So after things didn't work out for me in Stony Brook, I just moved straight back to Oregon. I took a little time to go into Flatbush (Brooklyn) and Manhattan, but otherwise I just kind of took off after my student housing lease ended. I just kind of loaded up the 4Runner and took off. If I wasn't going to be in Stony Brook for school, I didn't want to be out there. It's just not really the type of place I'd like to be. Not enough nature. I need mountains and explorable public land and amazing variety in different natural settings. Not many places have deserts, rainforests, snow peaks, etc. all within driving distance of where-ever you are. When I arrived back in Oregon, I just said "Home." to myself. But this post isn't about Oregon.
I want to write about my time in Stony Brook. It wasn't terribly long (one academic year...so about 9 months). But I definitely feel like there were two very distinct aspects to my time there, which I would categorize as "In-department" and "out-of-department". I loved the "in department" part (classes, talks, tea times, listening to people discuss their research, etc.). The "out-of-department" stuff (student housing, "hiking", general vibe, personal stuff, etc.) wasn't as awesome.. But I want to split this post up between the two, and discuss those two aspects on their own merits. Because I really do view them as 2 very different experiences.
"In-Department"
:Just to start off, I do want to say it was a ridiculous honour just to be accepted into Stony Brook. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I really did consider going to other schools that accepted me (aside from being an HBCU, I liked the student-teacher ratio of Howard, Portland State is in Oregon, Cal-State Long Beach had some tempting course offerings).
But anyway, I accepted the offer because it really was the opportunity of a lifetime, and I did NOT want to live with the regret of saying "no" to that.
And I absolutely don't regret it, from an academic stand point. It was maybe the most stimulating time of my life. I just never felt like I wasn't learning something while I was in the Department setting. I knew going in I was probably going to learn more from my classmates than I could offer in return. I also kind of knew that, in a Math Department with such a high concentration of professors doing the highest level research, those same professors only have a very finite amount of time to devote to hand-holding. This isn't to say that I didn't get a lot out of lectures. I got a crash course in all of the things I had an intuitive idea of, but lacked the rigorous understanding of. Things like inclusions and embeddings and de Rham cohomology and p-Sylow and Lie brackets and on and on. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the Algebra sequence (MAT 534 & MAT 535). Going in, I felt a little behind in my Abstract Algebra. I practiced a bit on the trip from Oregon to NY, and in the week before classes started, but I was definitely feeling like I was behind most of my peers. by the time classes started. I don't really know where I stood in comparison with other students grade-wise. I try not to think about that kind of thing. I did feel like in the discussions I had with other students, I wasn't as far off as I thought. It was fun to be able to converse with other students about what we were learning in classes. Obviously I'm older than the average first year grad student (in any math department, not just SBU's). I felt pretty awkward going in, and honestly I never really got over the feeling that I was an outsider. It wasn't that anyone necessarily made me feel that way, but come on... when I was in my early 20's I wasn't like "I wonder what that guy in his 40's doing the same job as me thinks about subject X, Y, or Z". I wasn't exactly expect even my fellow first year students to be like "We need to ask the old guy wearing a bandana what he thinks about Clifford Algebras." But I did have plenty of great math interactions, and even some pretty great inter-personal interactions, with others. I think there was just a little...uncertainty?...on both sides of how to approach each other. I guess I'm saying the weirdness that came with the age/culture/upbringing differences wasn't the biggest of deals, but it was kind of frustrating when it came up.. I think there were a few people who outright felt I didn't belong there, but overall I felt pretty accepted in the Department.
I was overwhelmed with the amount of talks and mini-courses and symposia and so on. There were so many things I wanted to check out. Before the semester started, I saw that there was going to be a huge (absolutely free!) course on Representation Theory by Prof Kirillov (the Senior). But by the first week, I was still living in an air b&b room looking for a place. I had a room I could take by the end of the 2nd week in student housing (more on that in a different section). Basically, I was still trying to secure long term housing into the second week of the term. I ended up not going to Prof Kirillov's course at all because I felt I missed too much by the time I felt settled down enough to get anything out of it. It was a pretty big disappointment for me. But I did enjoy all the Low-Dim Topology/Guage Theory/Symplectic talks I attended. I caught a few talks at the Simon's Centre.. But there was just so much more I wanted to attend, and it never felt like there was enough time. You can only do so much in a day, but I just felt like I missed out on a lot of really cool stuff even if there was no way I could go in the first place. It was cool to meet, in person, some of the people I had interacted with via online seminars, too.
I have to say....it was pretty cool to just be in the Department. It wasn't some magical realm of mathematics where everyone got along and all were equal and studied in harmony. I don't think any profession (or lack there-of) can offer that. But, within the Department, it was fairly uniformly welcoming, even for me (with a few forgivable hiccups along the way). I didn't expect to be involved in conversations about peoples theses or research, but most people entertained my questions. A lot of times that was such an energy boost for me. It felt cool to be involved in the conversations I wanted to be involved with, and having the conversations with people I respected and admired. Whether is was office hours with Prof's, or conversations with classmates, or whatever...it just always felt cool to be part of it. And being a participant and not just a passive observer was.... well, at the risk of over using a word... overwhelming at times. In a good way. But still, overwhelming all the same. It wasn't a place I ever would have imagined myself in until I actually got accepted into the programme.
I can't lie... there was a lot of feelings of "How am I even here?" for me. I think a lot of others wondered how I was even there, too. I did say above that I had the opportunity to talk to people and didn't feel like I was necessarily being pushed away, but I did spend the majority of the time being isolated. I'm sure most of that was self-imposed; I definitely had moments where I felt intimidated by the academic pedigree of my peers/classmates and just the Department in general. Most of the time the feelings of insecurity and intimidation just served as impetus to work harder to make myself feel like I belonged there. Sometimes, though, it led to me feeling dejected.
I will also say I did have lots of what I guess I'd call "fanboy moments", where I'd be like "OMG, I can't believe I'm holding the door open for Prof. Milnor" or "OMG, I can't believe I'm eating a cookie and drinking a coffee in the same room as Prof. Sullivan" or "OMG, I can't believe I'm having a conversation in French with Prof LeBrun". Pretty much every day had moments like that, and it was totally cool.
"Out of Department"
I'll admit upfront that I knew going to Long Island would be rough on me. I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was though.
Before I even got out to Long Island, I was dealing with a court case for. throwing an envelope at a table when the COVID check lady decided I wasn't of sound enough mind to hand said envelop to the front desk. (Actually, as of writing this, the case is still on going....after almost 2 years). That was a constant source of (bad) stress. I even took an exam a few hours after a court hearing (and to my surprise, I didn't outright fail the exam). It was a dark cloud hanging over my head the entire time.
Moving to Long Island was a chore and a half, too. But I talked about that in a previous post.
I tried to find off-campus housing, where I could live alone. After almost 13 years of living alone-alone (no room-mates or co-habitators of any kind), I wasn't really stoked on living with others. Especially not people 2 decades younger than me. It just seemed like too much. As the first semester started, I was basically homeless and I had to live somewhere, so I finally caved to student housing. SBU tried to stick me in a shared-room situation (as in sleeping in the same room as someone else). I had a big problem with that (a lifetime of being sexually abused will do that). I ended up with my own room, but in an apartment with room-mates who were actively trying to get me kicked out. My living situation was atrocious, and I rarely slept more than 3 or 4 hours a night for the entire year. I took most of my exams with 0 hours of sleep. I was genuinely surprised that some of my room-mates were just outright anti-Black racists.
I also had to sleep in a bed that was too short foe me for a year. And it was a twin, so it wasn't wide enough for me to sleep diagonally. And it was one of those beds where you can't really dangle your feet off the end. I still have back problems after 6 months, and some pretty bad sleeping position habits I'm still trying to break.
Being asked to leave the Simons Centre because I "wasn't in the Department" was sort of the icing on the cake. I had been asked to leave before, but it was more a "you can't study here" sort of thing, not a "you don't belong here" kind of thing like the second time.
The lack of hiking was rough on me. I didn't have that to fall back on when I needed to clear my mind. I basically had the gym (which wasn't bad, but wasn't great either). Unlike Corvallis, there just wasn't anywhere I could go to clear my head and "clean the mental/emotional slate" so to speak. Everything just built up as the year went on. Going into the City was nice, but it was still just people everywhere. I went to MoMA a few times, which was nice. But it just wasn't as good for my mental health as solitude in nature.
There was so much more that was negative about my "out of department" experience at Stony Brook, but I just don't' want to focus on it. I have (and had) so many negative things going on in my life as it is, I don't want to focus on something that's done and over with. I don't think about my room-mates or the other horrible parts of living out there. I will say that, by and large, I thought the residents of Stony Brook and surrounding towns were pretty decent.
I will say, as a credit to the Department, Prof. Viro (my prof. for MAT 530 in the first semester) approached me and asked if anything was going on outside of class after my first midterm. I tried to play it off like nothing was wrong. I guess I just didn't want to "stir the pot" or get a reputation as being a basket case with too many personal problems. I also don't know what I would have done about a living situation if I took an Incomplete on the semester.. I wouldn't have enough credits for student housing. And I wasn't trying to be homeless in Long Island for a year. Anyway, I did appreciate Prof. Viro's concern and the fact that he approached me. In hindsight, I probably should have taken a year off, got things in order, and then started courses. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
(Also: being able to take a course with Prof. Viro was sort of a fanboy moment for me, too. The first proper paper I read on 1-manifolds was by him. I enjoyed his course as a whole. It was almost more like a discussion session than a traditional class, and it was kind of nice. I think I spoke more in that class than any other class I took at SBU. It wasn't necessarily that I thought the material was more engaging than any other course. All of my courses were engaging. I think it was more the discussion aspect kind of helped me peak out of my shell more than other courses..)
After the Fact/Fallout
I spent the weeks leading up to Spring semester's final exams both trying to study and trying to find a place to live. Taking final exams in graduate level math classes at a high-level school like SBU with the spectre of homelessness weighing heavy is...a lot. I didn't do well on my finals. It pretty much sealed my fate.
I spent the short period between the end of the semester and the end of my student housing lease trying to find a place in Oregon. I was looking into transferring to Portland State, and moved to Portland as a result. Part of me would've liked to move back to Corvallis or somewhere more rural and close to quiet trails. Things didn't work out with Portland State, and all my attempts at trying to find a way to start over at SBU came up short or unanswered. Right now I'm still technically a student at SBU, and I'm still trying to find a way to move forward with things.
Living in Portland is ok. There's decent in-city and close by out-of-city hiking. For a big city, it's pretty low-key. It's got it's problems, but so does every city. Over-all, I'm pretty ok with being here. There was no way in fucking hell I was going back to Michigan or anywhere even close to there. I wasn't going to go back to the family that raised me after finally dealing with all the abuse (sexual, physical, and otherwise)/attempted murder/etc and finally cutting all ties with them. I'll do whatever it takes to never have to see their fucking faces or hear their fucking voices ever again. Same for the girl who stalked me for a fucking decade.
Oregon is the place where I've been happiest in my life, so I'm here. I don't really want to "reinvent" myself, or revert myself back to old ways (all the pre-math hobbies and jobs and life/lifestyle choices I made up to my 30's) Mathematics will always be my true love. I don't really have a "post-math" life planned. I might get some job, but frankly just working to be able to afford to not be dead (as opposed to really living) isn't very appealing. I don't desire "stuff". I don't care about big vacations or a house or any car that's not the one I currently own. I could spend every vacation doing cheap-o camping trips in Oregon Wildernesses, and I'd be perfectly content. Like I said in my FAQ's (the second one), I'm not really interested in relationships (or dating or flings, etc) at this point. Maybe obviously, I don't want kids. Basically, if I get a job it's for the purpose of either: (a) getting a chance to continue with a degree, or (b) to fund my amateur research, if I feel I could content myself with that in the event of a permanent closure on the road to a grad degree.
I still go to talks whenever possible, and I'm working on some new papers (in addition to the one I posted a few months ago). I'm still checking out new subjects for possible interesting interactions with my main interests. I still can't imagine doing anything else. I can't really describe how important mathematics is (and has been) to me. I don't know what's going to happen if/when that particular well dries up for me. I suppose we'll see. But I'm going to stick with it until the bitterest of ends.