No Students Were Harmed . . .

[jpskewedthrone]

. . . during this first day of classes. The Spring semester has begun! And for some reason I had a lot of fun today teaching. I certainly wasn't ready to go back to school just yet, but that didn't show during the lecture (I don't think).

This semester I'm teaching three classes: Calculus I, Calculus II, and Complex Analysis. I've taught Calc I before (last semester actually), and I've done Calc II before (but a long time ago), so the real class for me this semester is Complex. (Small math joke there; you may have missed it.) But I think I'll have fun with it.

Tomorrow I will hopefully have a voice. I'm sort of sick. When another cycling instructor called and asked if I could sub, I said yes without thinking about it. But that spinning room doesn't have a mike so I yelled the whole class, and coupled with the cold . . . the voice thing might be iffy. Why is this a problem? Well, teaching aside, I'm supposed to appear on TV tomorrow to promote the booksigning on Saturday! Wouldn't it be funny if I showed up and couldn't talk? Ha ha! That . . . would be . . . hilarious.

Hmmm.

Stay tuned.

Comments

[ramblin-phyl.livejournal.com]

HOT water with lemon and honey. You may add the libation of your choice in moderation, depndng on the time of day.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Does this need time to work? I can do this after I get home today, but that's only 3 hours before the interview.

And by libation you mean vodka, right?

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest exactly this thing! I do it all the time. Usually it works as an ameliorative, not a cure. When I have that throat, I drink hot honey-lemonade all day long. After about two hours, my voice box smooths out and I don't sound like a frog anymore.

[ramblin-phyl.livejournal.com]

Almost immediate soothing results, but it doesn't last long.

By libation vodka will work. Single malt scotch is my preference.

[ceibhfhionn22.livejournal.com]

My dad does brandy.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Good luck tomorrow! I hope your voice holds up.

Wow...Calculus. I'm impressed. My oldest son is a Physics major so...yeah, I'm impressed by your Calculus knowledge.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Voice held out OK. Not great, but OK. *grin*

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Would you rather have a real class, or an imaginary one?

I was going to suggest that you gargle with saline solution (1 tsp. to a cup of warm water), but I think ramblin_phyl's suggestion is tastier.

I hope you feel better and your interview goes well.

BTW, I'm almost finished with The Skewed Throne, which I've been enjoying very much. :)

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed Skewed Throne! Let me know if you do a review or anything and I'll link to it.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Hi Joshua, I finished it last night. It was a fun read and the ending was impressively dramatic; while I'd anticipated some of what happened, you also managed to surprise me. My husband's got it, now. :) I'm not planning on a review as I'm up to my neck in alligators (the time-eating, rather than flesh-eating type, fortunately), but if I change my mind, I'll be sure to let you know.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Would you rather have a real class, or an imaginary one?

Was this too subtle a math joke?

[misunderstruck.livejournal.com]

the real class for me this semester is Complex

*groans*

[meijhen.livejournal.com]

*agrees*

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I figured I'd get a response from you. *grin*

[dynastic-queen.livejournal.com]

This semester I'm teaching three classes: Calculus I, Calculus II, and Complex Analysis. Holy cow--I just snapped back to high school, where this stuff had my head spinning and me spewing like Linda Blair. Holy cow.

Yeah, the hot lemon and honey thing. Good luck!

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Things went well I think. I'd die when I see the playback, but . . .

[mgsmurf.livejournal.com]

Hope the voice holds. Mine usually goes hoarse after the first week. Luckily I have 5 sections, but only 2 lecture classes because one is a large 90+ student lecture. I never use a mike for it though. Figure if they think listening is important, which I wouldn't make them come to class if it wasn't, they'll sit close enough to hear.

And all that high level math, I've long, long forgotten with misuse.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I screwed myself by agreeing to sub for the cycling class. I might have been OK otherwise. *shrug* Oh well. I needed the exercise more than the 1 minute of TV time.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Feel better soon.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[albogdan.livejournal.com]

Ah, two of my Calc profs were very memorable. One for being the worst teacher I've ever experienced. The guy never smiled. He failed the entire class all the while arguing that he was an award winning professor so it was obviously the entire classes fault for all being too stupid to learn Calculus (I received a B when I retook the class). The second prof was one wonderfully quirky, and an excellent instructor. He smiled all the time. I loved how he would sometimes stare at the sky outside the classroom, suddenly start laughing at something secret he'd thought of, then just turn and start instructing. He knew how to get concepts through.

Hope you have your voice today and the TV appearance goes well and pulls in tons of people for the signing!

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

In general, those are the only ways in which math professors are remembered. Hoepfully, I'm the later type of instructor. *grin*

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I had a math professor like that for Probability and Statistics, which was, a junior or senior level class. He was the only one who taught that class and he literally told us on the first day of class that he believed that all students were either stupid or lazy until they proved otherwise.

Another professor, who taught math theory, was a very nice guy, but couldn't teach students who weren't already at his level. Our first exam, the entire class had extremely low scores, so low that he wasn't willing to grade on a curve and kept telling us for weeks that he didn't know what he was going to do about them. I'd gotten a 20% on the test, which is probably the lowest test score I ever got in my life. I decided 1) I wasn't learning anything, and 2) I couldn't handle the suspense of waiting for him to come up with our grades, and dropped the class. Afterward, I went to his office to let him know and he burst out, "But, you had the best score!"

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

No "Math for Liberal Arts Majors"? Sounds like a pretty good schedule to me.

I'd say that only part of your Complex class is real....

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

No Math for Lib Arts this semester. And I think it's a good schedule actually.

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

Ack. Hope the voice holds up, and I hope you have a great semester. :D

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[lisa-bouchard.livejournal.com]

Maybe you'll wind up with a deep, gravel-like voice that will keep your listeners entranced. I hope the interview goes well, no matter what you sound like.

This also reminds me that I should pull out my Calculus book and start working through it. My oldest kid is 3 years from Calculus and I'm completely not ready to teach him yet. It may take me 3 years to get through the book, given my schedule.

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Well, it was deep. And gravel-like. . . . I'm going to pretend it was sexy.

Good luck with the Calc teaching. Is this homeschooling?

[lisa-bouchard.livejournal.com]

We'll just say you sounded sexy and leave it at that.

Thanks for the good wishes and yes, we homeschool.

[ruthannereid.livejournal.com]

A tiny glass of vodka can give you brief voice-ability even with laryngitis - but that probably isn't the course you want to take. :D

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

I should have tried the vodka. We were only on air for 3 minutes. It couldn't have screwed me over that much in that short a time, right?

[ruthannereid.livejournal.com]

Well, if it did, there's a high probability you wouldn't care. ~_^

[genders.livejournal.com]

Okay. You write, teach advanced mathematics, and instruct spinning. Well, you're much more interesting than I!

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

That's . . . pretty much my life in a nutshell right there.