Virtual bar

I stayed up to hear the results of the US presidential elections the other night. It was thrilling, and goes without saying that I believe that the right candidate won.

I went to a talk on "Vanishing cycles of holomorphic foliations by curves and foliated shells" today, which was given by my Russian officemate. It was fantastic. I imagine that he is an absolutely wonderful lecturer- he had a brilliant way of making everything accessible! I don't understand why I always seem to enjoy/understand more in seminars which are unrelated to my area than those which are on it? I can barely last 20 minutes in seminars on Algebraic Geometry and Arithmetic Number theory. There was a graduate student mini-course on "group cohomology" today and that was just horrific. I know the basics of group cohomology, but I (and the other students that I spoke to about it afterwards) thought it was going to be a mini-course on understanding it better, not assuming flawless knowledge (or at least a working knowledge) of it... which it seemed to.. There seems to be this virtual bar of knowledge that is implicitly assumed here and anything below this bar will never ever be explained! Unfortunately I am not sure where the bar lies, all I know is that I lack ALOT of the knowledge below this bar!

Conclusion: I feel more stupid than ever.

I spent all of this morning lost in the city, trying to find the graduate school to hand it a form with basically just my name on because it was essential that they had it before tomorrow. I returned to the institute to find the receptionist armed with a camera clamoring to take my photograph. Damn, I thought she has forgotten about that. I successfully have managed to avoid having it done for 4 weeks .. but now.. eugh .. my image has been captured for the photoboard.. and it is a "I'm very flustered , red-faced, hideous" image.

Winter-gate

1. For the past few days my non-Russian office mate has been putting his coat on the un-pronged coat-peg. I have found this disconcerting. Yesterday I cracked and asked him why he was doing that and if he was only doing it to mess with my mind... turns out he "doesn't give it a second thought where (he) puts his coat". Also, he now thinks I am insane. He gave me a sort of confused stare and asked "what is it like to see the world through your eyes?" and that he couldn't work out if I was "neurotic in a sweet way or a scary way?" Firstly, I am not neurotic in ANY way. Secondly, I know he somehow worked out what was happening with the coat pegs and has just been playing with me. I don't know how to counter this action, should I not wear a scarf, succumb to the cold and just use the un-pronged coat peg? Should I proceed as usual and pretend I don't care where I or anyone else in the office puts their coats? I suppose I could keep my coat on or wait until everyone is here and then use the non-used one? This is just a minefield of options.
   
   
2. "Women in mathematics look like horses." This is what a postdoc said to a group of people at coffee the other day. I scanned around the group- yes I am the only girl here- didn't really need to check, but hey, it doesn't hurt. I decided to stick up for my gender and said that "even if that were true then that would still be a favourable comparison to what male mathematicians looked like!"
   
   The reaction: "maybe I think you don't like mathematics that much" accompanied by a wink. A WINK. A disgusting wink. Unbelieveable.
   
   The guy next to me then said "Ahh, you strange but wonderful creature."
   
   I think I am going to stop going to coffee.
   
   
3. Turns out, I live next to a grave yard. I can't believe that I didn't notice this.
   

The least favourite PhD student.

It has already happened... I am my supervisor's least favourite PhD student. I was at coffee today when the other new PhD student came over to me. He asked how my meeting had gone with our supervisor. I told him I'd done the mandatory 5 hour wait for a slot, then sat on a bench outside his office with him while he chastised me for not using notation properly. Conclusion: I thought it had gone OK.

He seemed oddly surprised by this. So I asked him how his meeting had gone...

"Oh well, we went to lunch together and had a nice talk."

Oh. Clearly I am the crap one. I wish that I hadn't been told this vital piece of information. I liked it better when I thought we all had to wait and fight for our supervisor's time..

Bonn jour

So for better or worse I live in Bonn now.

1. It has been a relatively good week socially. I have been out quite a number of times with other people from the Institute.
   
2. I met my supervisor on Friday (after the obligatory 5 hour wait). Up until this point I was honestly wondering why I was here, I was wondering if I had perhaps made a poor decision- but talking with him (or rather him just talking at me) made me realise that he is the reason I am here. He is just great.
   
3. Maths-wise, I have not been so productive. It seems that doing a PhD is all about striking the balance between doing little work and coping your the guilt from doing little work.
   
4. I have been feeling exhausted for the past week. My eyes hurt and I feel on the verge of illness. If I am going to be ill I wish this would just happen.

Coat-peg update: Russian man hasn't been in for a while. One of the pronged coat-pegs is close to being secured as rightfully mine... unless he returns and seizes it back again.

Coat Peg politics

There are 3 coat pegs in the office and 3 people. Two of them have a prong at the top for hats/ scarves. One does not and is situated a little lower than the other two. I really want to put my coats and scarves on one of the ones with the prongs because on the one without the prong my scarves keep falling off, but I am scared that the guys will thing I am breaking some sort of unwritten rule of using their pegs. But they don't need the upper prongs!

Today, after almost 3 weeks of worrying of this I finally worked up the courage to put my coat/ scarf on a pronged peg. When I came back from lunch the Russian man had moved his coat to the peg I had used before. What does this mean? And more importantly... is this actually bothering anyone else in the office like it is me? I have the sneaking suspicion that the answer is no and in actual fact he had just been out to lunch (like he usually does) when I had and had just got back before me...

...

I feel like each day I get a little more broken. And I don't know how to fix myself.

Don't stop me now!

1. I sat waiting patiently for a seminar yesterday and nobody turned up. When I went to inquire as to what had happened I was informed that I had missed it because 16.10 was the date not the time of the seminar.. It was embarrassing and now I am sure that people will think I can't even understand dates and 24-hour time. I am a moron.
   
   
2. It was a little cold and so I stood up and asked the person next to me if he minded if I closed the window. The response was "I loathe your submissiveness". Apparently, what I would call "politeness" is "loathsome submissiveness" in me. Just when I thought I had worked out all of my character flaws...

Days are stressful. I feel like my self-confidence takes a regular thrashing. Please people, you win. Don't make me keep getting into the ring-- you win, you win. I am rubbish! To prepare myself for these days I listen to a theme song on the way in. At the moment it is "Don't stop me now" by Queen. I only live far enough away for 2 repetitions. Every morning I wish I lived a little further a way...

... like back at home!