June 4

Today began as had all other “class days” (i.e., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) preceding it:  I awoke at 0830 to eat breakfast, and, upon returning to my room, reviewed geometric sets, the anticipated topic of our recitation at 1510.

Happening on most days where travel is not inbound, I Skyped my girlfriend to check in and say goodnight before leaving to eat lunch at the cafeteria on campus.  After my lunch, I headed to the mathematical sciences library to read Joos’ Theoretical Physics, on which I usual spend an hour before recitation.

During our recitation, Professor Batakidis gave us three examples to do in class that dealt with proving geometric sets on symplectic spaces, as well as examples regarding first integrals.  The former are rather fun, because they require a strict understanding of their respective definitions, while the latter rely on an unambiguous understanding of Hamiltonian vector spaces.

After recitation we all headed to the cafeteria for dinner.  We usually split up after eating, with James usually heading back to the hotel, and Peter and Rajani heading to the lecture classroom early.  Richard, Allen, K.C., Justin, Xiaoru, and I strolled to Dairy Queen to grab Blizzards, and afterward hung out in a café before heading to the classroom at 1820.

At 1840 our lecture began.  Professor Batakidis ran over some conceptual and quantitative examples of symplectic invariants, and concluded the lecture about an hour earlier than usual with a recap of what we learned from his four lectures.

Afterward, most of us headed back to the hotel, while others remained on campus to meet with the PKU students comprising their groups for our project presentations on Friday.  I met with my group on numerous occasions (usually each lecture night), so I decided simply to catch up with Professor Batakidis to see if I had down the required work for my presentation.  I feel pretty good about my presentation on Friday.  I’m first to present, and am ready to teach my group members something new.