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https://twitter.com/VatcheSays
It will be very low key; I barely have a voice. Next time I will make up for it by screaming.
You can actually tell Mathematica that I will go screw myself at 8000, and it will let you.
The manifold is totally fine at the north and south poles. It's smooth and nice, there are Eskimos living there and everything.
On the board: Manifold: a set points coverable with coordinate patches like a scottich quilt (with C^infty trans. functions).
Look how much we covered by just me speaking randomly!
In fact, the answer is extremely cool, but I will not tell you. You will never find out.
I'm hearing noises. I hope it's not in my head like earlier in the week. At least they're not telling me to do things.
I don't know if you, like me, find certain matrices sexy, but I do find it very interesting looking.
The index notation makes this just a trivial game, like legos.
ProfessorSahakian: This bozo cannot leave the light cone, go into this region and marry his own grandmother.
pants: Can he leave the light cone if he doesn't marry his own grandmother?
ProfessorSahakian: If you go back in time and you don't take the opportunity to marry a relative, then you've wasted your time.
Let's say you're in deep space. You're an outcast: civilization has thrown you away because you smell bad. They gave you an elevator which you are inside, and you smell bad.
Actually I know about this because my daughter has been reading Dr. Seuss, and I find it extremely disturbing because I have trouble pronouncing some of the words.
Tell me if I copy something wrong. Do it nicely, don't shout.
pants: What if you had a coordinate system in which every point in space was accelerating inwards radially?
ProfessorSahakian: What if you had a coordinate system in which every point was accelerating inwards towards your grandmother?
pants: Are you calling my grandmother fat?
ProfessorSahakian: No. Well, not yet...
I can feel the irritation in the room. I hope it's related to this. [gestures at board]
Now I am getting very excited; I barely can control myself; drooling is starting.
ProfessorSahakian: Are you planting a bomb?
Student F&M Worker: ...I'm just updating door access.
Imagine you're in some café in Switzerland. Maybe there was some cognac in the coffee and you start hallucinating, and you think that you're in an elevator in space.
This I can maybe imagine, if I had enough cognac, I could think of it, but quantum mechanics...
We would go with smelly and pink.
Do they have a fire extinguisher filled with perfume?
This is your money being wasted in front of your own eyes.
I could accidentally sniff this, and I would get high.
I expect at this point that people would start throwing flowers and high-pitched screams like at a rap concert.
That will be a homework problem because it is a lot of algebra and I am too old for it.
Student: Does anyone have a stapler?
ProfessorSahakian: Use your saliva. Better yet, use someone else's saliva.
Luke: Tree or three?
ProfessorSahakian: Tree, like the animal; wait no, the... living thing... plant!
On learning Chinese characters: Enough of this bullshit, let's learn something useful today!
[draws Mayan bird letter on board with big curved beak] Maybe it means Armenian, because of the nose.
Your job over the weekend is not to sleep and think all night about what does this theorem imply.
There will be no alcohol consumed during your exams, as per the rules of this college- [laughs] See, I couldn't keep a straight face.
This object is called the Riemann tensor, after Mr. Riemann, whose last name was tensor.
I need to tell you that there are several things here which are very deep and disturbing.
And that will require experimental input because, unfortunately, physics is an experimental science.
The midterm will be a black hole itself, in which you will fall in.
I sound like my one year old daughter. Not that she does general relativity, it's just the sound I'm making.
[puts slashes through all of the 'a's on the board] It probably means something in Nordic now.
I may talk to myself occasionally now, but don't worry about it: my doctor said I am under control.
ProfessorSahakian: If you find my mistake, I will get on my knees and kiss the floor.
The classroom thinks for a few seconds.
pants: Shouldn't there be two of those terms?
ProfessorSahakian: Damn it! [gets on his hands and knees and kisses the floor.]
ProfessorSahakian: [to pants] I will get you for this.
Maybe we did give up too soon, but, you know, who cares?
Maybe we should compute the Riemann tensor for something useful... No, why do something useful? Let's do something interesting.
What is the form of the Riemann tensor? Oh wait, I can look it up on Wikipedia. [pulls out phone]
Do I have all exams? Where is the garbage can?
Generally you don't want to grade while watching anything involving the Borg.
Imagine I did this all in my head in an instant, because I had an enemy shooting at me.
First, the joy; it's always good to leave with the pain at the end.
Special situations where metric sucks, and no pun intended in this case, since it will be about sucking.
I'm lying there a little bit, but you will never find out.
Now I'll change color to brighten up your miserable lives.
This is what it means to live long and prosper: go to live near a black hole.
This tells you that a funnel forms between the two universes. Nothing strange here at all.
This is very interesting, because all marriages will end in a singularity.
For example, you could build a space station right here next to the wormhole and make a series of bad TV.
They could publish all their lives, but their publications will all be stuck inside.
A negative energy photon would travel backwards in time which would allow you to marry your own grandmother... which would not be good.
Look what happened. In the previous section some of the students were misbehaving, so I killed them. Be careful.
When I was younger, I pirated big time.
What we are doing is theft, so we will all go to hell. We will meet there someday with Mussolini.
See what you did with this conversation? One of the students went to the bathroom to kill himself.
I like it when students go on their knees... begging for mercy.
Now we know why the tau particle shot itself. Too much algebra.
It is true that I spend most of my time in the bathroom.
I proposed to him that we go together to the bathroom, but he refused for some reason.
Watch your language! Don't use bullshit words here!
I was shot by a tank. I saw it go woosh past me. It missed.
My daughter has superhuman abilities. She only has two teeth, but a strong jaw. I am hopeful she will grow more teeth. At this point she has two teeth and a hairy back. It was a genetic gift from me.
I will talk with a very gentle voice as I make harassing comments.
Nobody passes this class. It is a well-kept secret.
I was a little bit intoxicated while I was grading. It is the only way I can get through it.
I can tell she is thinking 'Please shoot me now and put me out of my misery'
I thought she wrote something in Asian script. It turns out if you write Latin vertically it looks like Asian. Maybe that's what it has been the whole time and no one noticed.
Student: When will we know stuff?
Sahakian: You will never know stuff.
After having my daughter I gained a lot of weight. The pregnancy was tough.
I used to say write good things on these [course evaluation sheets] because I would put them on dating websites, but now I'm married so I can't do that.
Different cultures hear cats say ... 'woof'.
Did you know that my grandmother used to smuggle arms in her underwear?
The past few days, my daughter has been pooping serious stuff. It's like every time she poops, I need to show it to somebody.
You will look at the exam questions and go 'wow, that's a beautiful question. I wish I knew how to start it'.
I have this pomeranian who was raised by a cat, so now he thinks he's a cat, and it's really weird. Lately he has tried to reproduce with the neighbor's cat. The weirdest part is that the cat doesn't mind. You don't believe me? I have home video.
On the course evaluation forms:
These are for you to say nice things about me so I can put them on match.com. But I can't say that anymore, because I am married.
This year they gave me this new form for me to fill out. [tears it up immediately] I accidentally broke it.
[reading the paragraph] Harvey Mudd College doesn't give a damn about its students. It doesn't care about quality faculty either. I will only use this feedback to make fun of you. I will only see this form after I submit your failing grades. I will never see the confidential section and neither will anyone else. You could use it to communicate with the Deans, but it doesn't matter because I am tenured.
On strangling ProfessorSaeta: He's quite tall. I think I could kick him in the nuts. I could definitely strangle ProfessorTownsend, though.
On tenure: When you kill a student, it's a close call. The committee would have to decide whether or not the strangled student deserved it.
I think eventually lasers made of matter will be built and these will be the first phasers and we will start shooting each other with Bose-Einstein condensate. It will be very cold, but it will work.
Any volunteers for this lame problem? [pause] Cowards!
Anyone has an objection so far? [pause] Cowards.
Peter, you have not been abused much. Let's abuse you.
In a story about an old professor of his: Whenever you look at a paper or a book, no matter who wrote it, the first thing any good physicist should think is, 'I wonder how much of this is bullshit'.
On matter lasers: It's much more powerful than a laser; you could kill an elephant with it very easily. That's what research is for: at the end of the day, you just want to kill more elephants.
While PaNts is at the board: I need to resume my discovery channel voice. Jaron only mates once a year... [pause for laughter] but it's worth the wait.
Now that I have compared all of you, and all the faculty, to sheep...
On how lightsabers work: We'll find out in the next Star Wars movie that's coming up.
Please say something or I will throw a bottle at you.
On the pressure of a photon gas: This is a celebrated relation that you should write somewhere and worship it every night.
Pi is obviously three, and three cubed is just ten, so...
Take the sun: you can look at its spectrum and immediately find its surface temperature. Don't look at the sun directly.
Explaining a hand injury: I met an alligator on my way to work today. I stared at him, and he said 'the second law of thermodynamics is bullshit'. You should see the alligator.
Lightsabers would need to be made of Nonabelian gauge particles.
Classical Mechanics is so 1960s.
Equilibrium is so 1970s.
Most normal people, like us, look at this and do not know what to do.
I will give you these forms. Come and get me from the bathroom when you guys are done. --DavidLiao asks (2012 May 12): Would these be paper forms for writing or, say, things like one-forms? It's unclear from context.
My wife is texting me. She may be giving birth right now. I'm going to ignore it. We're building warp engines.
Particle physicists use the same method of solving their problems as toddlers - smashing things together as hard as they can.
Physicists mate once a year
Physicists mate on remote beaches
ProfessorSahakian: And this is Poisson's equation.
Student: Where do we get that from?
ProfessorSahakian: ...Poisson
At the end of this problem, you will be screaming like you're at a rock concert and throwing flowers at the chalkboard.
After listening to your guys's jokes, I've realized your guys's jokes suck, and any jokes I know aren't suitable for class!
There is a real danger that when we hit the punchline a few minutes later, you'll rip off your coats and run around naked!
I can do this algebra, but I'd need another blackboard and you'd stone me to death afterwards.
Material 2 is Mucus if you're interested in mucus
I'm trying to build some tension, otherwise you have nothing to live for!
Let me close this door, 'cause I'm getting computer science in the background and that's usually NOT a good thing!
Whoever gave you your eyes also gave you a not very powerful brain.
This is a very powerful laser. If I point it at you, you will die. So I will just stand here caressing it.
People are whistling either at the exponential or at me. Sadly, I hope its at the exponential.
Quantum Mechanics IS the real world, but its really crazy, takes your intuition, slaps it around, and throws it in the gutter!
I'm surprised because Prof Townsend is a theorist and he actually gave me a real number!
ProfessorDonnelly: I don't think Prof. Sahakian drinks...
It sounded like it came from my pants.
A lab group: *puts up a line consisting of three data points* Sahakian: Excuse me while I go throw up.
It is resting on the floor, which in physics, is always shaded.
At one level, this is a very profound statement. On another, it is totally useless.
I'm going to do another demonstration, which has absolutely no instructional value.
I'm doing this because I want you to smell like pickle all day.
I don't know you who are, but I think if you see a pickle, you have to laugh.
Do not try this at home unless you're really bored.
Immediately, physicists were running naked through the streets, shouting, screaming. Twenty year of drama...
You can certainly think of it as an infinite mass, but I'd rather use my finger.
Since I had to bring in a knife, ProfessorHaskell had to strip search me. I was very traumatic for both of us.
That's a cute expression, if you're attracted to equations like I am.
I sometimes hear voices, but my doctor says it's okay.
ProfessorHaskell and I have had violent discussions over this involving crossbows and daggers.
Kill them. It's a violent way of putting it, but I like it.
I should say that people sitting in the front row might not be able to have children after this. It's a minor thing.
It has occurred to me that I should give you an option. Either you can take the midterm, or I can bring in the Van Der Graph and shock you for an hour. Both would bring me the same amount of joy.
The electrostatic force is conservative, which means that it is against abortions.
This should sound familiar if you've ever electrocuted yourself.
Imagine a countryside. It's a place with lots of trees and grass.
Here, let me make a monkey. And they say Physics isn't fun...
Do you want to bet on it? Given that I am the Professor I will would win, because either I win or I fail you.
I have so much drugs in me...*mumble mumble*...
The electric force is against abortions. (conservative)
The r squares cancel, the r-naught cubes cancel, the 3's cancel.... It's like... um... Cancellation City... or something.
Given that I work in StringTheory I can draw tori very well. It's like the only thing I can do well.
*strange noises* Don't worry, I'm in control. *more noises* Ok now I am getting scared.
This has no educational value, but we can do it! So we will.
It's more like an atom in the warp core engine of the Enterprise.
Oh hey! This is some sort of atom on alcohol!
I think we should send all the left handed people to England, then everything would be balanced.
In a moment you will start crying of happiness - or at least you will start crying ... I am not sure of happiness.
We need to make this integral trivial, otherwise how can we integrate an unknown.
Physics is 90% intuition, 9% luck, and 1% rigor.
Not at all; I said "don't torture YOURSELF"; I want to be the only one who tortures you, and that's what the midterm is for...
This is how remarkable my grandmother was - when she was young she used to smuggle firearms in her underwear.
Electric force opposes gun control.
The Electric force opposes abortions.
(on an electric field simulator) It's kind of like mucus. ... If you play with this for long enough you can make obscene shapes.
(on a review slide at the end of the lecture before the midterm) You are asked to solve Laplace's equation in elliptic coordinates. => Only Laplace knows how to do this. => You are screwed.
I will keep you here until you answer... Actually, that's more punishment for me.
Last time on "Days of Our Miserable Lives" (talking about the lecture during recitation)
If you are really having trouble on the midterm, just raise your hand and I'll shoot you.
I drank pina colada for at least ten years before I discovered it had alcohol. That is why I always wondered why it was so good.
Lets make this poetic:
The birds are singing
The flowers are blooming
and the students are all drunk.
Instead of taking tylenol cold, I took tylenol nighttime. I'm not kidding, so at any moment I'm going to drop... I have a sudden urge to drive a tractor
Whether I do a circular integral or an integral over Mickey Mouse, the answer should be the same.
I feel like I have to give a sermon standing here. You should love each other... but not right now.
So between the sheets, the magentic field is... I did this example just so I could say "between the sheets"
This is something you can build in the dorm and you know, actually hurt people with. It is called a rail gun. ... Next time we will learn how to make small nuclear weapons.
If you are trying to hit anothter dorm, you can mount it.
You'll get a 5 amp power supply and get yourself electrocuted.
I will tell you the integral using my grandmother's powerful skills of integration.
Next recitation when asked about the small nuclear weapons: Yeah, I guess I promised that, but North Korea beat us to it.
You have 3 options:
1) Biot and Savart are idiots.
2) Ampere is an idiot.
3) 1 = 2 = 0
Only the math majors voted for that\[#3\].
If you guess, I will go on me knees and kiss your feet.
Fall break is almost upon us. The birds are singing. The students are drunk. I'm trying to be poetic here.
Go home, don't drink too much over the break, unless it is absolutely necessary.
His [Ampere's] father was sent to the Guillotine. He was French, so that was the hip thing to do back then.
Your cholesterol level will go up and you will drop dead soon after the dinner, but you will die happy.
In a Spring 2005 students-l e-mail:
our graduating Seniors have more than a foreign movie as reason for sampling strange alcohol
The last movie on May 2nd will be Senior's night, with even stranger alcohol than last semester
If you attended last semester but have been emotionally shaken by my cooking and do not want to do [sic] through the horror again, email me
Either you're saying two or you're giving me victory. Which you will not do after the midterm.
Hence, we say I like the word hence alot for some reason.
What was that, vinicity? That should be a word.
Harmonic oscillator. Never forget this in your miserable lives.
Otherwise, Newton will tell you that you're screwed.
The shape of the ellipse- I almost said she-llipse, which is a new word.
(Later that class, after misspelling electromagnetic) Electromagnic? Yes, it's like she-llipse.
Who wants to live in boring three dimensions?
And unless I have had enough alcohol, I cannot visualize four-dimensional space.
You will see this problem in a future quantum mechanics course as well as your nightmares.
Oscillator. It's like terminator.
So you get cos(Q) squared plus sin(Q) squared, which my grandmother knows is one.
Juicy things should not be done in five minutes.
Let's take an example that is simple, so that we will be shooting a fly with a nuclear weapon.
If you want to impress people in a bar, you say "Oh, a canonical transformation is just a sympletic group Sp(N)"
(Upon hearing someone laughing out in the hall) Someone is very happy or not. Whatever he is, let him come in this room, I'll make him not.
It's almost like a fluid dynamics problem, where, in principle, you can't solve anything unless you drop most of the terms.
(After trying to figure out correct spelling of Foucault) Who cares, the guy is dead!
If we were just frosh or something, we would just stop here. But we are not frosh, of course.
(After doing a derivation incorrectly) How did we get that? Not that it's wrong, I'm calling it 'we'.
Now I'm going to talk about things you already know but I'm going to use bigger words.
This is as bad as a lecture on Quantum Physics in grad school, where in the first lecture, the professor set h bar to 1, so we could not tell what was quantum and what was classical. We will do the same here.
Then the Egyptians, instead of building those stupid pyramids, they would have discovered special relativity.
(After something has been beeping since the beginning of class) Mark: What is that horrible beeping and can you make it stop?
Sahakian: I will make it stop by brute force. (Lifts his coat off keyboard. Beeping stops. Puts it back on. Beeping starts again.) The most important thing in science is reproducibility.
(Later that class, after no one answers a question) I will make that sound again. (Begins holding down keys.)
(While reviewing last year's final) I was being really nice this year. Why?
"This would be very useful in, say, chemistry... Not that chemistry is a useful subject."
The midterm will be horrific. (Sadly, it was)
There was this thing on the Animal Channel about how porcupines only mate once a year. So what? So do physicists. (I'm not sure about the actual animal he said)
I know you want to make room for other things on your schedule. Like drinking beer. (I'm not sure about the first part of this quote, but he definitely said the latter)
(Holding a water bottle): People think this is water. It's really vodka.
(Breaking out a package of multicolored chalk) I will now try to use as many colors as possible so that you don't understand what is going on. (for the record: a yellow conducting core inside an orange conducting shell, with a lime-green Gaussian surface between them, and surrounded by another Gaussian surface, originally PurPle, but then drawn over again with bright PurPle because it was originally invisible, with white distances, red squiggly charge distributions, and a dark green line for integrating potential.)
They said they wanted me to leave some yellow chalk for them for contrast. I think I will leave the black chalk.
Lick each other, eat crocodiles, lick each other again. You know, they're supposed to be vegatarians, but a few times every year... (He had seen hippos on the Discovery Channel the night previous)
When you smell smoke coming from your private part, you know, it's time to stop.
"Then you take off your clothes, which is always fun."
There is no such thing as licking somebody else too much, but licking yourself doesn't get you anywhere.
Now if there was a rabbit, hypothetically speaking, in the toilet, I wouldn't use that toilet.
Suppose the Earth's magnetic field is generated by a giant iron sphere in the core where Satan is playing poker with Mussolini.
(Outside of class, informal conversation)
ProfessorSahakian: You wouldn't believe it. I was in the bathroom on a train. I pressed flush, and it was so powerful. I thought I was going to be sucked away. I was shocked (or traumatized, or he said something to that effect)
AdamPivonka? and DavidLiao: Why were you sitting on the toilet when you flushed it?
ProfessorSahakian: Shut up!
On hearing an ambulance siren outside: Someone has died.
JoeWellhouse?: I don't think they usually turn on the sirens if someone's died.
ProfessorSahakian: Someone is going to die.
I'll kiss you if you tell me how to solve this problem. Ok I won't kiss you; now tell me.
DavidLiao: I did what I thought I was supposed to do, but it didn't work.
ProfessorSahakian: You mean you want me to check your algebra? (Maniacal) hee hee hee (sounds like the violins from Psycho)
TeraBell?: DavidLiao, did you wear that shirt in bed?
DavidLiao: Yes.
TeraBell?: Ew. Don't do that.
DavidLiao: Why not?
TeraBell?: You exude juices at night.
DavidLiao: Yah, but I exude juices when I'm awake.
ProfessorSahakian: OK, I need to leave the room.
TeraBell?: (unfazed), yah but you exude more at night.
Upon describing an example of fluid dynamics for toilets: The tighter the hole the faster the flow.
DavidLiao: --Snicker--
ProfessorSahakian: Get out!
Never trust chemists.
On the exam format: It will be fun. At least for me.
On the success of Newtonian mechanics: Physicists were running naked in the streets.
On Maxwell declaring the end of physics: "Let's just go and play golf or something," he said.
On completing a problem: ...and my grandmother can do that.
Student: "Why is that a minus sign?" ProfessorSahakian (fixing it): "Alcohol."
Every time I see that picture of Lagrange, I feel better about my nose.
...I'm learning American slang. And I think what we'd say about this is, we don't give a rat's ass.
I grade for imagination.
You could complain that this Lagrangian doesn't work dimensionally, but I would then ignore you.
Pulleys are back with a revenge.
After a quiz: Now I'll do my favorite part, which is to show you how easy it was on the board.
In problem statements:
We are shooting for a master formalism which I will write on the board on Monday and from then on we will apply it like chimps.
On handing back a quiz: It was terrible. I cried all night. The average was ninety-two percent.
Grad school will be a horrific experience. You should prepare for it.
I have this sinking feeling I've screwed up, but it's never stopped me before.
Now I will use my powerful skills of differentiation to solve it quickly--and wrong, probably.
While writing a problem on the board:
ProfessorSahakian: "Does 'slipping' have one 'p' or two?" Assorted students: "Two."(Prof. Sahakian writes "slippping" [sic] on the board, and proceeds to use this spelling for the remainder of the lecture.)
On quantum tunnelling: Classically, my head will definitely stop at the wall. I have tried this.
[Physicists] look at two points; the third point, they guess at. Every hundred years or so they're right and we have a revolution.
So I have this wealth of information about the mating habits of crocodiles. I can tell you about it next time.
I ended up as a theoretical physicist. Study hard. Don't let this happen to you.
... "Why are you torturing me with this? Let's just go home and watch Jeopardy." But, do not despair!
If it's more than two pages, it's not beautiful.
On an exam: Open-everything. Bring your family with you.
In a similar vein: Open-house, meaning you provide alcohol for me.
On a make-up exam: I'll try to make it of the same magnitude of horror [as the original].
The other thing I like about [Noether] is she looks like me without the beard.
You don't want to bump into [Boltzmann] in a dark alley.
On (distance=velocity*time): This is not a luxury. If you don't have it, then Newton is dead. Well, Newton is dead...
After proving same expression: That's kinda lame.
While doing a nasty integral on the blackboard:
ProfessorSahakian: "If you saw this integral in a dark alley, what would you do?" Student: "Run." ProfessorSahakian: "It would catch you."
On Tycho Brahe: He'd throw parties every night with lots of drinking, and he had health problems because of drinking. So he was a typical experimentalist...
We'll call this eccentricity. It measures how weird a physicist is.
Immediately after the lights go out: Keep your hands to yourself!
During same power outage: So we'll be studying optics today...
On thermodynamics: You will never understand it. Nobody does. You just do it and it works.
If you look at the first two lines long enough and have ample supply of illegal substances, you will notice this.
Poisson said that only two things in life are worthwhile: doing mathematics and teaching mathematics. He was a loser.
Just because I'm a theorist it doesn't mean I'm a totally useless being. Despite what my mother says.
On lecturing with the flu: Usually after about half an hour I start sounding like Daffy Duck on drugs.
There's two wizards?-- during the TheoMech? final, which he left periodically to watch The Two Towers
So you do Gram-Schmidt, whoever he was.
Eigen comes from German. I don't know what it means.
You can use [the binomial expansion approximation] to impress people in bars.
Not while drinking, of course. Unless you're 21. If you're 21, get totally wasted.
We don't care about the integral, because I have a cheat sheet. If you want to do this integral, you can do that, and you can call me. And call my relatives. Someone should call my relatives...
(After dropping the same piece of chalk for the second time in a minute) I'm giving up on that one. *goes to get another*
Did you know camels can spit? I learned that yesterday on the animal channel.
I forgot this negative for the last class...That'll bring down their average, which is good for you.
The twos cancel... I get mildly excited.
This grading symbol means: 'With the right amount of alcohol, maybe.'
If you see a "Good!" on your paper it means I got overexcited, so either something good happened on the TV, or you actually did something good.
(On explaining the Right-hand Rule) And you curl your fingers in the direction of the arrows. Careful not to make any obscene gestures like the ones I see on the freeway.
(On using colored chalk) This lecture is brought to you in technicolor.
(A random passerby is whistling in the distance) I hear whistling. Time to go to the psychiatrist again.
(On Maxwell's equations) What is horribly awful about these equations, besides the fact that you have to work with them?
Some people said Newton was right and Maxwell's equations were wrong. They're all dead now and no one remembers their names.
Sahakian selects a victim for a board problem, then claims over her protestations and whining, She wants to do it. She was begging me to let her do this problem before class.