more babbling

i'm so distracted today. it's nice that i don't have to worry about the fact that i didn't touch math until about 5pm today.

so why did my exam make me mad?
frankly when i left the room, although i appeared competant for my major topic, and i knew definitions/statements of theorems/how to do standard computations for my minor topic, i was really mad at myself for how i performed on the harder questions on my minor topic. there were 2 points where i just stared at the board in silence for a few minutes, and all i could think was "shoot, why am i thinking about thinking... why can't i start thinking about the problem". i felt that i displayed the ability to recite and reproduce and do standard things, but not necessarily to think on my feet. i wasn't so sure i would have passed myself, so when my committee passed me, i wasn't totally satisfied with it... glad to be done, but unhappy with a decent chunk of my performance.

with the 4th prof who missed my exam....
i waited outside his lecture yesterday, and when he saw me he said he immediately felt guilty, and the first thing he said was "i really screwed up, didn't i?". he wanted his signature on my exam papers to mean something, so then we went to his office for 45 minutes yesterday morning while he quizzed me. since i was just in his office, i felt comfortable saying "give me a minute to think" and sitting down and staring at the board before responding (for some reason i didn't do that thursday in the conference room even though it probably would have helped for the parts i was mad at myself for). after a bunch of questions, he signed my papers too, making my passing official. after that interaction, i felt much better about passing... even if it wasn't for the whole committee, i had shown the 4th prof that i had an ability to think on my feet, since most of his questions required a bit of thought, and i got to the end of each of them without too many hints.

...otherwise about the qual
at dinner thursday night my advisor commented that he was proud of me and that i did a good job... and that he thought that my minor topic prof who asked the hard questions was really giving me a hard time,... and that he himself even freezes at the board when asked unexpected things, so he didn't blame me for the spurts of silence.

my advisor's comments made me feel some better, but friday's experience with committee member number 4, made me feel that i had somehow proved myself a little better.

either way, it's good to be done, but it's also a very humbling experience too. it takes time to process.

in the near future: calc quiz grading fun, getting back into my research, and learning to read math books written in french.

i know, you're totally jealous. :P

the end.