at home, for a holiday.

not much to say, at the moment. i haven't done any (relevant) mathematics in a while, and after all the travelling is done, it might add up to three weeks' time.

1. i spent one week in poland, listening to other people talk either about math that i haven't thought about since my undergrad days, or about math which has and will always feel new and strange (and cool) to me.
   
   
2. the subsequent week i spent entertaining ideas from the conference, and reading a little about topics in optimal (mass) transportation.
   
   nothing came out of it, of course, and the only tangible memory from those days are a few pages from a legal pad about
   
   
   
   • what doesn't work;
     
   • what gaps lie between two existing frameworks;
     
   • what difficulties may arise if one pursues this further.
     
   
   in other words, it was an instructive waste of time. perhaps one day i'll have sorted out enough "wrong" ideas, so that i can finally have some "right" ones and prove something really interesting.
   
   well, a boy can dream, right?
   
   
3. this week i'm home, visiting family and friends, and it's a 50:50 toss-up as to whether i will get any work done at all. at this point, re-learing the argument of Sullivan's Lipschitz manifold theorem is optimistic thinking, and new results look like an impossibility.
   
   it wouldn't usually be a problem, but the advisor returns by late july and stage 2 of the thesis problem was thrown to me in mid-june. some progress before that next meeting could prove .. say, useful?
   
   
4. and immediately before the return of the advisor, there is a conference in illinois .. which means more interesting but "not quite thesis relevant" mathematics for another stretch of days, and little to no time for any thesis progress.
   

anyways, back to a little work before 4th of July festivities go in full swing. here's hoping.