Diana's (a.k.a Hypatia-phd's) Personal Page!

Welcome to My Personal Page!

I'm glad to decided to surf to this site and learn a little more about me. Sit back, relax, click on the cool guy below to listen to the music, and enjoy! Click on my mailbox (thanks Caboodles!) to send me email and let me know what you think of my site.

Here you will find information about and links to my church, my work, my "calling" (teaching, especially teaching math), my passion (currently, all things whitewater, especially kayaking), and my ramblings. In addition, you will find information about and links to colleges I've graduated from and worked for and links to my other pages here in Geocities. Also, don't forget to Sign my Guestbook.

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A Little About Me

I'm a thirty-something mathematics educator with interests in teaching, especially teaching math to people who say, "I've always hated math!", kayaking (mostly whitewater, but no class V's for me yet, I still need to learn how to roll!), T.V. (Xena, Party of Five, Ally, The Practice, Providence, Buffy, 7th Heaven, Star Trek Voyager, and Dawson's Creek are among my current fav's), adventure recreation stuff (I'm one of those people who'll sit & watch all 300 hours of the Eco-Challenge Race *G*), and music (unfortunately, the only thing I can play is the CD player but... I love listening to all types of music [except twangy country & blue grass] -- fav artists include Terri Allard, Dr. Hook, Etta James, Vonda Shepard, Kathy Mattea, Amy Grant, and Aretha Franklin, to name but a few. I love lions (you may have noticed that from my other pages *g*), partly because I'm a Leo but mostly because I think they're cool.

I love to read, be outdoors (camping, hiking, kayaking, doing ropes courses, whatever), and play with my dog, a.k.a. "son",(totally spoiled-rotten, love of my life, salt & pepper miniature schnauzer named Tore, read bar over the "e" and pronounced "tor-ee"). I'm currently living in Texas (but don't hold that against me -- I moved here because of my job! *smile*), teaching for a living, and am happily in a committed relationship. I fumble around with trying to write (poems, prose, stuff) -- see my ramblings section if you want to read some, but be a gentle critic! -- wish I could draw (my stick figures don't even look like sticks!), and generally try to live by a few simple rules of thumb. First, I think it's true what they say, if you find something you love and can make a living at it, you've got it made. Second, the quote "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" has helped me immensely over the years. Third, you should tell the people who are important to you that they are, often, because you don't know what tomorrow brings.

OK, enough preaching ... *grin* I am, by the way, a Christian (but don't hold that against me either! I still think Falwell's an idiot and that the Southern Baptist Convention's boycott of Disney is stupid & hypocritical, since they're still happily using their IBM computers). Currently, I've aligned myself with the United Church of Christ -- more about that & my church in the church section -- and am still finding out what it means to follow God.

Well, I'm sure that's more than you ever wanted to know *g* so I'll end my summary there. Again, glad you stopped by & took an interest. Feel free to check out other tidbits about me from the choices below. Oh, one more thing, just for fun, I decided to put a few pic's of me out on the web (just for you Sithus!) ... if you want to check them out, click here .

My Church

I am a member of a fantastic little church in Charlottesville, Virginia (if you just read the info about me, you know that I live in TX -- I'm working on finding a church closer to home but it's hard when you're competing with perfection!). The name of this wonderful group of people is Sojourner's United Church of Christ. If you want to visit and learn more details than what I'll provide here, click on the light *lol* sorry, just couldn't resist!

Sojourner's is a community of very diverse (men & women, old & young, gay & straight, multi-racial, multi-cultural) individuals who share common desires: to know God better, to fight for justice and freedom for all people, and to become better people. We don't agree on all things, but we strive to communicate with and learn from each other as we seek consensus (a model of "government", for lack of a better word, that I highly recommend -- it is very different from the traditional "voting" or "democratic" method that most other churches I've known use). We are an open & affirming church, use gender-neutral or gender-equal language for God (i.e. God is just as often referred to as "Our Mother" as "Our Father" in my church), are Bible-based (though we're not literal about it, we believe in intelligent interpretation), and service-oriented.

Currently, we're involved with many ministries including providing "buddies" for people in an assisted-living facility, providing meals for people with AIDS, providing tutoring to local children at a city park's facility, and providing various "small groups" that people can attend on everything from understanding our theology to simple socializing over a shared meal, just to name a few. We also give our money as freely as our time and talents. We give to various local, state, and worldwide missions as well as various local organizations that sometimes are overlooked by more conservative and traditional churches. Last year, we were one of only a few churches in the greater Charlottesville area that had a group who participated in the AIDS Walk, a fund-raiser by the Aids Services Group.

If you were to attend one of our worship services, you would be privilege to the presence of God (you would also be fed, at our beginnings, we agreed, "if we meet, we eat!" ... so, now we offer breakfast to all before worship on Sunday mornings). The first time I attended, I felt like I had come home. The hymn that, if you asked the members and friends of Sojourner's, most typifies this church is Spirit of Gentleness -- it's "our song."

My Work

I am an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at West Texas A&M University. I just joined the faculty at WTAMU in January of '98. Before that, I worked for Lockheed Martin as a Technical Trainer for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I've been teaching (either mathematics or computer-related courses) since 1990. I've taught in public and private schools, middle- and high-schools, two- and four-year colleges, and technical / business colleges in places like Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, and, now, Texas. I have also worked in many other fields

: waitress, greenhouse worker, software developer, computer technician, camp counselor (and unit leader and assistant camp director), Sunday school director, choir director (if you knew me, you'd know how funny this is since I can't sing to save my life! ... doesn't stop me from tryin' tho' *G*), recreation director for a children's home for troubled adolescents, system configurer (is that a word? anyway, I assembled PCs from the motherboard up), and network technician, just to hit the highlights.

This semester I am teaching four sections of Math 305 (Computer Math). Now, what, you might ask, is "computer math?" Well, the way I'm teaching it *EG*, it's how to teach mathematics content using technology (computers as well as graphing calculators). They're also learning HTML in my class and creating web pages. The class includes things like graphing the color distribution of Skittles candy using Excel (yes, they got to eat Skittles!), surfing the web to find teacher resources and classroom activities, using graphing calculators to create fractals, and exploring the geometry involved in building bridges through various websites. If you want to see some of our hard work, visit my class home page by clicking here .

My Calling

Still Working on This Section!! Check Back Soon!!

My Passion

My current passion is kayaking (and all things whitewater). In fact, I'm so addicted to this sport that, in my classes at WTAMU, my "pc name" is Dr. ROR, for "Runs on Rivers." *G* Here's a pic of me enjoying some great whitewater in NC:

I have an entire page devoted to this passion, to check it out, click here. I'm in the process of re-doing that site, so check back often as it may change drastically from day to day. I also have an entire unit of mathematics lesson plans that have a kayaking theme... to check them out, click here.

My Ramblings

I won't claim to be a writer or a poet, though I have a rather funny story that I'll share with you relating to that. I got an invitation in the mail (as I'm sure millions of other Americans did) to submit an original poem to a contest. The prize was something like $5,000.00 so.... I submitted something I had written. Several weeks went by and I got a letter addressed to "Poet Perdue" ... somehow, there had been a typo and my real first name was lost, only to be replaced by this much more "hollywood" name. *laughing* Needless to say, I was amused (perhaps they did this typo intentionally to boost the egos of those who had submitted work??).

But I digress. Although I won't claim to be a writer or a poet, I do write and have had requests from friends (see, Beth, I did listen) to put some of it out on the web. So, here it is! I'll be adding more as I get them formatted for the web, so check back later if you don't find anything you like now. Your choices are:

Awake and Dreaming (for E)
Lioness of Judah
The Game
Leader of the Band
Nightsky (for Sharon)

Colleges

I have attended some great colleges. I earned my Bachelor's Degree (B.A.) (in mathematics with secondary education certification) from Belmont University (then Belmont College) in Nashville, Tennessee. I earned my Master of Arts in Teaching Mathematics (M.A.T.) from Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida. I earned my Doctorate Degree (Ph.D.) (in Mathematics Education) from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

I have also worked for some great colleges. Some were two-year, technical, or business colleges like Florida Technical College and Barclay Career School, both in Jacksonville, FL and National Business College and Piedmont Virginia Community College, both in Charlottesville, VA. Others were four-years colleges like Edward Waters College and Jacksonville University, both in Jacksonville, FL and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Other Pages

My other pages here in Geocities are:

My Sports Page
My Xena Page
My Adventure Page
My Friends Page
My Math Page
My Fun Page

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