  currently slogging away at a puzzle question. it was brought up by ben the other day, and kenji ran it through his breadboard emulator and found that my original solution was wrong (and it was, anyway, even if the method was right -- i got basic arithmetic in the way). so, back to the drawing board. pf gave me a hint. [edit: everything i've tried so far is wrong, but i've got a feeling my original solution is correct, just that i haven't got my mathematics right.
] the new school veep came in for a talk (which lasted an hour, and none of us fell asleep! ) this morning, and for a person whose husband is also our school's chief "enforcer of justice", she's more approachable. in a sense. that's admirable for various reasons, and among them, it's that teaching *is* a social job however you cut it; and also that, yes, for once you could see that your classmates had the sort of glint in their eye, the kind like if the school was undergoing a kind of Renaissance -- although otherwise still very much the same.
man, a veep that goes around exchanging gossip (a little, anyway) and encouraging us to screw the books if we prefer our girlfriends. and a veep that, for once, is going to headhunt all the "cool kids" for a personal talk. ah, time to eat. i'll go now. bye. 
