4/22/2016

I am nearly done compiling the current results for E_0. At the same time, putting the full write-up together has put some of the results into a new a perspective, and I have some new proofs for slightly better results. I also have some weird new questions. There seems to be a possibility of developing more general large cardinal properties for quotients of the reals.

I am presenting at CUNY in about three weeks now, and I have been invited to speak at BEST, which is in San Diego in June. I am looking forward to both of these trips. This is the fun part of academia. Incidentally, it is also why you can't be antisocial and be a successful mathematician (unless you are ridiculously talented, and even then...). It is a somewhat of a pet peeve of mine when people say that math is just a left-brain logical activity. It is partly that, but it really is a creative process and a social process as well.

I am not graduating this year. I am graduating next year, unless something goes horribly wrong. Next year is year 7. I find this to be a ridiculous amount of time, and it is really bothering me. It's odd, because I've known this for essentially this entire year and it hasn't bothered me. Recently, however, the entire group of us who are going into our 7th year (6 people or so in total) were informed that we will no longer be teaching courses, and if we don't graduate next year we will probably lose funding. Hearing this, its hard not to feel like a total failure and like I am being punished for being such a failure. It's a totally ridiculous emotion. For one, I know that the majority of people who came into grad school with and didn't drop out or just get a masters are still here. I know that UNT requires us to teach in order to get funded. This in itself not unusual, but the amount of teaching they require us to do is at least twice as much as other schools and four times as much as big schools do. UNT also has a bit of a problem with the structure of the graduate program: they require us to take general knowledge courses more than other schools. I also know that I started working on my problem less than a year ago, and it is the first problem I have ever worked on. (This is not an attack on UNT, they are doing what they have to do with the funding they have).

There is tension here. Administration and societal expectations are that I should have graduated years ago. On the other hand, this time has not been wasted. I have been allowed to grow as a general mathematician and a general set theorist in ways that will be a major boon to me in the future. I have been allowed to teach essentially every low level math course up to and including calculus 3. I have graded for a proofs course and acted as extra instruction for the magnet high school inside of UNT. In other words, I definitely feel ready to teach whatever to whomever.

Logically, I am aware that this doesn't add up to failure, let alone total failure. Logically, not teaching means I have more time to focus on  my dissertation and job applications. Emotionally, I feel like someone punched me in the gut. This is not a normal blog post, and has probably become more emotionally charged than looks good, so I'll wrap it up. I'm over grad school, and I want to be done. I'm ready for the next step.