Local goals reviewed

This weekend, I successfully

• emptied one inbox (zero!),
• finished my grading,
• straightened out business with former landlord,
• had two synchro practices and went running,
• cooked (a week's supply of daal and cookies),
• did laundry (necessary),
• gained another RSS subscriber (yo R.!),
• caught up on my desperate sleep debt from the end of last week, and
  
• ordered a new keyboard (but not the swanky one C. lent me).
  

It remains to

• empty the other inbox (41),
• read a paper before the M11 seminar,
• find my ballot,
• complete an assignment,
• achieve my weekly thesis-writing goals (particularly large this week),
• find the necessary receipts to be reimbursed, and
  
• follow-up on the many contacts I've made this month.

I could accomplish all these things tomorrow if I set aside the thesis-writing, but that strategy generalizes poorly. And if all I do is thesis-writing, then I won't accomplish any of the goals, plus I'll burn out all my mathematical neurons in one session. Moderation.


This post's theme quote reflects my puzzlement at some students' solutions:

On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage

Make your grader smile!

When, in the course of marking, I read,

This is where inequalities kick butt, literally.

... it made me smile. Take some time to be kind to your grader today! It is appreciated.


This post's theme quote, from Colin Renfrew:

The days of the innumerate are numbered.