I was also grading today. But I finished, and so now I'm taking a break, and then planning classes for tomorrow. I don't wanna teach implicit differentiation. No one ever understands it the first time, because we go through the first part of the course way too quickly and they don't really understand what derivatives are at this point, and so when I teach it, I'm looking out at a room full of confused/angry/scared faces.

I'm so very hungry. About to go grab brunch.

TCG and I went to the farmer's market today, and then drove around near the ocean. Tonight I am taking him out for dinner to a restaurant we have not been to before as one of his birthday gifts.

My uncle is back in the hospital. He went home after his lung had stayed inflated for 24 hours, but it collapsed again. We still have no idea what is going on..

Hil is there a really concrete example you can use? I'm thinking about how one teaches math to elementary school kids, and they always use applications of the skill before they teach it explicitly. For example they do pattern-matching to learn multiples (like 2s, 4s, 5s, 10s) in an early grade and then teach multiplication when kids are older. So maybe give them an exercise that applies the concept in a more concrete fashion first?

There isn't really a concrete example for this. The issue, really, is being able to recognize and work with implicitly defined functions. Like, given an equations like xy=4, and being told that x is the independent variable and y is the dependent variable, and being able to understand that, when they take the derivative, they treat the independent and the dependent variables differently. Everything they've had so far has been y = something, where the only variable on the right side of the equation was x. I really wish I had an extra few days to work on what derivative actually means, and what the role of each variable is in the equations, but there's a ton of material that I have to cover before the midterm, and there's really not time. At least I seem to have a few more students than usual who can use the dy/dx notation properly, which is generally a sign that they understand what the x and the y are doing.

This is ridiculous. I got noise-blocking headphones, and even with them on, and even with my ears clogged so that I'm having some trouble hearing to begin with, I can still hear the band practicing next door.

Is today Onerous Task Day? I didn't get the memo...although I have done 2 onerous tasks.

Whay say you: OTD today or tomorrow?

Speaking of onerous...I'm about to speak to the little dog's owner and tell him about his pet going missing for a day.

Pray for us both.

This is ridiculous. I got noise-blocking headphones, and even with them on, and even with my ears clogged so that I'm having some trouble hearing to begin with, I can still hear the band practicing next door.

Noise cancelling headphones were designed to put the sound coming into the headphones 180º out of phase from the noise coming out of the headphones (i.e. into your ears). They work best on continious tone and not fluctuating tones. Also, it is very difficult to put high frequencies out of phase, as they are very short, and a slight movement of your head can change that 180º to a lot less, thus, actually slightly boosting those frequencies. These headphones are primarily designed for reducing the volume of airplane noise. Sad to say, it doesn't have 100% effectiveness on shutting the world out.

I couldn't shake the nasty headache I woke up with and ended up falling asleep for two hours after eating. Ok. Grading. Attempt #2.