I’ve been asked why I call my blog “A Math Teacher’s Imaginary Life,” so I figured I’d tell you.

It started because I’m a teacher and was tired of kids being amazed that I even existed outside of the classroom, either now or before they met me. It was as though I was a poltergeist that inhabited the room for the sole purpose of torturing them with math and occasionally getting them in trouble (good news or grades are always teenagers’ own doing, while bad news is the work of others, of course), only without the cool back-story of a grisly murder.

What I Did During Your Summer Vacation?

However, the name of this blog really because of how I live my life. I am a quiet dork. Or, rather, I like a quiet time and am unapologetically a complete and total dork. As much as I enjoy people’s company and love to hear their stories, I like quiet and solitude. A few hours of good amongst-people-hearing-stories-ness can hold me a week. Then, I need to go out and come in contact with others again, even if it’s just a conversation with a cashier at the grocery store or a little back-and-forth with a stranger in the aisles of Borders or just overhearing a conversation while doing puzzles at Starbucks. It’s easier to be a kind stranger than a familiar face.  Besides, a lot of the things I enjoy are done in quiet: writing, reading, puzzling, surfing the internet. So I don’t have much of a life, and those things I do for enjoyment and fine amusing (like math jokes) are not “cool”.

Luckily, there are people with similar interests who might find some of mine… well, interesting, I suppose. Enjoy!

I’m a woman firmly within the 28-34 age bracket. I was born in Westchester County, NY (an hour north of NYC, on the border of Greenwich, CT), went to college at Hamilton College in central NY state and settled in Rochester, NY after getting my masters at the University of Rochester. My husband, Peter, and I have just celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary; we met at college over a decade ago. We are also the slaves of two 8-year-old siamese cats, Stewie and Leela.

I love to read (romance novels, mysteries, historical fiction, classics, and anything else I get my hands on), I love to learn, I adore languages, and I can be a little silly. Okay, a lot silly. And eccentric. I’ve always had a “little project” going on – in the past decade, between life changes like finding a new home or job, it has fluctuated been various homey things such as knitting, quilting, “feathering our nest,” and currently baking (starting with 23 different kinds of cookies) and cooking (especially childhood favorites, which are generally Czech in origin).

I love my families deeply and am deeply devoted to them. I consider my husband’s side of the family as much mine as the family I was born into. Peter’s family has two branches: the sprawling, paternal side, mostly located in Buffalo, NY, and the smaller but no less loving maternal side, divided between Westchester County, NY, and Los Angeles. My side of the family consists of my parents, my four siblings (spaced out liberally between the ages of 24 and 47, the eldest two are products of my father’s first marriage but no less my siblings, although I am extremely proud of my video-game-superstar baby brother, Jay), and my older brother’s three young children.

I have wanted to be a math teacher since I was two years old. And, as the daughter of two neuropsychologists and the sister of a third, I am also special-education-certified with coursework in neuropsychology. I began teaching at the age of 24, after getting a double M.S. in mathematics education and teaching students with disabilities from middle childhood through adolescence (4 NYS certifications). Until recently, I had worked at semi-private schools for students in grades 5-12 that have disabilities that affect their learning (first as a new teacher, later as a mathematics department chair), and then transitioned to working in a cubicle as the head of mathematics curriculum for a chain of virtual K-12 charter schools (during which I greatly missed teacher-student interaction).

Unfortunately, I also have fibromyalgia, which has interfered with my home and work life significantly over the past half-decade. After going on disability leave a year ago, I am learning how to manage my pain and I am working with a personal-trainer to gain strength and flexibility as well as lose the weight I had gained. Although I am not pain-free, I am feeling significantly better and am able to live a semi-active, increasingly social, happy life.

I am now self-employed as a tutor (math, science, reading comprehension, vocabulary/grammar, writing, test prep, and more) specializing in teaching students with special learning needs in first grade through college, and advocate. To learn more about my business, please see my site at YourMathRx.com or Do-Math.net.