Red beans and ricely yours

Today was my second day as what Jim Henle referred to as a "logic wizard" and I'm really enjoying it. Last night Kendra, Deyvi, Hillary and I all went to Jess's new apartment for dinner, which made us all (Jess particularly I suspect) feel terribly grown up, eating lasagne and drinking white wine in our friend's apartment. The apartment is lovely and very near campus, so hopefully I won't loose track of Jess now that she's graduated.

As for my job, it's going rather well. I'm learning how to work in Linex and use a program called Latex, which is difficult, but already I'm making fewer mistakes and the pages look beautiful. I've written arguments and exercises and typed a great deal of old stuff up verbatim. Here are some of my arguments. Can you tell whether they are valid?

If Condolezza Rice goes to the ball then if the prince is there she will dance with him.
The prince is at the ball.
Therefore Condolezza will dance with him.

If everyone reads the book then everyone will get a good grade.
If everyone gets a good grade then the teacher will be happy.
If the teacher is happy then she will bring us cupcakes.
Joe does not read the book.
Therefore the teacher will not bring us cupcakes.

And my favorite: A valid argument is one in which the premises and the conclusion are true.
The premises of this argument are true.
Therefore this is a valid argument.

One kind of tricky thing about this job, however, is that I need to know the answers to all the exercises I write, which means I have to do what amounts to a great deal of logic homework. Of course, I enjoy doing logic homework, but it's tough when I have to write exercises in Polish Sentential, say, which was the only thing I really never got right when I took Logic 100. I know this is good, though, because it will strengthen my understanding of important foundational concepts.

Tonight I made Carribbean red beans and rice, which was all right although completely unlike the red beans and rice we have at home. I made an enormous amount, so if anyone is in town and is hungry, come on over.