Dr. Courtney Gibbons (she/her)

@courtneygibbons.phd

1389 Followers 847 Following

was @/virtualcourtney. math prof, pragmatic idealist, parent. Chief Problem Solver at MOTHERFUNCTOR.co I write a (U.S.) political commentary newsletter focusing on issues that affect the math community, https://buttondown.com/crgibbons

Photo of a shallow, shady brook flowing through rocks with green foliage glowing on the far back
Magazine cover featuring model Crystal Renn. The cover story is about embracing curves. She is holding a black sleeveless dress in front of her and posing provocatively.
Elderly man wearing ridiculous novelty holiday glasses. Bio 1/3: When Tom was 18, he joined the American Federation of Musicians (local 234) and began his professional career. He graduated from Danbury State College in 1965 as a bassoon major with a BS in music education, but his formal saxophone education came later under the tutelage of jazz saxophonist Arnie Lawrence (lead alto sax with Doc Severinsen's Tonight Show Orchestra). While in college, he played at Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential inaugural ball. Tom finished (ABD) his Masters work in ethnomusicology (African drumming and African flute) at Wesleyan University. At Wesleyan, he played lead alto in the Afram jazz ensemble under the direction of Stan Kenton alumnus Marvin Holladay, baritone saxophonist.
Thomas "Wolfgang" Gibbons, a senior citizen with glasses and a cannula smiling.
An alien (ET from the movie, to be precise) with a buckled seat belt on a yellow diamond road sign with the text BUCKLE UP
Eastern mud snails at low tide
A yellow and black butterfly on milkweed (tiger swallowtail, maybe?)
Courtney sits outside in a camp chair with her green glasses and exuberant hair enjoying the humidity. Her T-shirt is black with the sleeves cut off. Printed on the front is a moon with two cats leaping toward it and a unicorn below them. The print is tinted with pastel rainbow colors. It's like the best '90s nostalgia T-shirt you'll see today.
Scene from Seinfeld with Kramer showing Jerry a mini statue made of pasta, explaining "it's fusilli Jerry!"
Meringue peak slowly falling
Meditative mixing
We Are Lady Parts
the word "syzygy" hand drawn in a jagged cursive with barbed wire embellishments
Two black cats snuggling
A poorly executed video pan around an elongated pentagonal cupola made from magnetic tiles after many failed attempts
Emergency alert text: Hamilton College This is an emergency alert from Hamilton College. A fire has occurred in Butt...
A few books and other clutter on a wooden desktop. From left: Robert's Rules of Order (revised edition) on top of a linear algebra textbook, with a green pencil next to it. In the center, The Edge of Space-Time with its beautiful half black and white, half tropical rainbow circle. On the right, the very short book On Bullshit with a gavel on it. Paper clutter sits under most of it.
$5 off coupon for a gun range which is not a thing I'll use (guns are bad, bullets even worse) but if I were going to, today would be the day maybe. I hate taxes
A can of Allagash White. It's golden yellow from the top to about halfway down where it meets dark blue mountains. A mountain stream is coursing into the foreground. I would like to be in this idyllic Maine place instead of doing taxes.
Black cat Nimbus.
Illustration of pattern (ish). Chain 10 is the middle dashes from left to right.
AI generated coloring book page with a kid and a badly mangled hand punching a trophy aloft
Three black cats looking out a screen door. Cat on right passed away last year, but lives on in toddler's imagination. The other two cats are patiently getting used to the new cat-child hybrid.
Crochet hexagonal blanket with one orange hexagon in the middle, six yellow around it, twelve dark teal around that, yellow at the vertices and sage green between, with an orange border. Eventually will have black surface crochet at the seams with decorative slip stitch in the pattern colors.
Crochet blanket in progress (orange, yellow, blue, sage green hexagons visible)
Hexagon blanket in progress on the floor. Green center, warm golden yellow ring of 6, 12 dark teal blue, final ring is sage green with golden yellow at the vertices.
Bookstore.org receipt showing a pre-order for The Edge of Space Time.
Airplane window view of the Rockies with a blue and lightly cloudy sky
View from a plane window of a plane wing with the Rockies in the distance and Pikes Peak rising slightly higher to the south.
View from a plane window. Visible is the plane wing and the plane's shadow racing along on the sandy colored ground.
Front and back image of a pair of googly eyes mounted in purple plastic. Kind of a Mickey Mouse silhouette, but the "face" is hollow to wear as a ring. The eye pieces are roughly spherical. Measurements indicate 3.5cm/1.38in wide. 3cm/1.18in tall.
Weather app screenshot (temp in fahrenheit): Clinton Mostly cloudy -4° Feels like -20° (annotated with a circle and "wtf") High 7° • Low -6°
Weather app screenshot (degrees in fahrenheit): Clinton Cloudy 9° Feels like -7° High 16° • Low -6°
Screenshot of a weather app: Clinton Mostly cloudy -10° Feels like -19° High 4° • Low -12°
The cover of My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki (red chopsticks holding a black and white cow)
A child face down in the snow in front of a sled in front of a grandfather in a blue jacket
Cruella DeVille's car from the live action movie. Front-on view focusing on the license plate "DEV IL" with the classic styling of the front reminiscent of a 1930s Bugatti Royale.
Dome of the US Capitol seen from the steps of the Library of Congress Madison Building.
A child in a jacket stands touching a truncated icosahedron public art sculpture, face pressed against one of its hexagonal faces.
Paul Poirier and Piper Gilles, close up of their faces. She looks like she's having a fantastic time; he looks like he just realized his own mortality but knows he has to keep smiling
Glasses with a thick curved frame, fading from top emerald green to blue to light pink at the bottom. Vaguely cat eye shaped.
A capital sigma, Σ, on the left half of a peach emoji, 🍑 Spoiler follows... . . . . . . . . . . . . "sum on a bum"
A picture of Lagrange's Theorem, |G| = [G:H]|H|, illustrated with a box of legos (dumped out), bagged legos (Prop: there are the same number of legos of each color, which is a stretch but whatever), and the statement of the theorem.
A crayon drawing of intersecting pentagrams and pentagons, multiple colors on purple paper. Drawn by Mom as directed by kiddo.
One equilateral triangle, back facing us, explains to 19 others (who look shocked and indignant) how to make an icosahedron. This is meant to depict its aspiration to be one of its faces with its 19 pals.
A person seen from behind in the background of a highly filtered Instagram reel, apparently on a ladder looking into something at the top of the ladder.
Child's self portrait in a pre drawn oval. Huge eyes (vaguely circular, no pupils) and a smiling mouth. Other marks are not clear references to parts of the face.
Child (face obscured by a badly drawn cartoon face) in a "cowboy cat" costume with cowboy boots, jeans, green and orange cowboy shirt, red bandana, crocheted white and orange hat, black cowboy hat made from gorilla tape. Not pictured is a crocheted tail matching the hat that stays upright by fishing line attached to the back of the shirt.
Cat from the Spurs 'N Fur collection. It's a ginger short hair wearing a cowboy hat, eye patch, kerchief, vest, Western shirt, and cowboy boots with (of course) spurs. It's standing facing left, looking at the viewer, tail raised in a happy position.
A kid's picture of a cat that says "thank you for removing my cat's testicles" and the cat is saying "I am greatful"
Cats and a toy octopus on the back of a couch
Crocheted Granny square in dark blue with ivory depicting a state of Conway's Game of Life
Three bees in a purple flower, curled up in torpor in response to the chilly weather. Yellow leaves fallen from trees are visible in the background.
Game of life Rule 6 Gen 131 (up through row 6) made in green and ivory yarn, on a keyboard. A work in progress with crochet hook visible.
A round rock with a crack next to a 3D printed copy
A person with glasses and a plaid shirt looks at the camera standing next to a construction paper star in red, pink, orange, and yellow surrounded by blue and purple and a little green. The picture is on a fridge with a magnet.
Instagram screen grab sent to me by a former student. A short woman (me) stands, hands raised, in front of a group of new students and parents. Everybody is smiling and the short woman's hair looks amazing (shaggy curly brown long pixie side is visible).
Gwendoline Christie. Left: her Severance character. Right: Brienne of Tarth.
The cemetery has some strange plots with names that almost can't be deciphered anymore. You're getting a little tired so you sit down on a bench. The bench is at the grave of Sam Pellman, a Hamilton professor of music. As you look down, you notice there seem to be a lot of four leaf clovers on his plot. It's almost like he's benevolently wishing you good luck. You shake your head again: first Leibniz offering you homework help, and now a late professor giving you a friendly pat on the back and encouraging you to keep going? Just as you are about to dismiss the idea, the campus bells break out into---what is it? Is that a... polka rendition of Carissima?! [audio controls that will play a polka rendition of Carissima arranged by the late, great Sam Pellman] This is getting weird. Time to go home and [link titled: review your options.]
Da bird cat toy refill feathers