I’ve spent another week in the cabin up in the Rockies happily cut off from the world, working on what I’m calling my Canuck-ification. We found some cross-country skis that fit me and, while we can’t hit the trails until my quarantine is up, I’ve been doing loops in the back yard. Dani took me tobogganing down the hill for the first time today. We had 10cm of snow overnight.

Most of the days have passed with the sort of calm that you only get from a long break. Everything impending let go, just drifting along punctuating the days with eating, a few games of crib, a little exercise.

I’ve been getting a lot of reading done, although very little progress with the maths I wanted to look at. The books I have made my way through have been great. bell hooks is always an incredible, incisive read and all about love was no exception. The Idiot by Elif Batuman is a great read. I particularly enjoyed the brief mention of Emacs in the letters between Selin and Ivan.

With the maths I’m trying to look at, it’s not going in very well. The Donald Knuth is heavy going, and my muscles on that front are very weak. While I really enjoyed the foundations of computation course over the past semester I’m wondering if that was mostly because the teaching was great. I’m trying to plow through but a lot of the mathematical fundamentals feel like they’re not going in very well. There’s been a lot of talk about the modulus and binomials and it’s just kind of swimming around in my head with no grounding. I need to work through the exercises but that of course is the hard part.

Excited to head back to the city in a few days for Christmas. Hopefully a little skiing before then too.

Reading list

all about love, bell hooks
The Idiot, Elif Batuman
Everybody Lies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Cryptography Made Simple, Nigel P. Smart