the future is near.

last week i received good news.

i won't be starving next year. it's now a matter of choosing from the menu. in fact, i'm trying to figure out if i can have an appetizer first.

is anyone still following this analogy?
(as usual, write me if you really want to know.)

so i'll be moving away by summer's end. it still seems somewhat unreal. heck, defending in may still seems like an abstract concept.

the only thing which makes sense is starting something new.

a new mathematics project,
new collaborations,
learning new things.

i think having spent 6 months thinking deeply, really fleshing out a thesis, writing and rewriting and revising: all of that has been good for me. it's taught me discipline ..

.. not that i've ever shown any ..

but it's good to know what it is, and to understand how much work it takes to create something.

mathematics isn't just thinking every day at the cafe, drawing diagrams and trying to come up with something interesting, something cool.

that's only a part of it, the beginning.

the really cool things are those which catch your eye, early on, and which somehow survive the long haul.

it's all the more surprising when you think about how many cool ideas there are in the world.

there are things i want to figure out, and i want the time to try and figure them out. i'm curious and ambitious and don't know any better than to try.