Day 705

All day today I thought it was Tuesday.  I didn't go to class or campus or anything... so it really just felt like a Tuesday (that is, a normal day on which I don't go to school).

I did have some other excitement, however.  For lunch, I went to an event for math students to commemorate graduates and scholarship recipients.  I got a cute little award thing and two nice pens!  One of the recurring announcements at this event is the recognition of students who attempt the "Putnam exam."  This is a math exam for undergraduate students and is notoriously difficult. How difficult, you ask?  Well, roughly 4000 of the nations top math students attempt it every year.  Out of 120 possible points, the median score is a 0.  That means that over half of the students (most of whom are graduating with a 4.0 or nearly a 4.0) get no partial credit on even one question.  Last year, one of the students (undoubtedly Ball State's top math undergraduate student) took it and received a point.  1 point.  It was pretty exciting.

I found a question from the Putnam exam asked in 1996.  3.6% of the students got the correct answer.
"Find the least number A such that for any two squares of combined area 1, a rectangle of area A exists such that the two squares can be packed into that rectangle (without the interiors of the squares overlapping). You may assume that the sides of the squares will be parallel to the sides of the rectangle."

After arriving home, Kimmy and I had an adventure!  There's a flea market near our house, so we decided to go.  Neither of us had been to a flea market before.  I haven't ruled them all out, but I didn't like the one we went to.  It just seemed like a bunch of people finally realized that they had way too much junk (or broken stuff) and were trying to pawn it off onto other people.  Like if people with storage units just opened the doors and let people come buy their abandoned and forgotten possessions.  It made me sad.  A little bit.  There were some pretty funny things (that we didn't get).

Specifically, we saw this shirt.  I knew dad would appreciate it.

Then we went to Wal-mar to get an oil change in Kimmy's car.  While we waited, we looked at the gardening section.  We're hoping that our apartment will get enough sunlight to grow some plants on our balcony.  That would be pretty awesome. We've picked out a few different plants that would be exciting to grow.  Neither of us really know what we're doing, but it will be fun to figure it out!

When we got back, we started making dinner.  While it was cooking, I went back to writing a test.  That was pretty much my evening... eating and writing a test.  It's finally completed!  Now I just need to look it over tomorrow morning to make sure everything makes sense.

And now it's time for bed!  Good night, world.