math geek, social life

[pastwatcher]

So...I met my fellow first-years on Tuesday Sept. 15, when we pretty much all bombed the analysis qual. Last week, Jenya and I decided that we'd have a potluck dinner tonight at Cary's place (because it's a big room in the expensive dorms), and we invited him to it. This worked very well, and was very yummy! In fact all but two people came, and I brought my roommate (third-year in immunology, Sharon) who also had a good time. And I had perhaps a half-hour-or-longer conversation about philosophy with Henry, which I didn't expect as his general attitude on life is much more laid-back than my own. I recognize that my delight in having such conversations with people is almost like keeping a count of conquests, so you needn't poke fun at me.


We have three girls and nine guys out of which one is David, by the way. Mom pointed out to me once that the number of women in hard-science-ish fields, such as her workplace, is often comparable to the number of Davids; now I feel compelled to keep track. We laughed about it at lunch after the first half, but also made each other feel worse because different people knew how to do different things; I was so jittery and insecure after the end that I took a long walk with one of the other girls, Jenya, ending up at grocery store and going back to my apartment. On the algebra qual we did better, no thanks to Ralph's "math cheat" T-shirt (which had things like 'the answer is 42' and the trefoil knot but also things that were actually relevant to us!). He seems to have quite a string of funny math shirts; today I suddenly noticed he had a "why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?" one, grooooaaan. I love noticing the mathy things on shirts and doors around the department.

Last week we started classes, and most of us are in algebra, real analysis, and complex analysis together. We're all swapping ideas about the problemsets, or rather swapping complaints about the difficulties thereof and occasionally actually getting ideas. I've tried solving with Cary and Ralph, which doesn't work so well; Jenya and I managed to nail down the first analysis set in less than two hours, which was awesome; I think I'm going to beg hints in complex from Maks in exchange for explanations in algebra, or else I'll work with Amy since we're on the same level in both. I've really got to talk to a couple of the quieter guys more. Amy and I went to an activities fair, so now of course I'm on a bunch of lists. If I wonder why, well, I know it's my own fault as usual, my inability to be sufficiently uninterested. I've been to church twice (Presbyterian--new for me) thanks to multiplybytwo who has also been very helpful as I've moved in, and now I'm going to see if the humanist/atheist/agnostic society is interesting or vitriolic.

Wheeee! Being a beginning grad student is AWESOME! I'm usually very insecure about math, but now I feel like I belong, even if I can barely do complex analysis to save my life, and I don't know what I'm doing next. I'm not going too overboard with anything; save that for next quarter. In the meantime I'm also taking a linguistics class about the meters of poetry ("metrics," so it sounds like a math class!), which is fun. I've also met some older students and really taken to a couple of them, including one landofnowhere introduced me to and one CUSFS-person many of us have met at Vericon; my roommate and I went to a concert in San Francisco with them yesterday. And of course in my true newBouncy!Me mode, I volunteered to do the math department tea on the second day, baked lots of things, and emailed the students saying they should all come, which they did. Only afterwards, when more people knew who I was than I expected, did I find that shyness overcame me when talking to anyone but the first-years and a few others. :/ It will pass. And there are exciting things to go to where I can be exposed to more math without pressure to understand it. And I don't have to teach, though I've started tutoring and now get to learn more about solving and depicting linear diffeq systems.



Also, this is like a protective cocoon keeping me away from harsh reality. I relish that, and I have to do it anyway because I need to have friends nearby. Not that I don't still think my dark thoughts and miss my friends, because I do miss you. And I am lonely at times, as I have no-one who is likely to make me feel better when I'm down, yet. But I like my roommate a lot! And, well, I have exhilarating, terrifying, satisfying things to do before I have to worry about what comes next.