Nightmares and Porn Stars

I just had that age-old nightmare that you, my dear reader, have probably had, yourself. In it, I had to take a math test that I was totally unprepared for. To make matters worse, the teacher administering the test was the man my former fellow undergrads at Georgia Tech had called "Evil Santa Clause" due to his snowy-white beard, nasty eyes, and penchant for making students cry. The dream went on and on and on with me even asking for more time despite the impossible-ness of the test.

Thank God I woke up at 7.

I take this dream as a sign that I'm worried about the amount of work I've accomplished. Perhaps all those "stolen halves" have accumulated this week. So into the gaping maw of study I throw myself.

It does not help that I just ran into a celebrity porn star in the coffee shop where I'm studying. To Faceboook and then to study!

Stolen Halves

A grad student's day can be said to be comprised of half hours stolen from the maw of reseach. Any and every hour can be devoted to study, but such a life inexorably leads to painful, long-lasting burnouts. And so that half-hour commute where you could be learning is spent
instead blogging. That half-hour before section is spent sipping coffee and eyeing cute undergrads. That half hour between meetings is spent chatting with your smoker-friend who, though a little smelly, is a reliable fixture ready for plein-aire procrastination.

The Smell of Accomplishment

Exhaustion, my dear hypothetical reader, comes in many forms. Mine, this Friday evening is the mental and emotional type. I have spent the
week obsessively memorizing algebra proofs to impress a professor who is well beyond impressing. My meeting with him today, though, did have the whiff of going well. Of the stuff that I knew, I knew it really well. Go ahead, ask me anything about Jacobson radicals. (ok, not
anything).

Imitation and Flattery

Ah, there are few things more satisfying than teaching gone well. As I whiz by the sun setting over the gorgeous Mission Bay, I bask in the
warmth of the memories of my students' smiles...during math class!

Sure there were mistakes, like when I reprimanded a student for laying his head down in class (it eventually it came out that he had been hit by a car while skateboarding and was worn out from everything involved...whoops!).

But in sum, we had a nice first meeting. We connected, we did math, I even took them on a field trip to my office (woohoo!).

And most importantly, one student actually asked me where I had bought my sweater vest! Ah, imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery.

Balance on a Bus

It's fitting that my inaugural post about one math grad student's valiant efforts to maintain a work/life balance should be written on a bus that is rocking back and forth like a kangaroo with a limp.

Anyways, most math graduate students find that their attempts at a work/life balance end up in a jarring game of see-saw. And therefore I predict this blog will be full of drama, emotion, humor, love, and, yes, math. I'll try to warn you if the math is going to get dense, otherwise this should be pretty readable to the non (or not-yet) -mathematician.

Welcome and Enjoy!
-Brandon