Things I like

To counter yesterday's post, I'll make a cheerier one. Things that make me smile:

Apple Pie

Brownies

Pixar Movies

When someone I haven't talked to in a while texts or messages me just to say hello and see how I'm doing.

When a pretty girl smiles at me as she walks past.

Cats. Usually.

When one of my students solves a complex problem on their own without needed to turn to me for help. While that makes me feel a tad superfluous sometimes, it's good to see the problem solving and research strategies I taught them working.

Finding out a good friend (or attractive girl! =p) and I have a previous undiscovered common interest that we can talk about for ages without getting bored.

Discovering that one of the web comics I enjoy has an update. This may be unusual, but I remain intentionally ignorant of their update schedules so I can enjoy a pleasant surprise every few days.

A complex piece of code compiling and working as intended on the first attempt.

Getting a compliment or recognition you weren't expecting. The second week of camp this summer, one of the 10 year-olds made a poster saying how she loved the camp and listing all the instructors names. My name had a #2 next to it (considering how many of us there were, and how much she liked her #1 instructor, a #2 was not at all bad), which totally made my day.

Other stuff. I couldn't possible capture it all in one list, so I'll cut it short here