there's something soothing about traveling for a conference. i was just a "student" at the previous conference and didn't do any organizing ..
.. in fact, i was ineffective and shoo-ed away from what few duties were given to me ..
.. but there's some charm in flopping on a hotel room bed after a long day of talks, or trying out a new restaurant or how this university caters a reception.
i'm also looking forward to giving this talk. the material is more standard to the audience. it's not like my thesis, where i have to explain everything, where what is standard for me is new for everyone else, and where i never really tell all my theorems.
ah well. it doesn't matter anyway, and it's not good to boast.
then again, it's not good to complain excessively, either,
so i'll shut up now, about that.
i like the math in this next talk. it's a good story.
then again, that's all it will be: a story.
i'll state one theorem i once proved ..more like a computation, really.. but will mostly draw connections from a few different parts of mathematics. there won't be many gory details. that makes for a good talk, of course ..
.. but not for a paper.
i still worry about writing it -- that i haven't proven enough new theorems, and that it's a story that everyone already knows.
even if i'm wrong about that, i still think i'm the wrong person to write it. i won't ever know the full story and how everything fits together. i can name a half-dozen senior profs, some emeriti, that could tell the whole story and tell it properly. my computation is obvious; ask any of them the problem, and they could have proven it years ago ..
.. even before i was born. the tools were all there then, and my part is far from sophisticated. i can't shake the feeling that i'm a young upstart who steals the stories of others and presents it as his own.
i'll write something about it: a paper, i mean. it was one of the promises i made to the advisor. otherwise i might have set it in a drawer on a shelf, left it in the back of a closet for a while.
it was something we disagreed about. i wouldn't have abandoned it, but perhaps entrusted it back to the advisor. he would have written it reluctantly but wonderfully, saw new connections, and made a great work out of it.
it's a good story. someone should tell it.
i guess it has to be me, then.
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