Math and my don key

On Tuesday, July 12, at 3:14, I was engrossed in my third math project of the day. Just before, I had been working on projects number one and two with my two summer students, each of whom is engaged in a four-week project with me. When my 90 minutes with the two of them wrapped up, I turned to this third project, polishing up a paper that I've been working on for a couple of years. In this case, "polishing" means doing the final touches that the journal requires: listing author affiliations, getting the figures in the format that the journal requires, and so on. This is super absorbing for me, but maybe not so much fun for other people to read about.


So I'll just show you a cute thing that I was doing at a time that was not 314: a little sewing project. This requires a bit of backstory. On our campus, the doors to the main buildings all have electronic card readers, but our interior office doors have locks that use standard keys. That means that to get into any of our buildings and offices, we have to carry both our identification card and also our keys. We're not allowed to punch a hole in the card, as that would deactivate the electronics somehow, so we can't attach the card directly to a key ring.  So I sewed myself a little pouch for my card, with a loop on the pouch to attach the pouch to the key ring, rather than wear a lanyard in addition to carrying my keys. This keeps everything in one place, so I have fewer things to remember.

But also, in my new role I'm going to be what we call the "Don" of a college house. (Think Oxford/Cambridge dons, not mafia dons). And so I decorated my pouch with an image of Eeyore, which I made by 

• printing out a cartoon picture of him, 
• using that cartoon as a pattern, 
• repurposing some rags I'd made (by cutting up old grey, pink, and red t-shirts) as Eeyore fabric pieces, 
• and attaching the pieces with a zigzag stitches on my sewing machine. 

Total cost, $0, but of course. 

Notice that this means that this pouch holds my don key. (Get it?)

Eeyore has my I.D. Card inside.

This makes me very, very (very) happy. I explain this to anyone who will listen, and even some people who won't.

A closer look at my don key.  I love it so very much.