Oh goodness, what a day it has been.
Things started early, especially since it's Saturday. We got up around 8, got some breakfast, then prepared for our road trip. My friend Michelle got married today in Cincinnati and we went to the wedding. But first we had to stop at the farmer's market to get corn. However, it appears that corn is no longer in season because there were no corn vendors. :(
To make up for the lack of corn, here is a new picture of Beans!
I still get their names mixed up....
So we got dressed up all pretty and then went to Cincinnati. The trip was fine... with the minor part where I forgot/lost my car charger for my phone, so using the GPS for 3 hours pretty well killed it. Oh well!
The wedding was nice. I briefly talked with a couple people that I knew from high school, but I didn't really know too many people. But that's ok, it was still fun. The food was really good. And they had a mashed potato bar! That was really good. There was a big vat of mashed potatoes and then some different toppings to put on them! Such a good idea. There was a live band playing music, so Kimmy and I had a dance when a good swing song came on. We had fun :)
Nothing really exciting happened on the way home. We just... drove. When we got back we got some dinner, then made a quick trip to the store to pick up the corn that we could not get this morning. Then I caught up on some emails from the past day and did some homework.
And now it's time to go to bed. The next two days will consist of a lot of financial economics... for I have a test on Monday. Good night!
More things happened today!
I spent the majority of the morning doing some grading, preparation for my interview, and other things around the house. Kimmy had to work early, so we had some breakfast then I did my things.
Also our kitty is silly.
And kinda cute. Ok, actually he's really cute. He's pretty confused by our glass-top table.
So after I did all of the productive things I left for my interview. It probably would have been beneficial for me to have driven and paid a few dollars to park in the parking garage... but I didn't. It was raining really hard. But I made it in plenty of time. I was just pretty wet.
I thought that the interview went well. I felt like I had good answers to his questions and we seemed to really connect. So I guess I'll find out in a few weeks!
As I was leaving my interview I realized that my pants did not match my jacket.... and I felt silly. They were both grey, but my pants were not ones that came with my jacket. Oh well! It was too late when I discovered it.
In class we talked about the stock market and how all of the buying and trading works. It's interesting because most of the people in the stock exchange don't necessarily understand specifically why the numbers move the way they do... like the formulas that control them and such. The traders and investors know how to predict that the market will move, but have no concept of the formulas used to calculate everything. That's the job of the actuary. So it's neat to learn about all of this behind-the-scenes work.
When I got home we made some dinner: pot pies! They were pretty tasty. After dinner we went grocery shopping. It felt really weird to go on a Friday night, but we're going to a wedding tomorrow so we had to do it now. So off we went. Aldi was carrying some seasonal food (and we had a particularly small grocery list this time) so we got a few things. Like apple butter, spice cider, and pumpkin bagels!
After we got back I did some grading for a while. Tomorrow and Sunday will be devoted to lots of studying... woohoo! But such is life.
I have an early day tomorrow, so I'm off to bed. Good night!
Well hey, what a landmark day. Number 500!
So to celebrate this day, I taught a lesson! More specifically, we did review. I thought it went well. Decently well, anyhow. We had to go pretty fast, but I got through all of the terms we'd learned and even had time to do a few examples. After class a couple students came by my office to ask some questions, so hopefully they're feeling better about the material.
My test today went well. After talking with Timbo later on in the evening, he informed me that we'd both missed a problem. Apparently the standardized coefficient of a constant is zero. Who knew?
When I got home from school Kimmy and I went for an adventure. She'd gone to acquire some necessary equipment for our upcoming acquisition of kittens, so we decided "hey... let's just go now!" So we went to a couple different places before ending up at Pet Smart. Apparently Pet Smart works with the local animal shelter and bring in cats from the shelter! So after a very long time.... we have kitties!
Beans is the orange one, Bacon is the brown/grey one. They are silly. Bacon was helping me put the dishes away.
I also went to a presentation by State Farm today, then I signed up for an interview with them tomorrow. The presentation was good and they talked about some really cool things, so we'll see how the interview goes!
When I got back from that...well... there were kitties that needed some loving. And apparently they really like climbing on me. So this will be an adventure.
Anyhow. It's time for bed. Good night!
Hi friends.
I got up early this morning to do some preparation for my interview. I was especially tired this morning, but I needed to do some preparing before the interview. So up I got. When I was done I had breakfast with Kimmy. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I really like eggs. And I really like oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins. So basically every morning I get to have an amazing breakfast. It's pretty fantastic. After breakfast and things Kimmy took me to my interview.
It went fine. The questions were a bit different than the ones that people normally ask, so I hope that I gave good answers. I'm coming to realize that the person who interviews and the questions they ask are incredibly correlated with how I do in that interview. So we'll see!
Kimmy picked me up after my interview as well! She dropped me off, then she had to go to work. So I spent the rest of the morning studying for my test tomorrow and filling out a survey/questionnaire for the Progressive job I application I filled out a couple days ago. If I pass this survey (I should hear back in a couple of days) then I guess I move on to the next round? I'm only minimally hopeful, since I have yet to hear from an actual human being. At this point I have to assume that it's largely been automated. But we'll see!
So then I went to class. I don't usually give too many details on class because I can't imagine too many people being especially interested in it. And some of the detailed math needs a very very thorough explanation for it to make sense. But class was fine, I suppose.
When I got back home I talked with Kimmy, then we had some dinner. After we finished eating I studied for a while longer. I'm feeling pretty confident... I know all of the formulas he wants us to know and can use them. So I guess... that's about all I can do!
So now I'm off to bed. Good night everyone!
Today started early... they always seem to do that.
I was pretty excited to teach the lesson today. A few of the chapters get into topics that are in my field of study, so I really like teaching those. There was a lot of material to cover, but we were able to get through it. I think they understood it all, but I don't get a lot of feedback in that class. We're doing review on Thursday so hopefully I can go over everything again with them.
After class I worked on an assignment with Timbo. It took us a while to get a handle on how to set the problem up, but once we'd figured it out (and paid Dr. Foley a visit) it didn't take much time at all.
I ate a quick lunch after we'd finished the assignment, then I had class. We did a little review for the test on Thursday, then went over new material. I think that with some more studying, I will be well prepared for the exam.
When I got home I talked with Kimmy for a bit, then we had dinner. We ate pretty early, but we were both really hungry. After dinner Kimmy cleaned our shower because it was really gross. And now it looks so much better now!
I went to a company presentation tonight. It was pretty good. Both of the presenters are recent Ball State graduates and I will be interviewing with one of them tomorrow.
After the presentation I talked with a few other students about putting on another seminar-thing for freshmen actuarial science students. We're hoping to put on three of these events to help freshmen get into the mindset of being a future actuary. So our next seminar is going to be a panel discussion with some older students and (hopefully) one of our professors. That should be good.
When I got home I did a little bit of work for my class... and now I'm going to bed. I have to get up early for my interview tomorrow. So. Good night!
I was pretty tired when I woke up this morning. I guess I went to bed somewhat late last night. After I got up I got breakfast and started doing some studying. I did that for a couple of hours, then Kimmy and I had some lunch. About ten minutes before I was going to leave for class I got an email from Dr. Foley saying that class was canceled. So I took advantage of that time and did some more studying for my Regression test on Thursday.
When I got to my class with Mr. Owens he reminded me that I will be teaching a class for him in a couple of weeks. I remember talking with him about two weeks ago... and at that time I had asked him to remind me because I would definitely forget. So I'm teaching his Math of Finance class while he is out of town. He also moved our test back from Friday to a week from today. Thankfully. My week just got a lot less stressed. I still have plenty to do this week, but it just got better.
Kimmy was mostly done making dinner when I got home! Since we went through the lasagna so quickly last week, we decided to make another one. I had browned the meat earlier in the day, so she was nearly finished making it when I got home. I did some more studying while we waited for dinner to be ready. Then we ate really tasty lasagna!
After dinner I did some grading. I even convinced Kimmy to help me. Actually, she volunteered. But the help was certainly appreciated. So we graded for a while, then when I was tired of that I worked on my lesson plan for tomorrow. I also came up with a project for them to do... and hopefully this goes well. I'm going to give them the option of doing it in Excel, but I don't know how well they know Excel. I'm guessing not well at all. But we'll see!
So I'm gonna go to bed now. I have plenty more work to do tomorrow... yay! Good night.
You know, some days just don't go quite like you planned. It's not necessarily a bad thing... just a thing that happens.
Today was one of those days.
So I got up a little late, blogged, and showered. Then Kimmy and I had some breakfast and went to church. Today we had a guest speaker from Olivet Nazarene University. I thought he did a really good job talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. My favorite line was (in reference to the parable of the farmer sowing seeds) that "God is a pretty bad farmer... but he's a really great God." It was funny but also very true. God's not looking to optimize his investment/profit ratio... he's just looking to send his message everywhere.
After church we went to lunch with Jessie and Richard at Greek's pizza. Kimmy had never eaten there before, so we decided that it was about time we went! It was good and we had fun.
When we got home we did some laundry, then I spent some time applying to a few jobs. It was SO fun! It wasn't, actually. But maybe I'll get somewhere with it.
We made penne carbonara for dinner. It turned out well, but the sauce was a little thin. So I think that next time I want to add some flour to thicken it up a bit.
After dinner I finished up some homework for tomorrow. Then I decided to be done for the night. It's going to be a long weekend so I wanted to take an easy day before going back at it.
Well. I'm tired, so I'm off to bed. Night!
