Sarah - Day 3 - Friday, January 7
My day started off with a couple of talks in a session entitled "Cool Calculus" - including one by OU Math alum Jason Martin, who is currently finishing up a post-doc at Arizona State. Another talk in that session involved the use of a 3D applet for showing graphs of multivariable functions - and we got free 3D glasses to use during the presentation (and to keep!).
After early morning sessions, OU grad students Jeff Breeding, Sean Crowell, and I attended a brunch for recipients of the AMS Student Travel Grants. These grants provide matching funds (i.e., we had to find university support for the other half of our expenses) for us to attend the Joint Meetings. The food was excellent, the speeches were short, and we even got a cool AMS flash drive with an e-book on it!
After lunch, I opted to go off to my hotel room to finish "cramming" (or "preparing" or "worrying") for my talk later that afternoon. I stopped by a talk by another OU alum, Jana Talley (now at Jackson State University) before camping out in the session where my talk would be held for a while. I find that it helps to sit in a session for a bit to get the rhythm of how things are run before you are the one in the spotlight. After sitting through one intimidating talk and one really interesting talk, I gave my talk. I was incredibly nervous, but I survived, and I think I even managed not to say anything too ridiculous in the process. (Or, if I did, I can't remember it now.) After my talk, fellow RUME student Minsu Kim gave his talk in the same session (and did a great job!).
As a bit of a sidetrack, in case you didn't know, the MAA has some Special Interest Groups known as SIGMAAs, which focus on specific areas of math, such as History or Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME). The SIGMAA on RUME had their business meeting tonight, and it was actually really interesting to see how governance inside a huge organization like this is run. The meeting was pretty low key in that no decisions were made, no votes were taken, and no major debates ensued, but it was still cool to get the inside scoop on what's coming in the next few months.
Finally, at the end of this busy day, a group of current and former OU students went out to dinner - New Orleans style! We went to a little place called Cafe Maspero, which was recommended to us by a Louisiana resident. They are famous for their muffalettas, and we also enjoyed jambalaya and other local flavors. For dessert, we went to Cafe Du Monde in the French Market area for some beignets (French doughnuts with loads of powdered sugar) and hot chocolate. Oh my, were these good! I definitely recommend both of these places if you're ever in NOLA. My stomach is still quite happy from the evening. :)
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Jeff - Day 4 - January 8, 2011
I emerged from my slumber to find that my arch-enemies, allergies, had stealthly attacked me during the night. I strolled down to the local CVS to get some medicine, which had some degree of success. This was the day of my talk and I could have taken this as a bad omen, but I just as well could have considered the curse the voodoo priest placed on me the night before as a bad omen. My talk was scheduled for 1:45pm and so I computed the probability of my cooking up of enough good mojo and was relieved.
The first talk I attended this day was that of Dr. Brady. He spoke about research he had done with Sang Rae and Dr. Guralnik. I did a quick inventory after the talk and then returned to my hotel to rearm with tissues. My negotiations with the box of tissues went extremely well, concluding with its unconditional surrender. I met up with Kashyap and Sean Crowell and we went on a souvenir hunt, once again seeing our favorite bawdy T-shirts.
My number theory session started at 1:00 and I saw some familiar faces from other conferences I had attended. When my turn came, I was somewhat surprised that I had managed to complete my talk in exactly the time allotted, 10 minutes. It takes some practice to give talks this short and you'll hear lots of different opinions on what a "good" 10 minute talk is. I had given similar talks each month for the past few months, each lasting 5-10 minutes less than the previous. Some people who also worked in Siegel modular forms and GSp(4) approached me at the end of my talk and introduced themselves.
I had to leave the session after about an hour for a future employment prospect that seems to be approaching a tangible possibility. After a change of wardrobe, I went back to the number theory session and the undergraduate poster session. I talked with a few undergraduates about their projects and offered some advice about research and going to graduate school.
With the day of mathematics talks over, Kashyap, Ravi, Minsu, and I then went to eat at Galatoire's. I saw Turtle Soup on the menu, which for some reason I need to have before I leave New Orleans. I didn't order it this night, but I made plans with Minsu to return for lunch the next day and dine on this foreboding dish.
(A quick reminder: These posts represent the views of Sarah and Jeff, respectively, and do not reflect the views or opinions of the MGSA, the Department of Mathematics, or the University of Oklahoma.)
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