Personal Blogs

I had to take a day off work-work today. Not because I had OU-work to skivve off for but because I was bona fide ill. I started to dress on the edge of the bed, and became aware that I couldn't.

I lay in my bed or in the hottest of hot-hot baths reading a maths book. [When I wasn't sleeping.] The maths book? An introduction to analysis. [of something!!] I read the groups bit.

Too often, as we move on, we forget what we have learned.

Tonight as I tackled my TMA I saw the basics that I'd forgotten.

And realized the depths of my ignorence.

Trying to avoid opening the groups books I read about what I was thinking when this all started for me. Which lead to me realizing that this time last year that the plot was lost.

I'm opening the groups book...

Back when I worked in the primary school whose playground I still live in, there were only ever at most two men on the staff, one of them was me.

Primary schools are like families. You take on specific roles vis-a-vis other people—mother, husband, wife, father, brother, aunt...

To the kids I was always the slightly-deranged older brother. I had a toy soldier club, I had the best collection of Pokemon cards...if they had troubles they could come to me but when I used the voice and told them to do something it got done.

My relationships with female staff were based on our respective ages, I was old in janny terms even then. Some were my aunts, some my sisters, some my wee sisters—wee sisters who I spoiled.

David was a teacher and David and I were brothers who shared a warped sense of humour. We formed a male support group, our bodies ourselves, dedicated to maintain the masculine, in the face of this monstrous regiment of women. We told the other teachers that we had done so.

We had a catchphrase, "aw o' them?" Which related to a story that David had. He'd been a taxi driver and some other driver had said, "aw women are f^&*((g mad", to which some other taxi driver had replied, "what, aw o' them Rab?"

Actually it wasn't really a catchphrase, it was more of a way of us signaling to each other that we thought that what was being suggested lacked sense. Or a way of trying to get the other to laugh inappropriately.

I remember one christmas [a huge thing in a primary school!], we were doing the christmas decorations [it was a tradition that the entire staff put up the decorations some evening; so that the kids came into a joy the next morning]. I was at the top of a ladder trying to arrange a string of kid-made stars such that mother [the head] was satisfied. David was at the bottom of the ladder feeding me the needful. Julie [I think it was] came over and asked us to do something [I forget what]. The following conversation occurred...

Me: I don't think that's my job

David: Nor mine

Julie: Why not? [tetchy]

David & Me [together]: Because that's women's work

There was general shouting and laughter from all corners of the hall.

David always biked to and from work. I have a fixed mental-image of him doing it; when I saw him I always started thinking about how we could wind people up.

David died of some aggressive cancer a couple of years ago. By the time I found out he was so ill he was refusing visitors, he was in such humiliating pain.

Tonight as I was walking back from the shops dwarmingly realizing that I'd made a stupid mistake in my topology TMA I saw him cycling out of the school. Then I remembered. It was just someone who looked like him.

A striking sadness but a reminder of so, so many joys.

Thirty-one marks to get, one unit book to read, and this is topology.

Still I have an advantage, I can sit in the work-library all day, my boys will fend off anything that doesn't totally need me, not many people can do OU stuff at work. Why can I do this?

I'm not going to answer that.

Still, tomorrow will be hard day in, what seems to be, a life of hard days. What!. None of us here are stupid, we signed up for a life of hard days.

It's time I got back to computing, which seems simpler, until I actually tackle it

Still I've found a song to dance to when my TMA is off in the post. I can't find a good online version—still it's interesting. One pill makes you larger, one pill makes you small. What you aren't saying is anything about the topological invariants. Jings you don't even give us a proper metric?

Whatever...

I sit on a floor. Smiling slightly because I see a sequence of functions that can't be squeezed to null. Better, I can see where Cauchy went wrong.

I see where Cauchy went wrong? Whoop! It was easy for me, I had help, much-much help, still I see. That's got to be good for something?

God, if you are there, and if you are listening, thank you for maths. Thank you so much.

of topology.

And you know what? I'm happy. Some of the solutions that I've produced today are the best solutions that I've ever produced. [I think, we'll see]

Usually I'm a four-page answer type-of guy. Today I've rarely gone beyond a single page, even for seven marks.

I could be utterly wrong. Actually I couldn't; I could be wrong, but when it comes to maths I can no longer be utterly wrong.

Jings. What have I just said?

If I have scored every mark, I have fifty. I have less than a week to do what took me a month.

The funny thing is that I think that this is possible.

I'm reclining and regarding a wall of symbols. I know what these symbols mean but that doesn't help. This is the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life so far. The temptation to blub is strong.

At some time in my past some-me decided that the horror I'm currently suffering would be good for me. I'm not sure that he was a complete idiot.

I'm also sure that the now-me is going to mire the future-me me in the muck big time.

I suppose that this will only end when my head explodes.

Still I have James to keep me warm.

She and I looked at each other. We'd been friends for years, there were things unsaid between us. If they were ever going to be said the time to say them was now. I felt.

In her eyes I could see that she wanted me to say these things. I suppose that she could see the same thought in my eyes.

She said nothing, I don't know why. I said nothing because I was pretty sure that we'd meet again and that anything that we said at this moment would make our future meetings fraught. I was wrong about that. So far we've never laid eyes on each other again.

I'm happy, functional and alive. Still, I can never listen to, 'this charming man' without seeing her face in my mind and wondering, what if?

And then I remember the first time that I saw my wife's face; the look in her eyes; the feeling in my soul. The days we spent together, the talks that we had. I love the Smiths, but this song will always makes me cry from joy. It's my Tish and mines.

I shall no more chase chimera.

For I have what I really desired.

I was working my way through uniform convergent/point convergent sequences of functions. We don't seem to care what space we are in any more. My brain is beyond hurt with thinking. Then I saw something. I played a few games of solitaire and I think that I'm right.

There comes a point place when you can remove enough pegs so that a single peg finish isn't possible any more. I can't prove this but there's some limit condition here I'm sure. I'd love to know where that place is. Which might mean that there is always a point convergent sequence of functions under a certain limit? Mmmmm.

Dammit neil, build that app properly! It's not as if you haven't had years and years to do so.

Jumping, jumping, Neo. Still I have a shining new tool for my toolbox. And my personal madness is burning bright once again.

Today I cut back the bushes around my house and wrote a long rambling article about how topology might be applied to solitaire. Fortunately before I posted my crap Doctor Sheldon Cooper intervened.

Cooper is an idiot-savant. I'm far worse; I'm just an idiot. I saw I might be talking shite.

My problem is that I think I'll be taken seriously, like that's going to happen. One of the most important duties of mine mind is to remind myself how small I am.

Shoot me with whatever you have, if I ever pretend to understand anything, ever again.

I've almost lost the plot of the why I'm doing this, this OU stuff, it seems so hard.

I will win, somehow.

A couple of posts that expose my madness. Although I prefer to see it as your classic British eccentricity.

[You need to scroll up to see the first one—I've messed something up there.]