So over 18 months ago, I got married! To a guy named Isaac. We moved to Layton so I could commute to South Jordan for 2nd grade teaching and he could commute to Logan for college teaching (he had a fellowship to get his master's of statistics). It's been great! And now to the present...
About the happenings in our family recently, Isaac
and I had a nice day in Logan last Saturday going to his
"graduation". Utah State only
does one official graduation each year in May, so if we were going to do
something, it was going to be now.
Although Isaac didn't walk because his name wasn't on the program and he
didn't want to, they will apparently give him a diploma whenever. For him, that means August when
his advisor is back from China (she's Chinese and goes home every summer) and he is done with his thesis.
There were two ceremonies he attended, but we're
slackers and didn't stay through either of them. No general authority or keynote speakers
(that was only for undergrad commencement), no address from the Dean or
anything...just small bands/bagpipes playing the Aggie Song and the reading of
names. Friday was for all USU graduate
students, and Saturday, the College of Science, which of 3 science colleges at
Utah State in addition to engineering, interestingly houses the department of
Mathematics and Statistics.
My favorite part (because it was the only part apart
from the above) was the Valedictorian Address.
He talked about how people have instantly stereotyped him as a socially
inept nerd when they hear that he was homeschooled and double-majoring in two
hard sciences. Actually, he said he
chose homeschooling in Middle School because he was struggling with school and
was disappointed that he couldn't get into the Honors classes, which was
standard for the culture his town.
School was always hard for him and even here he was far from being the
brainiest student. His owed his success
to three things that he hoped everyone would think on, one being the support of
good family and friends. At this point,
I hoped to pat myself on the back for being such a supporting and helpful wife
of Isaac in this process. But it only
took a millisecond to remember that I've done little. Regardless of the fact that AP Statistics was
my favorite course growing up, this got me nowhere in helping Isaac with all of
his computer-based coding projects and even College Algebra course he taught
whose material I've forgotten. He has
really stepped it up even since that first semester to work diligently for long
hours on homework and grading the work of his 40ish students. Sure, he's had a much more flexible schedule
than the 12 hours a day I'm gone, but he's been up with me every morning
sending me off to school with breakfast for the car and helping with the
household tasks. And this week, oh man,
am I lucky. Since he's been home all
day, I come home to him working on the laundry or dishes or having been on a
run since all-of-the-sudden deciding to do the half marathon in June after
hurting his back and thinking that was a no-go.
This is all while the computer spins with data he's waiting for it to
crunch (it's still spinning and it's been about 24 hours. He estimates 80 hours total. New computer, just very big number sets!) Anyway, it's more his family, the growing up experiences and current outreach that deserve the applause
to what he has made of himself today.
After the Valedictorian speech we left, but I can't
say anyone else did. The ballroom was
packed, as was the overflow area and many people were still standing to watch
the proceedings on a big screen.
Instead, we went over to his building, called the Animal Science
Building, which reminds me of the Brimhall.
There's nothing animal about it, it's where Math/Stats took over this
year. He had hanging a very nice
scientific poster for his final class project about using statistical processes
to classify two types of mice. As editor
in chief for that poster (that's one area I'm not totally useless), I was
familiar with it and was drawn next to his peer's poster. She tested the effectiveness of test
questions on Layton High math students based on the time of day they took the
class, which teacher they had, and of course whether or not their answer was
correct. Unfortunately, no matter what
teacher you had, there seemed to be no correlation between anything and getting
a higher math grade. Either you
understood the math and got it right, or you didn't. Sounds like Isaac's 1010 class, where half of
his students fail each semester no matter what he tries to do differently. I wasn't sure as a teacher if this was to be
taken hopefully, that I'm not ultimately responsible for the success of my
students, or discouragingly, that nothing I do potentially matters. :) At any rate, his friend was hired by Layton
High (whose principal is a friend in our ward) so we are happy for her.
We also ran into Isaac's advisor, Yan Sun, whom I
love without ever having met before. She is
so friendly and helpful (and randomly got married this week without anyone
knowing to a fellow USU Chinese professor) so we are happy for her, too. While Isaac met with his class coordinator, I
started filling out paperwork for her to get funding for our trip to
Spain. We had found out just previously
that her paper, with additions by Isaac, submitted to the International
Conference on Time Series (that's the field of Isaac's thesis) was accepted. She has asked him to go and present it on
their behalf. We're waiting to see the
amount he gets from various sources until we decide the exact dates and events
of our trip in late June, but she has already paid for him to attend as a
presenter, and for me to attend as a "social guest." For other means to pay for my travel, I feel
so blessed after being stressed that this would take every penny we have. After paying additional taxes last year
around this time to both federal and state, we actually got back a decent tax
return this year. And people at my school
coincidentally gave me cash this week, in name of my birthday or piano tips in
abnormally high amounts. I recently
reached enough sky miles to pay for our first leg of the flight and just as gas
prices are skyrocketing I'm the only one driving now, so perhaps it's not so
coincidental after all and this is an opportunity meant to be. I wasn't about to sit home while he went, so
to Granada we go!
In the meantime, Isaac's big three projects are
first, to plan his presentation for Spain, second to write the analysis for his
thesis paper, and of course third, to find a job. Nothing on that front yet, but it had been
put on the back burner until this week when classes were finally over. I'm looking at less than 10 days left myself
until the school year winds down so we're happy it's summer and we can make
time for these big decisions. Isaac
often asks the question, "Where do you think we'll end up?" and it
honestly could be anywhere, and anywhere would be great with me. I can't think of a place in the world that
would be so terrible to go that I wouldn't, although my mom said "uh, bad
idea" when I talked about a layover in Moscow. :) Isaac recently named his top 5 states (but I
think it was actually 7) that he would like to get a job in. Anyone care to take a guess? So here's to a summer full of fun, hard work,
and surprises! Congratulations, Isaac!
