students and their families: it's complicated.

today i didn't do any work, really. i was too busy printing things out and making sure that the graduate school will let me have a defense next week.

i was also a little busy "graduating."

there was a ceremony in the mathematics department, where many undergraduates -- most of them, newly graduated -- arrived with their parents and siblings.

i was invited and also attended; a postdoc friend was curious and joined me. i even received a graduation certificate, and i was more pleased when i read the wording:

".. on his expected graduation date of ______."

that was something i appreciated;
you can't have mathematicians without some rigor or precision. q:

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in this ceremony they gave a little talk about mathematical modeling in applied maths, but it was more for fifteen minutes and for some semblance of depth.

for most of the time, they did what the families wanted: they gave many awards to deserving students and said fine things about them.

i realised, then, that these are important events.

when you're a mathematician [1] for most of the day and most of the year, little human things slip from mind.

for example, we are not just ourselves, but we are our families.

i would say that mathematics is humbling, and more so in the graduate level than the undergraduate. that changes perspective between us and non-mathematicians.

as mathematicians, we often see things that we don't understand. perhaps we will, with enough time and effort, but we quickly realise that things don't come easily. there may no longer be right answers or wrong answers. there might not be any answers at all.

years of discipline and hard work pay off. on the other hand, months of unused work and failed ideas are sloughed to the side.

so perhaps it's not anything mathematical after all. maybe it's just me: i think of all the things i haven't done and couldn't do. i think of lost time, and things that might have been or never could be.

the ph.d. is near, too, and i wonder how i got here, already this close. maybe i will finish, as everyone assures me.

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i know that my family would say otherwise. let's forget who is right and who is wrong; they will say that

of course he will succeed;
we knew all along.

how could it be otherwise?

they say such things without knowing how hard it is. somehow, our families know us. they will say what they say because they can. because we do know, because we see the risks and the difficulties, we can't .. or won't.

when [2] they are proven right, then there needs a forum, a celebration for family to say so. it is not gloating; it is a happy thing.


despite this, i avoid celebrations and instead, i reminisce. i worry about things now past and beyond worry. it's how i am.

i'm sure that it annoys my family to no end. \:

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[1] not all mathematicians, of course. just inept ones, like me. \:

[2] or if.