Lecture 8

Ah...a Wednesday lecture, so it must be better... And I think it was indeed better than Monday's lecture. Prepared well enough that I could explain things. The material is a bit dry, though, so I'm not sure how much the students learned. I saw one person just sleeping in his seat...but I guess the good news is it's just that one person. And now I'm panicking, since I don't have anything prepared for future lectures... Oh well. I did start the lecture by telling them my real email, and they seem to like it...heh. Now they know my birthday, though...

Monday's office hour was crazy... One by one, people came an hour before it started, and remained almost an hour past its finishing time. Of course, in the middle, nobody came. So maybe I set up the wrong time. Awkward moment: two female Chinese students came in and started talking to me in Mandarin. I've never advertised that I can speak Mandarin, and I can't explain math in Mandarin, so I just awkwardly responded their questions in English...I don't know what else to do.

Met Durgesh the TA, whom I missed his office visit before class by a couple of minutes. Decent guy, doing CM now, but wanting to do business degree for PhD. We talked various topics like the combination lock, job market, and the geography bee...heh.