endgame: time to write.

it's time. aside from a few last tasks with applications, i will start writing my thesis.

it's scary. i don't think i've ever followed through with writing anything of length; the joint paper about Grushin spaces doesn't count, because my co-author helped me tremendously.

i'm flying solo for this one, to some degree. the new adviser [1] will give his comments and suggestions and criticisms, but ultimately i have to write it.

oh well. it had to happen, at some point.

also, what i wrote before may be kaput (an earlier post); i have the feeling that there will be much reworking, as i write.



[1] it's strange to have a new adviser, if only because i'm afraid of replacing and forgetting about the first adviser. it's not disloyalty, but .. it makes me uneasy.

also, kevin: if you are reading this, i suppose in some sense we are brothers now, and xian qian is a little sister to us both.

endings and beginnings.

i feel like an "old" graduate student, even though it's been only..

(winces)
..5 years.

i know quite a few light-hearted sixth-years, and last year i remember a really mellow N-year, where N ≥ 7. they never struck me as "old."

then again, i do recall him saying that he would be happy to be a grad student forever, in ann arbor. i wonder if he really meant it.

i don't know why i so easily feel "old," meaning tired, irritable, worried, resigned, cynical, prone to ranting and giving unsolicited advice of a pessimistic nature.

that's the reason why i feel "old" recently. in the last 24 hours, i've told a few younger kids (i.e. 1st- or 2nd-years) to go home and get some rest.

in retrospect, i realise now that my words are futile. when i was their age, i wouldn't have listened to what i'm saying now.

now that i think about it, i still don't listen to my own advice.

it could just be the end of semester which causes all of this, especially with thanksgiving now over. there is not much time left, and the end is near.

i've seen too many baggy eyes on young faces, and i've encountered too many students with colds or the flu. everyone who's teaching this semester knows exactly how many classes are left to teach.

maybe everyone is tired. i'm tired. i know what comes next in the months to follow: writing feverishly to finish a thesis by the deadlines, sending job applications and worrying about never getting any job offers..

..no matter how many friends, many of which are wiser and cleverer than me, say otherwise..

..and i know that to be tired now means to be very tired later. still, i don't know what to do about it, other than to press on.

back on the job, and typing problems.

i thought about taking the day off today .. but there are too many cover letters left. if i push it, maybe i can finish them ALL by end of thanksgiving weekend ..

.. and maybe, just maybe, i can be a mathematician again.

---

on an unrelated noted, today is a very annoying day for typing, because

1. my left pinky finger has a cracked nail, after a basketball game. to be honest, i can't remember how i injured it; it was only after the game that i noticed that it was bleeding and the nail jutted out at a slight angle.
   
   recall: on a QWERTY keyboard, the pinky does the a's, so the band-aid is messing up my usual typing flow.
   
   
2. there's a cut on my right pointer finger, exactly at the spot which presses buttons. a turkey rib bone jabbed back as i was preparing the turkey for roasting, yesterday.
   
   that finger hits the keys: u, y, h, j, n, and m, which is enough to be annoying. what's really annoying, though, is trying to move the mouse pointer on the touchpad, when the d@mned band-aid gets in the way of touch sensitivity!
   

it should make for an interesting day of typing cover letters .. \:

job compatibility dilemma.

suppose that

1. i've written one joint paper in the subject of analysis of PDE,
   
2. but haven't studied PDE in a few years,
   
3. and the next slew of papers that i'll (hopefully) write will be metric-geometrical in nature;
   

is it fair to say that my research interests include PDE?


the problem: if i say that i am a PDE guy, then people imagine all sorts of things, like

• numerical methods and simulations,
  
• the KdV equation and wave propagation,
  
• curvature flows on manifolds,
  
• actual applications in the real world,
  

and so on. none of these things describe me.

for the same reason, unless i am in finland i almost never refer to what i do as "geometric analysis," because it would sound like i study PDE on Riemannian manifolds, or Ricci flows.


argh.

everyone wants a PDE guy or an algebraic geometer or a mathematical biologist, or perhaps a banach spaces/convex geometer.

idle foreboding.

it's occurred to me that i won't be doing any "new" math for a while. i hope that soon all these job applications will be done, but after that is writing a thesis ..

      .. which i am looking forward to doing,
      if only because i want to see this thing through.

but this thesis will consist of ideas that i've already thought about, and the proofs won't be new in spirit. instead, they will be codified with as much rigor as i (and the committee) can tolerate.

oh well. i guess i'm whining. i mean, do i want a ph.d. or not? \:

jackpot! ..perhaps?

i don't know how it happened, but i have just discovered job listing webpages for jobs in the U.K., in Canada, and even in Australia.

i feel like a silly american, but i'm just crazy enough and disloyal enough to apply "anywhere" at this point! q:

how to fit inside a department? (the job hunt)

today, however, i nearly fell into self-defeat.

it began well. at the apartment this morning, i jotted down ideas which, when combined with good transitional flow, might make a tolerable teaching statement. i set it aside and thought to go to the office

      (where there is internet)

and start looking up information about various mathematics departments, in efforts to prepare for cover letters.

i never realised how specialised my work is, and how hard it can be to fit research interests into another department. i began my search by asking,

      "does anyone in this/that department study the analysis or geometry of metric spaces?"

and realising how few there were, i thought about what i could say i know:

      a little geometric measure theory
      a little PDE,
      a little sub-Riemannian geometry..

and that was it. there weren't so many departments for those, either. so i began to ask myself,

      "what could i realistically LEARN during a postdoc, in order to do research with people in this/that department ..?"

note the emphasis on the word 'realistically,' so now you see: self-defeat.

---

it took a lot of self-convincing that an application consists of research (and teaching) statements, vitae, publication lists, recommendation letters, and cover letters -- that's it.

i can try and make the best packets i can possibly make, and maybe (just maybe) i might look good on paper, and good enough that someone will hire me.

then again, maybe everyone else is feeling equally inferior.

trip, and opinions about theses.

i spent the weekend in cincinnati, which i would like to call my "mathematical vacation" from the job hunt. it was both productive and great fun. i met with "mathematical family," and i dare say:

      i think i see the beginnings of a collaboration.

.. but first things first:

      apply for jobs,
      then thesis,
      then collaborations.

---

thinking about it, i may have become a mathematical hermit in recent time.

it's only recently that i've discussed research and problems with others, perhaps because of paranoia and worries ..

      (to which my hold remains firm)

.. that if i talk about them, then someone will say something intelligent and useful, and then it becomes a joint project. that is a fine thing; it makes for better mathematics but then again, it's your thesis work.

maybe i'm old-fashioned about this sort of thing, but i always believed that a thesis should be your own, original work ..with some suggestions from an adviser, of course.. but essentially your own work.

on what "productive" means.

i guess i haven't posted in a while. much has happened, but i'd rather not talk about it now. those who should know the events of the last few weeks: at this point they already know.

life has been hard, and it's going to be hard for a while.

---

today i felt productive, until i realised that i've misused the word "productive" lately.

i spent last week writing drafts of research statements and jotted scraps of what i think about teaching onto sundry scattered pages. i would have said that those days were not productive, even though they were. they serve the purpose of making me more eligible for jobs that i want.

i spent today doing some mathematics, thinking through several theories of others and if they do fit together well. so today, a math day, felt productive.

so maybe i should have said that i felt stimulated or pleasantly challenged instead. it's the same fallacy of which i am commonly guilty: when i say that i feel "old," what i really mean is that i feel tired or slow or forgetful.

at any rate, the job search presses on, and work beckons.