just love it.

There's enough of my rambling for one day, I think. This weekend was exhausting (CMEA, Sen Shin no Gyo) and I was up late last night trying to figure out that proof about pi's irrationality. So I'm going to bed.

Bread still not made; sister's birthday. Didn't get anything done. Tomorrow, I hope.

Gluten free bread

I found a recipe with some really great reviews and I'm going to try it.

I can't imagine that it's anywhere near as good as the bread I usually make, but we'll see. I have to figure something out.

I'll post results as soon as I know :)

I forgot about this one

But I really like it. It's probably my favorite poem of mine. I wrote it in early December, I think. Or November.

We create alternate realities;
We imagine scenarios,
We see ourselves as loving another in such a way
As friends or more or something else,
And somehow we make that real.
But the truth cares not for these,
Alternatives to life,
Plausible but impossible,
Perhaps once a future
Lost long ago to time and fate and the turning world.
But we create love in these places,
A present lost in the past.
And one sided though these are they are real;
They are real, and they are unbreakable,
And they have in them
The power to destroy.

And that,
That is what I feel for you.

Gluten intolerance

I think I have a slight gluten intolerance, it seems to be the only explanation for why seitan affects me the way it does. So that really sucks. I have a couple options though: eat it anyway (which is what I've been doing) and make everyone around me suffer with me (haha), avoid it, or see if probiotics might help.

At least it's not pronounced enough to make me stop eating bread. I dunno what I would do if I couldn't make and eat bread any more.

I think I'll see if I can find some probiotics.

TA

I'm technically not a Teacher's Assistant for Ms. Villani, but that's the closest thing to describe what I'm doing. Really, I'm trying to learn TO teach.

The math course is not one that I ever took; I've covered everything in it, but it's a very different method. But I think I'll be just fine, as long as I look in the book to see what the class is going to be learning so I know how to help. Mostly I just sit and do homework until a kid raises his/her hand and needs help and Villani is already doing something else. I'm hoping that later, if a kid in one of the Math II classes needs additional help, I'll be able to work with him/her one-on-one. I'm sure that, at some point, someone will need help, and although I don't want kids to fall behind, that's what I'd really rather do.

We'll see how it goes.