May 2009 Update

Well, life continues here pretty much at a steady, predictable pace. I finished the last (for now) of the stack of books I had collected (about twice as many as I started out with in April), around 10 for those who are keeping track, and was able to create an outline for my dissertation today AND write two and a half pages, all in one day (the book was finished yesterday)! Hooray!! There was a nice potluck and Bible Study last night at Vina's. Bryanna read from a book that was titled something along the lines of "The Final Conflict", which deals with a battle between God's Army and the forces of Satan. It reminded me of what I have read of Revelations, yet have yet to finish. Then we played a name game where evenly divided teams were handed out little pieces of paper with our name on them in random order and the goal was to get one team off the couch and your team on the couch by remembering who had what name. (Every time you called a name, you switched cards with the person who held the name you called on their card). The group met on Wednesday night because of the Shavuot holiday that started today. Shavuot marks 7*7, or 49 days, since the end of Passover, and is evidently the last holiday for quite some time (Maybe even September?). I'll have to check. The weather has cooled off to a more comfortable range this week after being in the mid-90s most of last week. One more month of Hebrew class left to go. As much as I struggle (and a good part of the blame must fall on me for putting my dissertation ahead of spending more hours learning Hebrew/doing homework), I have come a long way since November.

Dawn is currently presenting at 2 conferences in Canada and the U.S., COSY (Canadian Operators Symposium) in Regina, Saskatchewan, and GPOTS (Great Plains Operator Theorists Symposium) in Boulder, CO. I hope her talks go well. Recently, she found out that one of her papers was accepted for publication in the Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics. Hopefully, she will receive similarly good news with the second paper she submitted, though the approval process usually takes several months.

Finally, I have been enjoying the NBA playoffs online at NBA.com. (I paid for a subscription, I was in such basketball withdrawal). Unfortunately, the two teams I have little to no interest in, the LA Lakers and the Orlando Magic, look poised to head to the NBA Finals. Oh well, whatever happens, it should make for exciting games. The first four games of the conference finals (2 Western, 2 Eastern were separated by a combined 7 points!!! (Two one point games (Cleveland-Orlando), a two point game, and a three point game (LA-Denver). Hopefully Denver can come back and win their series, but in reality, I expect an LA-Orlando NBA Finals. Cleveland has almost no chance at this point.