Started tackling my first real problem. Up until now, with most questions I tackled, I was assured the existence of a tangible answer – if I couldn’t see it immediately, my answer sheet did and failing that, my supervisor certainly knew what was going on – and thus it was a matter of retracing the grand masters’ path of logic, and although the process was both instructive and important (as the contents were of pure genius that it was almost frightening sometimes), there lacked something inspirational since you knew inside that you were doing nothing but walking along a laid track, trekked by millions before you. I quickly grew impatient, and since in those days I was enjoying my newly earned freedom, I went out and often skived supervisions (and pushed one man to complain to my senior tutor). But now those days are over, and problem solving has acquired a new dimension. Needless to say, I could have started this years ago, but I guess I like to enjoy my personal life too; can’t be a model researcher like Dirac. Now I find out whether I’m any good at doing this thing called research. Hopefully I am. I expect good old nature to be a severe opponent – how exciting!
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The comments below...better stop.