Proof

I didn't go grocery shopping this week, since we're leaving for break soon. That means K and I are having a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and pasta. Or, actually, I'm having pasta; pasta isn't one of K's categories. It's always surprising to me what foods surprise her: penne with tomato sauce out of a jar, spinach omelettes. I had a spinach omelette for dinner last night and she said she'd never heard of such a thing, and looked very dubious about whether it would even work. I have to say, I need to learn some new staple dishes, though, because I'm so sick of baked lentils with cheese and red beans and rice. When I get back to school next month I'm going to learn to cook some new stuff. Trouble is, I can't imagine what sorts of stuff that might be. Beans and lentils, probably. It is to weep.

One of my favorite things in the whole world, when all is said and done, is struggling through a really difficult proof. The hours spent "moving symbols around on the page" as Fred called it dismissively; trying every approach, and running into dead ends, and trying again. I love drifting off to sleep and being hit with a possible answer, as if by a brick, and leaping up to wright it down and have another bash. I love writing on the blackboard in the lounge and pacing and getting frustrated. I love when I'm just about to give up and I move one symbol and the answer is right there, it was there all along.

"How's that going?" K asked me last night as I was working on my set theory, a thin layer of dust obscuring my features.
"Still hopeless," I said gloomily. Then I looked back down at what I was doing. "Unless - did I just solve it?!" I went back over what I had done. It looked - and still does after a good night's rest - correct. I did it.

Those moments are what makes it worthwhile.