i am so close to being done with high school.

I'm watching my final chapter's worth of videos for calculus. This is the last I'll see of my dear Edward Burger. Farewell, Edward. It's been a great eight months.

Edward Burger: I'm going to change the names of these, live. Now, I know you're thinking, "Can he even do that?" Well guess what? It's my lecture!

Burger's getting feisty.

Edward Burger: So time equals t. So I'll be drinking tea, in the up and down direction.

I found that particular instance of math-related-wordplay personally hilarious, for reasons upon which I can't really elaborate, but if you know what I mean, you know what I mean. (teehee)

Edward Burger: You've heard the term, a smooth operator. Well that's what we're talking about here... in a math-y vector context.

I have to pack tonight. That's going to be an insane process. I'm not really looking forward to it, honestly, but I have to do it tonight, because tomorrow I'm going to school and then going to a barbecue and then going out because it's my last night.

Which is crazy.

Next time I'm in this country, I'll be a high-school graduate. When random web sites ask me for my highest level of education (you would be surprised how often this happens), I can honestly say, "Completed High School"

I'm pretty sure when I say "Some High School" the website assumes I'm a dropout and judges me, so it'll be nice to lose that stigma.

I'm not so sure that a website is able to judge.

Love always,
Clara

i'm a teen!

Mom's concerned about media.

Mom: Now it's all texting! Just when I had email figured out...

I'm in the student lounge. What's funny is that the people in my grade (not all, but some) were pissed off when the grade 11s were in here, but Frau L just threw a couple sixth graders into the room and no one seems to mind.

One of the kids is pretty hilarious; I've seen him around at lunch. He was selling fruit cups the other day.

Thomas: Hey wait!

Kid: *walking away*

Thomas: Oy! CHILD!

Kid: *turns around* I told you once, I'm a TEEN!

later...

Me: So how old are you, then?

Kid: Twelve.

Me: So you're not a teen!

Kid: I'm twelve and four months.

Me: ... that still rounds down. Come back in a couple months. Then we'll talk.

Kids are weird.

I include myself in that, because I am still a child.

Edward Burger: I'm just going to leave this in that form, because who knows what that equals? Only the shadow knows.

You know, math is getting trippier by the day.

I asked Mr K for help on a math problem yesterday. He literally told me to "find someone cleverer."

Love always,Clara

life is weird

Edward Burger: Did you know that there are people out there who absolutely hate having a square root in the denominator? Yeah. Those people are wacko. But suppose you're one of those people...

Thanks a lot, Edward Burger. Way to force the root-haters back into the closet. If I were one (which I'm not), I certainly wouldn't own up to it now.

Sorry I've been busy lately. Between having guests here and spring break and work stuff, I haven't had that much spare time on my hands lately. I've been blogging, but I haven't been doing interesting things for the past few days, and what I've found is that the blogging is better when I have something to say.

I've been eating chocolate and watching math videos. I'm now on a schedule to get all of my work done before I leave, which means I can have a week or so to study for APs when I go back to America.
I'm excited to go back, really.
But I was talking to someone about this the other day (I think she prefers to be unnamed but if she doesn't she can comment!) about this. We're both really excited for college, both going to places we are going to love. But at the same time, I for one feel myself wanting to drag my feet right now. College will come, but I'd kind of like to stay where I am for a little bit longer. I'm excited, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready. If everything would just slow down a little before the end of the year, that would be great.
But it's not going to.
And soon enough, I'll be thinking, "Oh thank god high school is over. College is awesome and I had nothing to worry about! Silly me!"
That's what I'm hoping will happen. That's what happened freshman year, after I spent the whole second semester of eighth grade freaking out.

So that's what's been going on with me lately. Crises all over the place.

Love always,
Clara

work work work can be fun

Edward Burger: So this term goes to zero, and this term goes to zero, and it looks like all the terms are going to zero but it hasn't! The -1 remains! And it lives on to tell the children about the massacre.

I like thinking of numbers as people. Sometimes I like those people. Sometimes, I want to massacre them. When I'm finding the limit of certain equations, I can!

Edward Burger: I'm going to pretend to be a calculus student. Not you, someone else. A bit of role play here. In fact, I'm going to use my calculus student nom de plume, which really just means I'll use a different color marker. That's a bit of french. I'll teach you french! I'll teach you spanish too. Hola! Me llamo Eduardo.

I'm doing german homework right now. It's great. I have to talk for three minutes about a picture, and make up a story.

This is what I've written so far, according to Google Translate.

Here is a sad mother.
it's a beautiful day in the small village. it is a Sunday and the church brings people together. But the mother, the very image god, she can not go to church. She has too many poor children and the children always make trouble. The church must always have peace.
Yesterday, the priest said to mutter, "My wife, her children can not come to church applied early morning."
The mother was very sad.
Today is the Sunday market. A man buys bread. You buy a different fruits. The children want to have fruits, but his mother says, "If they remained at home"
You say, "No!" and they run everywhere. They are very stupid. They have great pay and they are not so nice. There are ten children.
The mother says, "Come back to them!" and they say, "No, never! Ahahaha!"
The smallest girl runs from the village. Tonight, the mother will look for their children and she would find nine. The girl who is not so stupid, very intelligent, they would find another family. You'll be glad.

I feel like there's something almost poetic about using such simple language. Although that's not why I do it. I do it because I don't know enough german to get any more complex.

Love always,
Clara

can differential equations bring romance?

I love Edward Burger so much.

I couldn't just type a transcription of this little rant. I had to post a link. Go there. Click.
This is what I get to watch every day.

Love always,
Clara

just you and me.

Edward Burger: Let's see if we can do some fantasy math here. No one's around, it's just the two of us.

If Edward Burger were anything other than an online math teacher, I'd be sketched out by that comment.

Yesterday I went over to Danny's house with some people to watch guys play video games and then watch The Hangover. It felt very John's-Basement, which was nice. Danny's 9th grade brother even hung around, just like old times! Except no one else understood why that was a sort of nostalgic coincidence for me.

Emily (my fellow american, whom everyone calls a 'beaner' because she has some Mexican roots) went to the military base in Germany yesterday. She told me all about it.

Emily: CLARA YOU HAVE TO GO. It's the greatest thing! There's a Macaroni Grill!

Me: A what? Like, a grill? That grills macaroni? Whattt?

[Emily explains that it's a restaurant]

Emily: And there's a Chili's! And a taco bell!

Matt: Haha! The beaner is excited about taco bell! Food from her homeland!

Emily: Um I didn't even eat taco bell. I did have fajitas at Chili's though...

I really want to go to this base now. They have all these American stores and restaurants and such, and I'm sort of craving that at the moment.

Love always,
Clara

it's the only way to go

They've blocked facebook at school (in light of recent events that I'm really not going to go into. Just let it be known that the facebook-blocking is not justified.)

This annoys me.

But at least blogger still works.

Edward Burger: Let's draw a picture; it's the only way to go. No, that sounds didactic. It's the only way I go. You can do whatever you want, I guess.

The best part of this is that on the video, at the bottom of the screen (where 'tips' tend to go), it says, "Tip: Drawing a picture of the solid is the only way Professor Burger goes."

God, I love math.

Love always,
Clara

so i totally was focusing but...

Edward Burger: We're going to fill in this area with stripes. People don't wear enough stripes. Or plaid! Would you be caught dead in plaid? I probably would. That's the difference between you and me. But I digress. Anyway, it's this region that we want, and I'll do plaid, in honor-- in case you golf. Maybe some of you are golfers! You know, a lot of golfing people take calculus... you know, to get the ball's velocity... into the hole. Hole in one? Where do you think that phrase comes from? Calculus!

Reasons I love math, #584

Also, I would definitely take fashion advice from this man.

Edward Burger: This probably isn't to scale... I can make 1 anywhere. Do you know how much power I feel, knowing that I can just mark down anywhere I want and call it 1? ... It's not that much power.

Edward Burger: We're going to work through this, but first I'm going to cough. *cough cough* Okay. You know, when you cough, one of two things happens. You either want to cough again, or you feel really great. I'm not going to tell you how I feel.

Love always,
Clara

that's impressive

Edward Burger: Well, now you know how to find the derivative of functions, and you know how to find functions whose derivative is a certain thing, but what can we do with this? Besides impressing your friends at cocktail parties, what is this good for?

I went to school today to work on some things (physics homework, yearbook stuff, having a life, not falling into a hermit-like state).

It was fun. I'm glad I got out of the house.

George: My goodness!

Me: ... My goodness. (sort of making fun of him)

George: Well you can't expect me to say 'My God' if I'm a nonbeliever.

This is true, I suppose. His rationale is just so funny though.

Love always,
Clara

chocolate+integration problems=success

Edward Burger: I just had a chocolate morsel and it was really good. You might need a chocolate morsel to get through integration problems too. You know when chocolate sort of lingers in your mouth? Isn't it great?

This guy is on a video, and yet he is one of the more engaging math teachers I've ever had.

Mehdi wants me to say that he's been nice to me today. I am typing this under duress.

Now Edward Burger is imitating Ronald Reagan for reasons I can't begin to understand. And he's not just imitating Reagan doing normal presidential things, no, he's imitating Reagan doing an integration problem.

Mr Burger: This is how Reagan would tackle this sort of problem, I think, if he chose to do so.

He basically does math, occasionally saying "We will not trade arms, I mean du/dx, for hostages" and "Well, that's what Nancy told me" and "I've got some jelly beans here."
It's pretty hilarious. I was captivated.

Mom and I were just talking about my crazy grandfather. We'd seen some really old home videos that he narrated.
Me: This is what makes me think, maybe he doesn't have alzhemier's, maybe he's just like this.
Mom: This is what makes me think, how was he ever a doctor?!

Love always,
Clara

art history? never!

Professor B: So that's the intermediate value theorem. It's not exactly calculus, but you always hear it talked about with calculus, so it must be related. When's the last time you heard the intermediate value theorem mentioned in say, Art History? Never!

Math always makes me laugh. And then the kids in the student lounge give me sort of questioning looks and ask, "what are you doing on that laptop?" and I'm like "Math... hehehe"

Professor B: Here's a function. It's very smooth. No sharp corners. Children can play with this.

News! The a cappella group has seven members and a name. Seven Nation Army.
Is that cool or is that cool?
Our nations-

• America
• Algeria
• Canada
• Germany
• Italy
• Pakistan
  

So there really are only six nations, because two of the members are brother and sister. But that just means that we're still open to new members if other people want to join.
I'm excited about this.

Love always,
Clara

Real conversations with virtual math teachers

(The following conversation took place over skypechat)

Me: So I'll have [the midterm] in either tomorrow or tuesday- Monday is a crazy swiss holiday known as onion market, and the fax machine is at my dad's office. So I'll try to get it in tomorrow :)

Mr D: I really want to visit Switzerland. There are so many awesome jugglers there, and you make it sound like a delightfully random/bizzare place.

Me: It really is. Very bizzare. And we have some pretty sweet mountains.

Mr D: Yes, I've seen them in a few of the juggling videos my friends have made.

Somehow I had forgotten that my online math teacher/instructor really liked to juggle. This isn't Edward Burger, the guy from the awesome videos (who teaches at Williams in real life, by the way), but the person who actually grades my tests and answers my questions.

There's just something about math teachers.

Love always,
Clara