monologues of a mathematician: third year

OP

update #4, monday 9th november 2020
everything's going wrong

morning lol. sorry for no update last week, i didn't wake up early enough to write one and then just kept forgetting. it's been an absolute mess of a fortnight anyway though ngl :erm:

uni stuff
i am honestly so so so far behind it's ridiculous. today marks the start of week 4 and i've literally barely started lectures for week 2. online uni is ruining me :frown:

mas3710 group theory: i've only done one more lecture since i last updated 2 weeks ago, and it was on symmetry groups. i actually semi-understood it with a bit of work. had a cba worth 2.5% which took me an unreasonably long time to do as i couldn't do any of it, ended up getting 75% which i guess is ok but my friends both got 100 so i felt a bit stupid. also had an assignment worth 2.5% due in at the same time but luckily that one went better (i think lol). ended up ordering the dungeons and dragons dice we've been recommended to get as doing the assignment made me realise i'd have found it a lot easier if i had a physical octahedron to play with rather than just trying to picture one in my head. had a zoom on wednesday last week but i left halfway in cos it was on groups and i haven't done the lectures on them yet

mas3711 linear analysis: honestly couldn't tell you what's going on, i've done half of the content from week 2 and that's it but i know it was on normed spaces or something like that. was one mighty lecture lol. got an assignment due on friday that i've not started so that's gonna be a fun one, especially alongside the other 3 i have due on the same day :burnout:

. his problems classes are really useless, basically just an extension of the lectures (just proofs, no examples) so i switched off really early last week. i probably won't go this week ngl

mas3712 matrix analysis: probably the one i'm most caught up with. i've done all the week 2 content and started to look at the week 3 stuff last week, but it's mostly just massive proofs i can't keep up with so i lose engagement pretty quickly. had another revision/drop in session on zoom and it was less helpful than the last one but still decent. no one had questions afterwards so it ended early but i wish i was caught up on the lectures as it's a really good opportunity to get help. won't have another one until after the assignment so hopefully i don't run into any issues...

mas3810 methods for differential equations: haven't done any content beyond week 1 oops. had an assignment due on friday which was absolutely demonic and took me such a long time, i won't have even done well and i also skipped an entire question cos i had no idea at all what it was on about lol. had a zoom problems class on wednesday and i lasted a whole 25 minutes before leaving as i didn't have a single clue what was going on. but now i don't have to worry about this module til next week i guess

mas3811 quantum mechanics: words cant even express how much i despise this module and the way it's being taught. i haven't done any content beyond week 1 and i dont want to. we had a zoom problems class last week on thursday where he expected us to be able to answer questions on 3 weeks worth of content after less than 2 weeks, i hadn't done the lectures so when we were put in breakout rooms and my room was entirely silent i just left. lasted a whole 9 minutes lol. what is the POINT. got an assignment due friday and it's gonna be an absolute disaster. i have no idea what's going on, even the stuff i have covered i don't understand

mas3812 fluid dynamics: i'm so in denial that this module even exists. i haven't done anything for it. watched the lectures for week 1 but they didn't seem to cover anything?? might just read the lecture notes and see how i get on. boomers vs technology means this year is gonna be so painful. the assignment for this one is just a cba but there's no practice mode so i'll probably mess it up. i guess we'll see

last week i spent most days doing 10:00-18:00 in the computer cluster in my uni building as i find it very hard to work from home. it's been helpful but also expensive as i've been buying lunch & coffees lol so i really need to knock that on the head

work stuff
i quit lol. handed in my notice dressed as a witch and because i had holiday i never had to go back. not working on saturday was very bizarre after only having one saturday off in my entire employment there. very glad i've quit though, would not like to be working during this lockdown, the first one was awful enough

mathsoc stuff
we've had a couple of socials, a halloween quiz & games night where we got dressed up and that was good fun, there was also a pumpkin carving mini social thing but no one turned up lol. last week we did presentation karaoke, i didn't go but apparently it was decent! this week we're having a chilled pizza and games night to unwind a bit as things are super stressful atm

other society stuff
i only went and made it on the comp team for tap didn't i :lol:

lord knows how, i really can't dance at all and don't think i should've made it but hey ho. rehearsals are on saturdays and last week they were in person!! was good to meet the rest of my team and my teachers, we worked on formations rather than choreo but it was still good. but since lockdown they can't be in person anymore so this saturday they were on zoom, we did SO MUCH CHOREO like about 40 seconds worth and omg i remember so little of it. it doesn't seem that complicated though so hopefully with some practice i'll have it nailed :biggrin:

the welfare officer for rag did a really nice stress workshop on wednesday for stress awareness day, we went through some main causes of stress and then how we can resolve them, as well as how to make a stress box (i genuinely might make one lol). it was really good and i had fun and also learnt a lot :smile:

other stuff
i wont lie to you i'm not thriving rn. uni and life are very stressful and i'm not really coping but i guess that's fine. i don't know why i’m finding it so impossible to keep up with the lectures etc, like i’m now not going to the synchronous zoom sessions because i haven't had time to do the lectures so i just can't gain from them. my attention span is so so so low atm and i'm finding i can't even sit through a 20 minute video without getting bored and restless and losing focus. i honestly hate it. next week we have a week off from content and it was meant to be an opportunity for me to get really ahead before i go for jury duty but at this point i'm not even sure if i'll be caught up never mind ahead. very very stressed. my friend has been having regular chats with her personal tutor about how stressed she is and i kinda want to do the same but don't want to be annoying. he's already trying to help me out so i don't want to add stupid menial stuff to his plate.

took a long weekend off doing anything uni related and while i feel a bit less stressed now, i only have 4 days to do 4 assignments so this week is gonna be horrific. and i have the dentist on thursday which is very unideal timing

also gave myself a haircut yesterday and absolutely hate it so i'm just gonna dye it pink cos i may as well ruin it more lol

aaaaanyway i have a zoom in 10 mins that i'm not going to bc i need to do assignments. so i better get ready and start them. also got dance at 5 and we're doing more singing in the rain choreo which i really like so i’m looking forward to that :smile:

hope everyone has a good week and hopefully i wont leave it 2 before i next update

let me know if you want to be tagged :smile:

tags

Reply 41

8472

vibes to be thriving not just survivin' :crossedf:

Reply 42

The_Lonely_Goatherd

You wouldn't be adding "stupid menial stuff" to your personal tutor's plate. I think it could be good to let someone at uni know how you are feeling, whether that's personal tutor, academic staff, or wellbeing. You're under a tremendous amount of pressure and lockdown in winter is no fun.

You can always message me if it would help to chat/offload a bit on WA :penguinhug:

Well done for making it into the dance team :dance:

Proud of you :proud:

Sending warm socially-distanced hugs :penguinhug:

Reply 43

Muttley79

Sorry to hear things are tough ad I agree with TLG that you need to share how you are feeling. You might be able to get some extension for your assignments and I assume they know you are on jury service. When I did it [some time ago] I sat around for ages so take some work with you if you are allowed at the moment.

I'll send lots of mathematical vibes your way - you can do this :smile:

Well done on the dance team - amazing!

Look after yourself ....

Reply 44

absolutelysprout

sorry to hear you're feeling stressed right now (i've been too recently so you're not alone!!), online stuff defo isn't for everyone :sadnod:

well done on getting into the dance team!!
i think pink hair will look amazing on you :yep:

(and you don't look bad with short hair either!)

Reply 45

furryface12

Big hugs, little bit at a time :hugs:

focus on the assignments for now and then catch up however you can. If it helps to keep flitting between things then try that as well. You'll get there :penguinhug:

Reply 46

OP

Original post by 8472

vibes to be thriving not just survivin' :crossedf:

here's hoping honestly :crossedf:

Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd

You wouldn't be adding "stupid menial stuff" to your personal tutor's plate. I think it could be good to let someone at uni know how you are feeling, whether that's personal tutor, academic staff, or wellbeing. You're under a tremendous amount of pressure and lockdown in winter is no fun.

You can always message me if it would help to chat/offload a bit on WA :penguinhug:

Well done for making it into the dance team :dance:

Proud of you :proud:

Sending warm socially-distanced hugs :penguinhug:

ahh i hope so :frown:

might drop him an email this week
thank you!!
:hugs:

Original post by Muttley79

Sorry to hear things are tough ad I agree with TLG that you need to share how you are feeling. You might be able to get some extension for your assignments and I assume they know you are on jury service. When I did it [some time ago] I sat around for ages so take some work with you if you are allowed at the moment.

I'll send lots of mathematical vibes your way - you can do this :smile:

Well done on the dance team - amazing!

Look after yourself ....

yeah i think i'll email this week and see what he can do :smile:

he's already been a massive help with things
thank you :hugs:

Original post by absolutelysprout

sorry to hear you're feeling stressed right now (i've been too recently so you're not alone!!), online stuff defo isn't for everyone :sadnod:

well done on getting into the dance team!!
i think pink hair will look amazing on you :yep:

(and you don't look bad with short hair either!)

it do be a stressful time :hide:

hope you're not as stressed now!
thank you :colondollar:

pink hair is (hopefully) happening today!

Original post by furryface12

Big hugs, little bit at a time :hugs:

focus on the assignments for now and then catch up however you can. If it helps to keep flitting between things then try that as well. You'll get there :penguinhug:

thank you

Reply 47

OP

update #5, monday 16th november 2020
buffer week at last :adore:

morning all, hope you're doing well :smile:

this week at uni for me is "buffer week", so we have no new content uploaded and nothing due, it's just a time to get caught up and that's exactly what i plan on doing :yep:

uni stuff
so last week i had 4 assignments due on friday so i did no lectures whatsoever and went to no zooms either. it was super stressful, i thought they were meant to stagger assignments so we don't have any due on the same day but apparently not anymore :sad:

mas3710 group theory - this assignment was due in last week so i did absolutely nothing for the module this week. the lecturer has released the assignment marks though and i got 75% in the cba (as i knew) and 100% in the written assignment which i was happy about!

mas3711 linear analysis - i did this assignment on thursday & friday. i only actually did half of it as i was really behind on lectures and that's all i could do with what i'd covered. so not the best but at least i submitted something! really need to catch up on this this week, i still haven't finished week 2 content :hide:

mas3712 matrix analysis - worked on this assignment monday - wednesday and it was HARD but i think i'll end up having done well (or at least i hope so anyway!) i even did a couple of proofs completely by myself which never happens so i was feeling pretty big brain after those lol. this is still by far my fave module :smile:

mas3810 methods for differential equations - this assignment was also due last week so i've done nothing since. still don't have the results but in fairness it's a massive module

mas3811 quantum mechanics - didn't have time to do this assignment so i just didn't do it. i looked at it once and couldn't do any of it anyway so it'd have been pointless. loads of people in the group chat were complaining about how hard it was too so i'm glad i didn't bother. it was only worth 4% anyway idm getting a 0

mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics - the assignment for this was just a cba and i did it on wednesday after finishing matrix. idk what happened but he seemed to have left our actual assignment in practice mode so it told you when you got an answer wrong? so i just kept redoing them til i got 100% and i imagine everyone else did too :colondollar:

seems a bit pointless but hey 100% is 100%

jury duty stuff
so after contacting loads of people and trying to get stuff sorted, my personal tutor managed to help me postpone my jury duty until next august :woo:

such a massive weight off, i was stressing so much about how little work i'd be able to get done!

mathsoc stuff
on friday we had a chilled pizza & games night social as it had been a very full on week for us all, and it seemed to go down quite well! i was so tired so dipped pretty early but i treated myself to a tesco finest pizza (still cheaper than a takeaway) and we played some games like tabletop secret hitler, skribbl.io, among us and geoguessr, it was good fun and a nice way to relax after a very hard week! this week i'm hosting a cocktail making night with 2 of my housemates and we're super excited about it!! i spent ages on saturday making the recipe cards and now the event is up and people seem to be excited for it :biggrin:

this week i'm gonna look into sorting the hoodies & committee t shirts so that's exciting but also ew responsibility

other society stuff
still doing dance twice a week. the classes are going pretty well, i'm definitely getting much better at tap!! the comp rehearsals aren't going as well but that's partly due to internet problems lol. we're learning a LOT of choreo every week and it's hard to keep up and remember it. but i've still got a couple of months to nail it so i'm gonna have to start putting in the hours in practice outside of classes/rehearsals :yep:

i bought the compulsory sweatshirt the other day so that's exciting :biggrin:

rag had a "speed friending" social this week - they usually have a speed dating one every year but obviously this year's a bit different. i actually had a fab time & met some really nice people! i didn't mean to stay up late at all but it went on til half 2 and i stayed til the end :hide:

was well worth it though

other stuff
had the dentist on thursday lol, not very exciting. we also had a house inspection on friday so i spent the morning tidying my room, honestly it's never looked this good, and then my landlord didn't even go in it! he came round, saw the living room and kitchen and just trusted us lol. we got given a costco gateau as usual (red velvet this time, it's luuuuush) and we also signed the tenancy to stay living here next year. i tried to dye my hair yesterday but didn't leave the dye on long enough so it didn't really take. i've still got a box left so i'm gonna try again and hopefully second time lucky :colondollar:

think that's all i've got to sayyyy, hope everyone has a good week and i'll see yous next week :hugs:

tags

Reply 48

Muttley79

Study Forum Helper, Careers Forum Helper

What great news that your jury service got postponed - that will help so much :smile:

I'm glad you are having some fun activities and that you'll manage to catch up with lectures a bit ... you can do this!!

Reply 49

brainzistheword

22

Sounds like a stressful week but glad you've got this buffer one to catch up! Really pleased to hear you're managing to enjoy some downtime too :h:

Have fun sorting the hoodies and t-shirts! :biggrin:

Reply 50

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Yay for dance :awesome:

yay for jury duty being postponed :awesome:

yay for speed-friending :awesome:

Cocktails

Boo for four assignments due on the same day though :frown:

Reply 51

cactus11235813

Original post by niamhdoesmaths

update #5, monday 16th november 2020
buffer week at last :adore:

morning all, hope you're doing well :smile:

this week at uni for me is "buffer week", so we have no new content uploaded and nothing due, it's just a time to get caught up and that's exactly what i plan on doing :yep:

uni stuff
so last week i had 4 assignments due on friday so i did no lectures whatsoever and went to no zooms either. it was super stressful, i thought they were meant to stagger assignments so we don't have any due on the same day but apparently not anymore :sad:

mas3710 group theory - this assignment was due in last week so i did absolutely nothing for the module this week. the lecturer has released the assignment marks though and i got 75% in the cba (as i knew) and 100% in the written assignment which i was happy about!

mas3711 linear analysis - i did this assignment on thursday & friday. i only actually did half of it as i was really behind on lectures and that's all i could do with what i'd covered. so not the best but at least i submitted something! really need to catch up on this this week, i still haven't finished week 2 content :hide:

mas3712 matrix analysis - worked on this assignment monday - wednesday and it was HARD but i think i'll end up having done well (or at least i hope so anyway!) i even did a couple of proofs completely by myself which never happens so i was feeling pretty big brain after those lol. this is still by far my fave module :smile:

mas3810 methods for differential equations - this assignment was also due last week so i've done nothing since. still don't have the results but in fairness it's a massive module

mas3811 quantum mechanics - didn't have time to do this assignment so i just didn't do it. i looked at it once and couldn't do any of it anyway so it'd have been pointless. loads of people in the group chat were complaining about how hard it was too so i'm glad i didn't bother. it was only worth 4% anyway idm getting a 0

mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics - the assignment for this was just a cba and i did it on wednesday after finishing matrix. idk what happened but he seemed to have left our actual assignment in practice mode so it told you when you got an answer wrong? so i just kept redoing them til i got 100% and i imagine everyone else did too :colondollar:

seems a bit pointless but hey 100% is 100%

jury duty stuff
so after contacting loads of people and trying to get stuff sorted, my personal tutor managed to help me postpone my jury duty until next august :woo:

such a massive weight off, i was stressing so much about how little work i'd be able to get done!

mathsoc stuff
on friday we had a chilled pizza & games night social as it had been a very full on week for us all, and it seemed to go down quite well! i was so tired so dipped pretty early but i treated myself to a tesco finest pizza (still cheaper than a takeaway) and we played some games like tabletop secret hitler, skribbl.io, among us and geoguessr, it was good fun and a nice way to relax after a very hard week! this week i'm hosting a cocktail making night with 2 of my housemates and we're super excited about it!! i spent ages on saturday making the recipe cards and now the event is up and people seem to be excited for it :biggrin:

this week i'm gonna look into sorting the hoodies & committee t shirts so that's exciting but also ew responsibility

other society stuff
still doing dance twice a week. the classes are going pretty well, i'm definitely getting much better at tap!! the comp rehearsals aren't going as well but that's partly due to internet problems lol. we're learning a LOT of choreo every week and it's hard to keep up and remember it. but i've still got a couple of months to nail it so i'm gonna have to start putting in the hours in practice outside of classes/rehearsals :yep:

i bought the compulsory sweatshirt the other day so that's exciting :biggrin:

rag had a "speed friending" social this week - they usually have a speed dating one every year but obviously this year's a bit different. i actually had a fab time & met some really nice people! i didn't mean to stay up late at all but it went on til half 2 and i stayed til the end :hide:

was well worth it though

other stuff
had the dentist on thursday lol, not very exciting. we also had a house inspection on friday so i spent the morning tidying my room, honestly it's never looked this good, and then my landlord didn't even go in it! he came round, saw the living room and kitchen and just trusted us lol. we got given a costco gateau as usual (red velvet this time, it's luuuuush) and we also signed the tenancy to stay living here next year. i tried to dye my hair yesterday but didn't leave the dye on long enough so it didn't really take. i've still got a box left so i'm gonna try again and hopefully second time lucky :colondollar:

think that's all i've got to sayyyy, hope everyone has a good week and i'll see yous next week :hugs:

tags

That's great about your jury duty and good luck with the linear analysis content!

all the maths sounds so hard but so cool :gah:

Yay for jury duty postpon-ation :woohoo:

Reply 53

OP

Original post by Muttley79

What great news that your jury service got postponed - that will help so much :smile:

I'm glad you are having some fun activities and that you'll manage to catch up with lectures a bit ... you can do this!!

honestly i’m so glad :colondollar:

i'm already so behind with uni it's be so stressful
thank you!!

Original post by brainzistheword

Sounds like a stressful week but glad you've got this buffer one to catch up! Really pleased to hear you're managing to enjoy some downtime too :h:

Have fun sorting the hoodies and t-shirts! :biggrin:

yeah it was a rough week ahaha, feeling much more relaxed now though thankfully :yep:

eeek thanks!! hopefully the hoodies will be ready to go on sale this week!

Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd

Yay for dance :awesome:

yay for jury duty being postponed :awesome:

yay for speed-friending :awesome:

Cocktails

Boo for four assignments due on the same day though :frown:

lots of yays apparently :lol:

the cocktails were good!!
yeah that was rough... and i've got the same again in december lol can't wait

Original post by theJoyfulGeek

That's great about your jury duty and good luck with the linear analysis content!

thanks!!

Original post by laurawatt

all the maths sounds so hard but so cool :gah:

Yay for jury duty postpon-ation :woohoo:

yeah it is tough ngl!! 3rd year do be hitting rather hard
thanks! :hugs:

hope you're doing well!!

Reply 54

OP

update #6, monday 23rd november
bit more relaxed, bit less behind

morninggg everyone :smile:

hope you've all had a good week. buffer week honestly flew by and i didn't end up doing that much but i managed to get slightly caught up which is good

uni stuff
mas3710 group theory - did a couple of lectures, finished the stuff on permutations and moved on to looking at the formal definition of a group, free groups, abelian groups and stuff like that. i think it all makes sense? but yeah that brings me to the end of week 2 content so i'm now 2 weeks behind, but the lectures are quite short and easy to get through so hopefully i can catch up a bit :smile:

mas3711 linear analysis - i did 2 lectures this week which doesn't sound like a lot but was actually 1.5 weeks' worth of content for the module. i've done the content for inner product spaces and also inner product spaces as normed spaces - the latter was covered in a 25 minute video which took me about 2 hours to get through (but it was a week's content so that makes sense!!) but i understood all of it so i was happy. i'm now only a week behind in this module as yesterday's video took me to the end of week 3. fingers crossed i can make the rest up soon so i'm caught up!!

mas3712 matrix analysis - also done around 2 lectures for this this week, covered the schur triangularisation algorithm and then some applications of that, as well as the cayley-hamilton theorem. still all going well in this module and i'm only a week behind in this as well which hopefully i'll be able to catch up with before the end of the week.

mas3810 methods for differential equations - did 2 lectures for this and they were awful lol. they were about sturm-liouville eigenvalue problems but they were so theoretical and technical i didnt really understand much. i'm 2 weeks behind though and i think in week 3 we look at applications of them and also the fredholm alternative so hopefully it makes a little more sense then :colondollar:

not a big fan of this module ngl

mas3811 quantum mechanics - stopped denying this module exists and did a lecture for it. it was mainly theoretical and was about the difference between classical and quantum mechanics, and why quantum is needed. it felt like a revision session for a level physics if i'm honest lol, we looked at the photoelectric effect and some other experiment that i've forgotten, it did feel like a bit of a pointless lecture but it's something to tick off the to do list regardless. i'm still 2 weeks behind for this one so thats irritating but hopefully i can motivate myself to catch up soon.

mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics - done a couple of lectures for this, both have been pretty short and easy to get through. we're still mainly recapping stuff from last year so things like streamlines, pathlines, the material derivative, vortices and vorticity, rotational and irrotational flows. i'm still 2 weeks behind but i've only got 3 videos until i'm caught up so hopefully it's not too hard to get through!!

mathsoc stuff
we had our cocktail making social and it went about as well as it could have!! everyone got really stuck in and we ended up having a great time, lots of people didn't realise how easy it is to make some cocktails at home so it was good to introduce them to it! this week we've got a quiz held by a general committee member and special guest, and we're also gonna announce our winter ball replacement social too so that's exciting!! i've been in touch with someone regarding hoodies and we've got some designs ready so hopefully the product can go live this week and i can start filling in the spreadsheet ready to send the big order off :dumbells:

other society stuff
nothing to say for rag this week, dance still going strong. the class on monday went really well and i can feel myself getting better every week. comp rehearsals on saturday also went well, the teachers decided to go through all the choreo we've covered so far really slowly to make sure everyone knows what we're doing and so it'll look really sharp

mental health stuff
hasn't been the best this week. been getting random waves of anxiousness i've never really experienced before that's made it hard to get things done. as well as the short, dark days hitting hard as they always do. it's been a struggle. my sleep is also all over the place, i'm struggling to fall asleep, stay asleep and also get up in the mornings (genuinely can't win lol). but i am feeling less stressed out and doomed lol so i guess that's something. had a little blip with my eating habits but that's been resolved now. i did my first big shop of 3rd year lol and bought lots of veg etc so hopefully the nutrition helps in some way ahahah

other stuff
only went to the cluster on tues and weds this week and both days i barely did anything cos of the stupid anxious feeling. when i stayed home thurs and friday i felt more relaxed so i'm gonna see how i get on tomorrow by going into the cluster. if it's bad again i'll probs stop going. to make us all feel better we put our christmas tree up on monday lol. i’m usually a bit of a scrooge about how early it should go up but hey, 2020 has been so bad why wait lol. other than that i don't think there's much to say!!

got a zoom in 10 mins so i need to get dressed and sorted lol. hope everyone has a good week and see you next week!!

tags

Reply 55

Muttley79

I'm pleased to hear you have caught up quite a bit and that you are feeling less anxious.

I think the 3rd year of a 4 year degree can be tricky especially when there is no routine of going to lectures - be kind to yourself and do ask for help in your modules if you need it ..

It's good that Maths Soc and your other activities give you a break from the studying ...

Reply 56

Sinnoh

22

In my experience QM made Fourier a bit easier to understand (you'd expect it to work the other way around!) so some good could yet come out of that module :smile:

And yeah I've just gotten on to that topic for DEs and it is dry dry dry

Yes get yourself that nutrition [s]biggrin[/s]

Reply 57

The_Lonely_Goatherd