yo ho ho, a math grad student's life for me...

i'm tired, and i'm not the happiest right now either.

mostly because i have an insane amount of work to do in the next 2 weeks, mostly this week.

i have to give a lecture in lie groups... the way he (the prof) manages this is somewhat haphazard... he lectures for awhile and then says "so (insert name), wanna give your talk now?"... completely arbitrary when my turn is, but need to be prepared for tomorrow... i emailed him earlier and was like "so i talk about two theorems in section 2.5, will you be talking about the stuff in section 2.4 that i need in my proofs, or do i have to learn and present that too"... his response "i hope... maybe"... that's precise (not).... yuck... i've put several hours into learning the theorems, etc. i'm supposed to prove and have some parts where the only justification i have is "nyeh!... book said so, you wanna come give the talk instead?!?" if someone asks "why?" that's probably not good.

had some interesting conversations today too. i had dinner with eric and trevor earlier and they were talking about how they think it's possible to not be excelling in the 1st year grad classes but still pass the quals (the tests that determine if we stay in the program or not after next year), whereas scott and i just chatted for a bit and his basic conclusion was "the quals are gonna be horrific and half of our class is doomed"... at least i'm not the only pessimist... eric's getting good at the pep talks when i need them when i start complaining again, but sometimes it's nice to gripe and have someone else gripe too =)

i've started taking a survey if i should be a trucker if this grad school thing doesn't pan out =P i do like driving after all ... so far mom, roommate, eric, ian, half of trevor, and half of scott are against,... brother, half of scott, and half of trevor are for. (trevor and scott both said get an academic year job and then be a trucker for extra money in the summer =P)

i was impressed with myself for figuring out half of an analysis problem all by myself this afternoon (and my answer was ratified by others... even better!) a lot of my homework writeups are all about networking and getting hints from others (not considered cheating in a math program... math is generally a collaborative field, grad classes included) so solving a problem without a hint was a big deal!

don't know much else... need sleep so i can rehearse my lie groups talk again before i go to class.... (shudder)

night!