Last night in town…for a while

I’m leaving for Asheville tomorrow, so it’s time to pack up my laptop.  Before I do so, I should probably reflect on what’s going through my mind.

I’m more than a little sad to be leaving my family.  Conner still has a couple of weeks of school and the post-season of Little League, and I won’t be around for that.  Mike’s got his most stressful time of the year coming up at work, and I won’t be here to support him.  I won’t be able to cuddle in bed with Guinness and Stout again until August.  There will be all nature of audio and video communications, but it won’t be the same as waking up in the same house every morning.

I’m more than a little nervous about what the summer has in store for me.  If what I read on the internet is true (and why wouldn’t it be), the trip down (via Greyhound) will be an adventure in and of itself.  Once I get there, I’ll have a ton of new math to learn well enough to do meaningful things with it while I’m at UNC-Asheville.  Will I be able to keep up with the other seven students participating in the REU?  I’m pretty sure I can, but there’s a lingering doubt or two.

I’m more than a little excited to find myself in new surroundings for the first time in a long time.  I love being lost and having to find my way, and it sounds like Asheville will offer me plenty of opportunities to explore my surroundings, meet new people, tackle new concepts, and prove to myself that I can still handle whatever gets thrown at me.

So, the laptop is going in the bag, things will be zipped up and ready to go in the morning, and I will try to get a decent night’s sleep in advance of my journey.  Over the next couple of months I’ll take pictures, provide updates, and probably babble a bit about math in the process.  Let the adventure begin.

Musings (potentially random and disjointed, since I don’t do this much any more)

Here you go, Adrian….a new blog post:

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway!), lots has happened since I last made the time to post anything of consequence here.  After just shy of one year, my nephews are living with my sister again.  The transition from three kids to one has been almost as surreal as the transition from one to three was last January.  Our living room no longer looks like an ICU/nursery, we haven’t bought diapers in three months, and we can include dairy products in our meals without worrying about spending an evening in the emergency room.  We miss the boys like crazy, but are glad that the situation seems to be resolving itself well.  We’ll always be grateful for the time we had with them.  As difficult as it was at times, I know that all of us are better off for having been through it.

School has been going exceptionally well this semester.  I got my nomination for the national math honor society (Pi Mu Epsilon), and my grades didn’t suffer too much from the added stress of the past year.  My course load is quite a bit lighter than it was in the fall, so there’s been more downtime to fill with all sorts of activities.  I’m not very good at down-time, so I have a tendency to overextend myself to compensate.  I’m taking flute and voice lessons this semester, playing flute in the AU symphonic band, oboe in the Hornell Area Wind Ensemble, filling in on woodwinds in the AU orchestra, singing in the Orpheus Chorale, and I have a part in the “adult” comedy musical being put on by the Hornell Community Theatre.  When I’m not in rehearsal, I’m working my way through an online Topology class, and also prepping some more for my origami independent study.  I was really excited to find Erik Demaine’s Fall 2010 MIT origami course online and snagged the textbook through inter-library loan so that I could explore some things outside of what I’ve been working on in Robert Lang’s Origami Design Secrets.  Next semester will be a little different than I had initially planned, since the Graph Theory/Combinatorics topics class conflicts with the only section of Differential Equations.  Looks like Diff. Eq. will have to wait until my last semester when the only other class I will need is Advanced Calculus (Real Analysis).  There’s also a possibility that there will be room for me in a small Modern Algebra II class this fall with a couple of my cohorts, which would be excellent.

I was thrilled to the point of near-speechlessness to be accepted to an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) for this summer.  I’ll be spending eight weeks with seven other students at UNC Asheville, knee-deep in graph theory, group theory, and metric geometry.  While my overwhelming emotional response to this is excitement, there’s a little bit of anxiety (not much) thrown in.  We’ll be covering a lot of ground, and a tiny little voice in my head wonders if I can hold on for the ride.I recently came to the realization that I’m now at the point where the math in my notebooks and on the chalkboards in my classrooms looks like “movie math”…the crazy equations and symbols they use in a movie to imply that whatever mathematics the people on screen are discussing is far too complex for anyone in the audience to understand.  I just need to remind myself sometimes that the sigmas and matrices and continued fractions aren’t beyond me any more and that as long as I apply myself, I’ll do fine and have fun.  It will be really interesting to meet students from other schools so that we all have new sounding boards for our ideas and techniques.

My own "movie math" work in progress...and this isn't even terribly complicated. (Unfortunately, I am cursed with chalkboard handwriting that is far too legible to hide my mistakes behind bad penmanship.)

I also have a strong indication from another summer program director that I will have a position next summer as well.  The professor in charge of the program contacted me after their rejection letters went out saying that I had one of the strongest applications but still had two years of eligibility for their program, and they had to give preference to students who were graduating sooner.  In the long run, I think this is really for the best, as the UNC Asheville program is geared towards addressing some of my more immediate mathematical goals.  The other program, while very prestigious, is not research/publication oriented, so I don’t feel so bad about waiting a year to take part.  Hopefully the skills I pick up in North Carolina this summer will allow me to dig deeper in my independent study next semester and come up with useful results of my own, instead of just surveying the topic.  Mathematical origami is a relatively young area of study with lots of accessible open questions, so strong research and writing skills will put me in a much better position to make meaningful contributions to the field.

Now that I am working my way through the math course offerings and starting to think about grad school, I’m finding myself reassessing my goals.  I still absolutely want to teach; I just want to be sure I am doing it in the way that will have the most potential impact.  When I graduate, I will be certified for general elementary education, along with secondary certification in mathematics.  Something I hadn’t really considered until recently is the possibility of going beyond a Master’s degree and teaching at the college level.  A very big part of me wants to do my graduate work in pure math.  At this point I feel like I’m just peeking through the keyhole into an ever-expanding room full of treasure.  I’m starting to understand some of the deeper concepts and connections, and that really piques my appetite for more knowledge.  Then there’s the part of me that feels selfish for wanting to keep “living the academia dream” when I should be in a classroom inspiring future mathematicians.  I could be so much more impactful in a grade school classroom simply being excited about math, instead of petrified of it like so many elementary educators are.  What kind of difference would it have made for you at an early to have experienced math as exciting, powerful, and mysterious instead of frustrating, repetitive, and tedious?  Even in the high school classroom I could be a role model to girls who, like I did at their age, never imagine that math is an option for them.  Nobody ever told me women couldn’t do math, but I never had direct contact with any who did it and were enthusiastic about it.  Knowing what I do now, don’t I have a moral obligation to fill that role?  I could sign on with Math for America and have a Master’s in math education and be in a classroom by the fall of 2014.  I’d get 4 years of classroom experience for my resume and would then be in a much more competitive position to get into the DoDDS system than I would fresh out of grad school.  Or I can spend another five years working on a PhD and ultimately teach at the college level while continuing research work in whatever amazing field of math I wind up claiming for my own.  Good thing I still have a couple of years to figure that out.  I have a feeling my experience this summer, both with research and in interacting with passionate educators, will have more than a little impact on my ultimate decision.

Well…time to get some homework done before Geometry.  I have a busy night full of obligations ahead, and would rather sleep afterward than stay up doing linear algebra WebWork.

The Guo New Voice flute is here!!!

I don’t have a lot of time to go into detail right now, but first impressions:

1.  I was nervous about the orange color, but in person it is actually quite stunning and tasteful.  The 12 year-old Mickey might have wanted a bright orange flute, but I’m not 12 any more and this is really eyecatching in a good way.

2. The mechanism feels effortless.  Admitedly, the flute I’ve been playing on since high school isn’t exactly a marvel of flute-making technology, but the New Voice is sooo much easier to play from a technical standpoint.  I haven’t had a ton of time to fiddle with it, but I whipped through a few chromatic scales and felt like my fingers were flying.  We’re talking about moving a few milimeters against a tiny amount of resistance, but even in that limited rage of motion the change was dramatic.

3. The headjoint is not nearly as resistant as the one on my old flute.  Throughout the entire range of the instrument, notes are very easy to produce.  There’s no need for a split E mechanism when the note can be played so effortlessly.  I also found harmonics much simpler to produce than on the silver flute.  The low end is nice as well.  The lowest notes are consistently easy to produce, although it may take some more adjustment on my part to get a fatter tone in the low register.

4. I will be honest in saying that up close this flute looks and feels like a toy.  It does not sound like a toy. The incredibly light weight will really come in handy as I work on Ambidextranata (Gary Schocker).  It’s a piece for flute and piano, one player.  Basically you play the flute with your left hand and accompany yourself on piano with your right hand.  The balancing act of playing a C# with one hand will be much simpler with the lighter flute.

That’s all I have time for right now.  I’ll have to see about getting some decent audio files up so that people can judge the sound quality for themselves.  The Grenaditte model should be here in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll be able to make more comparisons then.

Curve Balls

Life keeps throwing them, and I’m not at all convinced they’re not aimed at my head.

What’s been going on at the Stone household since last I wrote?  Well…I finished my fall semester of school with a 4.00.  (Yay, me!)  I was getting along very well with my professors and fellow students, found a supplemental on-campus job, and life in general seemed to be going pretty smoothly.  Winter break came and a couple of weeks into the peace and quiet, life started coming at us hard and fast.  The day after Christmas found us with a couple of extra kids (all the fun of parenting, none of the morning sickness), a routine that seemed to require more hours in the day than are typically found in a week, and a whole lot of questions.

As of this writing, two of my nephews are living with us and one is living with my dad and step-mom.  First the good  news: in the 5 1/2 months he’s been with us, the littlest guy has gone from round the clock tube feeding with almost no tolerance of solid foods to a pretty normal (albeit ravenous) diet with oral (not g-tube) supplementation.  He’s still got a long road ahead of him and is far from being a “healthy” kid, but he’s made amazing progress.  He’s very smart, incredibly funny, a great singer, and an all-around joy to have at the house.  The nine year old is another pleasure to have around.  He helps a lot around the house, is a fellow book-worm, and has pretty decent taste in movies to boot.  He’s been a high honor roll student since he came to stay with us, and continues to impress everyone around him with his maturity in the face of adversity.

The not so good stuff:  Nearly doubling your household overnight is stressful.  Doing so when you’re going to school full time, living on a one-income budget, driving the subcompact car that was “perfect for our little family,” and suddenly losing all of your weekends to shuttling kids back and forth to see their dads in two different counties…it’s not merely stressful.  It’s somewhere between overwhelming and impossible.  Toss in the complications from dealing with a special needs toddler (feeding schedules, allergic reactions, constant ear infections, hospitalized pneumonia, potty training, and general toddler-y hurdles), concern for the well-being of family members, a long string of court dates, and a few upper level math exams for good measure, and you can probably imagine why we’ve fallen off the face of the Earth lately.

With all of the added pressure, I’ve spent a lot of time feeling resentful.  I want weekends, and I want naps, and I want quiet time to study, and I want to drive the cute little car, not the ugly old van, and I want to go on a vacation, and I want $50 so I don’t have to choose between a night out with my husband for his birthday (which nobody outside of this house and his job even bothered to mention this year) and paying my car insurance, and I want a living room that doesn’t look like a nursery/medical supply closet, and I want to get together with  family and not talk about how much the lawyer costs….I could go on, but it’s even more obvious when I see it written out that being resentful isn’t making the situation any better.  Mike and I have been working really hard at propping each other up when the stress starts to get to us.  I can’t imagine trying to go through this situation without him and the honest, open communication system we have in our marriage.

So, where does that leave us?  Honestly, it’s hard to tell at this point.  There are more court dates, doctor’s appointments, government agency paperwork, and curve balls in the future.  It the mean time, we try to keep going as best we can.  I’ll be spending my down-time this summer getting ready for next semester (Calc III, Number Theory, Modern Algebra, and my music classes), Mike is trying to find a creative outlet for his stress, and we just keep swinging as long as life keeps pitching.

Mmmmm…German Potato Salad

I just cooked up a test batch of potato salad, and quite to my surprise, it didn’t suck.  It’s not my Mom’s potato salad, but it was still pretty tasty.  There’s a lingering smell of bacon in the house, and Mike even ate two bowls full.  At this point, the only change I’ll make to the recipe is to use real German vinegar.  It was tasty with the balsamic, but the real stuff will make it more authentic.

So…a week of school is in the books, and it was awesome.  I love my classes.  My professors are great.  I’ve almost got all of my financial aid issues worked out.  For all of the hassle this summer, things are finally going smoothly.  I had a bit of a panic attack last weekend, worrying about whether or not I could handle things once school started.  I had convinced myself that I couldn’t handle the work load, and that there would be no way I could pull my weight around the house and still manage to stay on top of my school work.  Needless to say, it was all for naught.  I’ve got a 20 credit hour course load, but it all seems pretty manageable.  I even picked up an oboe for the first time in a decade and a half.  I’m glad I decided to join the concert band, as it will provide me with a way to blow off some creative steam this semester.  Even my social concerns were pretty unfounded.  Sure, most of the students in my classes were born the year before I graduated from high school, but I’ve talked to a handful of people who are non-traditional students, and even had nice conversations with some of  my younger classmates.

Having talked to a few transfer students, it appears that I’m not the only one who had difficulties with the admissions process this summer.  There were enough complaints and issues that a few of the faculty members have taken it upon themselves to see what can be done to keep things flowing more smoothly in the future.  It was a bit of a relief to hear that I wasn’t the only one who had problems.  I’ve brainstormed it a bit with Mike, and will probably meet with the Associate Dean of my school to give her a couple of suggestions to make things less frustrating.  That way I’m not just complaining, but actively trying to find ways to make things better.

As much as I’d love to keep going here, I’ve got a bunch of homework that still needs to be done.  History 107, here I come!

The week in review

The New Haircut

Hmmm…so much to say and so little ambition to actually type, so I guess I’ll just give a chronology with a few details thrown in.

Sunday (9-1-09) – Long overdue trip to New Dimensions:  I’ve gone a few months without so much as a trim and school starts in a few weeks, so it was time for a haircut.  I decided to go drastic this time, and after my recent experience at the helm of a Flowbee, I decided professional help was warranted.  There are few things in life that are certain, and one of them is always leaving New Dimensions happy, which held true once again.  I went for a deep red and a slightly shorter, layered cut, and have been thrilled with the results.  The true test of a new haircut is whether or not you can come close to styling it again after your next shower, and this one passed with flying colors.  Amanda always seems to come up with cuts that practically style themselves.  I wholeheartedly recommend New Dimensions for anyone in the area.  It seems like whenever I take Conner anywhere else for a cut, we always wind up at New Dimensions getting it fixed the next day.  Great atmosphere, highly trained staff, excellent end result.

Monday-Tuesday: Stared reigning in my calorie count a bit and excercising some more.  The broken toe has put a damper on the running, and my enthusiasm towards fitness in general has waned accordingly.  Of course, by the end of my hour on the recumbent bike Tuesday night, I didn’t think I’d be able to sit again for a week.

Wednesday:  Still eating better.  Picked up EA Sports Active for the Wii, and was really impressed.  I enjoy Wii Fit, but it is a little unstructured and “cutesy,” and what I need now is some serious sweating without having to pick what exercise comes next.  I started the 30 Day Challenge and was instantly running, flexing, jumping, and (most importantly) sweating my butt off.  Great stuff, and I’m very enthusastic to keep going with it.  Conner tried it out as well, and picked out some of the sports training.  Mike gave the it a go as well, and everyone seems to approve.  I won’t turn my back completely on the Wii Fit, but Active is a great alternative when a more serious workout is in order.

Thursday:  Jordan came over to spend the day with us while his little brother had a follow-up appointment at the hospital in Rochester.  We were going to pick blueberries, but the blueberry farm was close.  We decided to hike at Stony Brook State Park instead.  It wasn’t until about the 20th step up the 1 mile gorge trail hike that I was reminded of the previous day’s squats and lunges.  I made it through, though. (Going down the hundreds of steps was worse than going up, surprisingly enough.)  The boys both seemed to enjoy themselves, and were pretty unfazed by the climbing.  The first thing they did when we got back to the playground at the start of the hiking trail was head for the rock climbing wall.  Here are a few pictures from the hike:

Jordan and Conner on a rock ledge

Steps

More steps

Even MORE steps!

Shockingly enough, even after the hike, I was able to do workout 2 of the 30 Day Challenge.  It wasn’t easy, but I managed, and was even able to stand the next morning.

Friday: I went to AU to drop off my admissions paperwork and a few financial aid forms.  I had hoped to talk to my admissions counselor about a few credit transfer questions, but she was otherwise occupied today.  I’ll be making an appointment early next week to get that straightened out.  At the very least, I’m officially accepted and have paid my deposit.  Hopefully we can get the ball rolling on registering for classes by the end of next week.

Unfortunately, things in the financial aid department are not nearly as bright.  I called Direct Loans again today to try to figure out when they were going to stop billing me for the consolidation loan that never actually went through.  They were less than helpful, and said all they could do was send it to their research department and get back to me in two weeks.  I’ll be starting school in two weeks, and actually having money to pay for my books might be nice.  At this point, though, I can’t even reapply for consolidation until they figure out what went wrong the first time.  Then it will be at least a month before the new consolidation is processed.  In the meantime, I have to keep paying on the New York State loans or risk never being able to get them out of default without paying in full.  To say that money is going to be tight around the Stone household for the next couple of months is an understatement, and the lack of work at the print shop has only made the belt tighter.  Mike and I spent the evening figuring things down to the last (somewhat imaginary) penny, and we’ll get through, but not without a heaping helping of sacrifice and a lot of pasta dinners.  At least we’ll be able to keep track of the passage of time by the “new light a week” schedule our dashboard seems to be following.  The car is paid off in full in October, so perhaps it will have the good manners to wait until then to die completely.

In summation:  It’s been a pretty darned good week.  The wheels are in motion for my return to school, and once we get through the financial aid hassles, it should be smooth (however frugal)  sailing  until I get those nifty new degrees and can finally start teaching.

Frustration is high

I’m about to enter month three of the uphill marathon of being accepted at AU, and I’m beginning to wonder why anyone pursues higher education these days.  The red tape, paperwork, phone calls, must-have-gotten-lost-in-the-mails, out-of-the-office-for-the-next-two-weeks, and countless other hurdles have left me no closer to acceptance than I was when I filled out my application in May.  If I had wanted my spirit broken, I could have shipped of to Paris Island for Marine boot camp….and I’d be done by now!  The absurd beurocracy is really starting to take its toll.

I’m going to be accepted; that’s not even in question.  I have a 3.7 grade point average.  I’m Phi Theta Kappa.  I have an impressive list of extracurriculars from college and current community service. It’s just that every time I think all of the pieces are in place at the admissions office, something else comes up.  First, they didn’t need my high school transcripts since I already had an A.A.  Two weeks later….”um, we need your high school transcripts before we can even look at your application.”  OK, I guess I understand that, so I had the transcripts sent.  Then I waited another two weeks and called to check on the status of things.  Then it’s “we never got the letter of recommendation from a former professor.”  That one had been sent at the beginning of June, and somehow gotten lost in the mail.  Fortunately, the professor was very accomodating and got in touch with admissions right away….only to find out that the person he needed to speak to was out of the office for the week.  OK…mail mix-ups happen, and ultimately everything was resolved.  At the end of June, I had confirmation that everything was in place, and I’d be hearing back from them in about 3 weeks.  Two weeks later I get an email….”we’d love to transfer these credits for you, but we’ll need your CLEP and AP scores in order to do that.”  So, I fax requests to the College Board, make a few phone calls, and pay $45 to have my “archived” scores sent to AU.  Except the AP scores are from more than 4 years ago, so it can take up to 10 business days for them to be found and mailed.  Tomorrow will be 10 business days, and (of course), they haven’t been sent yet.  I’m guessing they’re in the crate under the Ark of the Covenant, which might explain why it’s taking so long.  Either way, until they can figure out what credits transfer, I don’t get my acceptance letter.  Without my acceptance letter, I can’t meet with my Math and Education advisors.  Without my advisors, I can’t register for classes.  By the time I get accepted, pay my deposit, and meet with my advisors, it may be too late, since two of the three classes I need to take this fall are already full with active waitlists.  And, in keeping with the “Cosmos Crapping on Mickey’s Head” theme, when I called today to see if there was any way we could jump start the admissions thing and deal with the AP scores when they arrive….guess what?  Yup.  My couselor is out of the office until next week.

That’s just admissions.  You want a real nightmare, take a peek into my financial aid folder.  I’ll start this one off with a word of advice to everyone out there:  DO NOT DEFAULT ON YOUR STUDENT LOANS! Seriously folks, there are so many ways to put off payments without going into default that you should never have to cross that line.  If, however you do default, be prepared for a bumpy ride if you’re returning to school.  I looked into all of my options and found out that I could consolidate my defaulted loans and basically start over fresh.  I filled out the forms (at the beginning of June), waited patiently, checked the status regularly, and everything went through perfectly.  That should have been my first sign of trouble.  My boss got paperwork from NY Higher Education allowing him to stop my wage garnishment.  I got paperwork from Direct Loans detailing the repayment plan on the newly consolidated loans.  That same day, I also got paperwork from NY Higher Ed that if I didn’t pay off my loans in full, they would start garnishing my paycheck.  Wait….what?!?  I go to look at the National Student Loan Database, and instead of owing $14K on my new loan, I owed $14K on my new loan AND $14K on the defaulted loans that were just paid off through consolidation.  In one fell swoop, I had doubled my student loan debt, and couldn’t get either lender to admit that there was some kind of error somewhere.  Ultimately, New York had accepted the money from Direct Loans…then sent it back two weeks later.  They told me that if I made one payment to them voluntarily, then the loans would be eligible for consolidation.  The payment has been made, but I can’t apply for consolidation until Direct Loans acknowledges that the loan bounced back to NY State.  Confused yet?  So is everyone to whom I’ve tried to explain the situation.  Where does that leave me?  Well, with less than a month before classes start, that leaves me dipping into my retirement fund to pay for books and supplies, since there’s no way in heck that a whole new consolidation will go through in time for me to get financial aid before school starts.  Is it all going to work out in the end?  I certainly hope so.  If not, I can go double or nothing on another consolidation attempt and use the resulting total student loan debt to illustrate my understanding of exponential growth in math class.

To make matters even more uplifting, I got my first part-time paycheck from the print shop today.  $38.  Guess I won’t be splurging on any extravagances to boost my mood.

Then, there’s the inescapable perspective-changing situation.  My nephew is sick again.  A year and a half old, reliant upon a central line to meet his nutritional needs until whats left of his intestines decides to work, and he’s got another infection.  He’s already had the central line replaced once in the past few months, and there are only so many times you can do that before there aren’t any blood vessels strong enough to accommodate it.  We won’t know for sure if it’s a line infection until the cultures come back from the hospital.  No matter what the outcome, it makes my college conundrum seem petty.  No matter what happens on that front, I’ll still have my family, three squares a day, and a roof over my head.  My sister has been unemployed for nearly 2 years, providing 24-hour care to a critically ill child, while raising two others with minimal outside help.

I should probably quit whining.

Pre-Calculus Workbook for Dummies (who are already confident enough in their math skills to not be derailed by the errors in the book)

Click here for the most recent list of errors in Pre-Calculus Workbook for Dummies.

I’m not typically a reviewer of books, but I’m going to make an exception in this case.  My shiny, new, first-edition copy of the Pre-Calculus Workbook for Dummies (Burger, Neal, Gilman; Wiley Publishing Inc.; 2009) showed up yesterday, and my experience has been less than positive.  I already own Pre-Calculus for Dummies, but was getting weary from scouring the web for worksheets and quizzes to reinforce everything I was re-learning.  (It’s amazing how much you can forget after 10 years outside of the classroom.)  This workbook was going to allow me to be sure that I was grasping all of the material, so that I could finally crack open that Calculus I textbook and get a jump-start on the fall semester.

I was very impressed with the first few problems, as they didn’t waste time with simple examples.  These were nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty problems that put my mettle to the test.  So far, so good.  Then we hit Chapter 2, and things went downhill fast.  In the span of 3 pages, there were 4 errors in either examples or practice problems.  The first time I went through, I assumed it had to be me that was in error.  Granted, it’s a first edition book, but surely it was proofread well enough to avoid that many glaring mistakes.  I went back and tried the problems again….still no dice.  I read the step-by-step solutions to the problems, and was left more confused than when I started.  Fortunately, I have a strong enough background in the basics, that I was ultimately able to determine that the mistakes weren’t on my end.  I verified with a few of my mathematically inclined friends that, somehow, the folks at Wiley Publishing put out a remedial math book without bothering to check their own answers first.  If I had been addressing the material for the first time, I would have given up in frustration by page 30.

I searched the internet for any errata for the book, but came up empty handed.  The book is so new that there aren’t even any reviews on Amazon yet.  So, instead of merely complaining about the book, I’ll try to be useful.  I’ll use this blog post to list any errors I come across in the text, along with what I hope are understandable corrections.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still very much in the process of relearning this material, so if you happen to notice something wrong with one of my corrections, please let me know.  Also, if you’re using the book and find something that’s not quite right, send a comment, and I’ll look into it and add it to the page.  Wiley Publishing doesn’t seem to have any documentation of errors in their books, so let’s all work together to fill in the gap.

I’m still convinced that the Pre-Calculus Workbook for Dummies could be one of the best resources for people interested in learning (or relearning) the math skills that will get them ready for college level calculus.  It is shame that poor proofreading has turned it into such a source of frustration.

Errors in Pre-Calculus Workbook for Dummies (First Edition)

(Changes to the text are in yellow italics.)

Cheat Sheet (Tear-out page at beginning of book) – Sum-and-difference formulas
They got sin(x±y) right, but messed up cos(x±y) and tan(x±y).

These should read:

Page 27 – Problem #4
Solve for x in x³ – 5x > 4x² . The answer is -1 < x < 0 or x > 5

The solution on page 36 says to subtract 4x² from both sides of the equation^*. It then proceeds to add 4x² to the left of the inequality, instead of subtracting, as it just instructed. This, of course, will yield an incorrect answer.

The corrected Answer should read:
For this problem, start by gathering all your variables to one side of the inequality by subtracting 4x² from each side: x³ - 4x² – 5x > 0. Next, factor out x from each term: x(x² - 4x – 5) > 0. Then factor the quadratic: x(x – 5)(x + 1) > 0. Setting your factors… Therefore your solution is -1 < x < 0 or x > 5.

*This problem is not an equation; it is an inequality. Remember: no “=”, no equation.

Page 29 – Example 1 (Top left corner of the page)
Write the solution for 5 – 2x > 4 in interval notation. The answer is (- ∞, ¹/₂)

It looks like they forgot to flip the inequality symbol when dividing both sides of the inequality by the negative 2.  The way to get the correct answer is:
5 – 2x > 4
- 2x > -1
x < ¹/₂

Page 29 – Problem #6
Write the solution for the solution of  x³ – 5x > 4x² in interval notation, and graph the solution on a number line.

The solution on page 36 wittily points out that they’ve just given you this problem to solve in #4.  It neglects, however, to correct the errors in the solution of #4. (Click here for a detailed solution to the inequality.)  As for the correct answer, it should be (-1, 0)∪(5, ∞).   The graph of the corrected solution looks like this:

Graphed at www.webgraphing.com. (Incredible math resource. Check it out!)

Page 29 – Problem #7
Graph the interval set (- ∞, -7)∪[-5, 2)∪(4, ∞) on a number line.

The solution on page 37 is incorrect, as they use an open circle instead of a solid circle at -5.  Since the bracket before the 5 indicates a closed interval, that portion of the graph should look like this:

Graphed at www.webgraphing.com

Page 29 – Problem #8
Graph the solution of |2x -1| ≤ 3.

The solution on page 37 is correct, however the graph is incorrect.  Because we are talking about closed intervals, the circles should be solid, not open as they are illustrated.

Page 31 – Example 2 (top right of page)
Solve for x in √2x -1 + 4 = x + 2

The answer is ultimately correct, but the way they got it contained an error.  Towards the bottom of the solution, you are instructed to check for extraneous roots by plugging in your two possible solutions.  In the right column, they replace both instances of x with 5, then solve down to 7=7.  This part is correct.  The substitution in the second column is wrong, however.  Instead of replacing all instances x with 1, they replace the first x with 1, and the second x with 5.  The solution should look like this:

√2(1) -1 + 4 = 1 + 2

√2-1 + 4 = 3

√1 + 4 = 3

1 + 4 = 3

5 ≠ 3

In the end, x=1 is still an extraneous root, but the substitution in the example was done incorrectly.

Page 36 – The explanation of the answer for problem 17

The answer is ultimately correct, but the explanation has a typo that might throw you off.  The second sentence reads “Notice the 2 ³√2 in both the numerator and the denominator.”  You don’t notice this, because it’s not true.  The sentence should read “Notice the ³√2 in both the numerator and the denominator.”  From there on, the explanation will make sense.

Page 50 – Last paragraph  (finding the oblique asymptote)

They leave out an important part of the description of how to find the oblique asymptote.  The last sentence should read “The quotient you find (ignoring the remainder) is the equation you graph as an oblique asymptote.”  Knowing that you should disregard the remainder is crucial, and will come in handy when you try to solve problem 14.

Page 65 – The graph of the answer for problem 12

I have no idea where they came up with the graph used in the answer.  The asymptotes don’t correspond with the explanation, and the graph in the (-2,3) interval is drawn as a perfect parabola, when the points you get from solving the equation in that range indicate it is not.  Here is the corrected graph, with vertical asymptotes placed at -2 and 3:

Notice the graph in the (-2,3) area is not a perfect parabola as was indicated on pg. 65.

Page 66 – The explanation and graph for problem 14

The explanation isn’t so much wrong, as it is incomplete.  When describing the process of finding oblique asymptotes on page 50, they forgot to mention that you discard the remainder when finding the quotient of the numerator and denominator.  This might leave you a little confused about what to do with the -13/(x + 1) you have as a remainder when you are done dividing.  Just ignore it entirely and use x – 11 to graph your oblique asymptote.  The second sentence should read, “Use long division (ignoring the remainder) to find the quotient x – 11…”

Also, the graph is inaccurate.   When they graphed the oblique asymptote (y = x – 11), they gave it a y-intercept of -10.  The asymptote should, obviously, cross the y-axis at -11.  The values that they have graphed at x = -4 and x = 2 are off by 1 as well.  The corrected graph should look like this:

The oblique asymptote has a y-intercept of -11 and and x-intercept of 11.

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I’m still pretty early in the book, so there’s not much here yet.  I’ll add more as I come across or am made aware of any other errors.  In my wildest dreams, someone from Wiley will call up to offer me a proofreading credit in the next edition of the book.  (Wouldn’t that look impressive on my resume?)  More likely, I’ll be asked to pull the page, but until then, I’ll keep at it.

Aim for the stars, and if you miss, you might understand differential equations anyway.

I’ve decided to teach myself Calculus over the next couple of months.  Pretty odd choice for someone who was waffling between history and English for her second major only a few weeks ago.  The thing is, while I’m positive I could do well at either English or history (and I certainly have more college credits in those fields), the demand for math teachers is much higher.

My primary goal in going back to school is to get PreK-6 certification.  That initial certification will leave me with the most hiring options when I’m ready to start teaching.  I’ll have to take at least 30 hours of classes in a specific field aligned to the NY teaching standards in order to get my education degree, so I figured I might as well take a couple more classes in whatever field that is for the double-major.  The double major would make it much easier for me to get a certificate extension to teach my other major at the high school level, thus further expanding my hiring options.

At first, the logical choice was English.  I have more credits in English than in any other potential major.  I love reading and writing, and I have genuine interest in the subject matter.  Then I thought about history, and how this would be the perfect opportunity to broaden my knowledge of the subject.  So for a couple of weeks I waffled between the two.  Then I did some research.  Everywhere I turned I was told that English and history teachers are a dime a dozen, and if I wanted real hiring potential, to look at math and science for my concentration.

My gut reaction was to dismiss math entirely.  I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’ve always bought into the stereotype that mathematics was a men’s field, and a young men’s field at that.  All my life I’ve heard that the female brain wasn’t wired for all of the logic and spatial thinking necessary to succeed in mathematics.  I struggled quite a bit with math in high school, which only furthered the stereotype in my mind.  Somehow, though, by the time I made it to college, something clicked and I started grasping the concepts that I was theretofore convinced were out of reach.  So, I looked back over my transcripts and realized that not only was I capable of passing, I was capable of excelling.

If I can pursue my education degree with a concentration in math, then not only am I opening up my future career options, I’m also disproving the stereotype.  I’m going to teach myself calculus, start enrolling in higher level math classes, and I’m going to succeed.  When I’m done, and I have that math degree that I had convinced myself was unobtainable, then I’ll be in a much better position to work at cracking the “girls can’t do math” stereotype by being able to instill confidence in the girls (and boys) who find themselves in my classroom.

Ultimately, I want to teach, whether it’s a room full of second graders, or 5 sections a day of high school math.  Being able to go back to school at this point in my life is a gift that I don’t want to squander, so I fully intend to come out of this prepared to have the best opportunity to get into a classroom and start making a difference.  The more thought I give to that process, the more that math makes perfect sense.  I know I won’t breeze through it like I’m sure I could with English, but the end result will be more than worth the extra effort.

The first step, however, is going to be teaching myself enough calculus to test out of Calc I.  That will buy me an extra semester of upper level math classes, making the double-major possible even when I’m working my schedule around student teaching in my senior year.  I’ve got some books on the way, a handful of knowlegable friends to help me get over any hurdles, and a big old female brain that can’t wait to get to work.

The new mp3 player is here!

Since we started running again, I have been using Mike’s old iPod, and it has served me well enough.  Unfortunately, I don’t have pockets in any of my running clothes, and the arm-band iPod holder thingy is uncomfortable.  That has left me holding the iPod in my hand throughout the entire run.  We’ve been considering picking up a couple of Shuffles, but cash is tight, plus the lack of a screen is a big detractor for me.  Enter woot.com and their random daily deals on all sorts of gizmos.  A couple of weeks ago they had a special on 2 gig Sansa Clips.  The price ($15) was right, the hands-free clip was tight, and the built in screen was plenty bright, allowing me to scroll through songs while running at night. (Sorry…I was on a roll, and it went a little too far.)

Order placed.  Item received.  Battery charged.  Now, for the music.

I keep trying to add new music to the playlist I listen to while running, but I pretty much fall back on the songs that I put on my first running mix.  There’s something comforting about the drumsticks setting my pace at the beginning of Vertigo, and I can always count on Because We Can to carry me through the last stretch of an otherwise impossible run.  I remember the first time I did the Couch to 5K program, I scoured the internet for other people’s playlists, so I might as well toss mine out there for anyone else looking for suggestions.  Here you go, in no particular order:

• Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal
• CAKE – The Distance
• CAKE – I Will Survive
• CAKE – Sheep Go To Heaven
• Jane’s Addiction – Stop
• New Order – Blue Monday
• Ben Folds – Zak And Sara
• Ben Folds Five – Army
• Ben Folds Five – One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces
• Ben Kweller – Penny on the Train Track
• U2 – Vertigo
• Will Smith – Switch
• Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc.
• Beck – The Information
• Presidents of the United States of America – Kitty
• Black Eyed Peas – Let’s Get It Started
• Avril Lavigne – Girlfriend
• No Doubt – Spiderwebs
• Bay City Rollers – Saturday Night
• War – Low Rider
• LEN – Steal My Sunshine
• The Ohio Players – Love Rollercoaster
• RENT Soundtrack – What You Own
• Team America Soundtrack – Montage
• Fatboy Slim – Because We Can

There are a bunch of songs on that playlist that I would listen to in my free time, but there are a few that are “running only” tracks.  I’m not even sure how they wound up in the mix, but when it comes to keeping my feet moving, they do the trick.

I’m always willing to give a new song a test run, so feel free to share your playlist suggestions.