Everybody Cries Doing Their Math Hw, Those Who Claim They Don't Just Haven't Met That Hw Yet

28 V 2022

topology and analysis tests are over, both went I think alright

if I don't get 100% from topo I'm going to be very frustrated, because I studied hard and acquired deep understanding of the material – so far as to be able to hold a lecture for my classmate about any topic

analysis ughhh if I get ≥40% I will be overjoyed. but that's just the specifics of this subject, you study super hard and seem to be entirely ready, you solve all of the problems in prep and then best you can do is 40%. my best score so far was 42%, so anything more than that will be my lifetime record lmao, I want this so bad. I solved two problems entirely I think, which should give 40% already, and some pieces from two more, chances are I get 50%, which would be absolutely amazing

here are some pictures from me transforming math into an art project

stokes theorem

topology

I was thinking about how annoying I find what people say to me when I tell them that I'm not happy with how I'm doing at math. their first idea is to tell me how great I am and how all I do is good enough and shit like that. it doesn't help, it just feels like I am not being taken seriously. when I barely pass anything, am I really supposed to believe that everything is actually good? it feels like they skip getting to know my situation and just tell me what they would tell anyone, automatic

when I try to calm myself down and think something that will keep me going I don't try to force myself to be happy, fuck that, not being content with one's achievements is very fine, I believe not being happy all the time is fully natural and all that positivity feels so fake

instead what seems to work is asking myself where the rational threshold of being ok with how I'm doing is. the thing is I will never be satisfied, whatever I have, I always want more. but I can set the limits in advance and that stops me from falling into self-loathing loops

although what has really changed the game for me was getting a few good grades, finally I am achieving something, anything. people tell me that I should learn to be alright without this external reliance on achievements but how am I supposed to do that when the source of my low moods is precisely getting less than I want? I don't understand why I should brainwash myself into thinking that this is actually not what I want. the trick here is to separate the goal-orientedness from the sense of self-worth. the groundbreaking realization of mine was figuring out that I believe I deserve more than I get, that's why I am unhappy. so now that I am getting what I think what I deserve I obviously feel much better

i was supposed to mention something short about this one medieval guy who invented graphing functions and i just spent like all afternoon just reading about his work with zero words written because it’s all so interesting???

he was a theologian, as many mathematicians were in the past, and the first quantities he graphed were “temperature, pain, and grace” ??

he showed to know about integration by explaining that feeling pain twice as intense for a given amount of time is technically the same as feeling the less intense pain for half the amount of time, because the graphs of both pains across time were rectangles of the same area.

and he classified things as linear or non linear and said that the latter were qualities to describe a soul “occupied by many thoughts and affected by many passions”

it’s always so cool to learn how natural philosophers viewed the world. they draw conclusions that come from their religious or spiritual ideals but that are ultimately the basis of how we understand math or science today.

I'm glad I never encoutered anyone with such serious mindset while I was studying programming because now I wouldn't have as much fun writing branchless things in python, which is completely useless in highlevel languages but I just can't resist

I feel like some people are too serious with learning how to program. “I gotta be the best in this and that and build this and that to impress this employer” blah blah, that kills the fun out of programming. I see a lot of people (bashing people on Twitter again and actually a few people on here too, oops) making programming such a serious topic and you can’t have fun in it. Besides the proper syntax, documentation, best practises whatever, people in the tech community have putting up “rules” about how you should program and what to learn and if you fall out of that, you get ridiculed for it. Literally making it less fun.

Someone said that there’s no point in learning jQuery because JavaScript alone can do all that jQuery can and more.

So? I’m still going to learn it for fun? I’m having a blast with SCSS and jQuery, I don’t care 🤷🏾‍♀️ and I’ll learn the other frameworks and libraries that suits me because I want to. I don’t care if the entire tech community stops using a technology - if it interests me, I’m still going to learn it~!

Also no hate or anything to that person who said that to me - I completely understand your POV on jQuery! 💗✨ When I first read comment, I was a bit down like “oh what’s the point then…” but slapped myself and was like “I’m not learning for them or anyone. This library is cool and I like it so I’m still gonna use it”

Moral of the story: just do you. Do what makes you happy, code what you happy. Don’t be so serious all the time and make stupid dumb programs or games or websites whatever. Have fun in such a hard subject!!!

If you want to rizz up a mathematician, just tell them that they "proved love at first sight exists by giving an explicite example".

foolproof plan

at some point I was wondering what about the researcher publishing their paper in an expensive journal and it turns out that the author does not make a lot of money from that, so it really is about fucking this exploitative system and not doing any substantial harm to the researcher, if anyone was worrying like I was

This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…

I can relate to your undergrad experience! And I think it might be a good sign looking forward, because you've developed insights and ways of thinking and motivation to go beyond undergrad and seek out new spaces where you can do your own work. That's by no means common, I know many fellow undergrads who are a) as mystified when they retake a class as they were the first time round, and b) feel accomplished enough to have passed eg Introductory Analysis and have no drive to look onward. You seem to know very much what you're good at, what interests you and which areas you'd like to grow in. I'd argue that undergrad studies, which give you an introduction and overview of the field and teach basic reasoning skills while not expecting any really original problem solving aren't exactly made for people like you. Talking to your professors or Masters or even PhD students is a really good idea!

thank you for your input, it brings a huge relief!

I already talked to two of my professors and they said that there is nothing to worry about. my advisor said that in his opinion learning new concepts while working on some problem is the right way to learn and from his experience this is way more rewarding than learning for school or even "just to learn". he also said that if I'm interested in working more on open stuff then he will let me know when he finds some questions I could ponder. the other professor said that it's a good thing, because from his experience a lot of people tend to get discouraged when there is no way of knowing how long solving the problem will take or how much new theory is needed, and I seem to be the other way around, so the work I'll be doing in the future probably won't scare me as much

I talked to some of my friends who are about to finish undergrad like me, and there are people who feel the same way as I do. coincidentally, those are the people who had the same situation as mine, that is, they were lucky enough to find an advisor who gave them an open question to work on. other people I talked to seem to be fairly content with studying for the classes and completing homework assignments, and they didn't get to work on something open yet, so maybe it has something to do with getting the taste of the good stuff haha

I can see now that the future looks good and I'm motivated to go exploring. I am aware that I have so much more to learn, but having got the reassurance that I'm probably doing it right, it doesn't sound as scary anymore

(I'm reblogging this for later to really look into all the amazing accounts I follow)

Let's get a new mathblr roll call going! There's an older version but it's got a decent number of inactive people on it so let's start fresh. Reblog and/or reply tagging yourself and any other good math accounts!

Math shitposters! Math academia aesthetic blogs! Math studyblrs! Unthemed blogs owned by people who happen to be math fans! CS, stats, physics and other math-adjacent dorks too if they like hanging out with the math crowd! I want them all!

8 V 2022

I am on my way home from a math conference, the first one in which I participated actively – I prepaired the talk about the Borsuk-Ulam theorem

my lecture was centered around the connection between the classic "continuous" BUT and its combinatorial analog: Tucker's lemma

I wanted to talk about this because I was amazed at how cool and "versatile" this theorem is. there is a whole book about its applications and generalizations, which is btw very well-written, I highly encourage everyone to read it:

my presentation went well, although after practicing it for about a week the topic seemed really fucking boring to me, no wonder

other than that I have another recommendation to make. do you also hate how messy multivariable calculus is? I do. calculations and technical definitions everywhere, and at the end everything comes down to calculating the determinant of some jacobian. bluh. I stumbled upon a book that describes everything from a sort of algebraic perspective, smells a little bit like category theory too. very clean, very satisfying to read:

I have been studying covering spaces recently and I can give some dope motivation for learning about the structure induced by the covering mapping:

I will never forget that the homomorphism induced by the covering projection is injective

that would be it for my mathemathical life. my personal life, which is still closely connected to math, brings me some psychological progress. I no longer get stuck in loops of "oh I'm so bad at math. maybe I'm not? I got a good grade from X. ah but I got a shit grade afterwards". it might be because I didn't fall on my face for a while now, only decent grades, good ideas, a good presentation, this is correct. but I also do not negotiate with myself that this is supposed to be proof that I'm good enough, I just stopped paying attention to these and focused on math instead. and paradoxically when I stopped caring about being good at math I was rewarded with getting better at math???

a coincidence,

a pleasant one, nonetheless.

anyway I will have to take a fall at some point, unavoidable. and it will be the final test of my progress, becauase I used to get very elevated in my sense of self-worth after receiving a single good grade among trash ones and now I'm just ok. not the god, just ok. but back then, at some point I would no longer be god, I would get smacked in the face by some "proof that I'm actually trash" and that would be a fall from a significant altitude. so I'm hoping that the fall will also be less painful now

I think the biggest change I made was giving up, I abandoned all hope. nooow here is the moment when people interrupt me with "nooo that's horrible don't give up you're a great person you just have to notice that"

fuck off you don't understand shit

I'm doing better now precisely because I stopped hoping that one day I'll stop feeling worthless, that one day something great will happen that will prove once and for all that I'm meant for something great. I can't stand this anymore, I am disgusted by the fact that deep down I still believe that I'm supposed to be the best and that I can't enjoy anything unless I am winning. I want to puke when I'm reminded that everything I do serves the purpose of winning the negotiations I have with myself about what my actual value is

my self-hatred runs much deeper now than ever before and I have no more patience for self-victimization, no more room for "allowing myself to feel". fuck off, all I feel is rage. I want to be able to do things without the prospect of a reward, my goal is to enjoy things, not the sense of being good at doing things

so that's what I'm doing, I made peace with the fact that I will probably never feel good about myself and that I have no chance at achieving the greatness I crave. and I must say I started respecting myself more, turns out I am actually able to do things without the promise of being the best at them, the vision of bringing value to the world motivates me. and fuck the western culture with its oh you must love yourself you are a great person. no, you don't have to do that and you have no way of knowing what kind of person you are, nobody has ever defined it in a strict formal sense, people just use this phrase to trigger the feel-good in others

I am aware that all of this sounds really bad, but I don't care, it works. and my math will be better like that because now that I stopped crying over being trash I have more time to study

I just hope that the fall won't be as painful