I love Thursdays.

I also love Gmail. As it so happens, I have my first initial and last name @gmail.com. It is very convenient.

In the past, when I have tried to register something similar at places like hotmail, I've always been informed that my username was not available. Sites offer helpful suggestions like JDoe23948032948QR@hotmail.com, as a peace offering.

I must say, though, that I thoroughly enjoy having my name @gmail.com. My account has been a source of serendipity. People write to me without intending to! Yesterday I got a complete copy of some Corporate Tax Law! I often receive tracking notification for things "I've" ordered from Amazon or other shopping sites. One time I received a long list of big stores around the country. It was a chart of square footage, store locations, who the managers were, their business and home telephone numbers... all kinds of information for places like PetSmart.

How exciting! I can only imagine what it would have been like to have a slightly more common last name. JSmith or SSmith probably receives at least several unsolicited personal e-mails daily.


In other news, I'm getting acclimated to my math class. I didn't particularly like the professor at the beginning of the class (a whole two weeks ago), and he's getting funnier. He's this really Asian man that very obviously speaks English as a second language.

A couple days ago, he blew us away. "Naw we ah goING to have som fuuuuunn!" And then he started to make jokes in his own way. We were simplifying fractions, and the answer was supposed to be 0/-7. He told us that he "didn't like" -7 and wanted to use -9 instead. He wrote 0/-9 as the answer. We watched. He explained: 0/-7 is equal to 0. And 0/-9 is equal to 0. So therefore, 0/-7 = 0/-9. He smiled. The whole class burst into laughter.

Today he made another joke. We needed to solve an equation. "Let's try," he said. "If we succeed, then we go home. If we do not succeed, we will go home also."


Which reminds me: I adore teachers who are passionate about what they teach. And lively.

I had this one seminary teacher who loved the Book of Mormon. And was so excited to teach about it. And I enjoyed the class, and the Church, and started thinking about going on a mission.

I had another teacher, a history professor, who was amazing. She was a little (4'8?) South American lady with short curly hair. She would come into the class and lecture us on American History without even looking at the textbook. She knew all of the information. In fact, she knew it better than the book did. She would make jokes to herself about history.

She'd be teaching, going along with the main story and then throw out extra comments ("Of course the real reason he did that was because..." "You wonder why spices were so valuable?" "But what really happened was he thought this and they knew that..."). It was hilarious. I learned in that class that history is actually just old gossip. I thoroughly enjoyed her history class.

If I teach, I'll be enthusiastic about whatever it is that I'm teaching. Of course, this limits me to non-mathematical fields.


And finally, our brief stint as pet-sitters came to an abrupt close when our neighbors returned from their son's out-of-state wedding. They were very surprised to see that their manti had not hatched yet. It's all just fine with me, though. That leaves the rightful owners to ...appreciate? the miracle of the insect life cycle.