Dramatis persona*

helenhead Helen Chick

I've always wanted a bumper sticker that said "I'm a female, LDS/Mormon, Scout leading, geocaching, piano-playing, bicycling, mathematics educator with a PhD in maths ... and I VOTE"!

I think this makes me a minority group of cardinality 1!

* Since there's only one of me and "personae" is plural (I think), I've gone with dramatis persona.
January 2014
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Moods of the Mountain #52

And the sun sets on another year.

New year’s eve, 2014.

The full Moods of the Mountain collection […]

[RST] New year’s resolutions and fireworks

All of a sudden it’s December 31, which means it is 2015 tomorrow, and there seems to be a tradition of making new year’s resolutions on such occasions. The change of year seems to bring with it an opportunity to make personal changes, to turn over new leaves, to set off on new paths, to give […]

A pilgrimage to National Park

It may not be an annual pilgrimage but there have been more than a few ends-of-years in which I have headed up to National Park with my parents. It’s a lovely spot, and today we took advantage of a beautiful morning to drive to Lake Dobson and walk among the pandani (Richea pandanifolia) and waratahs.

The weather […]

The Three Wise Men take a shower

It was a glorious summer day and so Mum, Dad and I headed up the mountain for the afternoon. We visited the summit and watched the first two Sydney-Hobart yachts come in, and then went back down to Fern Tree and walked along the Pipeline Track to Silver Falls. We just happened to have the Three […]

A personal mathematical history – Part 4

[Note: This four-part series is a blogged version of a talk I gave in 2011 at a conference which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Mathematical Association of Tasmania. Some of the anecdotes shared here were not included in the original talk … and, given that I’m writing this up over three years later, I’m quite […]

A personal mathematical history – Part 3

[Note: This four-part series is a blogged version of a talk I gave in 2011 at a conference which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Mathematical Association of Tasmania. Some of the anecdotes shared here were not included in the original talk … and, given that I’m writing this up over three years later, I’m quite […]

A personal mathematical history – Part 2

[Note: This four-part series is a blogged version of a talk I gave in 2011 at a conference which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Mathematical Association of Tasmania. Some of the anecdotes shared here were not included in the original talk … and, given that I’m writing this up over three years later, I’m quite […]

A personal mathematical history – Part 1

[Note: This four-part series is a blogged version of a talk I gave in 2011 at a conference which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Mathematical Association of Tasmania. Some of the anecdotes shared here were not included in the original talk … and, given that I’m writing this up over three years later, I’m quite […]

More further adventures of the Three Wise Men

Many years ago — almost certainly before I was born — my paternal grandmother, Nana Chick, took some decorative wood-turned curtain-rod ends and some rather bold paint colours and created a set of Three Wise Men as Christmas decorations. Somehow they ended up in our family where they have gained folkloric notoriety, with their kitsch brashness […]

Christmas 2014

It was a happy family gathering for Christmas. The long-running tradition of having it up at Fern Tree at the house of one of my Aunts continued, with the usual traditions of pudding and cheese straws and banana crush and curried eggs and coconut ice and lots of other stuff (not necessarily in that order … […]