Brief Hello

Hello, world!

Revision is almost done (partly because I'm coming towards having revised everything, and partly because the exams start on Monday ...). Whooh.

Hence I've not been doing all that much that's interesting ... making a lot of colourful revision notes, and discussing things (like the decomposition of the Klein bottle into spaces so as to use Seifert Van Kampen (to calculate the fundamental group) or Mayer-Vietoris (to calculate the homology groups) on it) with people. And breaking my good habit of going to bed at 11; it's nearer 12. I'll get back on track tomorrow ...

I've also been watching a fair amount of Roswell (in the background, I hasten to add). It's definitely different this time round - I'm going to post properly sometime later about why. Sufficient for the moment to say that Alex and Kyle are way cooler than I initially thought they were, and the way they all treat other people (with the lying and the hiding etc etc ...) bothers me a lot more than it did first time round.

Right. Midnight. Bed!

Happy Feet

So today, alongside a HEAP of revision, I painted my toenails.

It's much easier to deal with than fingernails ... because it's a lot easier to sit around for 10 minutes doing something useful and not smudging my toes than it is to do something useful for 10 minutes without smudging fingernails.

And a photo without flash ... the colours are basically an average of how they appear in these two photos:

Great comic - MMR Vaccine story ...

... so we all know the big scare and how the study was totally a) bogus in the first place and b) not backed up by future findings; but now you can read it all in awesome comic form! And this includes lots of stuff I didn't know before about financial motives ...

http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html

Excogitation #06 - life's not that easy

(Subtitle: mixing work and the rest of life)
Closely related to the semi-coherent thoughts about deadlines and fear ...

In a robotic world, one would have work commitments, and nothing else. Then you could prioritise everything according to work priorities, and then do things in that order, and that would be that. This is a very neat and tidy and well-defined concept (assuming that you can rank your work priorities), and there's a part of my mind that is very attracted to it.

But life doesn't work that way. And I think we are the richer for it, although it undoubtedly makes things more complicated. C.S.Lewis is quoted as having said (or written, I'm not sure which) "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art ... it has no survival value, rather, it is one of those things that give value to survival". I thought that was true once, and I get that of course he's not doing friendship down, on the contrary he valued it very much. But I now think that friendship absolutely has survival value.

So. You are not a machine. You have friendships, and other non-work commitments (Church, societies, family, that sort of thing). Sometimes these things may feel like they use up all your time and energy and you can't afford to socialise because it costs too much time / money / effort ... and then sometimes you fall into conversation with a good friend (or even an acquaintance) and somehow the world is brighter and you remember that it's all worth it, or you go to a Church service you weren't going to bother to turn up to and realise it's precisely what you needed. Or I do, anyway.

That sounds a bit Hallmark, doesn't it? But I think it's true. I think the thing about interacting with people is: you gotta hang in there. Something that's pissing you off now may be totally blown over in a week's time. And you may well be annoying someone else, but maybe they're being gracious and ignoring your annoying habits. Gracious is a good thing to be.

I'm not sure I actually have much that's terribly good to say here, except, well, the obvious ... or what I think is obvious: get to know yourself. You will learn when you need company, when you need to stay away and be on your own (either to regenerate or to avoid blowing up at people). But do, do hang in there with people. Make time. It's worth it. By all means disappear to study for hours, but leave a message on facebook or pop round to say hello for 10 minutes when you're near their room (this is easier from a Uni perspective than from a most-of-life perspective, I imagine), or send a text asking how such-and-such worked out. Sometimes you need to work for hours on end all alone, but even in the middle of weeks like that you need some human contact, even if it's just a brief chat whilst you gulp down your dinner before heading back to the work.

I suppose my advice (do I have the right to advise anyone? Well, I guess I've navigated 3 years of a really tough university course whilst making some great friends and being involved in lots of societies, and done it all pretty successfully, so there you go) would be: in the good (i.e. relatively relaxed and relatively panic-free) times, work out a sensible level of commitment and stick with it (what you put into something is what you get out, and all that). And in the bad (like ... the 3 weeks before your exams) by all means cut things out, but keep some thread of contact going, keep in touch with people. Everyone will understand, and 15 minutes spent talking about ice cream may keep you sane and therefore be of positive benefit to your work - i.e. it's not just 15 minutes that you could've spent working.

(Endnote: I've had a resolution this term that I will hug somebody every day. I have not broken it yet - and it's been about 5 weeks, I think. It's a really, really good resolution - it means I make myself get some positive human face-to-face contact every day, and also - HUGS!)

Job news (lack thereof)

Wooh, it's Wednesday. When did that happen?

So I didn't get the job. I found out yesterday morning, which wasn't really a surprise because I'd guessed by Monday evening that I didn't have it. They said nice things about me though - including that they liked me very much and I'd interviewed well. Then got a separate email today from the Head of Maths which had a bit more detail, and it mostly boils down to "you were a very strong candidate, but ultimately didn't convince the Head and Deputy Heads that you were passionate about a long-term career in teaching". This is completely fair; I'm not passionate about a long-term career in teaching and was not trying to pretend I was. His email also contained some encouraging words about things I'd done well / my passion for mathematics / excellent communication skills, which was really lovely.

See, thing is, I've worked out that I like working with young people (say 11-18, especially the sort of 14+ end of that). And I'm passionate about maths. And about communication and spreading ideas and making the world a better place. And sure, going in to teaching is one way to combine those three things. But it's not the only way ... and I think I might like some other ways better, or want to try them first.

In some ways I'm kind of glad I didn't get the job now, which seems like a funny thing to say. But had I got it, it would've been something I'd have stuck with for let's say at least 5 years - and at that point if I'd left it would probably be into a teaching job somewhere else. I'm not sure I want to do that. I think maybe in 5 years' time I'll want to train to be a teacher, maybe.

The whole experience of submitting a super-fast application and being interviewed and running a lesson and all that though - it was totally worth it, and a wonderful experience. It proved to me that I could do it. And that is no small thing. I also get the impression reading between the lines of the feedback I've got, that if I *had* really wanted it - if teaching really *was* something I was passionate about and had decided I wanted to dedicate my life (or a large part of my life) to - then I would've been a formidable candidate indeed. And that makes me happy.

By the way, if anybody has any ideas of careers that combine 2, 3, or all 4 of the following: working with 11-18s (esp 14-18s), communicating ideas, maths, making the world a better place - please email me, or leave notes in comments. That would be awesome. Because I think this is what I want to spend my life doing. I'm not sure what form it'll take yet, but it'll get there, and I'm actually kind of excited to see how it turns out.

Hey hey - a week's catch-up

Hey, internet. I've missed you.
I've been kept crazy-busy this past week - found out about a job on Monday, sent in application on Tuesday, was phoned on Wednesday and asked to come to interview on Thursday (so spent Wed shopping for appropriate interview wear), was interviewed on Thursday (which actually swallowed about 9.5 hours of the day once travel time was taken into account - the interview process and so on lasted abour 3.5 hours), then voted and it was the election, then Friday I slept and gave a 1.5-hour lecture (with a friend) on "A History of Women in Mathematics".

And now I have a lot of revision to do. Yikes! (It's 10pm on a Sunday evening, and I reckon I've worked for about 9 hours so far today. I'm getting there. I hope it's fast enough.)

So, comments on things that've happened this week:

1) The job - it's a maths teaching job in a school that's on the posh side. I rather hope I get it, because it looks awesome - great, friendly kids, good atmosphere, largeish department, good facilities. Unfortunately I was uncontactable late Friday afternoon (they were definitely deciding on Friday afternoon, because they said so and asked whether they'd be able to phone my mobile) due to the lecture we were giving - was hoping for a phone call on Saturday morning, but nothing happened. So I'm half wondering whether they won't have been willing to phone on the weekend at all, hence no conclusion to draw, or whether they would've phoned on Saturday had I got it but ... in which case the conclusion would be that I didn't get it. Hope I'll get a phone call tomorrow morning - if I don't, I'll probably send an email in the evening asking when I can expect to hear.

2) The election - I'm pretty pleased with the result. I'd much rather that Labour had got about 20 fewer seats and the Lib Dems had had those seats instead, but I think that Labour needed to get out and I'm pleased with the overall vote share of the Lib Dems despite the lack of seats. Shows how bloody unrepresentative the current FPP system with the current division of seats is. Also pleased that there's a Green MP - was astonished to realise that that had never happened before. To someone raised in MMP-using NZ, the idea that a party that is so significant had never had an MP - well, it just feels like something from the Dark Ages.

3) Our lecture went really well, I think :) it generated some good discussion afterwards about gender differences in maths (i.e. the fact that they are cultural/socialised, not biological - on the grounds that there's no causation mechanism for a biological difference, and we know there are socialised reasons for the disparity, *and* even if there were some biological difference it would be swamped by cultural differences by several orders of magnitude, hence unprovable, hence you shouldn't claim it). I found it a really, really positive thing to do - it's so, so lovely to be in the same room as other people (including male people) who are arguing that women are just as competent as men and it's not the women's ****ing fault if they're ****ing socialised to act differently in a way that disadvantages them (my mental *s, not ones that were actually used).

(Possible favourite quotation: "Of COURSE confidence matters! It's ALL ABOUT ****ING CONFIDENCE!" from the usual lecturer. I think being a girl and being confident about maths is bloody hard work, and I'm generally a reasonably confident person in most areas)

Also: it's Christian Aid week this week! They really are a super charity. Take a look at this:



Cool, no? Check them out.

The Log Cabin Blanket

I started work on a Log Cabin knitted quilt rather a long time ago - see this post. At that stage, I bought 3 skeins of wool, and knitted two very respectable squares, before putting it on hold because I didn't think I could afford any more wool at the time. I'm knitting using Mirasol K'acha (£6.95 for 50g/90m), which is an ethically traded yarn from Peru, which I first noticed at a big John Lewis and have since found elsewhere, too. It's 60% Merino, 25% Alpaca, and 15% Silk, and it's lovely. I'm using 3 colours - Cinnamon, Royal Purple, and Sunshine.

Yesterday, I finally got a whole load more of the yarn - 2 more skeins of each colour. And now to explain progress by pictures:

Sitting down last night, with the 2 squares I'd completed, the new yarn in the background, a big cup of tea, and some colouring in.

For the first 2 squares, I just made it up as I went along - starting with 18 stitches on a 4.5mm circular needle, the middle square being 16 garter ridge rows, and each stripe being 5 garter ridge rows (which is just what happened when I cast on and started the first one) - but I'd made up the colours as I went along. For the whole blanket, though, I wanted to have some sort of pattern, so I started planning:

First, I coloured in the two I'd already knitted in the top left hand corner, and then started extrapolating.

I've made it very nearly rotationally symmetric (if you consider each stripe to be a dot at its centre, it is rotationally symmetric, but because the stripes spiral clockwise outwards from the middle in each square, that breaks the symmetry), and sorted out a pattern of centre colours that I like.

The Master Plan. There's quite a lot of symmetry in it and also quite a lot of almost-symmetry in it, and you can find all sorts of patterns within it by focusing on different colours or stripe sizes ... I'm happy with it.

Then I cast on and started knitting the next square (coordinate position (2,6) assuming the bottom left is the origin).

This is a photo showing what I got out of the original 3 skeins of yarn - I think it's approx. 2.5 squares ... which means the whole blanket will cost something like £200. Well, that's better than the £240 I thought it would be last night ... a long term project, methinks. But when it's done it will be awesome.