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February 21, 2005
A Culture Lesson In Math Class
Who has ever said that Mathematics has no real-life applications? Well, probably no one who has ever studied Applied Math, and certainly no one who is in my Applied Math 251 course here. The professor is constantly trying to relate relative counting principles to the lives of the students, usually to be met with much laughter and confusion. For example, today our professor wrote the following mathematical phrases on the board:
Nguni Ç South Africa = Zulu, Xhosa
Nguni Ç Zimbabwe = Ndebele
Nguni Ç Malawi = Ngoni
I don't know much about the references to Zimbabwe or Malawi, but Zulu and Xhosa are different "tribes" in South Africa. (The explanation of the use of my quotation marks there requires more time than I have at the moment...) So I got to learn about traditional South African culture in my Combo class this morning. It was very interesting. Many things here are very interesting.
The weekends, however, are not. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in my room getting work done for classes. I don't think I've ever been so caught up on work in my entire history of education. It doesn't help that the library isn't even open on Sundays... The highlights of my weekend were the computer lab on Saturday, the grocery store on Sunday morning, and my dad calling on Sunday afternoon. I need to get some friends to talk to so that I don't run up more 1-hour-international-phone-bills with my father! It was very nice to talk to someone from home, though, as the only phone call I've had to the United States since my arrival in South Africa has been a 2 minute conversation with my advisor at HWS.
Note that I have added my mailing address to the sidebar at the right, so anyone who is still desperately searching for some way to mail me something can now do so. I have not yet received any packages, so the rush is on to be the first to send me something and get mentioned on my blog! Not a great incentive, you say? You underestimate the vast quantity of people who are reading my daily words of wisom, I respond...
Posted by rgutwin at February 21, 2005 08:44 AM
Comments
What you should really do is send everyone address-label stickers so that we don't have to write out your whole address, because if you did not notice, it is reeeeaaaaaly long. But you noticed.
What would you like to have in such a package? Cookies? No, they'd get stale. A sweater? No, it's too hot where you live. A CD? No, you don't have a computer to play it on. A mobile or a nicely carved stick? No, that's been done. A beautifully rendered wooden box? No, I have no wood here. Geez Becca, you sure are hard to send for! Three-dimensionality is a challenge!
Posted by: Diana at February 21, 2005 12:53 PM