Thursday evenings are a periodic paradox in my academic life.
It is the time right after I meet with my thesis advisor, so all of last week's work is done and productivity reaches an absolute low.
More colloquially, I've lived to `fight another day,' or rather, another week. My advisor is not a mean guy and in point of fact, is quite an understanding man. However, there's something about a regular meeting and holding oneself accountable for adequate work: it does not sit well with me.
But I manage. Wednesday nights are often devoid of sleep. Thursdays are when my coffee addiction is at its worst, and when my food intake would lose the approval of good mothers everywhere. More often than not, it's Thursdays when I most often wear my Green Lantern T-shirt [1].
During today's meeting, the worst thing said was that 'I might be too obsessed with charts," which to some degree is true. Surely there are worse fates.
On the other hand, Thursdays are quite liberating. The bulk of the work is done for one week's time, and afterwards is free tiem. It means that I'm free to work leisurely on whatever matters are most fitting.
Say I've been meaning to leaf through Vaisala's book on QC Mappings to review my studies, or browse a preprint that a friend emailed me last week. Maybe I thought about an idea to a problem earlier in the week, and between teaching, classes, and thesis work, I haven't had time to sit and jot out the details.
I can now do any one of those things. For one night I am puissant and capable of exercising my heart's content. It needn't even be mathematical: I can linger around at Borders Books & Music and read comic books all night .. or hopefully some finer literature than that .. but the freedom is there.
Then there is the paradoxical feeling of enthusiasm. The meeting went well, I have a new agenda, and there are new things to do that haven't had a chance to lose their novelty yet. I think of how much more I can get done if I start right away.
This betrays a consistent illusion of mine, I suppose: there's always that glimmer of hope that I've done enough work early in the week so that I can coast a few days before my weekly meeting .. not being lazy, mind you, but work on 'icing on the cake,' that is, those fine little details that add to the aesthetic character of mathematics, but not its content.
Of course, that never happens, but a boy can dream, right? Between being sleepy from lack of sleep and dreaming about a possible future, I wonder where I stand on these strange Thursday nights.
[1] Green Lantern is a super-hero in the DC Comics universe, and you can see a version of him on the cartoon series "Justice League." He wields a Power Ring, one of the most powerful weapons in the galaxy. With it, Green Lantern can create any weapon or object which comes to mind; it materialises and can be used immediately, and the scope is limited only by imagination and willpower.
I wear my Green Lantern shirt on days when I'm in terrible shape and am operating under sheer willpower. Say I've had little/no sleep and food, and an absurd amount of work to do: that's a GL shirt day.
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