on the tube with my Hungarian dictionary

I am on the plane on my way to Budapest. It didn’t really hit me that I was ACTUALLY, REALLY, TRULY (!!!) going for my semester abroad until a week ago, as I attempted to balance my suitcase on the digital scale, praying that it was under 50 pounds. Logically, I knew I was going, but emotionally it hadn’t quite hit yet that I was leaving home not to return until Christmastime.

I spent the past week in London on holiday with my mom and dad. We had a great time, and I absolutely love that I am already over the major jet lag and time change that comes with a trip across the Atlantic! If you were in London last week, I would have been the young woman on the tube studying my pocket-sized Hungarian dictionary at every possible moment. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few photos from the trip:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even though I’ve been to London before, I’ve never actually taken the classic English telephone booth photo. Finally got it.

 

 

 

 

Ceramic poppies art installation in front of the Tower of London by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper to remember the 100 year anniversary of WWI. There are thousands of poppies surrounding the tower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view of the London Eye from the Thames, rainy as usual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We visited Blenheim Palace. I know this was not the main point of the tour, but our tour guide made sure we took a look at Winston Churchill’s favourite one-piece outfit he liked to wear around.

From Wikipedia: “…the siren suit was invented by Churchill as an original leisure suit in the 1930s. He played a large part in popularizing it as an item of clothing during World War II, wearing it regularly, including when meeting other important people such as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Dwight Eisenhower and Stalin.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hyde Park at sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, finally, something everyone should remember when riding the Tube/bus/etc. :)

 

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Update: I am in Budapest and trying to figure everything out! So far things are going really well and I am slowly trying to find my way around my apartment and the city. There will be some notes about logistical things for future BSMers located on my new page “BSM Tips.”

Hay Ball Meets The Hairy Ball Theorem

I’m heading to the parking lot with my grandmother after a family picnic by the ocean, making small talk about the weather. The tide. The corn. 

Then,
“What is on top of that car?”
“I think… it’s… hay.”
“…I think there’s a ball of hay on top of that car.”

It’s the weirdest thing. In the middle of a state park by the ocean, close to sundown, almost no one around except for this car with an enormous BALL OF HAY tied to the roof pulls into the parking lot.

The passengers of Car Hayball get out. We’re staring, or maybe gaping, it’s hard not to.

My dad breaks the silence: “So, I have to ask. What is that on your car?”

A ball of hay. I was right!

I stop staring for a moment, but all I can manage to ask is “…Why?…” 

It turns out the owner of the ball of hay is an artist, and this is part of his work. He makes sculpture, and his medium is hay. For some reason everything suddenly makes sense.

His story goes that at one point he needed to move a ball of hay, and he did it by strapping it to his car and driving it where it needed to go. But he realized transporting the hay ball was a work of art in it’s own right. People everywhere would stop to take pictures, or to ask him about it. It calls a lot of attention to itself, and now he drives it around sometimes for kicks. It brings people together.

Being the math major that I am, I don’t stop myself before saying,
“Have you heard of the Hairy Ball theorem? Your hay ball totally reminds me of that!”

The Hairy Ball Theorem says that given a ball covered with hairs, think perhaps of a Pom Pom or something similar, there is no way to smoothly comb down every single hair. At some spot you will be forced to leave some hairs sticking straight up (see a short video on it by MinutePhysics here).

I find myself explaining the basics of the theorem to the artist, telling him that not only can he make an artistic statement with his hay, but also a mathematical one! How exciting is that?!

Even if the “mathematical statement” is just an excuse to leave the hay a little bit messy, think: since the Hairy Ball Theorem says it is not possible to comb the strands of hay in a way that they all lay flat, why bother to try combing them at all?

 

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Notes: The Hay Ball has it’s own facebook page! Check it out here, and check out some of the other work by its artist here.

Also interesting on the subject of the Hairy Ball Theorem:

• a NPR article with a “real-life” application using the Hairy Ball theorem in computer graphic animation
• a post by Vi Hart on spherical camera angle and the Hairy Ball Theorem

 

Home From SMP

 

(Above: Snoopy in the MSP airport where I spent a while on Sunday chilling before my flight)

I wrote this post Sunday night on the plane. I am working on recovering/sleeping after the long month of math, and I am really happy to be back in my time zone, back in New England, and back in my hometown where we have lots of hills and way to many cul-de-sacs and roundabouts:

It is hard to believe this month is actually over, but at the same time I know I have met so many fantastic people and learned so much (math and otherwise), and have done more than I would think is possible in four weeks! I am ready to go home, and I am looking forward to having some time to myself, but SMP was a great experience for me. I think it was exactly what I needed at this point in my math life.

At our end of the program banquet last night, one of the program directors, Steve, said two things that stuck with me:

1) He told us we are all “professional mathematicians” now.

We were paid to do math for the month, so we should start to think of ourselves as mathematicians. Beginning ones, yes, but mathematicians nonetheless.

I thought it was really cool that he said that. On the math/maths podcast I listen to, I recently heard a discussion surrounding the question: “At what point in your career did you begin to think of yourself as a mathematician?” The consensus I garnered from that podcast conversation was that many people have a bizarrely difficult time taking “mathematician” as part of their identity– even some individuals who have published math research papers!

I don’t know if I actually feel “like a mathematician,” whatever that might mean, but all of us SMP students have been granted the choice to claim that identity if we want, which feels really good.

2) He emphasized again that if we want to stay, there is a place for all of us in the math world.

The types of mathematical careers and areas of study are hugely diverse, and there is a niche for us no matter our personality or interest. And particularly, no matter what there is a place for us in the SMP family.

Before I came to SMP I already felt like I had a “math family” in the community at my home college. I felt so lucky to have “math moms” (one of whom just came to visit us at SMP this past week! It made me so happy to see you, have dinner, listen to your lecture, and re-experience the egg trick) and “math dads” in my professors, as well as “math sisters” in my peers.

But SMP has made my math family grow exponentially, and for that I am so, so thankful. :)

My month at SMP was not easy. It was exhausting and trying and crazy hectic and sometimes overwhelming and a TON of work. And it was well worth it.

P.S.–The “math is hard” barbie, just because it came up in conversation multiple times at SMP and I want to post its photo on my blog somewhere. Just because:

 

Step Aerobics With Russ

Many of us are feeling worn out right now. We have a lot of work to do. We had an exam in topology this morning, have a homework problem set due tomorrow, and a presentation at the end if the week for both classes. On top of everything else that is scheduled. It’s really busy.

I was definitely tired this afternoon. I was in the math skills center working on homework and eventually found myself sitting in the napping corner because I needed a break…

The napping corner in the math center.

Napping corners in college academic buildings… Good idea? Bad idea? It’s probably a bad idea, but I was happy it was there.

A little bit later I decided to take an actual break and go to step aerobics class. This class has a reputation: killer aerobics with Russ.

It wasn’t actually that bad. But I thought it was really fun. There’s something about looking ridiculous and failing at the dance moves in the name of exercise that I like a lot. Russ has been doing step aerobics for a long time– he still uses cassette tapes for music. But he’s super into it and has a good time and it was just the break I needed!

Now back to the homework.

SMP Week Three

All the PhDs went home from SMPosium on Sunday. I was definitely a little bit sad to see them leave. The number of people living in this dorm was cut in half, so it feels empty.

On Friday, I remember meeting some of the PhDs for the first time and none of us knew what to say! We had been given an “assignment” to meet at least three new people. The interactions were kind of awkward. What was I going to talk with these adults about for three days?!

That changed quickly. I had some serious conversations with SMP alums about graduate school and careers, some conversations about traveling and families, and also had adventures involving getting “lost” on the way to dinner with a few of them conveniently in the Dairy Queen drive through!

I met a lot of wonderful people in a very short amount of time. Even though all of the activity and scheduled events was certainly very overwhelming at times, SMPosium was absolutely worth it.

Yesterday we had another visiting colloquium speaker, Alyssa. She echoed what everyone else has told me about the math world being small:

One thing about growing up in the MAA location that I now work in is that when I was an undergrad, there was a professor I thought was really amazing. Like, the Lady Gaga of math. I kept thinking how cool it would be if he just knew my name!… Now… that same professor sends me emails– I know where he lives!

After dinner, I ended up talking to her one-on-one about my grad school fears. The longer I’m here at SMP the more sure I feel that I do not want to go to graduate school in pure mathematics. It doesn’t seem to fit my personality. At school last semester, my advisor expressed the same sentiments about me, actually– he told me of course I would be successful at it, but there might be something I would like better. I didn’t really know enough then to be able to agree or disagree, but SMP has helped me a lot with that.

I still feel like I want to and will go to graduate school. Maybe in something like Operations Research– I just learned about it last weekend from a PhD, and it seems like it fits me better. Maybe. But I am afraid. I am afraid of being burnt out from doing school ages 5-25+ nonstop, and I am afraid of missing out on “real life” by being in school instead. I also realized while talking to her that I have this image in my head that graduate school in math means sitting in a dark room by yourself, with all these numbers on a giant chalkboard over your head, trying to prove some huge scary theorem. And I’m afraid I will never be able to prove anything.

Talking to Alyssa really helped me put a name to some of these fears. She told me that whatever I choose out do, just make sure I’m doing it because I want to and not because I think other people want me to. So, I don’t actually know what I want, but if I figure it out I’ll try to take the advice.

SMPosium Snapshot, Day Two

On Doing Calculations With Engineers:
“All of a sudden we started dropping terms and rounding numbers. Mathematically, I was really unsatisfied. But this is what happens in engineering!”

On Feeling Less Qualified:
“These people I was working with were incredible, so smart. I mean, I had put them on a pedestal in my mind. But then I found out… they didn’t even know what STEM meant.”

On Working on Capitol Hill:
“When I worked on The Hill– I don’t know if you’ve seen West Wing, but– it was actually kind if like that! It felt a little bit bizarre, like we were in the show, but it was very exciting! Every day was unpredictable.”

On Productivity:
“I like working on two things at once. If I get bored or need a break from one project, I just switch to the other. It really helps my productivity.”

On Mathematicians:
“One difference between computer scientists and mathematicians is a mathematician will be satisfied just to know ‘a solution exists!'”

SMPosium Snapshot, Day One

On the Math Family:
“Math is a community. If you stay in math, you will be seeing the people in this room for the rest of your career.”

On Representation Theory:
“If we just pick a random fruit off a tree and we want to know if it’s an apple or an orange, sometimes we can compare them using matrices to decide if it is an apple or an orange.”

On Teacher/Student:
“In a couple of years, all of you will be standing in front of this room giving a presentation your teachers won’t be able to understand.”

On Getting Dressed:
“When you teach, you’re always reaching up to the top of the board. In the morning, you really need to stand in front of the mirror and hold your arms over your head– if your shirt rides up, go change into something else.”