For some reason I went through a phase a while back where I was munching on tomatoes like crazy. It had been over for a few weeks just before the salmonella warning…and then, the moment I couldn’t get tomatoes on anything or find them in the store, I started wanting tomatoes all the time.

Aren’t they pretty? DO WANT!!!

I don’t even remember why I read the reviews for this book–I think either a friend mentioned it or it came up in StumbleUpon.  Either way, the whole “corn in everything” bit sounded kind of creepy.  I mean, it belongs in some things, like tortillas and summer barbecues.  But putting it in everything because it has to go somewhere because we’re subsidizing too much of it…well…why not subsidize carrots instead?  Mmmmm…

I’m not kidding when I say “everything,” either.  I happened to look at the labels of spaghetti sauces while I was shopping today, and they all had corn syrup.  Seriously.  Tomato sauce doesn’t need sugar.  But I guess the average $5,600,000,000 has to go somewhere…I just wish it didn’t have to be into pointless empty calories.

(And I adore empty calories.  Mmmmm chocolate.  I just like them to be defined and enjoyed as such, not part of freaking spaghetti sauce.)

Although we grew up in more or less the same place, we’ve kind of scattered over the last year.

My sister: Virginia

Me: Arizona

Our parents: Still based out of Oregon, but really all over the country

My cousin: Still actually in Oregon

I talk on the phone with my dad, less frequently my cousin, and even less frequently my sister.  I think my dad also calls my sister sometimes.  Other than that, our “family closeness” is online, involving either IM, e-mail, or reading each other’s blogs.  Is this some new phase of how stuff works in the new millennium, or are we just weird?

Yes, you do need it.  Articles I’ve seen suggest it’ll plug the memory hole.  Download it on the 17th to help it set a geeky record.

I am not going off on the concept of bias. I’m not even going off on anything for having a bias. Today.

However, there are people running around out there who don’t know how to talk, and this is a word where it shows up. I’m not talking about immigrants or others who are in the process of learning English, or people with a speech disorder. I’m talking about normal, intelligent, native speakers–some of them are teachers by now–who can’t tell the difference between a noun and an adjective.

Here’s what I mean.

“There is a bias in the way this data was collected.” Fine.

“This data is bias.” Not fine. The sentence you’re looking for is “This data is biased.”

One I saw just today, “I don’t find [one news channel] as bias as [another news channel].” Unless you are saying that the news channel is itself literally a walking prejudice, what you’re trying to say is “I don’t find [one news channel] as biased as [another news channel].”

“He is bias against people with accents.” Same thing as above.

Pop quiz. Choose the right one from each pair. They aren’t all the same.

“I think that teacher is (bias, biased) against me!”

The survey questions had a distinct (bias, biased).

The KKK is very (bias, biased) against black people.

Cut the cloth along its (bias, biased).

If you need me to tell you the answers, just stop using the word. Right now.

To any of my students who find this over the summer:

You will get extra credit in any math class I teach next year if you:

1. Read this article about using something like stone-knives-and-bearskins calculus to find the value of pi
2. Try it yourself with shapes with different numbers of sides
3. Write a short paragraph (or more if you need it) about what you saw and found out

Due on the second Monday of semester 1.

For those who aren’t my students, read the article anyway because it’s cool.

My bosses’ boss: “The reason we have to deal with all this intrusive state paperwork is we, as a profession, dropped the ball for a long time and it showed in our product.  Our students weren’t learning math and science, and now our national security is suffering because of it.”

Compare to what I say about NCLB: “It’s obnoxious and annoying, and the only thing worse is the 40% pass rates that used to be acceptable back when it didn’t mess with the district’s wallet.  While politicians don’t know anything about running schools, they kind of had to step it when it got that bad–and we need to be asking ourselves, how did it come to this?”

I heart working for people who get it.

At the moment, I’m mainly studying proof by finite induction (when my brain fries on that I switch it up by working on number systems, which I’m taking later this semester). This stuff isn’t easy but I’m getting it.

The main step of it seems to work by saying two things are equal and then simplifying until it’s obvious. My Trig TA, two summers ago, once showed us something to do with systems of equations by substitution, where if you plug the equation into itself you get something like 1=1, which got him to say “well that’s true” in kind of a goofy “duuuuh” way. As it turns out, getting to “well that’s true” is exactly what you need to do in induction, to show that something works.

Also, I found this a few Wikipedia clicks away from something I was looking up for number systems. Never tell me that math and art don’t go together.

Supposedly Bill Gates delivered these commandments as part of a graduation speech. If anyone knows of an authoritative source, please comment–I wasn’t able to find one. However, I thought that the content warranted putting it up anyway, as a counterpoint to the “we’re all enlightened now, yay, we’re gonna fix the world, go us!” that usually gets said at graduation speeches. (I’m guessing about the “usually” bit on account of I’ve only been to three.)

Class of 2008, please read Bill Gates’ 11 Commandments.

Commandment 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Commandment 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Commandment 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Commandment 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Commandment 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Commandment 6: If you mess up,it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Commandment 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Commandment 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Commandment 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Commandment 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Commandment 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Teach. Juggle the chores of teaching. Keep from screaming at the students. Count down the days (2).

Life chores type stuff. Clean something, pay some bills, re-register the car. Get paycheck to bank with 41 cents to spare. Notice that that’s not even a stamp any more. Kick self for not doing a buy-up before the changeover. Decide which bills to pay this time (…yeah I know). Get a copy of dental work bill to get reimbursement from flexible spending account before the deadline.

Classes. Orientation is done. Figure out what books and stuff I need. Order what I can afford. Hit what books I have. Figure out what a “limit” is, and move mine. According to my mentor I’m in “the hardest program,” although I don’t know what other programs it’s being compared to. People start it and have to drop out because they don’t have the math in them after all. This is my fun.

Civil Air Patrol. My scanner course is on the way, my reading list runneth over, the cadets are on about encampment.

Try to figure out what I forgot. Every day.