and catching the end of the holiday party,
and at some point in the night, a grad student appears in the doorway, asking an analysιs question.
the timing could not have been worse: his fellow grads were antagonistic towards him, and worst of all, it was a simple question about localising lipschιtz continuity to cοmpacta. [2]
even i,
having a soft spot for such functions,
felt a little dismay.
but i cannot fault him: at 8am (in .. 5- hours), he has a final exam to take. he cannot be held accountable for his study habits. were i younger, i would do the same. i only hope, for his sake, that he chose to have a good night's sleep for his tomorrow endeavors.
older now, i can only say things in retrospect. i can no longer tell what is "easy" and what is "hard."
[1] which is not bad. i remember 1-2am grading nights, while in graduate school. then again, that was an artifact of having started grading at 8pm, at which time the exam period had ended and i had eaten
[2] this is not rigorous, but part of why first-year in graduate school is so hard is that one expects it to be hard. things easy and obvious, later in life, are nontrivial, and one over-thinks them.
in fact, i think it a particular instance of parkisοn's law!
2 comments:
i had eaten his share of condolence pizza.
Out of curiosity, whose share was it?
oh. that was inconsistent editing. it originally read: "and he had eaten his share of condolence pizza."
at the time i had just changed my facebook status (which is formatted in the third person). rereading it, i changed one pronoun but not the other.
Post a Comment