My rediscovery of my enjoyment of pure mathematics has me feeling somewhat better in terms of finding an interest for my work and everything.  I know it might be a small step, but at the same time it seems like a huge one since I've been so apathetic about everything as of late.  I feel like I haven't been moving at all, and so even a step like this seems enormous for me.

It also made me think, and one of the profs that I told this to expressed a similar sentiment: that maybe I've been kind of going about this in a way that isn't the most optimal for me.  That I've been trying to force myself into liking a particular substantive topic, which...just makes me uninterested about all of them or at least be unable to differentiate between the ones I honestly like and which I don't.  Instead, finding the method that I really want to use first, rather than second, might be the gateway into discovering something substantive that I can explain through that method.  And while I don't dislike statistics and I know of its importance in the future of the discipline, I am sure that I want to tackle the problems from a mathematical/theoretical standpoint first.

So...I'm feeling a bit more optimistic than usual.  Hopefully this high will last for some time.


Also, I finally emailed a place about trying to get some trial sessions in for kickboxing/boxing/mma/etc.  I kind of wish that I told them to email me rather than call me, because of my weird anxiety about talking to people I really don't know over the phone.  But emailing is also a step towards doing something for me that I have been wanting to do but haven't.  I explained my past history with teammates in soccer to Nancy recently, where I always was the outsider/outcast and while I claimed I didn't care, I did, as I guess many high school students do.  I refused to mold myself to fit in with the rest of them, but it bothered me that they couldn't just accept me for how I was and what I enjoyed outside of soccer.  Remembering back, I remember actually being nervous about going to practices, and while in practices, worrying about what we would do, because certain drills made me feel more self-conscious and...I guess anxious, if I'm truly being honest and recognizing that I've had the problems I have now for more than just my time in grad school.  I would not want to go to practices because it was a reminder that even if I'm a overall nice person, I'll be scorned if I'm not the best player while being the best scholar and having interests that differed from the rest of the people on the team.  I wasn't bad, really.  At the time I think I thought I was worse than I actually was.  But I didn't live and breathe soccer, so I didn't play year-round, and thus I wasn't as good as the people who did.  I just felt like I was terrible, even when I was starting.  In practices I felt the judgment and anxiety more than I did on game days, where all those concerns and anxious feelings went away once the whistle blew.  Then I was just a competitor playing a sport she enjoyed.  You would think I'd be more anxious in games than practice, but it was always the opposite.

So, I guess having had those dormant feelings of anxiety and sadness over being the outcast in a sport that was all about the importance of being on a team has made me avoid any kind of physical activity with others.  I feel weird about people watching me if I work out, and that I should have some level of expertise even as a beginner when trying new things.  Hopefully I will be able to suppress that feeling while at these trial sessions.  I'd like to do stuff without the anxiety.


I've also been advised to maybe talk to roommate B about how I feel in terms of that first year chick.  Not in an aggressive way, but more in a "I'm concerned and you can do so much better" kind of way.  I still don't like the idea that he knows full well of her actions in terms of her bf and the fifth year she screwed over, but I also can't stop him or anything.  And nothing I say should be "you need to stop this or you have to do this," because...well, that isn't right.  It would just be me kind of putting out there that I really don't approve and think that she is beneath him.

I'm not sure if and when I'll be able to have this conversation.  I approach roommate B with different tactics than some of my other friends; best friend and I will just spit out exactly what we think of the people the other is interested in.  She constantly told me how much the ex basically sucked and was a liar and all that, and I told her while she was doing this weird dance with some dude for a few years that I didn't like him and that he sucked and all that.  I find it harder to do that with roommate B.  But maybe it is also that best friend and I have 20 years of friendship backing us up.  I don't know.

I had to also tell people that this was not coming from a romantic jealousy standpoint.  Apparently it looked that way to a friend and I know Nancy asked me about it after I mentioned what said friend expressed.  My being so affected by his actions, I guess, led friend to that conclusion.  But I explained that I have never felt that romantic spark with him; he's always been a brother-type figure to me.  That spark is so rare for me and it isn't as though I have been looking for any sort of romantic comfort in the past...I guess year, maybe.  Plus I think the meds I'm on stabilize any sort of drive like that.  Which is okay, because that isn't my main concern at the moment.

My being affected is more my being concerned for him and believing that he will end up hurt over this, if he becomes emotionally invested in her.  It also is my being worried that he doesn't think he can do better, when he very clearly can.  And, honestly, it also comes from a fear of mine: that I misjudged a friend, which is something I've done many times in the past and it always ends up sucking and making me feel sad and stupid.  I don't want that to have come true again.


My Inquisitor had to break up with Blackwall.  Shit went down and it was ugly.  But now I can romance Cullen, whee.