Thursday 28 February 2008

Agh

Agghhh the scanner girl is still scanning, and now a girl with a really high-pitched, childish voice has come in. I am so angry right now...

Sweet Monodromy

The presentation is over. It was OK, although I did it all mainly on the board- so it must have looked like I was really badly prepared (which was correct.. I didn't actually have a conclusion sorted out in my mind when I started!) At one point I quoted Don Zagier... and I thought "oh my god where is this crap coming from!" I think my two supervisors hated it. Oh well, they'd better get used to hating things that I do.. in a few weeks time they'll be exposed to some pages of my dissertation.

The vending machine just made me buy two packets of "curly wurly squirlies" so obviously I am going to have to eat them both, as I have exactly no will power when it comes to leaving chocolate uneaten. Thank goodness my wardrobe consists almost entirely of flaw-hiding XL T-shirts with various foreign words plastered over them.

I have a meeting with supervisor 2 tomorrow morning. I am scared. I am not sure what he will have expected me to do... I hope it isn't to calculate the monodromies... I will just have to thrust a wad of paper in his face and then flee, hoping I can get far enough away before he realises I have actually just handed him coffee-stained blank sheets of paper.

It is very irrational but there is a person in this room using the scanner.. and the noise is really pissing me off!!! Oh well, back to MAPLE.

Sunday 24 February 2008

Presentation Time

I'm back in the department. I feel ill and unmotivated and I have to write a presentation. I have no idea what I am actually going to write about. There are currently 3 options,

1. The Combinatorics of the (multiple) polylogarithm.
2. Introduction to Hodge Structures/ Mixed Hodge Structures.
3. Single valued functions for the (multiple) polylogarithms from the Variations of Mixed Hodge Structures of the (multiple) polylogarithms.

As much as I would like to do one of my last 2 options, I really can't. I have to think of my audience. So it looks like option 1 it is....

Friday 22 February 2008

Ostrich

I handed in my poster today. The poster counting as part of my dissertation. It doesn't really look like a poster- it is way too wordy... but I think it not very possible to both be clear and explicit when explaining about mixed Hodge structures without some words... Anyway, regardless of what others say about it being too technical- I like it and I would have bene very pleased to find such a poster on the subject when I first started learning about them!

I have to start thinking about the ominous future- as I graduate this year. I either accept my offer from MPI or from UBC. I don't really know.. both involve me relocating to a different country. I'll continue with my ostrich approach at the moment.

Tuesday 12 February 2008

So...

... it has been a while. Well, what can I say? It is some 5 months later and I am still sitting at the same computer in the same room.. still trying to make MAPLE do something. Except now.. it's a different problem.