What To Expect When Tutoring

When working with High Schoolers, here are some things you might expect.  They just might….

• Show up early.  So early you are still drooling in your sleep on the couch.
• Show up late.  They have things going on you know.
• Before knocking, they try the doorknob to see if they can just walk in.
• Be extremely aware of the time once they are there.  Wouldn’t want to do a minute more of homework than necessary now would we? It’s 2:57pm, time for me to go!
• Take frequent bathroom breaks.  During which you can hear them having phone conversations.
• Take phone calls in the middle of your important mathematical explanation.
• Ask to have some food from your pantry.  When you yourself are not eating.

Book Review- The Sir Cumference Series

Years ago, Leah bought me some books from the Sir Cumference Math Adventure Series. I love them. I love them so very much. It combines a few of my favorite things- Math, Medieval Stories, and Puns.

Elijah found them on the bookshelf recently, and it appears he loves them as much as I do! His favorite one is Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi:

Poor Sir Cumference turns into a dragon, and his son Radius must find the cure. This is where Math comes in. In each story there is always a problem to be solved, and it is only solved through math. In this case, this is the cure:

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In Sir Cumference and the Great Knights of Angleland, Radius wants to become a Knight, and must find his way through a maze with many angles. Here is a little snippet of the story:

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Oh haha! Heehee, King Lell found his Pair of Lells! LOL! ROFLMAO!

Wait, you guys don’t think this is as funny as I do…? What if I told you there are brothers named Sirs Geo and Sym of Metry? Yeah, NOW you’re laughing! That’s some clever, funny stuff right there.

Well, regardless, I love them. And I must say I am quite happy Elijah likes them as well. How great is it that I already get to introduce him to things like Pi, Angles, Circumference, Geometry, and so much more! All within the context of a good Medieval story with Knights and Kings and Dragons.

Could it get any better?

Equations on Checks = Awesome!

This is the back story to this check (written by Randall Munroe, writer of a webcomic):

Perfect Present

So my husband came home yesterday with my birthday present… he walked in with beautiful sunflowers and a gift bag.  Inside the gift bag… a new GRAPHING CALCULATOR!!!  Thats right, and I LOVE it.  Its fancier than the one I had before, plus I somehow lost the one I had before.  I have spent the last 3 years searching for it and whining about not having one and so Nick bought me one.  Thanks babe!

I want this job

I went to Marine World on Wednesday with Elijah and my family, and I had a blast. I am pretty sure I was more excited than the little kids! I was the one telling my mom that we needed to go NOW to get seats at the killer whale show- which even though I was laughed at, I was right- we got awesome seats. Anyway, the dolphin show was pretty much the bomb, and they were even interesting enough for Elijah to watch. I think I left a bigger wet spot on the floor from drool than he did. I want to be able to ride the dolphins like this lucky lady. Phooey to a math major- I should have done marine biology so I could befriend Flipper…

Me, a dork? No…

So just so you all know how much of a dork I am (I was the president of a math club for crying out loud!) I decided to link an awesome video that a friend of mine sent me a while back. I laughed so hard when I watched this, but please don’t feel bad if you don’t think it is funny. In fact, maybe you should be proud if you don’t think it is funny. Maybe that makes you normal….

collegehumor149448.wmv

Fox Trot- My favorite

Math Pick-Up Lines

#10. I’m not being obtuse but you’re acute girl.
#9. I don’t like my current girlfriend. Mind if I do a you-substitution?
#8. i = Ø when i am not with you
#7. You’ve got the curves, I’ve got the angles.
#6. Are you the square root of 2? Because I feel irrational when I am around you.
#5. You fascinate me more than the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.
#4. My love for you is like the slope of a concave up function because it is always increasing.
#3. Being without you is like being a metric space in which exists a cauchy sequence that does not converge
#2. You and I would add up better than a Riemann sum.

How I would have loved to be proposed to this way…
#1. I hope you know set theory because I want to intersect and union you

Math Quotes

Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state. (Plato)

“A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems” (P. Erdos)

Math is the language God used to write the universe.

He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god. (Plato)

Physicists defer only to mathematicians, mathematicians defer only to God.

Biologists think they are biochemists, Biochemists think they are Physical Chemists, Physical Chemists think they are Physicists, Physicists think they are Gods, And God thinks he is a Mathematician.