A lukewarm, ambivalent, equivocal relationship, with no definitions, too many unspoken words and too much uncertainty. At it's best it's comfortable and comforting in its familiarity, at its worst it's got no reference points or indications that it could potentially grow beyond what it is and become something more definite, or rather, definable - that is objectively. And if i were to describe myself in this relationship i would be nice, agreeable, undemanding, yet at the same time slighly neurotic and sporadically emotional (at least at moments when i dont try to restrain myself), whereas he's calm, rational, level-headed in a non-flippant way, nice by his nature rather than by circumstances. This pretty much sums it all up, and yet to elaborate a little more (although i am not sure why i continue this pointless exercise), i'd give it a credit of being civilized to an extent that there are no sharp disagreements or unnecessary arguments, let alone fights, and that our differences are often reconciled in a quiet, compromising and complimentary way. It's a polite relationship. Respectful. Considerate towards each other's immediate needs and discomforts. And yet it still is what it is - a lukewarm, ambivalent, unequivocal relationship...

...and the question is, what do i do now, that i am finally able to objectively see it for all it is.

One day it will all be a distant memory, Nika, yet I can tell you now, with the supreme confidence of someone who's gone ahead in time to know, that you'll look back on this life and be so flush with love and admiration for yourself, your journey, and who it made you, that you'll wonder, as I do now, how it could possibly have escaped you then.

Maybe this will help.

Your greater-self,
The Universe

Theorem: Every natural number is INTERESTING.

Proof (by contradiction): Suppose there exist some numbers that are not interesting. Then by the well-ordering principle, there has to be a least such number - i.e. a number that is least interesting. But that would be INTERESTING. Contradiction!

Therefore, every natural number is interesting. ■

A very lonely leaf

Consider a simple two dimensional choice dilemma

Suppose you have two choices, option A and option B, A ≠ B. The constraints are such that you cannot choose both. Each one of these options is equally appealing, yet choosing each will lead to a drastically different outcome. Each outcome, in its turn, is just as appealing as the other, i.e. you know that you can be happy with either outcome. An economist, then, would say that you are indifferent towards either one of these choices, since each choice gives you the same utility (fancy word for satisfaction). Except that in real life you’re not “indifferent” in the true meaning of the word, because (i) you can’t compare these utilities, since outcomes are so different that we’re talking apples and oranges at this point; (ii) when you choose A, you will never know what it’s like to have chosen B and vice versa. Therefore by choosing A you have eliminated the possibility that you could ever have B (and vice versa).That does not leave a lot of room for indifference now, does it?

Q: How would you make your choice?

Last week school started for the boy as well. He teaches high school. History. He also coaches Cross Country. With my ambitious course load and his densely packed schedule we don't get to spend much time together these days. In fact, three days in a week we hardly even see each other. He leaves early in the morning, when I'm asleep. I come back late, when he's already in bed. By Friday I realize how much I have missed him even though we happen to be living under the same roof. By Friday I also come to realize that there just aren't enough hours in one weekend to make up for all the missed time during the week, especially since weekends are when I hide away upstairs and spend hours staring at the ceiling, scratching my head or scribbling away as if I'm high on crack. So the boy ends up being neglected again. He understands - as the world's best boyfriend, he does not complain, even though at times he jokingly refers to Math as my other, better, lover.

It's not only the boy that gets neglected these days though. My chores pile up, my house doesn't get cleaned as often as I would like to, my social life suffers and even scheduling a half an hour coffee date with a friend suddenly becomes next to impossible... And it doesn't look like it's going to stop in any foreseeable future, given the particular career path that I have laid out for myself. And yet, I know that I am neither the first one nor the last to be faced with this sort of problem. So please tell me, ambitious people of the world - how do you manage to balance the professional and equally important personal lives without losing sleep, sanity or both? I would gladly give up most of my meager grad student stipend to find out the secret...

How to discredit a country in three easy steps

Well, it's not that hard, actually, according to the Armenian Observer. One only needs to (i) establish a State Security Service; (ii) take part in the Eurovision and (iii) call in the fans for questioning. Evidence speaks for itself.

Well, I couldn't resist, how could I?
via Armenian Observer

The question of the day

Can anyone please tell me what the degrees of freedom are in Random Effects model? It's late and my black box (Stata) refuses to talk to me...

Update: the degrees of freedom in RE model are the same as in OLS: N-the number of parameters estimated!

Frustrated

May I vent? Just a little bit? A teeny tiny little bit? I need to blow off some steam from this past week and I do not know where else to do it but here…

Remember earlier this week I wrote about that AM-GM inequality proof? It was part of an assignment for my Analysis class that was due on Tuesday. The professor started the class by outlining a few of the important points that were to lead to the proof. After he finished writing up the sketch, he said that students who hadn’t completed the proof could have a few more days to think it through and finish it. All but two students took back their homeworks. Prior to that I overheard some of my fellow classmates complain about it, saying something along the lines: “Dude, I took a look at it and it looked ugly, so I didn’t even bother doing it…” Fucking unbelievable.

Let me say that the majority of students enrolled in this course are either grad students at the Math Department or upper-level undergrads aspiring to become grad students at the same department. Let me also say that in my book, a grad student in Math is only two steps away from a genius (part of the reason why I feel uncertain about this whole PhD in Math is because I feel nowhere close to being two steps away from being a genius). If you have gotten as far as grad school, you must fucking live and breathe Math every fucking second of your life. Proofs? They must be the proverbial bread and butter that you’re supposed to be living on day in day out. Sure, the problem looks quite ugly at first sight – all the more reasons why it should deserve more than ten minutes of your time before you decide to completely give it up and say “Fuck it, this just looks too hard…”

I was one of the two students who didn’t take the homework back. I am not trying to brag – after all it did take me three days to work it all out. But I did it, nonetheless. I do know that had I had one of the missing components of the proof, I would be able to finish it sooner. But a big part of it was because it did take me a while to realize that what seemed hard and ugly at first glance was actually something elegant and extremely simple. When I look at it now, it does appear very simple – simple enough that anyone with some rudimentary knowledge of algebra should be able to see it. But I also know that I had to spend all that time to be finally able to see that simplicity. That’s how math works. That’s the whole secret. Unless, of course, you’re one of these geniuses who can’t be bothered with what seems to be ugly and complicated.

I am frustrated because I find it off-setting and even offensive that most of my classmates didn’t attempt to iron things through. I am even more frustrated because a lot of them didn’t even seem to feel bad about it. Maybe not everyone is as compulsively crazy about math and school in general as I am, but there’s got to be something that sets apart a whiny undergrad from an aspiring scientist. Or am I just plain wrong? Please help me out here, will you? And if you need more facts, here’s a part of the proof itself.

Nine millions bicycles

Every time I see Sevada, no matter how long it’s been and how much catching up it involves, our conversations always end up with discussion of music - about how we can no longer bring ourselves to listen to Zeppelin; about the immortality of the Stones and the fact that Mick Jagger might just as well be the sexiest man alive; about the merits and demerits of the new U2 album; about our lack of interest in “sad bastard” music and how instead of falling for the next generic alternative band number one hundred and seventy six, we are now slowly switching towards the mellow, more ear pleasing tunes of the newly found and (relatively) less famous and nonetheless favorite artists of ours… These type of discussions inevitably lead to grand music swaps of sorts, although long gone are the days when we’d trade Sonic Youth for Pearl Jam (! Sonic Youth, by the way, sucks. I don’t know what business I had listening to it in the first place).

Sevada seems to be into chick music these days. I am not a particularly big fan of chick music – too loaded, too emotionally charged for me. But then, sometimes there is just that one song that is so perfect in its simplicity and so harmoniously melodic that I can’t stop listening to it over and over and over again…

More on Katie Melua here.