There once were two friends who were riding in a hot air balloon. During their ride it started to get windy and the balloon began to drift. After a few hours of being flown away from where they had started the two men finally thought to turn the hot air down. As they approached the ground they saw a man all alone for no apparent reason walking back and forth. One of the men shouted to the guy on the ground, “Hey! Where are we?”. The pacing man looked up, then down, then paced for a while, then finally replied, “You are in a hot air balloon”. The man in the balloon turned to his friend and said, “He must be a mathematician. His answer was correct, completely unhelpful, and he took a long time to answer.

There once were two friends who were riding in a hot air balloon. During their ride it started to get windy and the balloon began to drift. After a few hours of being flown away from where they had started the two men finally thought to turn the hot air down. As they approached the ground they saw a man all alone for no apparent reason walking back and forth. One of the men shouted to the guy on the ground, “Hey! Where are we?”. The pacing man looked up, then down, then paced for a while, then finally replied, “You are in a hot air balloon”. The man in the balloon turned to his friend and said, “He must be a mathematician. His answer was correct, completely unhelpful, and he took a long time to answer.
~ Dr. Russell Brown (Real Analysis Professor)

Super Bowl Prank

It was a normal Wednesday afternoon in the math department. I had just gotten out of my last class of the day and I am walking into my office when I see this!

Someone in the department had decorated my desk (the one on the left) with Green Bay stuff, and Megan’s (on the right) with Steelers stuff. In case you didn’t know, The Steelers and Packers are playing in the Super Bowl next weekend, and I am a huge Pittsburgh fan while Megan loves Green Bay.

I just started cracking up! As you can see, our offices are pretty bleak and let’s just say that not many people in the Math Department are avid football fans. We have gotten so many comments over the past few days, and the funniest part is that Megan and I are two of the least obnoxious people in the department about anything (at least I think so).

The deal is we keep the decorations up until after the Super Bowl and then the team that wins gets its decorations left up for an additional week. Now, just admire the detailed work of Kayla and Stu, the people who pulled the prank…

Both teams’ logos perfectly colored with Sharpies.

And below are the family pictures… some how Kayla got a hold of pictures of our families decked out in their respective team’s apparel and she switched our faces… Hilarious.

So that might be the most exciting thing that happened to me this week…

Now I am ready for a fun weekend, although it will be full of plenty of homework since I have 3 assignments due Monday. This is around the time in the semester when grad school begins to get overwhelming… only 3 more months till summer!

Teaching Assistant

Today I received my evaluations from the class that I taught last semester. As I read through the median scores which I received for things such as knowledge of the subject, how much I stimulated their interest in the subject, how fair I graded, etc. it really started to hit me that I am a teacher. I am educating 60 students every semester in finite math and linear optimization… I am having an impact on how well they are able to do their jobs someday. And more importantly I am helping to shape the attitudes that they have about mathematics, and more broadly, about learning.

I have always been passionate about education. Ever since I can remember I have wanted to be a teacher. I started out my college career with the plan to teach math at the high school level, but after a few years really felt like this was not the right job for me. I contemplated teaching ESL for a while, moving to Chile and teaching English, or my number one option (until I got married), moving to Mexico to teach math. Out of all of the choices I gradually ended up deciding on post-secondary education. I think that all levels of education are extremely important and that one cannot really be isolated from another. But the more and more that I am experiencing a little bit of what it is like to teach at the college level, the more excited that I get to do it.

The craziest thing is that I already am! I remember during our graduate school orientation President Todd (of UK) made all of us TA’s repeat “I teach at the University of Kentucky”. These words were exciting to utter, but also intimidating. I had taken classes at UK for 4 years and received an excellent education. And now that institution is counting on me to give that same caliber of instruction and inspiration to over 200 students this year.

I really have enjoyed my experience as a TA so far and I hope that as the semesters come and go I continue to gain more confidence and improve a lot in how I educate. Outside of being a TA I tutor 3 high school home-schooled boys in math every week, a job which I really love. They are all a joy to teach and it is really neat to see how they are educated in a different way than I have ever seen. Next week I will broaden my horizons a little bit more as I take on an outreach program through UK called Math Circles. Once a week I will be going to Tates Creek Elementary to run an after school program for kids. I will be doing really fun things with them that have to do with math (really, math can be fun!). I am really, really nervous about this but I hope that it will teach me a lot about being an educator in general.

I am sure that as the posts continue I will continue to share my ideas and feelings on teaching, because I think education is one of the subject on which I have the most opinions. This is because I think teaching is very important in every person’s life. When I look back, so much of who I am today is because of a great teacher who shaped me at some point in my life, whether at home, school, church or somewhere else. I hope that I can begin to shape students’ lives like that, even if it is in a tiny way.

Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions. 

~Author Unknown


If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job.

  ~Donald D. Quinn

Black and Gold

I only have a few minutes to write today because homework is officially taking over my life… but I haven’t posted for a while and I definitely want to keep up the habit.

The subject for today is.. the Steelers! My most favorite sports team ever. For those of you who don’t know, they are an NFL (National Football League) team. And they are the best. No, really, the best. They have won the most super bowls of any team in the NFL. They have 6 Lombardi trophies while the next best team (the Cowboys) only have 5. And this year they are trying to win a 7th! Tomorrow night they are playing in the AFC Championship game (aka the semi-final game) against the New York Jets.

So you may be wondering why I love the Steelers. I mean, I was born in Kentucky, close to Cincinnati so the logical team to be a fan of would be the Bengals. However, the Bengals are awful, and my dad raised me right! He was born in Pittsburgh (the city of the Steelers) and has been a huge fan his whole life. Growing up I remember my family sitting down on Monday nights to watch football together. I knew the whole, “are you ready for some football?!?” song, and before I knew it, all the rules of football too. I love the tradition of watching the games together as a family, and it doesn’t hurt that the team I love is super exciting to watch. So many people who know me well are so surprised by how big of a fan I am.. but it is true. I LOVE NFL football!

Zumba!

Just as a disclaimer… David has nothing to do with this post. As I am typing he is playing guitar on our new love seat (that we just got off of Craigslist for half price!). We were thinking about buying the love seat that goes with our couch for a while and when we got a new TV for Christmas we decided that our living room looked a little empty without one. But before buying it new from Value City, I decided to check Craigslist… and there it was! So tonight a nice couple from Richmond brought it to our house and it looks awesome. It is brand new and they got it from an auction for really cheap, and so did we! So excited.

Now, back to the subject of the post. Just like most people I have a New Year’s Resolution to get into better shape. I grew up always being active and healthy. Between dancing 20 hours a week and going to aerobics with my mom I made exercise a regular part of my life in high school. Once I got to college, things were a bit tougher but I have tried to stay in shape and be active in all kinds of ways. However, this Friday I had a revelation!

I remember junior year when I started attempting to run. It was awful. I hated every moment that I was running. It just hurt my knees, gave me cramps, made me ravenous and I never reached any point when I looked forward to it. So after two years I decided to never waste another moment of my life running… and now I am so happy I did! Since then I have tried out new things like walking, spinning, lifting weights and group fitness classes, and finally I have found things that I love!

So this year, I have not only resolved to get in good shape but to enjoy it as I do! And I am so grateful that there is an amazing Zumba class at the Johnson Center which I love. I have also done a few pilates and yoga classes which have been wonderful, and I have found out recently that I really like to rock climb. I have done all of these activities this past week and even though I might not sweat like I did when I used to run I leave feeling energized, refreshed, and like I have just done something good for not only my body but my heart and mind too. I want to be healthy and live an active life but I think I have just decided that I am not going to be miserable while I do it anymore.

Well I guess that is all for today. I just wanted to share my revelation and encourage you to find something that you love to do to stay healthy!!

A bit about us...

I am assuming that if you are reading our blog you probably know a lot about David and I. But just in case you don’t, and mostly just because I want to post a lot of great pictures, here is all you really need to know…

David and I met when we were 8 and fell in love when we were 15. For real. Well, David claims he fell in love with me before then but we will just say 15 for now. Our long, long dating story I can save for another day. In short, we went to different high schools and met through our piano teacher. We both ended up at UK and after 5 1/2 years…

we got engaged! On May 25, 2009, one day before our 6 year anniversary we tied the knot.

We both are really close to our families, so you should see how beautiful all of them are. Here is my family (Mom, Dad, Jen and Josh).

David’s family is huge, wonderful and a little bit tough to fit in one frame. So for now, here are his brothers, Jonathan and Ryan, and his sister-in-law, Katie.

Here is Katie’s daughter, Lexi, and my little brother, Josh, making a gingerbread house together! They are so precious.

David and I love our families very much, and since we have gotten married we have started to make our own too. No babies yet, but we LOVE our pets! When we first got married we got a precious kitty named Jackson from the humane society.

Unfortunately Jackson was very sick. So we gave him the best life we could and then after a few months had to say goodbye. We were so sad, that we decided we needed another kitty. Her name is Jasmine.

Then about a year later we started innocently going to Petsmart every Saturday morning to look at puppies. However, looking at puppies will always turn into getting one and here is ours! Rescued from another humane society, Rooney :)

So this is our family now. David, me, Jasmine and Rooney.

I am sure that in the future I will tell you much more about our background, about our wonderful families and our adorable pets. Just stay tuned!

So it begins...

David and I now have a blog. This is it. You are now reading our blog. We have no idea what we are going to use it for, or why you would find our life interesting enough to read about, but here it is.

Ironically enough we are starting this blog the night before classes start. In fact, right now as I type and David suggests funny (at least to him) things to add we are procrastinating going to bed and facing the fact that tomorrow it begins. The homework, the reading, the exams, the teaching (for me). But it is alright. Even though he is working on his law degree and me on my Ph.D in Math, we are both dorks and we love what we’re doing. We may not have a ton of time for each other or crazy adventures, but we hope it is an investment of our time and for right now it is exactly where we should be.

Maybe through this blog we are trying to set down an anchor before the whirlwind that will be the next several months sweeps us away. Its easy to let yourself be defined by the things that happen to you and get caught up in the business of everything.  As students every day is so similar to the last one, and it is sometimes difficult to salvage a meaningful “big picture”  adventure. After a year and 8 months of being married we are still discovering what it means to be living this adventure out together and we just think maybe this blog will help. Maybe as we document our day-to-day, mundane thoughts, feelings, and events a bigger story will start to emerge. One which strings together all of the days and all of the hard work.So here we are building a life one day at a time.

We hope you enjoy reading our story, whatever it may be!

Our family!