sadness

i started studying for quals today.

eric and me agreed to start by just working brute force at solving old qual problems from tests from previous years... after 5 hours and solving all of 1 problem on my own, i was mad and ready to throw things and/or cry... ben gave me hints on 2 analysis problems i was mad at, and i called eric to see how he's doing with it... happily enough, his first day at it was similar to mine, which is encouraging... but he's worked at it for a few days already and is a bit ahead of me... i now have thoughts on how to do at least parts of 5 problems, so that's something right?

still... all this is to say, if i work as hard as i'm supposed to, this is going to be a long and extremely frustrating summer of work =(

the end.