unproductive and uneasy.

It's been a while.

Aside from a few half-hearted posts here and there (quotes by Bohr and by Einstein, and that silly Rudin link) I haven't written anything of substance since 27 December. It took me a moment to do the mental arithmetic [1]: about two weeks' time, really.

I could say that I've had little to write about: the semester is in its infancy (tomorrow finishes a full 5 days) and I've done little maths, so to speak. [2] On the other side of the coin, I haven't been much of a person, either. Withdrawn and with little to say except jests and curiosity, there hasn't been much to report there, either.

I don't feel like the same person that I was, before my prelim.

Maybe it's some residual disillusionment from that exam not being some watershed moment or an irrevocable disaster. It wouldn't define me, at this age and capacity, and it won't .. which, ironically enough, is why it will.

As a pessimist, I've been proven right. If the prelim has taught me anything, it's that I'll never quite understand anything as completely as I would like. More than that, it means that I won't ever live up to the mathematician I would like to be.

That guy, a possible me, an ideal mathematician: he doesn't exist anywhere but in my head. He will remain there forever, trapped by the constraint of being too unflawed.

I've reached a few conclusions and confronted a few inner demons, but those are inner demons and I won't share them here.

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[1] To be wholly honest, I had to count the days off my fingers. I've never been good at telling time, I'm afraid.

[2] I suppose that's technically not true. An issue of regularity has been bothering me lately, which arose from joint work with a friend of mine and has thrown a wrench into an otherwise decent result.

Mathematics is so damned frustrating, especially when you have to prove something. q: