23rd
Scenes from Summer Vacation
One-Woman Math Squad is on summer vacation! We get a fellowship to study for prelims our first summer, so I have no job and no school for just over 3 months. My math schedule for the summer is a relaxed 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, with a math-free week in July and one right before classes start. I’m studying complex analysis, and while I made that choice because I want to pass the complex prelim in the fall, the project feels very internally motivated.
(side note: did I mention I aced that algebra prelim I’d been studying for? Yippee!)
I hadn’t thought ahead much to this 3-month vacation or how unusual it is for an adult to have that long a period of time to get to spend any way she chooses. It takes some work to make and stick to choices without any external pressure, and it seems like a really important skill to practice. I’m having fun and thinking a lot about unschooling and pacing and how I spend my time.
But I promised some scenes:
1.
HUMAN is sitting on the toilet. Something falls on her foot.
What the—
KITTEN
mew
2.
MATHEMATICIAN, LIBRARIAN and ARCHEOLOGIST are attempting to paddle two inflatable rafts in 6 inches of water. LIBRARIAN is adjusting his position, causing water to flow into the raft.
MATHEMATICIAN
We’re taking on water.
LIBRARIAN
I’m trying to face the front of the raft so I can steer.
MATHEMATICIAN
Your antiquated notions of “front” and “back” are getting us nowhere.
3.
MAGGIE and HOUSEMATE are swimming in Cedar Lake.
HOUSEMATE
If my brother were here, he’d have to swim to the other shore.
MAGGIE
Oh, uh. I also have to swim to the other shore.
There’s also a scene with no dialogue, where I’m lying in the yard in the middle of the night, wrapped in my red blanket, doing complex, and I accidentally prove the chain rule and start crying because math is so nice. And too many kitten scenes to describe even if I knew how to write down cat interactions.
