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Hi, everybody!
It's been a busy week. This was our 3rd week of classes, so our
official class registration forms were due at noon today. I decided
to
take Combinatorics and not Topology, because Topology has so much in
common with the Topics in Analysis class (their similarity is
emphasized by the fact that our Analysis professor is a topologist, so
that's the approach he favors) so Combinatorics will provide more
variety in my schedule. Our Hungarian language class split into 2
sections, and I registered for the section that focuses on reading and
writing more than speaking and listening, because its schedule is more
convenient for me.
My class schedule is now as follows:
Monday: Noon-2pm--Combinatorics
2-3pm--Hungarian (On Mondays, Hungarian meets for 1 hour instead of 2.)
Tuesday: 10-noon--Number Theory 2
Noon-2pm--Analysis
Wednesday: 10-noon--Conjecture and Proof
2-4pm--Hungarian
Thursday: 8-10am--Combinatorics
Noon-2pm--Analysis
4-5pm--Optional colloquium lecture
(Our first colloquium was yesterday: Lajos Ronyai spoke about
"Primes
are in P: A Fast Deterministic Primality Test," which was an overview
of the proof that came out in the summer of 2002 about testing whether
a number is prime. It was an interesting and accessible talk; it made
me want to go read the proof.)
Friday: 8-10am--Number Theory 2
10-noon--Conjecture and Proof
Thursdays are my longest day, since if I attend the colloquium lecture,
I'm out of the house from 8am to 5pm. I haven't quite figured out the
best way to use my 2-hour blocks of time between classes on Wednesdays
and Thursdays. Since it takes me over a half an hour to travel
between
home and College International, it's not really worth it to go home
then. Starting in October, there will be a quiet study room available
at the college, so maybe that will be a good place to go.
Today I'm feeling proud because I solved all 6 of the problems on our
Conjecture and Proof problem set this week. (Last week I only got 3.)
The problems for this class come from all branches of mathematics--
they're often questions like, "Prove that such-and-such is
impossible,"
or "Prove that there exists..." Usually a couple of the
problems have
some obvious connection to something we discussed in class, but the
others require insight. Once you come across the right way of looking
at a problem, the solution is elegant, but it can take a while to get
to that point.
Conjecture and Proof is an unusual class, in that we're specifically
not allowed to work together on some of the homework problems. If
group work is allowed on a particular problem, the prof marks it with a
playing-card club, signifying that we can form "clubs" to work on
it.
Melody and I worked on together on one of the club problems this time,
and I presented our solution in class today. I was nervous explaining
it on the blackboard, because I had already turned in my homework, so I
was working without notes. I got through it all right, though.
Last Saturday, Forrest, Melody, Mike R., Amanda, Alethea, and I went to
the National Cultural Dance House for their gala opening-of-the-dance-
season event. They had bands playing in two rooms, and a schedule of
the different types of folk dances going on in each room from 8pm to
5am! The dances ranged from Czech to Irish, but unfortunately, many
of
the words on the schedule weren't in our dictionaries, so I can't tell
you which dances we participated in. Oh, yes, we danced. For
each
dance, there were a few experienced dancers (dressed in traditional-
looking costumes) on the center of the dance floor, and everyone else
tried to follow along and copy what they were doing, to varying degrees
of success. But everyone was enthusiastic about it, and we were quite
worn out and overheated at the end of each half-hour dance period.
The
6 of us stayed until 10pm, because we wanted to get home while the
metros were running, and we had to take a tram from the dance house to
the metro. Even though we only stayed for a fraction of the festival,
we had a full night's worth of entertainment.
On Sunday, Stephanie and I went with our host family (Eva, Pal, Erika,
Monika, Atilla, and 2 of Erika's friends) to the family's cottage just
outside of Budapest. This is where Pal's garden is; from hearing him
talk about it, I had thought it was a community garden, but it turns
out that it belongs to the family. They grow apples, grapes, pears,
plums, paprika (peppers), and roses there. Some of the grapes had
turned into raisins on the vine, which was something I'd never seen
before. We sat around enjoying the sun for awhile (Sunday was nice
and
warm here, although the rest of the week has been chilly), had lunch
together, and then picked apples. We got 6 big crates of apples from
just three trees. Since then Eva has been giving Stephanie and me
each
two apples every day to take to school. They're very tasty apples,
but
I have a feeling I'm going to be "appled out" by the time fall is
over!
On Monday, Forrest, Frank, and I saw "Rabbit-Proof Fence," a
movie
about 3 Aborigine girls who were taken from their family and put into a
school to integrate them into white society, who ran away from the
school to try to find their way hundreds of miles back home. It was a
very good movie; I recommend that you see it, if you haven't already.
The movie was showing as part of an Austrailian Film Festival in
Budapest, if you can imagine that. It was held in a beautiful old
movie theater that had been converted from a stage theater--it was as
ornate as the Opera House, just smaller--and before the film started, 4
men got up on stage and played digeridoos. It was very cool. I
think
it may be the first time I've heard digeridoo music played live...and
in Hungary, no less!
I hope all of you are doing well, and enjoying a colorful autumn.
Viszlat,
Abra
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