Notes to Self

I really have to make more "me" time during the semester in order to blog.

Blogging is really relaxing for me and in the midst of all the chaos on my life right now - I need to blog.

Today I have my first final in a topology class. I am nervous about what kinds of questions he will be asking. I have to make definition cards for the material before I really do much else. I have a friend who I am supposed to study with today, we studied for a little while yesterday and I thought it went pretty well - but we need to study more because this professor is said to give difficult exams.

The first 2 exams were not terribly horrible, maybe because the material makes sense to me thus far... (but that never really means anything in a math class because you never know how much you understand until you either try to make sure you can make sense of it yourself or try to explain it to another person), but the difficulty of his exams can all change on the final. The final could completely blow me away, or not, it all depends on how prepared I am.

I am especially nervous because I already asked this professor if he would be interested in being my thesis advisor. Even though this is my first year, since masters programs, on average, are completed in 2 years I have to keep my eye on the ball and my head in the game. Knowing how I do research also gives me a good intuition for how long it might take me to finish my degree. To be honest with myself, I have to get started now if I am ever to complete my project and have something to be proud of.

When I say this I do not mean I want to have a ground-breaking research project. Although this is what most people say they want it is an easy road to disappointment. One day I wish to be a real mathematician, right now I am only learning how to do that. I am still learning how to go about approaching proofs, and actually getting somewhere sometimes, I am learning how to read math articles and how to deal with students (my most daunting task) - all of these things, and many more, are training me for what lies beyond this degree (and beyond the Ph.D.). Maybe someday I will find something potentially ground-breaking, for now I just want something acceptable and do-able in the time I have in my masters program.

So, because I really have been working on combating my procrastination (which for the most part, actually has been working this semester) I want to get started at looking at understanding a problem, it does not have to be the problem I will be working at - but any problem would be nice. I want to spend time in the library, figuring things out and reading books and articles. I want to derive conclusions from the materials I seek out, prove conjectures and lemmas. I want to remember why I went into mathematics, if not for at least one day.

Those are my goals for my winter break. I also want to work on revising my syllabus and doing lesson plans, but we all know that piling on too much work over the break is not a good idea lol. I probably will work more on the work-related material than the material I want to work on, but we will see how that goes.

Wish me luck on my final for today, I have another one on Thursday that I will need some small miracle to be able to concentrate for - but that is a post for another day.

Hope everything is going well for everyone and I also hope to post later this week. Grades come in on next Friday so let's cross our fingers for me.