Whipcrack

October 30th, 2007

Instead of spending my Saturday at the 5th NWA con, where I was supposed to speak at a forum on science fiction, I was at home recovering from my trip to Los Banos. Despite my declaration that I was not going to the SPP congress this year, I ended up accompanying (read: tagging along behind) Dr. M, from the reception dinner (very fun) to the morning plenary sessions (also very fun) to an impromptu exploration of the places bordering Laguna de Bay (I don’t know if it was fun or not, since I was asleep).

While in Los Banos I endured (they were inflicted on me, I tell you) staggering realizations one after another, namely:

1) I am still in love with physics. And I honestly don’t think I can permanently stop doing it without doing some damage to myself. In that regard, I should probably get back to the old notebooks and equations.

2) P is still alive, still studying in the university, and remains as nice and… himself as ever.

3) Much as I may not care about getting published I do care about finishing my work, and so I have to finish some short stories soon — within the year — or I will lose a significant amount of self-respect.

4) I have a bleeping amount of work to do this year.

I spent two days recovering from all that physics and soul-searching — having epiphanies is exhausting work — and then went off to meet Dr. M again. Since I missed the physics session that morning, he told me that I was going to write my thesis instead.

…Right, yeah, that thing I need to graduate from college that I haven’t worked on yet because the topics I’ve come up with so far have had too little economics and too much physics/math. That… thing… I’m supposed to finish outlining and drafting in a week. Yeah, that thing.

Dr. M just verified that I work best under pressure, because under threat of not having dessert (and not being allowed to go to Puerto for my barkada’s vacation) I churned out an introduction and the outlines for two thesis chapters using material I read for the first time in my life. A few days ago I had no idea how foreign exchange trading worked; now I have the basic concepts clear and concrete in my mind — and even better, I can see for myself how to use turbulence to model currencies. Of course I was told the general principle way way back when I was a college sophomore, but now I understand why that principle works, I know where it came from, and it’s… It’s an incredible feeling, enlightenment.

Of course knowing that only showed me how much more I have to learn. Oh man, I’m working on the outline for chapter three tomorrow, and expanding the draft/outline for chapters one and two. This is crazy and I love it. I wish I knew more slave drivers like Dr. M.

Entry Filed under: academics