I don’t know about you, but I have this huge problem. I do all this writing on this blog, and I do all this reading on other blogs, and I have this information overload. I will get to a topic I’m teaching and be like

“Shoot! I know someone out there posted an awesome mnemonic for the sum and difference of cubes. What IS it?”

or

“Wasn’t there a great way to introduce logarithms that I wanted to try?”

Immediately after that, unless I’m in a i-need-to-find-that mood, I forego looking for it and just recycle what I did last year. I read about all this good stuff, but I rarely use it in the classroom. It’s actually pretty sad, considering how much time I spend reading.

The problems:

1. I subscribe to a ton of blogs
2. I’d guess that less than 1/3 of the posts deal with “on the ground this can help you in the classroom here’s a worksheet or mnemonic” things
3. I can’t really find the posts in google reader using a search. I just can never come up with the right words, because I always only have a vague recollection of what I’m looking for

So I wanted to create a virtual filing cabinet — with only posts that can help with on-the-ground teaching stuff.

Without further ado

My Virtual Filing Cabinet

(Or you can click on the link on the upper right hand corner.)

Three things.

1. If you want to know why I didn’t make this into a collaboration where a bunch of us would add to this list and it would become super comprehensive… I did think about it. The only problem is: if everyone were adding to it, it would suffer from the same problem as before. Too many things to click that I don’t want to wade through. My blogroll is like my virtual magazine subscription — and I just put on what’s useful for me. So to is this list my virtual filing cabinet, and it has to be useful for me. (Which is why is it centered around Algebra II and Calculus at the moment.)

However, I bet if everyone made something like this, it could be super useful. Because just like I find new blogs through other peoples’ blogrolls, I could find great things from other peoples’ virtual filing cabinets.

2. Does that mean I don’t want suggestions on things to add to it? Obvi I definitely want suggestions. If you have something that fits just throw it in the comments of the virtual filing cabinet page. I’d be much obliged.

3. If you care to know how I went about constructing it, logistically, it actually wasn’t hard. I use google reader, and I “star” my favorite posts. So I first went through our curricula and wrote down the topics I teach. Then I went back through my starred favorite posts and found which ones fit the bill (the criterion: anything that could be super useful on-the-ground in-the-classroom) and added ’em in the list.

All in all, it took about an hour to do it. Seriously.

I’m sure I missed a bunch, but I figured having an incomplete list is better than no list at all. (Though my retentiveness hates the fact that I missed a bunch. It’s also why I get stressed when I can’t read blog posts for a week, and can’t “mark all as read” because I might just miss the most best idea ever!)

I continue to “star” my favorite posts and every two weeks or so I add what I’ve found useful to me to this list. (All that takes me is about 5 minutes.)

One of the kids I help after school showed me this drawing that his teacher showed him. After seeing him draw it in front of me, I know I will never forget the relationship between Gallons, Quarts, Pints, and Cups ever again.

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There was something powerful about watching him draw the picture for me, which is why I have the video, and not just an image.

When I googled it, there are a few good image hits (so it must be a common thing). I just had never seen it.

I had a very realistic teacher nightmare last night. Not realistic in the sense that it could happen to me. But realistic in the sense that it was one of those vivid dreams where you feel emotion when having it.

The day of the final comes and it is in a strange building for some reason. Before the exam, I am on the phone with my mother talking about something important. Taxes, maybe. Then as the final exam hour approaches, I take my leave from my mother and go to the classroom and see my children milling about. I look for the exams but they are not in my bag.

Wait!

I forgot to photocopy them!

I start getting really flustered. Really flustered. This was a dream where I felt emotion, and I was literally freaking out. This is so unlike me. [1] I don’t know what to do. So I open my computer to print out a copy, and realized I never finished writing the exam.

I didn’t even have an exam!

What’s on my computer is a document with a test that I got from somewhere, but I meant to modify to fit my class and I didn’t. I couldn’t give that to my class. I look at last year’s final, and it covers totally different material for some reason.

I go to this teacher’s lounge, literally paralyzed because I don’t know what to do. I’m frantically seeing if I have time to fix up the final, but I realize I don’t. I keep thinking about my kids in the classroom wondering what’s going on. I keep trying to figure out what to do. But my mind is stuck at this point and isn’t working. I’m mentally paralyzed, stuck in my own special world of freak-out.

I continue to frantically try to fix things, but I can’t. Basically, this goes on for two hours. (The exam is supposed to last three hours.) I don’t go back to the classroom. I don’t even know if they’re waiting there.

That’s where I leave off the dream, and enter in the waking world. I was unprepared, and a terrible teacher, who just decided to burrow in a hole and hide because he couldn’t effectively deal with this challenge.

AWFUL.

Update: The next night I had another teacher nightmare. I was covering class for another teacher, and students were supposed to be taking a test. They weren’t being totally silent, so I made the edict “The next person who talks will get a 0 on their test.” And someone talked. And so I took their test and told them they had a 0. Then other kids were complaining about that, so I took their tests. And it became this horrible battle of wills, with the frustration level of both me and the kids rising quickly. Blah. I don’t have this problem. I’m not (consciously, anyway) scared of having this problem. Why am I dreaming about it?

[1] In real life, I always have everything taken care of — jots and tittles and all. I never go to bed without all my work done.

Warning: Whining ahead. Skip this post to be spared.

I am in the middle of a hell week. In addition to my classes, I have a number of after school commitments which may lead to me frothing at the mouth, clutching my knees, and rocking back and forth, mumbling “no time, no time, never any time.”

Monday:
3:30-4: Proctor a math contest
4:00-5:15: Interview math candidates
5:15-6:15: Informally discuss candidates with hiring committee

Tuesday:
3:30-5: Math department meeting

Wednesday:
3:15-5pm: Administer the American Mathematics Competition (AMC 10/12) to 100+ students

Thursday:
3:30-4:30: Tutor
4:30-5:30(?): Interview math candidates

Friday:
3:20-4: Faculty and Staff Advisory Committee meeting
4-5:30(?): Interview math candidates

This is in addition to my regular school work. Which happens to be a lot this week. To say the least.

Do I want to be pitied? Actually, yes, please.

Maria Andersen blogged and tweeted about an Equation Challenge — asking people to type out a set of 15 math questions and asking them to record it.

I know Maria is a big fan of MathType, and wants people to learn to unlock the secrets of it that make it so powerful. I use  MathType when I’m at school — I type all my worksheets and assessments up in Microsoft Word. (I type all my Multivariable Calculus problem sets out in LaTeX, however.) But when I was in high school (ahem, at… ummm… yeah, you got me… math camp), I first learned about LaTeX.

It has a slightly steep learning curve — definitely MUCH steeper than MathType — but I find that since I’ve been using it for so long, it has become really naturalized. And you know what? MathType can actually take in LaTeX (if you select that option in preferences). So I get the best of both worlds when I’m using Word.

So for the heck of it, I took Maria’s Equation challenge twice. Once, using Lyx (my LaTeX editor). Once, using Word. I was curious to see if I was faster with either of them. Of course I typed it as I normally would — using both the GUI and LaTeX.

Since Jing (which you must learn about, if you don’t know about it!) can only record for 5 minutes, I just typed as much as possible in that time frame. (If the videos won’t play full screen, just click here for LaTeX and here for Word.)

This past weekend I went out with some friends to a new favorite haunt. When I was there, I somehow mentioned that I was using Twitter, and to the one new person I hadn’t met before, I said as an aside, “I only twitter with math teachers.” Of course, it was one of those comments made in such a moment in such a way that brought on wave after wave of laughter. To the point where one of my friends felt compelled to write it down for posterity.

Indeed, my friends like to mock me at all turns. (But that’s okay, because I give as much mock as I get.)

She jokingly said she was going to get me a t-shirt made with that on it. Of course I thought that was an awesome idea. I made a sketchup (with various colors). I’m almost tempted to get one printed.

Hm. Maybe the little twitter bird should be added to the upper right hand corner. Or on a sleeve.

UPDATE: A #needaredstamp shirt should be designed:

Because I’m going back to LA for a wedding in a week and some days, I have been looking through an old now-defunct blog I kept in LA. I found this post dated May 15, 2007 — near the time I was leaving LA for NYC — that I think deserves a place on this blog.

May 15, 2007

It is about time to start thinking about packing up my apartment. I don’t move until the end of June, but it takes time to ship the flotsam and jetsam that I’ve accumulated. More painfully, it will take time to decide what can go with me and what must be jettisoned because of the exorbitant cost of transportation. My desktop computer, kitchen utensils, my plastic lobster, curtains, and lamps? And what of my sewing machine, unique vases, and stationary? Thinking about what stays and what goes is more than just a question of replacing consumer goods or evaluating sentimental value. It goes deeper, to who comes to New York.

At the end of attending ninth grade in Illinois where I had been born and raised, my parents gave me some shocking news:

The whole family was moving to New Jersey.

Of course, there was the requisite fight (as if I had a choice in the matter), some cold-shouldering, and recurring thoughts that my life was over. (At that age, hyperbole and reality conflated.) The transition from eighth grade to high school would have to be re-enacted all over again, but this time, in an even more severe way, because there were no familiar faces bobbing among the masses herding along in the hallways. I was leaving familiarity behind.

A few weeks before the actual move itself, I saw the other side of the coin. I was leaving my life behind, yes, but I was leaving my life behind. Bluntly put, I was always at the periphery of my social group. I wasn’t a complete outcast, but I never really felt like I belonged. Being among the same people since kindergarten was constrictive; once you were pegged, you were stuck. Loser. If you were unlucky, you would start believing it. Looking back, I know that I did, walking around the hallways always looking down at my feet. And if you were really unlucky, you would recognize your complicity in this role. Which I did too. Early in ninth grade, I saw myself playing this person, and suddenly realized “that’s not who I am.” And indeed, I wasn’t. I started walking eyes forward in the hallway, gaining self-confidence and a sense of humor. By the end of ninth grade, I was a completely different person—the person I wanted to be. I even worked up the courage to run for student council; in my school of over 4,000 students, the student council positions were popularity contests. I thought my new persona – my real persona – would get me noticed. But no one noticed. I was still treated the same, not quite in and not quite out of any social group. My yearbook, even though I had told people I was moving, was filled with repeated instantiations of “Have a great summer! See you next year!” It was awful.

And it was then I realized that even though I was leaving my life behind, I could leave a large part of me behind. That person wasn’t me and I had a wide-open vista to redefine myself based on who and what I saw myself as.

Holding firm to that thought, I moved to New Jersey and started a new life, consciously. The transition was one of fits and starts, but I held firm to the thought that I get to be whoever I want to be, that there are no lingering childhood ghosts circling me, that I am the master of my own destiny. And that person turned out to be – in my opinion — incredibly successful, not just academically, but socially. At the end of twelfth grade, I would be able to read my yearbook signings and grin, not grimace.

Of course since then there have been two more moves: from high school to college and then from college to grad school. In both these moves, I have taken the opportunity to redefine myself – leave an old iteration of me behind and rebuild a new me to move forward with.

Right now, when deciding what pieces of my apartment to leave behind, I am concurrently making decisions about what parts of myself I want to cast overboard. I’ve changed my personality almost wholesale since coming to grad school, and I don’t know why or how it occurred without me being fully aware of it happening. I just know “That’s not who I am.” I play a pale shadow, a cardboard cutout, of who I am; I’ve somehow been complicit in pegging myself an academic and playing the associated role.

Now it’s time to stop looking down. All I can tell you at the moment about who will be arriving on that plane to La Guardia is that he won’t be the same person writing this now.