Today's Accomplishments

Life is hard around here lately. School kind of ate me, and I'm waiting to see if I will agree with its digestion. (I'm not sure which outcome to prefer, frankly.) I'm not technically "behind" at anything right now, but I still feel I'm being crushed. At any rate, here are my accomplishments for today:

• Wrote up the last lecture of analysis notes. (I rewrite, with additions/modifications/clarifications, the notes from each analysis lecture. This is critical to my understanding and ability to reference the material later. Lately I was several lectures behing, but I am now caught up.)
• Talked to Ed about a couple of things I didn't understand from the analysis notes. We were able to resolve them together.
• Looked extensively at the two problems on this week's analysis homework. I solved (I think) the first problem, which I typed up in LaTex. The second problem was less tractable but I identified some of the difficulties I have with it, and thought about those for a while.
• Typed up the Logic homework problems. I haven't started working on this homework yet, and I think we haven't covered almost anything that is on the homework (due 11 days from now), but at least the problems are typed up, so I can modify this document when I'm ready to start working. Also, by typing up the problems, I now have a much clearer idea of what the homework entails. ("Entails," ha ha ha.) These homeworks have typically been 15-20 pages of dense handwriting on college-ruled paper, so I've decided to experiment with typing this one up instead of killing my hand. (My right middle finger has developed a chronic bruisey ache when I write by hand for more than an hour or so at a time.)
  
• Tested the draft lecture notes I wrote for the 10-minute mini-lecture on completing the square that I might have to deliver on Wednesday (but probably won't deliver until the next week). My first draft took 12 minutes to deliver, which is pretty good, so I revised it downward. The second draft took 14 minutes. Oops. I have done a third draft but I didn't have the heart to deliver this (complete with writing on the board, of course) to an empty room for the third time, so that will have to wait.
• Brought my Probability book home from school so I can finish up the homework due Wednesday (which was posted to our course website yesterday, when I did about 3/4 of it when I saw that it had shown up).
  

Despite the above, it hasn't felt like a very productive day. I can't tell what is or is not productive. I'm pretty sure I didn't work anywhere near 8 hours, which is a standard work day. My program doesn't seem, so far, to require that amount of work. Yet the amount of work that it does require feels like it might be beyond me. And yet, I'm basically crushing (with enormous effort) my classes so far, and, as I said earlier, I don't think I'm actually behind on anything. So I don't know what to think. I feel like a person driving a car that has lost control of steering and brakes but who happens to be going down a straight freeway with no traffic...for the moment.

At least this isn't as bad as Tuesday night, when, as I stayed up until 4AM to finish my logic homework, I kept thinking about how grad school was pitting the intolerable (finishing the homework) against the unthinkable (not finishing it).