Monday, March 25, 2013

Party On, Girl!


Luke and Ariel are both going to grad school in the fall. This past weekend, they both visited schools. Luke visited Texas A&M. He called once. I picked up the phone. I settled in to hear all about his visit—his impressions, the people he met, the swag they gave him, etc. Instead, I got two one word answers from him and then he said, “Can I talk to Dad?” He spent twenty plus minutes on the phone with Calvin, discussing the basketball game that was on television. After they said good-bye, I asked Cal, “What did Luke say about his grad school visit?” Cal replied, “Nothing. But his bracket’s being trashed.”  Right. Because that’s so important.

Ariel’s visit was different. She texted, phoned, and emailed me. I know about the professors, the graduate students, why Emory has a fantastic math PhD program, what she ate (not as good as food at home), why she didn’t sleep well (loud heater), etc. In fact, I got an email early Saturday morning about the math grad school party she went to on Friday night. “…no one can party like math nerds. We played Carcasonne, made fun of Fermat, and figured out how many Tetris pieces there would be if the pieces were made up of five blocks.”  Okay, then…party on, babe!


File:Absurd triangle.svg
I'm know this has nothing to do with the proofs that my daughter and her math nerd friends do, but  it's a cool math-ish diagram courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

4 comments:

  1. LOL!! They sure do know how to party.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want to party with your daughter and her friends. That sounds like an excellent party to me. And somewhat like some of my own college parties, except slightly less math.

    If she needs a recommendation for more board games, by the way, people who like Carcassonne will probably also like 7 Wonders, Pandemic, and Puerto Rico. (game night nerd)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Isn't it funny how differently two people can react to the school-hunting process? Emory is a great school, but if your daughter's looking in the Atlanta area, so is GA Tech.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The "made fun of Fermat" made me think of a short story in which a frustrated mathematician came up with the idea of hinting he had the proof to some esoteric theory, so he would become famous after he died.

    ReplyDelete