yes, it's been a while;
no, i'm no happier;
yes, I still wonder if i'm cut out for the academic life...
... but let's set aside those irreconcilable issues for now.
* * *
at the moment, i'm having far too much fun devising homework problems for my Numerical Analysis students.
one problem gives them some data points for a unknown function. their task is to show that, given a few hypotheses about the function, why the data cannot possibly come from Newton's method!