It's A Neat Hemisphere

So, what did you learn in school today?

In a few minutes, I will be heading back to the Special Topics in Algebra: Cryptography course. Concolor is in it with me (that is, I am in it with him; as of writing this sentence, I am pulling my "unofficial auditor" act - but this may soon change). He does not like the professor, and thinks the course can be taught in a much more interesting manner.

I disagree. I did not think I could use cryptography, or had any passion for it. I just came out of interest.

And when I saw the list of topics, my blood surged and my heart raced as it did the first time I heard that I was loved.

I am a geek. I concede. But I have learned, somewhat, to listen to what my instincts tell me. And my interests were telling me that this is oh be still my heart - SWEET!

I may not have yet completed the prereq Introduction to Probability. But I HAVE read Burce Schneier's Applied Cryptography (I think I have; I have read most of it, at least) - and Kahn's The Codebreakers. And I have taken the RSA algorithm in Group Theory and coding theory in Applied Algebra. And hey, I wrote an A+-level essay on information theory for His de Maths.

I can talk him into it.

Honey? You are taking five courses this semester already. Logic and Set Theory, which would be useful in your semantics and computational linguistics career. Urban Dialectology I, which you need as a fourth year credit, and because, my dear, who can resist the knowledge that all Required Reading cometh from Philadelphia (when it arranged in order in the copy on reserve, that *grunt* is) and the desire to learn more about the speech of this City of Brotherly Sociolinguistic Love. Speech Science: Acoustics, ditto, and because, hey, it's the Glorious Sine Wave. Introduction to Probability, which, hmm, you kind of need for information theory, for cryptography of course, and because you know, getting a four-year honours mathematics degree without knowing a lick about stats beyond mean, median and mode...is not a good idea.

So where do you think you will fit another fourth year course?

There is Introduction to Geometry. But it is taught by Prof. Jessup, star in popularity among the math department students. But it may be bad, it may be bad, it may...

Nope, Jessup had me, and if he had any hints as to who my King of Wands in my personal chart may be I would have fallen in love with him, when the class started talking about clocks and the unit circle, and why in the Northern Hemisphere sundials run clockwise.

"Anyone here been to the Southern Hemisphere?" Dead silence from the class. "Anyone here born in the Southern Hemisphere?" Jessup raises his hand. "You should visit the Southern Hemisphere sometime. It's a neat hemisphere."

And the course is about ISOMETRIES.

"It's all about the networks," said I to my Tarot readees once I, half by accident on the smart deck of Alice Kelley's fractals, learned to see the networks. It is about the networks, the patterns, the continuities, the isomorphisms, the reflections, the things that remain the same despite changes, the things that remain connected...

Thank my lucky stars that I managed to get my own reading on Monday night - and learned, politely, that cryptography is written in my chart (Queen of Pentacles inverted), that I would be feeling a huge burden of work, and the oracle card drawn at the thought of the geometry course was "retreat."

Sure, I will.

I visited the school, and on Monday I began the Reach for the Top season anew. There is talent there, I hope (knock wood). Raw talent. Now disciplining it was always my challenge and concern. And getting it to go find its own sponsors for the second annual (I knew I should have at least stopped Lord Bedivere before saying this) trivia night on November 17, as I am busy.

I did go to resume my prowling hunting down of the Dark Lord. Thanking my lucky stars that the summer I had was such that I can look anyone in the eye at the question "How was your summer?" and reply, savouring the words, "Absolutely fantastic. And how was yours?"

I did not find the Dark Lord on the first day. Instead, Lady Cauchy and I shared reminiscences about whale watching, as she had gone to Nantucket over the summer - and she can now endure Moby Dick past the chapter about Folio, Quarto and Octavo whales, at which point I myself, aged 13, had thrown the book (Octavo edition) across the room.

The next day I did find the Dark Lord, and we arranged that he was fine with me using the lab - it is me finding the time to use it that is the problem. And is still the problem, because that wonderful cryptography course I mentioned? It begins at 4:00.

Well, on the other hand I would not have to bring in a gas mask, as the Dark Lord assured me I would need one to endure the repainting of the lab. I have a perfectly well equipped lab of my own, and I have PowerPoint 2003 there, too, that I can get as much of the work done in as possible, before resuming my friendship with Keynote 3. I did get all the questions entered on the weekend, though neither illustrated nor animated. There is still time.

And for the first time in my life, I emailed the Dark Lord telling him, very briefly, of my scheduling problems / crypographic love life. Incidentally mentioning that I have downloaded Blender, and am currently wrestling with it. Not mentioning that my covert reasons for downloading it were to design Tarot cards with.

Speaking of which, I have now happily TeX-ed all the records of my Tarot reads, and, brace yourself, David Knuth - I am going to index them.

I can't help it. I think language, and I think math. I came back to aikido yesterday after taking August off for pecuniary reasons (i.e damnéd poverty). Six sessions of hanmi-handachi later, my bony-callused knee issued an ultimatum and is still seething, but that is not the problem. The problem is that I still "don't believe in ki, I believe in vectors." Vector curves, continuous in C1, - or discrete.

And today, sleepy after an evening of readings, in Probability class on the prof explaining the multiplicative principle, I asked about drawing cards out of a deck. Meanwhile trying to remember, if we did take up that example, how many cards are there in a normal deck, because I am pretty sure it isn't seventy-eight?

Matrices, tarot cards, aikido takedowns, continuous curves, network graphs, probabilities, all swirl together in my brain, to form the lens I see the world through.