The Blink of an Eye

They say life is but a vapor, just a blip on the radar screen
Not the dates on your tombstone, but the dash in between

As I begin this entry, I'll just warn that it's likely to be a bit scatterbrained, since that's kind of my state of mind right now. I'm sitting on my bed feeling guilty for not having studied Algebra Abstracta yet tonight, even though I have a test I'm not ready for at all on Monday. I ended up deciding to organize and look into some things. It ended up with several hours of looking through Northwestern major requirements, buying a new digital camera online (ojalá it actually gets to me :S) from a Chilean store, etc. Although I´ve been perhaps mildly productive tonight, I´ve been anything but mentally organized.

Part of me tells myself it´s not that really important how I do in Algebra Abstracta; then again, I think I would have a different perspective if I ended up failing the course :). Funny how that works. In general, though, I´m still asking myself the question I´ve been asking myself for at least the last year, and in reality longer: why am I a math major? When others ask me, it´s not too hard to answer:
1) Mathematics trains the mind well.
2) Math opens doors.
3) I used to think I was good at math (in the past, this would have looked something like "I´m good at math.")
4) I think in a mathematical way.
5) Math can be used in all sorts of jobs, and as a base for all sorts of graduate schools.

Let´s be honest. Part of why sometimes I don´t like math, is because it´s just plain hard. To understand higher math, for me, requires many hours of intense mental effort. Frankly, that´s just not easy to put in practice. In addition, I don´t always like math that much. I like the pretty butterfly curves I made as a sophomore in high school as I learned about polar coordinates. I like understanding why we use matrices, and how they can be used in computer science algorithms and other everyday applications. I like seeing the enjoyment my Russian freshman math prof got from discussing math. I could honestly say he´s the reason I´m a math major at all. I don´t like spending a year proving the underpinnings of calculus, a.k.a. spending several hours a week in a class that may as well be taught in Chinese as I would understand about the same amount either way.

Perhaps the most serious reason I´m disillusioned with math is that it´s so divorced from almost everything else in my life that I care about. I live day to day using the math skills that I had down pat by sixth grade or so. I´m not using my mathematical knowledge to write clever computer programs, or to optimize anything (more on this later...). Maybe part of it is that I could never be content to live my life wandering the halls of some forsaken mathematics department in some prestigious university, muttering things to myself and coming up with the new greatest ideas in math, or spending my life trying. I have better things to live for. Or maybe that it´s just that I´m too dumb. If so, I´d rather be dumb. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Don´t get me wrong. I´m certainly not against using my math in a very significant way in the real world. There are even math jobs that I would consider considering, like... well, I don´t know like what. Trust me on it. The key phrase here is real world. When am I going to need to know abstract algebra in anything I´ll be interested in doing, let alone real analysis? Good question.

Maybe the problem is really that I like everything. I don´t say that I´m good at everything, because that´s impossible. There´s not time for that. And although I think being something of a Renaissance man may make life more interesting for me, I´m not sure it´s always such a good thing. Even as I write about how I should be studying or math right now, I´m semi-distracted by some inspiring music I´m listening to right now. In the back of my mind are the marathon I want to run in Santiago next April, my little-used 7 juggling balls in the corner that are taunting me to try to conquer them, and my beat-up guitar that I was going to pull out tonight but didn´t get a chance. Looming a little larger in my mind, if a little more distant, are questions about what I really want to focus on with the rest of my undergraduate education. Do I want to scrap my econ minor and just take things I like, like more language courses (or, ironic as it might seem, scrap my Spanish major to take said language courses)? Do I want to pursue some kind of teaching certificate for secondary education? And while I´m at it, do I want to teach? Would I like to teach motivated, gifted students, or students who came from rough backgrounds and really needed someone to inspire them? Do I want to work as a translator? Should I bite the bullet and consider becoming an actuary?

The one looming issue behind all of this is time. On the one hand, I don´t think haste is the way to go in decisions that really matter. On the other hand, I´m probably at least a good 1/4 of the way through my life. I wouldn´t mind going for something more life-changing or world-changing here at some point. Well, I guess a year in Chile might qualify in that category. I´m glad I´m here. But there are a lot of decisions that are waiting to be made, and the problem is that postponing them doesn´t make them go away--it just makes life feel more scattered and disorganized in the meantime.

I really want to learn how to manage time better. I don´t mean having a strict 24-7 schedule that I follow to the letter to make sure that I´m as "productive" as I can be, while missing out on what is truly important in life. What I do mean, is knowing when things matter, and when they don´t, and living a semi-organized life in response to that understanding. Maybe writing a blog post is more important in the grand scheme of things than studying algebra. Maybe sometimes it´s not.

In all of this, I want to make sure that above all I am prioritizing my relationships with God and with the people that He´s put in my life. After all, those are the two things that really matter, according to Jesus. That´s another thing that I´ve been convicted of lately, although it´s the topic of another post sometime. How can I live my life to radically love God and people in a way that brings most glory to Him and changes the world I live in as a result?

These are just a smattering of my thoughts. At any rate, I know that managing time is not necessarily a strength of mine, in general. Maybe in Chile, where time is a little more flexible, I´ll learn how to use it more wisely than I have yet. That would be a mildly ironic but very welcome reality.