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A lot’s been happening this last month. I’ve started at least half a dozen posts, but can’t seem to find the time/energy to finish any of them. Whence the radio silence. So, in lieu of interesting content, an update on life:
At the end of February I solved the hard problem in my thesis!! I’ve been banging my head against that problem for well over a year. So how’d it happen? I had a meeting with one of my advisors to talk about coalgebras for a different project entirely, and something in there got me thinking. (ProTip: always think more about coalgebras.) That weekend I decided to take a whack at the problem again and managed to get everything to work out. Ultimately the solution involves a novel extension to the standard approach for proving strong normalization via logical predicates. On March 4th I gave an impromptu talk at the local PL seminar about the technique. And was planning on spending the next week and a half cranking out an ICFP submission detailing the technique (since it’s of interest outside my thesis), but then...
I’ve mentioned before about how my mother’s been dying. Near the end of February she went to the hospital again; since which my dad gave me and my siblings daily updates on what’s happening. Then on the 6th my dad called and said I needed to come out. So me and L booked a last-minute trip out there for a couple days. It was... stressful, to put it mildly. But I got to catch up with two of my nieces, so that part was cool. On the 30th it was official. The funeral is in the next couple days.
A week after getting back from the last-minute trip to Maryland, me and L went on our anniversary holiday. Last year we rented a cabin in the woods, and it was pretty awesome being woken up by cows and going for hikes. So we decided to do it again this year, though this time we went to Brown county here in Indiana (last year it was in Ohio). OMG this state is misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic! I mean, I’ve known this; but Bloomington is a lot better about hiding it than the rest of the state. Plus, there wasn’t really anywhere good for hiking. The cabin itself was pretty nice, but the rest: ugh. We ended up deciding to head home a day early; just couldn’t deal with how awful the people there were. At least we got to bond over how terrible it all was ;)
And then going on a week ago, my kidneys decided it’s time to murder me again. I’ve gone to the ER three times already for kidney stones, so I’m pretty clear on what the symptoms are. Figured this time I’d try to see a doctor first, to get some pain meds before I need to be hospitalized again. To which I got to revisit that fabulous experience where doctors refuse to acknowledge my pain let alone do anything about it. Gotta love it when you’re nauseous, experiencing visual artifacts/hallucinations, completely out of it, and barely able to carry on a conversation but the doctors have already decided before even seeing you that they’re not going to prescribe anything. I never actually get sick from my pain-nausea, no matter how bad it is; I only get sick from the anti-nausea meds they sneak in with major painkillers. But I wish I could/did get sick, dirty up her office a bit: historically that’s been the only thing to make drs take me seriously.
