11 II 2023

saving this for self-care and for anyone who might need this

also, I can add: squint your eyes hard and then looking at something far away. it's supposed to help your eyes relax and a bonus simple grounding exercise!

from my personal experience, once you start paying attention to how different it feels on your eyes to look at something far away as opposed to something close, you can relax your eyes without needing an object to look at. now when I'm going to bed I imagine a tree far away and I feel my eyes relaxing, it helps with me fall alseep faster. it might be a placebo ofc, I know nothing about eyes, but it is still a good trick for falling asleep regardless of the supposed effect of it on the eyes

We need like “unclench your jaw” posts but for eye strain. Like

Go look at something 20ft away for 20 seconds.

did i tell u guys i got into an argument on twitter bc i said foxes are dogs and someone tried to bring up their actual fuckin. classification or whatever and i just said “foxes are dogs cause they are fluffye” and they kept arguing with me. the entire time i was like “you will not survive the immigration to tumblr you are lucky we are not there right now”

thank you @dressedsalad @bsdndprplplld and @rooksacrifice for nominations. the last two were my additions (to provide more variety in the choices, not bc I dislike them)

I love reading stuff on abstract geometry because there'll be some extremely complicated construction of abstract polytopes that takes up like two full pages

and the first example is this

and you're like "wow that's a cube :)"

and then the next example is this

omg this + bonus points if this is yet another "autistic genius" representation. don't even get me started on how harmful both of those things are for various reasons

Fuck the way media talks about “child prodigies” and “geniuses” especially in fields like music and mathematics.

Like they are gods whose level of understanding we could never reach.

How come we rarely hear about all the people who started young and then fizzled out? How come we never hear the stories of people who started late in life and made a huge difference.

Why do we only hear about their natural aptitude and not the hard work and misteps they took to get there.

For gods sake…

Terry is just a guy!

i’m starting a collection

yes! the same goes for teaching btw. people who just recite the textbook to you are not good teachers. the key to a good explanation of a concept is understanding why someone does not understand it in the first place. and doing that to your own mind when trying to learn something is the point of good learning

also maybe it’s just bc i have a very autistic interest in sociology and human behavior but i like to understand why people think and behave the way they do. it’s been an asset to my ability to advocate for myself and for others. if i know why someone believes something rather than just what they believe, i can have an actual conversation with them. so it always boggles my mind when ppl insist it doesn’t matter why someone believes something, they’re Just Wrong And Should Change Their Mind. like yeah if i could snap my fingers and make someone not transphobic i’d do that but i live on planet earth so the only thing that is gonna potentially get someone to change their mind as long as they’re not too far gone is having an honest conversation with them. i have changed several minds this way, including my own parents, so it’s frustrating to see ppl discouraging this.

I've been thinking about how different math feels after three years of consistently doing it. it's a sad thought, because I used to get super excited about learning new things and solving problems, whereas now my standards seem to be higher..?

I spent the day doing exercises from galois theory and statistics, in preparation for the tests I have soon. it felt like a chore. sure, the exercises were easy and uninteresting, I decided to start from the basics, so there is that. however, in general practicing like this became a routine and there used to be a sense of mystery around it that is now gone

when I don't have any deadlines but feel like doing some math the obvious choice is to learn something that will be useful in the future. more homological algebra, algebraic geometry, K-theory, or digging deeper into the topics I already am familiar with. all of those are good candidates and I used to be very motivated to just learn something new. but here comes to paradox of choice, where every option is good, but there isn't a great one

I think I might be annoyed with always learning the prerequisites for something not yet defined. it did feel exciting when I was studying the modules of tangles so that I could answer an open question, it doesn't feel as exciting to learn about the galois theory to pass a test. a metaphor comes to mind. doing math without a fulfilling goal feels like taking a walk – it's rather nice, I enjoy going on walks. with a fulfilling goal it feels like walking towards a destination such that the walk itself is a pleasant activity, but I really want to get to said destination. by that I mean that I still enjoy simply learning new stuff and working on exercises, but it doesn't feel as fulfilling as it used to, how much walking without getting anywhere can you do in three years? you can do the same thing in prison

three years is nothing compared to how much knowledge and experience is necessary to do actual research, I know that. I fail to feel it, but I know it. when I am asking myself what state of mind is the most fulfilling I'd say exploration, discovery, getting an idea that is new to me and seemingly comes from nowhere, not just an obvious corollary of what I've seen in lectures, an insight, an act of creating. I suppose all those things are to be found in the future, but god how long do I have to wait

on a more pragmatic and realistic note, I think I'll talk to my professors about what I can do to speed up that process. I'll ask them how the actual research feels and how they went from being a student learning basic concepts to where they are now

a question to those of you who are more experienced than me: does this even sound familiar at all? what were you like as a student and what took you to where you are now? how does math feel after 3, 5, 10 years?

yeah I say that I'm vegetarian because the texture of meat fucks with my sensory issues. I would know if the meat in my meal was real and I would probably throw up and have a meltdown, then proceed to have my day ruined. I can't believe someone actually could put me in such a position jfc

Look I clown veganism often enough but really, truly, don’t ever fucking feed somebody something without their knowledge or consent. It’s hugely fucked up and not OK.