Better than Yesterday

If I seemed a little distraught last night, it's not because my world was really crumbling before my very eyes, because it wasn't. It was because I had just spent more than 2 and a half hours on a problem and I was frustrated that I hadn't solved it satisfactorily and others had.

The self-analysis I referred to has to do with a tension I've experienced before, and even written about over a year-and-a-half ago.

There's still a balance between seeking help and just figuring something out on your own. There's still a balance, but it's shifting toward the "figuring it out" here in graduate school. If I hope to have an academic career, that's a shift that must happen to some extent.

Today has been much better. I actually solved something!