Beautiful Banff!

Here we are! What a great car ride to Banff, the view was spectacular and the company unbelievable! This was the first time I met Lily Yen. She turned out to be my "roommate" at this conference. She is a professor from BC and an absolutely lovely person. I really enjoyed meeting her here. It turned out (we figured this out the last day) that she works with Ed Barbeau ( a professor I adore and know very well from U of T) and Peter Crippin (a professor I also adore and is a mentor of mine). I know Ed and Peter from my work with University of Waterloo, we write the math contests together. And they know Lily and speak nothing but high praises for her!
Also from our car ride is Scott Kim (2nd from right). I met Scott at IPP Boston 2006. It was such an honour to meet him there. (one of those people who you meet and during that first conversation you think "I can't believe he's talking with me!" ) I spoke at length with him about SNAP Math Fairs, he was very interested and so I asked him if he would consider speaking at our Banff conference. He accepted and it was wonderful to get to know him better here! It was interesting, on our drive into Banff, Scott was telling us about a project he was working on. It was a video game where kids learn to play guitar. Scott was very excited about it. Well, it turns out it was Guitar Hero. Which is now a very popular game around Brandon's friends!
And of course Bill is on the far right. I could go on and on about him, but I'll just say he's turning out to be a wonderful boss!
(and please notice the beautiful deer behind us! they just come and graze here!)This is the beautiful building we eat our meals in. And look at those mountains in the background! This is the view from the dining hall. Those mountains are simply breath-taking!

Here we are at dinner. Andy, Bill, Scott, Me, and Chris (an amazing teacher from BC) The food at Banff is unbelievable! The choices and the quality of the food are incredible. Chris was so funny, he had to try every dessert available, and there were about 6 to choose for each meal!

This is Ted Lewis. He is a champion for SNAP Math Fairs. Here he is accepting flowers because this conference was officially renamed the "Ted Lewis Banff SNAP Math Fairs" Conference. Ted was the one who I contacted after Andy at U of Alberta. Ted was so helpful to me in setting up my first math fair. He is an amazing and generous person. I am honoured to work with him!

Here is our website:

www.mathfair.com

Check it out to learn about this amazing mathematical initiative! If you like recreational mathematics, problem solving and education, then this will interest you!

This is Jim Timourian. He is the Chair of the SNAP Board. He professed at U of Alberta with Ted and Andy, he currently works at Princeton.
I am honoured to say that this year I was asked to join the Board for SNAP.
Here is Scott Kim. A very talented game and puzzle designer. He also writes a column in Discover Magazine. He is very well known for his invertible writing. In this picture he is humming and whistling two different tunes at the same time! It was incredible to see! I've worked with him with ThinkFun, and it is such an honour!
Check him out at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Kim

His website is
http://www.scottkim.com/

Andy Liu. Words cannot describe how much I honour this man. He has influenced my life in so many ways. He is the brains who, with another gentleman, invented SNAP Math Fairs. He is so brilliant and kind. Someone once described Andy to me as "Canada's number one problem solver." And he has been nothing but supportive and encouraging to me.

I remember my first IPP Puzzle Exchange and I was Andy's assistant. People would say to Andy, "Is this your daughter?" ( I was honoured) He'd say no. Then they'd ask, "Is she your student?" (A very high honour indeed, I can only wish I was that smart!) He'd politely say no. Then he came up with, "Tanya's my favourite teacher." A compliment I wore proudly!

Tiina Hohn. This is a woman I respect and admire. I love hanging out with Tiina and talking with her. She has been so wonderful to me when I come to Alberta to visit. She always thinks of me and takes me around to see the sites. She is so warm and friendly and so encouraging. I love doing conferences with her and I hope we will work together for many years to come!

Bill - another very important person in my life! I've been telling him for the past two years that I've known him, "Bill, you should hire me!" and now look at everything that is happening! Who would have thunk it?

So this was Banff 2007. I'll never forget in 2003 when I did my first math fair under the guidance of Ted, and emailing Ted at 2am in the morning after we had just done our first math fair and telling him about how excited I was. That first math fair was so well received by the students, other teachers (I had the most incredible staff that I worked with, they were an incredible group of professionals) and the parents were blown away.
I was invited by Ted to attend the Banff conference. He had told me that my conference fees and accommodations would be covered but I'd have to get to Banff. I remember thinking what a great opportunity but we couldn't afford for me to fly there.
I was speaking with a wonderful professor just after that who knew my enthusiasm and knew the math fair had gone extremely well, and I was jokingly telling him about Ted's offer for me to go to Banff. How a little ol' teacher such as myself was asked to go to Banff and speak about our math fair. He asked me if I was going, and I said no. He said why not, and I said because my family couldn't afford it.
He then said, and this I will always be thankful for and will never forget, "Tanya, you need to go and be with these people. Don't worry, I'll get you there." This was a defining moment in my life. He was absolutely right. "These people" who I just described some of them in this blog, inspire me and have been nothing but supportive of me, and this trip to Banff was setting me on a road that I would never have thought of in my wildest dreams. It all started at that moment. And I am so proud of where I have come and I'm excited about where I have yet to go!