Where I've been, where I am

[Kevin Dunn]

I care... And I can relate. I'm a mathematics senior considering grad  
school or teaching... Or maybe an MFA, if they'd take a math BA. (I'm  
a little confused... So your story could help me decide, maybe -  
sometimes one must simply find out for oneself). I have always loved  
to write, though it had to compete with the scientific childhood I  
had. If I go to grad school for math I'll be a topologist, most likely  
in algebraic topology, as my mathematical talents center around  
algebraic techniques. Coincidentally I have a strong aptitude for CS  
but find it totally dull, devoid of the numerical dreams and  
equivalencies of mathematics.

Reading about TRP getting started after noon with a physics or  
mathematics text and reading all day had an inexplicable effect on  
what I had perceived as an impossible to rectify dual nature of  
myself: one part rigid and logical and raised on the scientific  
method; the other part empathic with the gift for a certain voice on  
paper. Now I see that they can be two sides of the same coin, not just  
for writing but also for mathematics. I've spent many afternoons  
investigating, say, Tensor Analysis on Manifolds, or crossledged on  
the floor of a technical bookstore trying to figure out which Graduate  
Texts in Mathematics to buy. I always thought that pursuit was to the  
detriment of my fiction self-education... Not so, I now see.

Likewise: but who reallys cares what i've done, have thought, do,  
currently think, will do or will end up realizing?

Kevin


Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 17, 2009, at 4:34 PM,
Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net> wrote:

>
> Not sure why anyone cares, but here goes. I live in San Jose. I grew  
> up in the western part of the east (left part of the right) and the  
> extreme southeast (down right). Graduate degree in topology from  
> University of Miami. Most of my income producing years was work with  
> computers. I tried writing, film making, and teaching mathematics. I  
> loved the last three best was terrible at all three. Was good with  
> computers but hated it. <shrug>
>
> Got started reading Pynchon while living in the UAE, teaching  
> mathematics and CS to Muslim students at the UAE's national  
> university. Nothing to do in the evenings, makes taking on OBA a lot  
> easier.
>
> I travel a lot. Been around the world twice. Love classical  
> (serious) music. Founded the San Jose Chamber Music Society almost  
> 25 years ago. Have a grown son and two grandsons living in rural  
> Kentucky. (It's a long story.) Been married to the same woman for  
> forty one years. Politically a Chomskyite. Think Obama is a nice man  
> whose politics are barely to the left of Bush's. I see this bailout  
> business as being Obama's Bay of Pigs.
>
> Jeez, I could go on, but really, who cares what I've done, lived, or  
> currently think?
>
> Lawrence
>
>
>