Mute. Snark.

Just double-check that mute is in fact on....

Mute. Snark.

And IM.

Wow, midle school certainly has gotten more advanced since I was in it. Or last taught 8th graders, for that matter. Abstract algebra is, as I recall, hard. Differential Equations was a sophomore level course at my (science and engineering focussed) college.

Though after years of hearing people aske "When would you ever need to use Algebra?" and "What good are fractions, anyway?", maybe I'm just surprised that there are, in fact, math requirements.

Emily, can you hook up with someone else taking the exam and study together? SOmetimes you just need to explain it to someone else to remember what you know, if that makes sense.

Maybe a couple of tutoring sessions would help you?

Hmmm. Spossible. The question is, can I get my student loans to pay for it? Also, why won't my school post who's teaching classes? It hasn't been a problem before, but now it really is. I need to know, dammit!

In other very frustrating news, Netflix has added two Billy Connolly standup DVDs (I've been a sucker for him since "Small Blue Scottish Person," which must have been a special or something, since I can find no trace of it anywhere) but has no idea when they'll be available.

Hey!

Whew. My DSL got cut off on Wed., so I have been out of the loop since then. Fortunately, my temp jon has internet and they are encouraging me to use it "to keep from getting bored."

Sweet.

Jon got MARRIED?! Congratulations! I skipped (there were a 1000 messages) -- so can anyone give me the 411?

I actually like a salad with no lettuce.

I could do that, except it would make the vegetable base tomatoes, and I don't actually like tomatoes that much. (I can just about tolerate them cut into small pieces and mixed with a bunch of other stuff. In big slices with just dressing, NSM.)

Mute. Snark.

No, you don't understand. It was 5 people in a tiny, windowless room, none of us with computers, trying to get a word in edgewise with an overbreaing phone person. It wasn't that she droned on and on; it was that she wouldn't listen when we asked her to revise, and then when we got our sentences out of our mouths, she argued.

There are lower circles of hell, but they involve Geraldo, the T, and gastric distress.

so can anyone give me the 411?

We're waiting for the updated FAQ.

Here's my next putting-off-the-shower question: does some spammer actually think that I will be fooled by the familiarity of the "Hiya!" subject line into opening an email from "Federals G. Junketed"?

A few weeks ago I opened my spam filter by mistake and noticed that it had screened out an e-mail from one of my friends. Since then, I've opened it every day and scanned it, to be sure that I'm not missing any important e-mails. In my easily distractible way, I've become interested in spam as a phenomenon of nature. I've been struck with the fact that spam exists in an evolutionary context, with strong selection pressures, and it's constantly changing in response to changes in those pressures. It's very interesting how these organisms (e-ganisms?) adapt to escape their predators (spam filters) and to catch their prey (very stupid humans) successfully. Product descriptions alter the spelling in subtle ways that fool the machine but allow the human brain (even the stupid human brain) to recognize them. It's like the best forms of camouflage and mimicry found in nature.

And the names of the senders are always changing. At one point spammers could use an ordinary traditional name, but now it is obvious to everyone an e-mail from John Smith must be fake, fake, fake. The new names that I've seen are models of ethnic integration—they evoke sentimental images of the American melting pot: Xochiquetzal Jones; Mohamed Svenson; Kirsten Diego Ng. But as Emily points out, they also go beyond the old ethnic melting pot to a new kind of semantic melting pot where humans and animals and inanimate objects combine in new and wonderful ways: Patientest G. Organelle; Mouse L. Neurotically; Roach Anorthosite; Epoxyed M. Postman. It's hybrid vigor! It's natural selection and survival of the fittest, but done in a time frame of days rather than millennia.

Something I find both charming and depressing is the number of former English majors who appear to make their living in Spam. I have received offers for tourist information from Leopold Bloom, for new home financing from Howard Roark, and for legal advice from Sydney Carton. One lucky morning I received soulful e-mails from both Natasha Rostov and Helene Kuragin. Natasha was going to supply me with the ROMANCE that I always wanted. This seemed proper, given that Natasha had once captured my heart, along with the hearts of every other adolescent boy forced to read War and Peace at one point or another. On the not-so-proper side, Helene Kuragin offered to introduce me to sexy, fun-loving girls of easy virtue right in my own hometown. It's not clear how much good it does the average American guy to know about fun-loving, slightly mercenary girls in his hometown, given that he by now almost certainly lives hundreds of miles from his hometown, but if anyone would be good at finding these girls it would be Helene Kuragin.

All in all, if I have to be spammed, I prefer to be the target of these literate spammers with a sense of humor. Even so, there is a faintly tragic quality to educated people making a living like this. It’s the same feeling of slow decline and corruption that you get in novels of the Deep South or in stories of Englishmen languishing too long in some colonial backwater.

Emily, can you hook up with someone else taking the exam and study together? SOmetimes you just need to explain it to someone else to remember what you know, if that makes sense.

Excellent idea. Especially since it'll make me feel better -- I tend to get all tense thinking everyone else going into teaching math will be math geniuses, despite knowing that other intended high-school math teachers in my classes are... not. I mean, they're smart people, and I like them, but they're not, like, Hil or anything.

Also, -t, the Abstract Algebra and differential equations were for high school. Middle school teachers only need Algebra (er... concrete algebra? I kind of thought algebra was abstract in and of itself) and calculus through integrals. Doesn't that make you feel better?