Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday

Today's weather:  High = 26  Low = 21
Cloudy
 
This is a traditional Chinese holiday marked by a 3-day weekend, also coinciding with Teachers Day.  You gotta love this start to the school year.  Next up soon enough will be the National Holiday in October.  However, the main deterrent with Chinese holidays is that everyone else is traveling.  Having gone through his numerous times now, the way I see it there are only two options
 
1.   Make it a staycation.   This is best done for the shorter holidays
2.   Travel to a SE Asian country.   Best done during the longer holidays.
 
Of course, if you have the luxury of getting holidays when the masses are working, then China travel becomes more of an option.  For those stuck on fixed public holidays like myself, there is really no way of that happening.

Math Post: Pre-Calculus

The idea of the first two weeks in this school year of teaching calculus is to spend some time doign pre-calculus. 

 

In previous years I didn't bother with that and lunged right into the calculus content.  One of my colleagues at that time went against the grain and actually did pre-calculus at first.  As a result, he got behind the rest of us for a substantial time, but his argument was that he work would pay off later.  Actually he was spot on and I'm now applying that wisdom.

 

One of the key pre-calculus topics I want to cover is that of function compositions.  In so doing, I figured out that I can help students deal with the dreaded *chain rule* that they will encounter later on.  The chain rule is a real hurdle for stuents in an intro calculus class, and they tend to hit the wall once introduced to it.

 

However, it just occured to me that doing function compositions where each function has a *linear* slope, or a constant slope, can introduce the major conceptual thrust of the chain rule without actually doing any calculus.

 

It is then a simple matter of being able to show that when you compose the two linear functions and look at the slope of the composition, the effect is to multiply the slopes of each function.  That is the thrust behind chain rule, except in calculus of course the functions are not necessarily linear. 

 

Why this isn't found in any pre-calculus textbooks is a mystery to me, as it seems a perfect thing to include.

Air Raid Drills: I'll Have No Part in This

Got this from today's Shanghai daily.  Headline is entitled, "Get Ready for a Air Raid Drill"

 

I would entitle it, "Get Ready to Vacate the City" and that's what I'll plan to do on the Sept 17 weekend.

 

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LOCAL residents from every corner of the city, except for the two airports, are requested to take part in an air defense drill on September 17, the Nationwide National Defense Education Day, the Shanghai government announced today.

The warning will start at 11:35am and last until 12:03pm and local authorities will then inform people about the warning through TV and radio stations and cellphone short messages.

Once the air defense warning stops, local residents are expected to participate in fire escape drills in their neighborhoods.

----------------

 

To that end, I would say make me.

A Temporary Motorcycle Break

Today's weather:  High = 26  Low = 22

Cooling down nicely, air-con no longer needed

 

It's rather ironic that I clocked up nearly 50,000km of illegal motorcycle and scooter riding in China, then finally decided to go back to Vancouver and acquire a legal motorcycle license in my home country.  Then I worked my butt off in July and paid big bucks for professional training and rentals in order to pass the road test and obtain the license!  I got it successfully, but at the absolute total last minute.  In fact I nearly missed out due to an administrative error by the motorcycle training company in booking my road test, and ended up going down to the test center at 5am by myself on standby to nab a last-ditch opportunity!

 

With the license finally acquried, it's rather ironic that I haven't ridden a motorcycle since.  Part of it is that the license isn't actually in hand yet  (it's in the mail, and let's hope it arrives).  But with the Shanghai subway only taking 30 minutes to get to work, or back home, there hasn't been much of a need for the bike.  Well, so far at least.

 

The way I see it, I'm taking a temporary break from the riding.  The fact that I haven't had an accident on the road in China with all those kilometers is like a miracle, and I'd rather take the break and enjoy more relaxing commutes on the subway before getting back in the saddle and cheating death. 

 

Based on the calculations, I only save 10 minutes by riding the motorcycle to work in morning rush hour, but the surface traffic is total madness at that time.  Let's just say that the adrenaline experience in the morning is not a fun way to start the day, and it's a constant state of getting ahead of the crowds to avoid being stuck behind LOOONNNNGGGG traffic lights that Shanghai is famous for, and which suck away your precious time.

 

Meanwhile, locals keep saying that the 13-line METRO system is efficient and the best way to get somewhere on time as you avoid the delays and traffic jams..  I've found this to be true, but three conditions need to be met:

 

1.  You live close to a subway station, and your work is close to one

2.  You are taking the Metro for medium-distance trips, or bypassing majorly congested surface areas 

3.  You minimize the number of transfers between lines

 

The plan to live where I have is really paying off because all three conditions are met, and the commutes are only taking half-hour tops.  It seems far where I live, and it's a different district than my work, which explains the huge decrease in the rents.  Nearly half of what I was paying last year.  Meanwhile, a 30-minute commute on the subway is a small price to pay.

 

This isn't to say I've given up on bikes.  More to come on this soon.

Being a Math Guy Pays Well

At least in Shanghai it certainly does! Rolling off the last post, it's not much of a surprise that my ability to clue into social dynamics and sensitivities is rather limited. But whatever, I'm not a total social misfit and have attained a level of communication skills I feel comfortable with and can get me through the day, not to mention teach math classes which earn me piles of cash. And who can complain about making money through math skills?

Speaking of which, 3 of my students in a trial AP Calculus tutorial all got full marks worth of 5. This is fantastic news and they deserve those marks for all the work they put into the course. Meanwhile the agreement we made was that the tutorials were free but if they got 5s on the AP test then they would pay tuition fees after the fact. Let's just say that cash is coming.

I Confess I'm a Math Guy

Mild mannered as I am it may not appear that I'm passionate about a lot of things but I am and one of them is mathematics. That being said I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be math guy and to accept that. The idea is to inspire others to also enjoy mathematics, and teaching classes is the best way to do that.

For better or for worse, the stereotype of math guys being socially clueless or unable to clue into the political group dynamics holds true for me. It all gets so confusing and frustrating when people say or act one way but I can't read their intentions from their behavior. And then I'm made to feel stupid from them for not being able to do this.

In the mathematical universe, what you see is what you get. Sure it gets complex but there is always some fundamental basis of order or some principle that you can fall back on. The beauty and elegance of mathematics is found in its order and its literal nature. If only human behavior could be like this.

The majority of people may claim to suck at math but be socially gifted, while I just have to accept the opposite and deal with this transgression that has caused my own society to turn its back on me. But at least in China I'm valued for being a math guy so that's where I will stay for many more years

Work: Off to a Furious Start

Pretty much par for the course when a school year starts.  10-12 hour days have become the norm for this week, and it is expected to continue next week and for quite some time now.  The summer break was surely needed.  These work days have become very intense in the mornings.  The time flies.  Meanwhile, next holiday is National Day which is a week in October and am going to make this a staycation for sure.  None of this traveling with the masses.

 

I'm already thinking of next winter and summer break.  Although way too hectic for my liking, going back to Vancouver in July was necessary to take care of a bunch of tasks that, now, can effectively give me smooth sailing abroad for at least another 4 years.  Next time I go back I am not going to repeat the same thing.  However, with the drivers license story finally coming to a conclusion, I can put that one to rest.

 

Meanwhile I'm making sure to keep fit and keep off the weight lost from the Thailand biking trip.  I lost 10 pounds in total and people are noticing the difference.  Even when I'm exhausted after work now, I still drag myself to the gym and hit the weights and treadmills.  The benefits are quite good in that I feel more alert after the work out.  I am still in good physical shape from the bike trip and it's relatively easy to keep the momentum going.

 

Back in Wuhan I made the big mistake of working long hours at the office and then crashing on my couch at home right after work.  I stayed there all evening and night in front of the warm air conditioner, without even enough energy or motivation to venture on my scooter and grab street food.  That kept up last year in Shanghai also when I would get home from work and then veg out on the couch in front of the flatscreen watching DVDs for hours on end.

 

Now I'm trying to put a stop to that kind of laziness.  The idea is to bring my workout clothes and bag to work, then immediately hit the gym after school while there is good time.  After that I go home and do lesson planning or masters degree courses.  When it's all been done, I then veg out and watch the DVDs.

 

The time management system I've developed, thanks to my Blackberry phone, has been invaluable.  Even with a busy Shanghai schedule, it is amazing how much unproductivity there is, for example a two-hour spare block where I surf the internet at work.  Now it's completely understandable why the corporate types I'm friends with in Shanghai may work 14 hour office days, but not all is useful.  For example, let's take a guess as to how many of those hours are spent on MSN. 

 

In China it's all about face time and killing time, even though it appears productive.  Let's put a stop to this laziness and have exercise time instead.