The Paris-Berkeley syndrome

Hi all,

this has been some long time. I've moved to Berkeley in the meantime, I'm almost done with the first semester, basically, two more weeks to go, a few more homework sets to finish and a project paper, but that's it. It has been a semester full of things happening, full of emotions, full of frustration, full of stress...

To explain the title, apparently, Paris is so hyped up in Japan that sometimes, when Japanese tourists come to Paris and discover that the city is not just a romantic, beautiful experience, the culture shock kicks in really bad. Suddenly they're in a place the language of which they don't understand, the locals are not particularly excited about yet another tourist, it's a big city full of people, dirty and unpleasant in its own way... Some people just lose it and have to be sent back to Japan, where the symptoms gradually go away. It's a first-world problem and it is a fascinating read...

So yeah, the culture shock has been pretty bad, given that I had a perfect life in Leiden: living a quiet small life full of maths, biking around in the fields, cooking, and baking... Now I am in a very hyped-up (Bay) area, in a community of hard-working, success-oriented, incredibly smart and ambitious people. Berkeley is a big bubble, around the university it's difficult to see someone who's not an undergrad, let alone outside of the university (actually, maybe I am adjusting well, looking down on undergrads ;) sorry!). I'm living in conditions that are very suboptimal for me, I am definitely not satisfied with my I-House experience, and though I am grateful to all the donors whose generosity helps make living at I-House an excellent experience for many people, I do not think the environment is a very fostering one for me. It's just not for everybody.

Math-wise it's been a bit of a misfit, too, I am still trying to find a topic for me, I tried learning a few new things, had a few shots at algebraic geometry again, but so far it's not working that well for me. But I did get very excited about Iwasawa theory, so I am looking forward to the Arizona Winter school already (even though that's in some 3.5 months). There is still maths that I love, maths that makes me happy. However, being burnt out the way I am, it's not easy to keep studying. There are days that I can do it, there are days I do just a little, but there are days in which even a bit costs me too much energy that I just can't do it anymore. But I'm learning to deal with that, slowly, too.

Having many people around me who are always studying, always doing great things, getting so much done, being so excited about being at Berkeley, that is perhaps the hardest part of it all. I tend to simply shut down and as a result, I can't do much, not even the little bit that I was hoping I could get done. So yeah, if you feel like you're not doing enough, just look at me, you are still doing much more. And I am still fine. I am slowly getting my stuff done, I'm slowly getting where I want to be. And all of this is improving. These three months have been big and challenging, but I have come a long way since the intial shock of moving here. I've had a lot of help from many of my friends and I am also grateful for the unwavering support of the man dearest to my heart, who's gone through a lot of very bad days with me and without whom I would have gone back home already.

But otherwise, the Bay area is fun. And I love driving around. And I love being away from Berkeley. Finally not hearing the city, finally not hearing all these millions of fire trucks and ambulances always driving around. The sunsets are unbelievable, the campus is nice to just walk through, it's not all that bad. I also like American coffee and burgers and so at least I can feed myself here.

Also, what really helped me and made a big difference is that I decided to start training again, this time it's not just me, I'm being Totally Athletically Conditioned by Mark Jellison (TAC is a class in our sports center) and we're also doing really awesome gyms together. It's been some two weeks now and I still like it. I think my body is responding quite well to this training and all these newly found endorphins are doing miracles for my mind as well. So I think I have finally found some sustainable exercise regime for myself and if life goes well, I should do some races in the Spring. So wish me luck and persistence :)

Anyway, I hope to be checking in more often now. I think I am over the worst part of it and though there are still some pretty tough decisions left to make, I think I am back in control of my life.

The sunset, the Bridge in the distance, the City...

My master's thesis

Dear all,

my master thesis is done. That's actually not that accurate: I submitted already on Friday, June 16, on Monday the 26th I had my defense talk and I still need to give a talk during the Algant graduation days, (July 24-26) which could potentially change my grade :) But yesterday I sent the final version and I no longer have to write anything or change anything.

It's so great to have such a big chunk of work done. It went rather well: I was lucky that my advisor gave me a problem that was interesting to think about and solvable within the few months I had for my thesis and the math was beautiful and challenging as always. The defense talk was also lots of fun. My boyfriend forced me to prepare well - he even went to the department with me on Sunday afternoon to practice with the chalkboard. I also chose to give a talk that was a bit different than my thesis, telling a different story: more of a motivation and a bit more coherent. In short, I think I sold my thesis there much better and I am very happy with my talk.

Even though that after the talk I still had some time to fix the small mistakes and improve the exposition, I didn't really find it in myself to sit down and rewrite it to reflect my slightly different point of view on my thesis that I formed during the talk preparation. It does help to clear your mind when you try to summarize in 45 minutes what you'd been doing the past half a year or so. Even more so when you try to explain it to someone from the beginning, say to your fellow master students, not just to people who know already what you will be talking about. So there would be many things I could write better in my thesis, I've received some very helpful comments that perhaps should have been included in the thesis, but yeah, it's finished now.

Even more so, as there are other things I need to be doing now. I moved out from my house last Friday, I need to secure my degree also from my second university, Regensburg, which might be a bit bureaucratically challenging again, I'm moving to Berkeley in less than six weeks and need to get my visa and finances sorted out... Lots of things to do now. And the weather is finally a bit nice again, so there are also things I want to do, like biking around, swimming in the sea, genuinely enjoy my summer :)

But for those of you who are spending their summers more actively, here is a link to my thesis and also a link to the notes from the preparation for my talk. The talk notes are without any references and I didn't follow them that closely, so some bits might be imprecise, if not completely wrong.

https://sites.google.com/site/sotakovajanahomepage/master-s-thesis---class-invariants

Wow, it's April already.

So the time has come. I am now happy about what I have learnt and computed for my thesis and now is the time to start writing things down. It is a very exciting endeavour, so exciting that I am turning back to my almost-forgotten blog!

Now, seriously. I have been a bit busy, after the Christmas break I had my exams (5 of them), then I visited Czech, worked on my thesis a bit, then I had to go to Czech again, then I worked on my thesis a bit more and here I am now: happy about my maths, less into writing things down but it is the last step in my masters' that I need to complete. Well, I still have one more exam to do and possibly I will choose to finish my Dutch course, but that is now somewhere at the back of my mind.

The weather in Leiden has improved magically, it's sunny so often, warm and not-windy, almost as if I were in California already. Oh, that's the big news, I've just accepted a place at Berkeley, so starting from August I will be hanging around mostly in the Bay area. For the summers I will likely be coming back to Holland, as long as I have such wonderful reasons to come back, but I will also spend some time back home. Maybe I will even do some math-related travelling, who knows?

So now that I am mostly bound to my desk and typing things down in our dark Algant office, not seeing all the amazing weather outside, I decided to take up running again. I am spending an hour or two on the track almost every day, provided the weather is nice, partly sunbathing, partly running around, almost like the good old times. If everything goes smoothly, my mother will even bring my old spikes to me and I want to run my first race in two months, here in Leiden. Probably not hurdles: though my technique was basically unaffected by those two long years of chilling on various couches all around the world, running-wise it's still a misery.

So that's it. Almost. There are tulips everywhere, seagulls all around the department make me feel like it is some sort of a beach resort, occasional trips to the beach and naive attempts at wading through the water remind me that it is still the Netherlands, I am grateful to the people around me for putting up with me and making this such a great time here. Hopefully writing will go well, training will still be fun, my Dutch will improve enough so that I won't panic anymore and life will in general be good.

Kijk! And this is just the beginning of the season :)