on travels, and writing.

i'll be traveling for the next two weeks (more or less) [0]:

ann arbor → chicago → san francisco → las vegas → ann arbor;

some of it is business, some of it pleasure.
actually, most of it pleasure. (:

yesterday i debated whether to bring my laptop with me.

i tried to think objectively about how heavily it actually is, including the power adapter.

i thought about how much work i would actually do, as opposed to surfing the net, writing emails that can wait ..

.. and of course, blogging. q:

i made up my mind today: it's coming with me.

to save space, i won't bring any fancy shoes, and i'll wear running shoes for the whole time. we mathematicians aren't the sort to dress up, anyway.

---

as for why i'm bringing prospero [1] along, the answer is simple. the writing isn't going too badly. i've hit a good spot and i'd rather not stop.

looking at my thesis now, it's gory and too long and there are too many details. also, i'm too wordy.

now, i get a second chance to fix all of that.
i can write something shorter and better and to the point.

appropriate or not, i think i see how everything fits together now, how it all happens. i think i see the whole story.

before, my proofs were piecemeal and i wrote what i could, much like how a friend will get off the train and readily tell you his impressions of the trip he just took. sometimes it is too much, other times he almost skips entire days or weeks.

i think i can tell the story well, now.

i have no illusions about my travels and my work time. there will be very little.

i'm content with working on a 5-hour train ride,
between flights on the west coast,
in the mornings before my family -- after long-winded deliberations -- makes plans for the day.

believe it or not, i feel like writing. perhaps not right now and not every minute of every single day, but yesterday and today i wrote, and tomorrow i want to write some more.

[0] so, caveat emptor: i mightn't be updating this blog as often as in recent time.

[1] i must have mentioned this before: prospero is the name of my laptop. my last laptop was named arielle, and my last computer -- a desktop that kept crashing -- was named caliban.