I used to be good at math. Not like genius-level, but I did get second place in the regional sixth grade math bee. First place went to a kid named Lars (yes, I still remember), who attended the Maharishi school in a nearby town. The school was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was a spiritual guru to the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I don’t know why he founded a school in Iowa. Maybe the land was cheap?
Anyway, I did well in math through high school and then took one semester in college and stopped. I was a philosophy major, I didn’t need math anymore! What a relief. One less thing.
In grad school, I started realizing I should have taken more math. I enjoyed formal logic, and even taught a few logic classes. But I had lost some of the knack I had for picking things up quickly. Or maybe I just got rusty. Or maybe the mathy stuff just got harder and I was reaching my limit. It seemed like I had missed the opportunity to get more math under my belt during my prime. (zing)
This term, in addition to working on this algorithmic stock trading project, I’m also (finally) taking CS325 Algorithms. Saving the latter until my last term was not completely intentional. I just kept putting it off and filling my two-at-a-time terms with other things. Of course, now I wish I’d gotten it out of the way sooner. Studying is hard because my eyes start to glaze over real quick with all the mathy bits. Plus I feel old and tired now and can’t stay up past 10pm studying without paying for it the next 3 days.
But I will survive. Probably.
