the dark knight returns.

lately i feel like batman again.

that's not a good thing:
i mean it in the sense of the recent film the dark knight.

---

i really thought that i was being a nice guy, fool that i was. the midterm for my proofs class will be 5 problems. i promised the students this.

on the other hand, i told them what two of the problems were, so that they can prepare unambiguously for them:

1. one problem will be just definitions, no proofs: it is pure memory.
2. another problem will be one of two possible theorems that we have already proved in class. they can memorize and regurgitate them, or they can understand the proof and therefore rebuild it in an intuitive fashion.

at first i thought that the certainty would be relieving. already i get the feeling that the students are mad at me:

why do we have to memorise these definitions?
it's so unfair!

sure, that's one viewpoint.

on the other hand, say that i did not give them this certainty.

say that you don't bother remembering what a bιjection is.

say i ask you a problem where you have to prove things about bijections. if you don't even know the definition, are you any better off?

[sighs]

i already have a bad feeling about this ..