Welcome to my first ever blog. I never imagined I’d start a blog. I have mostly viewed personal blogs, such as this, as self-aggrandizing, even narcissistic. Why should other people read my reports of what I’m doing? If what I’m doing is noteworthy, someone else will write about it, right? Moreover, I value my anonymity. But here I am anyway. For a good reason, I think:
This blog is something new about doing new things.
No doubt this will be ugly, as will immediately forthcoming blogs. Bear with me, please.
My lifestyle is defined by a high degree of routine. Routines developed over years of solitude, working from home, working on becoming a better me. My routine starts with routine: I wake somewhere between 3 and 4 am, meditate, make the bed, take a cold shower, pour coffee, journal, play a few games of blitz chess, then start my work. I maintain a fairly strict exercise and diet regimen, and am relatively indulgent in supplements.
This year I’ve integrated math into my routine. And that’s really what got this whole ball rolling, and so why I’m writing a blog. I never studied beyond Algebra, until self studying Trig 15 years thereafter, 15 years ago. For a long time I’d wanted to learn Calculus because it seemed like something special – the math upon which much of our modern infrastructure was built. But for a long time I lived a life of wanting to do things, but never doing them. Times have changed.
Given how long it’s been since I’d studied math, I began with Precalculus sometime in February this year. I started with Precalculus: Mathematics for Calculus by Stewart et al, and supplemented it with Khan Academy. I moved through, stopping and practicing where I needed it, and moving on where I was confident. I was very impatient to get on to the good stuff.
I started Calculus 1 mid-April self studying Stewart’s Calculus (8th Edition). Two things were quickly evident: 1) how much my math muscles had atrophied, and 2) how much I loved doing math. Early mornings have long been my favorite part of the day, but the math studies have made mornings so much more special, and have done much to improve the quality of the subsequent days. I was slow to start, as I really wanted to drill it to make sure my foundation is solid. I’ve not encountered anything that didn’t make sense. The difficulty has been in the devil of the details, the minutiae of the algebra, the chain rules, and in keeping track of all the formulae, definitions, and identities.
Somewhere along the line I found Professor Leonard. What a phenomenal teacher. I’ve taught a lot, I know. This guy is awesome. His lectures made a huge difference in helping me make sense of the material. So I’d watch his lectures, then practice the corresponding problem sets in Stewart’s until I felt confident and comfortable with the material. I haven’t worried myself over how long I might spend working problems. If it takes a month, so be it. I’m doing this to learn, not to pass a test.
On average, I’ve spent around 3 hours a day studying. I finished Calculus 1, having worked through the first five units of Stewart’s:
- Functions and Limits
- Derivatives
- Applications of Differentiation
- Integrals
- Application of Integrals
On July 30, riding a dopamine spike of excitement, I began Calculus 2. I currently use both George Thomas’s Calculus (13th Edition), which I believe Professor Leonard is using with his classes, and Stewart’s. I used the trusty LLM oracle to map out the units and sections that correspond to Professor Leonard’s lectures. So I watch, then go to Thomas, and supplement with Stewart if I feel I need the extra practice. As of today, I’m studying Hyperbolic Functions.
I love math. I love studying. I’m truly gifted to have the opportunity to learn like I do. My mind is alight with ideas of what I could learn next, and what directions I can take this whole endeavor in. My aim is to complete:
- Calculus 1 – 3
- Linear Algebra
- Probability
- Statistics
- Differential Equations
- Discrete Math and Proofs
- Real Analysis
Yes, it’s a lot. I’m giving myself the flexibility to adjust if need be. But I feel that these are what I need to prove myself fit for higher studies. You might feel it ostentatious of me to set Real Analysis as a goal when I’m still a humble Calc 2 student, and that’s fair. But I’m here to achieve big goals.
I’ve got my work cut out for me, especially given my heavy workload building my eLearning business. That’s for another time, another blog. For now, this should suffice to get me off to the blogging race. More to come. Until then…
Do hard things. Learn something new every day.