I realized I don't know how long I've been here and calculated that the right answer is two weeks and two days. Here's a summary of what's happened in that time:
I've been to Brown Jug twice,
to No Thai! way too many times,
started my second punch card in Espresso Royale,
been grocery shopping in People's Food Co-op three times,
have texed almost one lemma for my Licentiate Thesis,
sat through 6 seminar talks and 4 lectures,
have changed my mind about whether a theorem goes through or not approximately five times,
had three ideas for research without looking into them,
and most importantly: found my new favourite chocolate
I've also (on the boring side):
attended my Check In Program,
paid my rent for four months,
paid my insurance for January and
got my yellow M-Card and thus (quoting Pekka) received humanity
My own assessment is that I've been doing way too little math and way too much other useless things (like writing my blog). There are mainly two reasons. The first is that I've acquired too many friends. Last time I was here I was able to work on my own for full days. Now I'm constantly disturbed by lunches, coffees, beers and just plain discussions without any food, coffee or beer.
The second reason is that I've been dancing way too much: the latest practices lasting on Saturday 3 hours, on Sunday 4 hours, on Monday 2 hours, on Tuesday 2 hours and on Wednesday 3 hours. Now I really think I actually succeeded in being careful not to overdo it by taking only two one hour classes per week. How this happened I'm not really sure.
This week I've felt that I could much easier be a dancer than a mathematician. I realize that this is just an illusion, though. The less you know about something, the easier it feels.
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2 comments:
The less you know about something, the easier it feels.
there are exceptions, i think.
for example, learning how to speak another language; it takes a while before it becomes 'easy,' though some people are quicker at it than others ..
Well, I think you're right. I was aiming more at “the less you know about something, the less you expect there to be stuff to be known”. It is fairly easy to learn how to say “My name is Saara” in any language (which by the way is the most stupid thing to teach anybody; nobody actually ever says “my name is”) but once you've learned the basic stuff, everything gets more complicated.
I guess your point could be misrepresented as “after the difficult part (which by my claim comes after the first easy part) everything eventually becomes easier again”.
I haven't reached that part in math yet.
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