Am I a mathematician?

If you've read most of my blogs, you may begin to realize there's a lot going on in my life.

That's an understatement, there are a gazillion things going on in my life.

I always have about half a dozen projects on the table, I procrastinate somewhat and I will find any excuse to change my daily task list into something that requires minimal effort.

Today I'm blogging about how I feel about myself as a mathematician, that's my distraction for today.

A while ago, my fiance and I bought Blokus (tm) a game that's Mensa approved, etc. It's actually a really interesting game that reminds me of graph theory and the four color problem. It deals a lot with spacial perceptions too.

You would think that someone who believes geometry is her thing, someone who can usually see patterns really well and works well with shapes and relationships, can play this game really well. I have yet to win a real game. What do I mean by real game? The first game my fiance and I played, in the store, I controlled the first 2 colors which gave me a unfair advantage and that is how I won.

Well, I'm disappointed, ok that's alright. But, I've been losing a lot of math-based games lately. I used to be good at games. I realize that games are not everything, I'm not naive enough to think they are, but I feel like a loser. A real loser, not just one game of loss worth of loser, but a life-time loser.

This is somehow connected with the couple friends who are trying to get married before we do, mostly because whenever I'm on a team with the female part of that couple, she makes a move that makes me lose (I knew I shouldn't have let her make a specific move, but I let her do it anyways because I thought it'd make me feel like I was being just about making moves, letting her have creative control, etc.) and the male part of that couple of a game fanatic.

He'll never admit that, but he's addicted to games. He always plays games, always wins. He's one of those people that will pick up a new game and beat you the first time you play, beat you the second time, oh wait, he's got the knack for it - he will always be victorious and always be the champion.

I've never seen this guy lose a game.

So while games aren't everything in the world, they are certainly leading me to believe that although I love mathematics, I'm not good at it anymore. I'm not the geometry-minded, pattern-seeking machine I used to be. I've gone beyond my prime (no pun intended) and will never be special in mathematics. I'm never going to prove a cool new theorem or discover the solution for the Riemann Hypothesis, although it's highly unlikely it will happen in my life time, I'm definately not going to be the one that does it.

I've lost my mathy-ness (new word, I made it up) and fear I will never get it back. Am I a mathematician? I used to think I was, eventhough I don't have my bachelor's yet and I won't for one year.

Maybe I should give up and not even apply for graduate school. Get a teaching certificate and teach. I like to tutor, a lot. It's the one thing that keeps me alive and kicking sometimes. I'm a good tutor and I think I can reach people, or at least that's what I used to think.

Maybe I've lost my touch there too. I haven't had as many students as in the past. That could have to do with the fact that I'm giving students to other tutors in an effort to move on to another department. I'm moving home, or at least the place that I thought was home, to the math department to help them out.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Whether I'm going up or down or what.

Identity crisis = me.

- V.