um

I am generally feeling low. I noticed an "Oxfam Boutique" has opened in the city centre. I am intimidated by it. I am too shabby to go in.

Hm

They have swapped Softmints for Extra Strong mints in the vending machine. I am not very happy about this.

Algebraic Topology

Today (and yesterday) John and I have spent many hours desperately slogging our way through the Algebraic Topology homework, which consisted of many proofs about degree theory. Some proofs were easy and some were... well.. didn't fall out so nicely. The one we seemed to get very dirty with was showing that the degree of a reflection in a hyperplane was -1. In the end we "did it" using a suspension of the reflection map. I believe it...

And now it is back to MAPLE. I hate the collect function in MAPLE. It won't do what I want it to namely collect together products of variables. This is most infuriating and I have had to completely rethink my plan of attack.

I really want to see a guinea pig sneeze. Wouldn't that be adorable?!

In fact, I just searched for it on YouTube. And unsurprisingly there are videos of Guinea Pigs sneezing.. I suppose this will be the activity for the rest of the evening.. to systematically work my way through them!

Another thrilling Saturday

19.00hrs

In case you can't guess: the title is not so much laced as drowning in sarcasm. I even just emailed back the catholic society to ask where mass takes place...

Obviously I am in the department.

There is a girl with a hood who keeps moving around the room to work on different computers. I really hope that it is bothering someone else as well. But looking around the room, most people seem unperturbed by her erratic and bizarre behaviour.

21.15hrs

She just moved again! What is she doing??

My MAPLE code is giving me the exact opposite of what I expect. And I can not for the life of me see why? I expect the imaginary part and I get the real.. and vice verse. This is not acceptable.

21.21hrs

Oh I see why. I am such a moron!

I really wish I had my ink pen. I think it is in the Chemistry department in one of the lecture rooms. I suppose I could go and rescue it. But I would rather not risk anyone seeing me here. I'll just have to do my calculations in stupid biro. I suppose I would be doing "free" maths then though, I stole the biro from the bank, so technically it doesn't count as real work if I didn't pay for the ink. I am quite the rebel.

22.22hrs

So it seems to would be worth my while to generalise my code to get the single-valued function for Li_(m)(x) . That way, I can plug in exactly what I(/supervisor1) want(s) for Li_(n,1)(x,y). So, let's crack on.

22.24hrs

I am upset that supervisor2 said my poster was dry!

23.26hrs

OK. I am getting nice coefficients from the series expansion of cot(x). But blasted MAPLE has reduced itself to the loathed "grey screen" look again! Why won't it just do what I want it to do?!


00.16hrs

OK... I just googled my name and it appears I am a "confirmed speaker" for a conference in Canada next month. I really hope this is not me. If it is ... I wonder which one of my supervisors will actually break the news to me... This is not sitting well. Oh god, please don't be me. Please don't be me.

00.28hrs

Right. I can work from home now.