You know its the end of Midterms week, when the mathematics computer lab has less than 10 people in it. There were less than 5 when I first came in, but slowly those studious individuals that don't believe a midterm entitles them to a night in front of the television surrounded by junk food have made their way here.
You may ask: "Why then, Kelly, are you not in front of the television surrounded by junk food?" You would be correct in assuming that I do not fall into the studious crowd that is more terrified of a low grade than death itself. I, however, did not have any midterms. So, I get to enjoy the wonderful peace of the mathematics computer lab, complete with two guys snickering over some sort of humor blog (which I find, surprisingly, amusing).
I look forward to coming to school tomorrow, for my ritual attempt at being productive on Friday, and having an even further deserted campus to myself. I do have quite a bit of work to get through, as I have some plans this weekend with friends. Oh yes, you caught that right, friends. I have them now.
Along with my attempt at productivity on Fridays, I've also attempted to spend more time on campus in general, whether it be productive or otherwise. I did this with the explicit purpose of being a known presence in the department. At APU, everyone knew everyone, you didn't have much choice within the department to be unknown. Here, we have quite a few more students to contend with, and all with varying schedules. So, I decided that camping out in the mathematics department atrium was the answer. The atrium is a nice, high ceiling room with tables that almost always have students gathered around them in tight circles discussing the mysteries of their respective courses. It was here that I came, usually by 10am every morning and sat with whatever I happened to bring to work on. In this way, students in my classes (most of them doctoral students teaching in the department) would pass by on their way here and there and typically stop and say hi once or twice during the day.
This was my ingenious plan, and it seems to have worked. I was included in a "math ed" e-mail invitation to a local happy hour on Wednesdays, of which only a few other master's students were included. And this week (after two lovely happy hour events) I was invited to a film festival of sorts that a group of students will be going to.
I consider this to mean that I have friends.
Having friends, however, does not mean I do not have to go to class. Granted, said friends are in said class.
Off to Analysis!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Stroganoff Anyone?
Tonight, I made mushroom stroganoff.
It all started in the grocery store earlier this evening. Alex and I were walking through the "hippie" section of Fred Meyer, when we passed the oh so familiar gluten free quinoa pasta. We had yet to give this pasta a try as we passed, and decided it was high time we remedied that situation.
But what would we make this this pasta? Alex claimed that we had a jar of pasta sauce waiting to be consumed in our cupboards, but having just cleaned out said cupboards last weekend I was fairly certain that he was mistaken. I thought tuna noodle casserole sounded delicious, but it would take an awfully long time to put together once we got home. Stroganoff appealed to our time constraints and our palettes. We did, however, get extra pasta for tuna noodle casserole later on this week.
Alex and I don't necessarily follow recipes, per say. Usually we find something as a guide if we are unsure of temperatures of preparation techniques, but if we know the ingredients we're dealing with, we wing it. We were going to find a packet to prepare our meal from, but when we could not find such a thing in the endless aisles of Fred Meyer, it was time to bring in some tech support for our dinner.
My mother has "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" as her ring back tone. I find this terribly catchy, but resisted the urge to sing in the soup aisle; I want to go back to that Fred Meyer, after all. With the enlisted help of my father, my mom poured through her many cookbooks to find all the recipes for stroganoff and tuna casserole that they had. In the "Campbell's" book, the easy stroganoff recipe called for ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, and salt and pepper to taste. Certainly Alex and I could come up with something better than that (my mom gave of some good ideas too).
1 hole onion chopped
A large pile of sliced button mushrooms
1 can of corn, drained and slightly rinsed
1 can cream of mushroom and garlic soup
at least a cup of sour cream
8oz. Quinoa pasta
Butter for sauteing
Salt to taste
Nature's Seasons to taste
Saute onions until soft, add salt and mushrooms and turn down heat and let soften. Meanwhile cook pasta. Add corn and Nature's Seasons, allow to simmer until pasta is cooked. Drain pasta, put it pack in its pot and pour mushroom mixture on top, add soup and sour cream, mix until soup and sour cream are well blended with the rest of the ingredients and serve.
The quinoa pasta was a serious cut above rice pasta in quality and taste.
Alex added a bit more sour cream to his, but licked his bowl clean (which he never does). He has had a terrible weekend with his external hard drive crashing yesterday, so I'm glad we managed something tasty for him. We cut up a pineapple that i had bought to eat for breakfasts with cottage cheese, and had a few pieces of that as our dessert.
Despite Alex's rough weekend, it was a nice evening. Granted, so was last night, as we were at his parents' house celebrating the birthdays. Alex and his sister were both born in October; their birthdays fall within a few days of one another. I can imagine as children they probably didn't appreciate the concept of a joint birthday, but they certainly do now. We had wonderful fish tacos and I drooled a little over their traditional german chocolate cake. Alex's mother had baked some apples for me to have with the ice cream, and I almost forgot the cake on the table they were so good. I, however, do not have such a strong will that I didn't have a small sliver of cake, too.
The weekend is over, and I am typing from bed, just about ready to get some sleep before the school week starts up again. Oh! I forgot that I also painted a door frame in our apartment today, but that story will have to wait for another time. Hopefully it will be a story that includes pictures, but I wouldn't hold your breath. It appears that promise is one I have a hard time keeping.
I must be tired, I've abandoned my cohesive storyline. Time for me to give the fingers a rest!
It all started in the grocery store earlier this evening. Alex and I were walking through the "hippie" section of Fred Meyer, when we passed the oh so familiar gluten free quinoa pasta. We had yet to give this pasta a try as we passed, and decided it was high time we remedied that situation.
But what would we make this this pasta? Alex claimed that we had a jar of pasta sauce waiting to be consumed in our cupboards, but having just cleaned out said cupboards last weekend I was fairly certain that he was mistaken. I thought tuna noodle casserole sounded delicious, but it would take an awfully long time to put together once we got home. Stroganoff appealed to our time constraints and our palettes. We did, however, get extra pasta for tuna noodle casserole later on this week.
Alex and I don't necessarily follow recipes, per say. Usually we find something as a guide if we are unsure of temperatures of preparation techniques, but if we know the ingredients we're dealing with, we wing it. We were going to find a packet to prepare our meal from, but when we could not find such a thing in the endless aisles of Fred Meyer, it was time to bring in some tech support for our dinner.
My mother has "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" as her ring back tone. I find this terribly catchy, but resisted the urge to sing in the soup aisle; I want to go back to that Fred Meyer, after all. With the enlisted help of my father, my mom poured through her many cookbooks to find all the recipes for stroganoff and tuna casserole that they had. In the "Campbell's" book, the easy stroganoff recipe called for ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, and salt and pepper to taste. Certainly Alex and I could come up with something better than that (my mom gave of some good ideas too).
1 hole onion chopped
A large pile of sliced button mushrooms
1 can of corn, drained and slightly rinsed
1 can cream of mushroom and garlic soup
at least a cup of sour cream
8oz. Quinoa pasta
Butter for sauteing
Salt to taste
Nature's Seasons to taste
Saute onions until soft, add salt and mushrooms and turn down heat and let soften. Meanwhile cook pasta. Add corn and Nature's Seasons, allow to simmer until pasta is cooked. Drain pasta, put it pack in its pot and pour mushroom mixture on top, add soup and sour cream, mix until soup and sour cream are well blended with the rest of the ingredients and serve.
The quinoa pasta was a serious cut above rice pasta in quality and taste.
Alex added a bit more sour cream to his, but licked his bowl clean (which he never does). He has had a terrible weekend with his external hard drive crashing yesterday, so I'm glad we managed something tasty for him. We cut up a pineapple that i had bought to eat for breakfasts with cottage cheese, and had a few pieces of that as our dessert.
Despite Alex's rough weekend, it was a nice evening. Granted, so was last night, as we were at his parents' house celebrating the birthdays. Alex and his sister were both born in October; their birthdays fall within a few days of one another. I can imagine as children they probably didn't appreciate the concept of a joint birthday, but they certainly do now. We had wonderful fish tacos and I drooled a little over their traditional german chocolate cake. Alex's mother had baked some apples for me to have with the ice cream, and I almost forgot the cake on the table they were so good. I, however, do not have such a strong will that I didn't have a small sliver of cake, too.
The weekend is over, and I am typing from bed, just about ready to get some sleep before the school week starts up again. Oh! I forgot that I also painted a door frame in our apartment today, but that story will have to wait for another time. Hopefully it will be a story that includes pictures, but I wouldn't hold your breath. It appears that promise is one I have a hard time keeping.
I must be tired, I've abandoned my cohesive storyline. Time for me to give the fingers a rest!
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Day My Earth Stood Still
I've prepared a bit of creative writing to start with.
...
As she came to the last word, on the last page, she stared hard at it. If she could only stare hard enough, perhaps she could absorb the immense feelings of the characters in through her eyes, pushing them through her circulatory system to her heart to keep them there and cherish forever. Its the familiar longing that she can hardly stand at the end of a novel; the longing to enter that world of ink on paper as she conjured it in her mind's eye. Her heart aches. With great joy comes that prospect of great pain, but its that joy that keeps her coming back to fiction relentlessly, like a narcotic.
She held the book tightly to her chest, another attempt to make a lasting connection. The book is closed, now; on the floor. The floor looks cold and distant, out of arm's reach from where she lay on her stomach in the bed staring at it. Sleeping with a book, however, is silly. It doesn't really have feelings, though its difficult to believe after riding the internal roller coaster of those fictitious strangers. Still, its true; they are not real.
...
Fiction novels are beautifully depressing, at least when they're well written. I'm not sure this ever struck me as much as it does now that I've left my family and understand what that longing is when I finish a book. Its how it feels to say goodbye to someone you are close to, maybe even someone you love, not exactly knowing if you'll remember what it feels like to be a part of their lives like you once were.
This past week made me miss everything.
Monday I started my fall semester with my hopes high. As I sat in the atrium of the mathematics department, reading an article halfheartedly, a friend approached that would be taking my toughest course with me: Analysis. She starts talking in her excited, scattered way that I'm sure she's learned from her high school students, and her words disturb me. Something about reading the first chapter and attempting to do the homework in some programming language escapes her lips. My mind races: What was that word? Links? Linx? And what's La Tech? Did I miss an email somehow that told me all this?
No, I had not missed an e-mail, though I began to wish there had been one as we head to class together. This desire doesn't decrease through our first hour of Analysis. The document programming language is LaTeX, though there is an interface called LyX that is more user friendly. We are supposed to submit our first homework on Wednesday in said format, though he will let us use some other typed means to turn in our homework for the first week if need be. Despite feeling a little caught off guard, I has yet to lose my confidence in completing all assignments.
Tuesday I have class in the evening: Research in Learning Mathematics. We had received readings for the first class, weeks in advance, but of course I waited until the last minute to read them. All day of document reading and summary writing and I made it to class a few minutes late (but only because I was waiting at the wrong classroom). The syllabus sounds difficult but doable and I head home to read for Analysis which is due the next day.
I awoke as early as I could muster on Wednesday and headed to school. From the time I arrived until 45 minutes before class I sat at the same table in the atrium. I might have used the bathroom once, but I didn't eat or drink anything. I still didn't get my homework done, or at least I didn't get it typed up to turn in. I was devastated. Class comes and goes and we are sitting in the atrium again reading the next chapter together, slowly working through all the theorems, propositions, and examples to ensure that we can justify their legitimacy to ourselves. It is then that I decide to drop my Tuesday Research class. My fast talking friend and I make a pact to stick it out together and spend every spare second studying.
Thursday is my day to learn this programming language, and though I have struggled through tears since Wednesday afternoon, I try to keep moving forward. I open a LaTeX manual in the computer lab and start to work through it. Lunch rolls around and I decide I will call Alex to come have lunch with me, ensuring that I eat. After lunch, the bomb drops. The fast talking high school teacher has dropped the class. I think I'm losing my mind.
I manage to make it away from my department before bursting into tears. I call my mother, though in hind sight I don't know what I expected her to do. I'm bawling, trying to stay out of the way of the people coming in and out the doors from the second floor catwalk between my building and the adjacent one. A girl I don't recognize stops short when she sees me, but kindly puts her hand on my shoulder as she passes. I wanted to hug her, but tried my best to smile instead.
My mom and I probably talked for a half an hour. She's a saint. No one else I know would stop their world for me like that, regardless of how pointless the phone call was. When reality finally knocks we decide that I need to talk to someone in my department who can actually advise me on the importance of this class to my future. I walk back up to the computer lab, stopping that bathroom to wash my face, and send an e-mail to my friend Ann. By the time my e-mail is complete I have recovered enough to talk to someone face to face, and I head to a past instructor's office. Jeanette has a smile to greet me:
"Oh hi, Kelly, how are you?"
I feel the emotion well back up but muster a fairly calm "Oh, I've been better."
"Well, how can I help you?" asks Jeanette.
"I was hoping you could give me some guidance."
"Oh sure, guidance is something I always have," her kindness is my sign that the world isn't ending anymore.
Jeanette agrees with my mother; I should drop the class. She has a suggestion for what I should do with my time now that I have reduced my schedule to three credits. In fact, I should probably go see her and take care of the final steps to getting my Stats Mentoring on my schedule.
All this to say that last week felt like a month. Thursday felt like one whole week in itself. I'm still not sure if I'm alive or dead, sometimes, but its better than losing my mind entirely.
And now, seeing is how I have not used my time very wisely today, I should get going and finalize my new schedule.
I will make every effort to update you again in a week! 'Til then!
...
As she came to the last word, on the last page, she stared hard at it. If she could only stare hard enough, perhaps she could absorb the immense feelings of the characters in through her eyes, pushing them through her circulatory system to her heart to keep them there and cherish forever. Its the familiar longing that she can hardly stand at the end of a novel; the longing to enter that world of ink on paper as she conjured it in her mind's eye. Her heart aches. With great joy comes that prospect of great pain, but its that joy that keeps her coming back to fiction relentlessly, like a narcotic.
She held the book tightly to her chest, another attempt to make a lasting connection. The book is closed, now; on the floor. The floor looks cold and distant, out of arm's reach from where she lay on her stomach in the bed staring at it. Sleeping with a book, however, is silly. It doesn't really have feelings, though its difficult to believe after riding the internal roller coaster of those fictitious strangers. Still, its true; they are not real.
...
Fiction novels are beautifully depressing, at least when they're well written. I'm not sure this ever struck me as much as it does now that I've left my family and understand what that longing is when I finish a book. Its how it feels to say goodbye to someone you are close to, maybe even someone you love, not exactly knowing if you'll remember what it feels like to be a part of their lives like you once were.
This past week made me miss everything.
Monday I started my fall semester with my hopes high. As I sat in the atrium of the mathematics department, reading an article halfheartedly, a friend approached that would be taking my toughest course with me: Analysis. She starts talking in her excited, scattered way that I'm sure she's learned from her high school students, and her words disturb me. Something about reading the first chapter and attempting to do the homework in some programming language escapes her lips. My mind races: What was that word? Links? Linx? And what's La Tech? Did I miss an email somehow that told me all this?
No, I had not missed an e-mail, though I began to wish there had been one as we head to class together. This desire doesn't decrease through our first hour of Analysis. The document programming language is LaTeX, though there is an interface called LyX that is more user friendly. We are supposed to submit our first homework on Wednesday in said format, though he will let us use some other typed means to turn in our homework for the first week if need be. Despite feeling a little caught off guard, I has yet to lose my confidence in completing all assignments.
Tuesday I have class in the evening: Research in Learning Mathematics. We had received readings for the first class, weeks in advance, but of course I waited until the last minute to read them. All day of document reading and summary writing and I made it to class a few minutes late (but only because I was waiting at the wrong classroom). The syllabus sounds difficult but doable and I head home to read for Analysis which is due the next day.
I awoke as early as I could muster on Wednesday and headed to school. From the time I arrived until 45 minutes before class I sat at the same table in the atrium. I might have used the bathroom once, but I didn't eat or drink anything. I still didn't get my homework done, or at least I didn't get it typed up to turn in. I was devastated. Class comes and goes and we are sitting in the atrium again reading the next chapter together, slowly working through all the theorems, propositions, and examples to ensure that we can justify their legitimacy to ourselves. It is then that I decide to drop my Tuesday Research class. My fast talking friend and I make a pact to stick it out together and spend every spare second studying.
Thursday is my day to learn this programming language, and though I have struggled through tears since Wednesday afternoon, I try to keep moving forward. I open a LaTeX manual in the computer lab and start to work through it. Lunch rolls around and I decide I will call Alex to come have lunch with me, ensuring that I eat. After lunch, the bomb drops. The fast talking high school teacher has dropped the class. I think I'm losing my mind.
I manage to make it away from my department before bursting into tears. I call my mother, though in hind sight I don't know what I expected her to do. I'm bawling, trying to stay out of the way of the people coming in and out the doors from the second floor catwalk between my building and the adjacent one. A girl I don't recognize stops short when she sees me, but kindly puts her hand on my shoulder as she passes. I wanted to hug her, but tried my best to smile instead.
My mom and I probably talked for a half an hour. She's a saint. No one else I know would stop their world for me like that, regardless of how pointless the phone call was. When reality finally knocks we decide that I need to talk to someone in my department who can actually advise me on the importance of this class to my future. I walk back up to the computer lab, stopping that bathroom to wash my face, and send an e-mail to my friend Ann. By the time my e-mail is complete I have recovered enough to talk to someone face to face, and I head to a past instructor's office. Jeanette has a smile to greet me:
"Oh hi, Kelly, how are you?"
I feel the emotion well back up but muster a fairly calm "Oh, I've been better."
"Well, how can I help you?" asks Jeanette.
"I was hoping you could give me some guidance."
"Oh sure, guidance is something I always have," her kindness is my sign that the world isn't ending anymore.
Jeanette agrees with my mother; I should drop the class. She has a suggestion for what I should do with my time now that I have reduced my schedule to three credits. In fact, I should probably go see her and take care of the final steps to getting my Stats Mentoring on my schedule.
All this to say that last week felt like a month. Thursday felt like one whole week in itself. I'm still not sure if I'm alive or dead, sometimes, but its better than losing my mind entirely.
And now, seeing is how I have not used my time very wisely today, I should get going and finalize my new schedule.
I will make every effort to update you again in a week! 'Til then!
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