Saturday -------- + Visited Norman at his new place with Leo. + Norman and I talk about how wmuch we like Stuart MacLane. + We talk about Dave and Morley, and how well Stuart manages to convey many characters simultaneously. + I tell him the story about my first two (abyssmal) lectures with Alfonso, and then the subsequent experience of teaching in Scarborough. + We talk about the fresh view out of his window, and he tells me about the trees that he calls the Three Sisters + Showed Norman and Leo the puzzle and told them the story of how it was assembled + Went with Norman to the Trinity Book Sale + Fed the squirrels + Went offroad with Norman as we crossed the street + Acquired a copy of John Muir's Our National Parks and a book on microbiology + Got the puzzle back from Leo and Norman's place + Visited G's Fine Foods and told them about "a friend that moved from upstairs to across the street" and the woman working said: "Oh, you know Mr. Taylor. He is so much healthier and happier with Leo." + Delivered keys to Scarborough Campus. Collected my things. Watched the geese. Waited at the bus stop alone for a long time. Pretty sad. + Received a text from Peter congratulating me on the introduction to the thesis. + Made myself a meal of rice and tofu. Sunday ------ ?? Gave the talk to Ozgur in the Huron classroom. He showed me the footage of the math village that he has visited in Turkey. It seems amazing. + Went to Meeting. + Jufy Gilbert checks in about whether she should attend the defense or not. I am very happy that I get to directly invite her to the event. + Went to the CYM in Session discernment thing. + Found out that Derek and Christine were running very late. + Got cases of Tank House, Leffe Blonde, and Twice as Mad Tom. + Took a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh's book to the office for Norman + Met up with Peter Crooks at the office. + Decided to give the puzzle to Fauna. + Peter and I head towards my place to demo the talk. + He has a secret mission which might prevent him from attending the defense: he needs to receive something mysterious but he can't tell me what. I tease him asking if it is a post-doc offer, a job, a puppy, or something nefarious. He says he is not at liberty to discuss it. + Peter and I go to get groceries at Metro. Brownie and chili supplies. + Got sweet potatoes, but forgot about everything else in chili. + As we walk up to the apartment, Derek and Christine call after us. + I demo the talk for Peter, Derek, and Christine. + As soon as we are done demoing the talk, Meg walks in the door. + Peter reacted very favourably to the talk. + Derek and Christine enjoyed the talk in their own visual and intuitive ways.. + When Peter left, we got to work on various chores. + Meg got the laundry going. + We all got super excited about baking and started cooking. + Christine measured out the brownies, she was rather deep in to tracking down the chunks. + I vanished from the scene, shaved my head, and wrote the final slides. Put them online on ctrl-c.club and pgadey.ca. + Derek got very deep in to chopping the sweet potatoes. Meg estimates that it took about an hour. + Meg and I sleepily package up the brownies and put them in the fridge. + I leave a single brownie in a tupper ware container out on the stove so that it will be room temperature in the morning. + I put the bag with the bag of Dreams of Beans coffee that Meg brought back from Peterborough for me on top of the container. Monday ------ + Meg and I get up calmly together. She brought me Dreams of Beans coffee back from Peterborough. In the morning, she made me an espresso using the Aeropress and put in it my SuperJet mug. Even from bed I know that she used the Super Jet mug because it has a keyring on its handle which jingles. I put the keyring on so that it would hang above my desk. This all makes me very happy. + We sit in bed and discuss everything very relaxedly. + Meg is wearing my fuzzy wool sweater with a hole that I burnt in it on the stove (many sweaters have met this fate with the heater) + Meg and I sort through the laundry. Over night the humid air hasn't helped the drying clothes much, and my thick blue hoodie is wet. + I put on Meg's Oscar Meier Weiner Mobile and squid shirt and my favourite hoody. I pack extra shirts to keep myself feeling fresh. Something to change in to. + Wander down to the department. From time to time I rush, feeling frenzied. When this happens I try to catch myself and focus on the present moment. In particular, I stare at fresh shoots and flowers popping up everywhere. + I walk through the Earth Sciences building's enclosed walk with the wooded quadrangles. It is very pleasant to go through slowly, in the cool dark space. The fresh and brightly lit leaves excite me. + I arrive at Boris' with time to get coffee and say hello to everyone. + I leave the brownies in the fridge. I give a small separate containew of them to Jemima. + Notice that Robert has a nice new hair cut, we try to chat about incompressibility proofs. I feel like I am being a nuisance. + Boris defends his thesis (balanced presentations and 4-dimensional unknots) + Rina asks Kasra to introduce my defense. + Boris and I go to lunch at Simon Sushi with Nan, Zhifei, Rina, Alex, Robert, Fab, and Pierre Milman. (Zhifei and Nan speak Chinese. Rina, Alex, and Pierre speak Russian. Fab, Robert, Boris, and myself speak English. My ability to babble Russian comes in handy) + Pierre is severely allergic to MSG. He reports that it always results in a trip to the hospital. + I try to bring up the topic of ARES with the table, but Robert shoots it down as being mathematically infeasible. Grump. + Mom lets me know that she has made it to the department. She has the room and is just waiting in there. She is about an hour early. Eventually, many hours afer the whole thing, I learn that she also checked out the math library. + We all order Kx for some x. I tried to order 215, but decided to switch to K6 after Pierre ordered it. Got an additional avocado roll later to compensate for the silly meal. The unfamiliar meal has me worried, and I'm unsure if it will sit well later. The 215 seems like it would have been better. + Drop by Huron and mention the defence to a bunch of people. Some people did not know that it was and it was nice to get it sorted. + When I get back to the office, I put the puzzle and books in my bag. + Matt and Andrew were frantically working on something together, and they did not seem to want to budge. It was a very intense and heated discussion about redistributing some kind of measure on trees. + When I tell Iva that I am defending at 2pm, she tells me that she has an appointment and will have to miss it. She seems upset. + I leave the office, to get things ready. I take the stairs down to the first floor to go slowly about it. At one point I sit and meditate on the steps. but Iva catches up with me. + Iva and I frantically try to set up the projector together. It takes us a long time to find out that the password for the computer system is ``6183''. The monitors on the desktop are not working, and it is a huge page. The two drop down screens confuse us and we just keep hitting a lot of buttons. When we finally get it working, there are only about twenty minutes left before the event. + Nick comes in to BA 6183 and surprises me. Catherine is there too, and she looks amazing + Jemima and I try to get the brownies plated somehow. They get to the top of a tray of lovely tiered dish. There is an upright wooden spindle with three layers of painted ceramic 'shelves' that you put food on. It is a nice piece. ?? I see Judy Gilbert in the room alone. We hug and we feel very present with each other. Her bright eyes catch the light coming in from the window. She is wearing a soft woolen garment. It is white, blue, and purple. She knows that Leo has arrived, but no one knows where Norman is at. ?? My mom hands over a huge heavy bag to me, and I put it in the classrom. + People have been trickling in to the department. There is a table for people from out of town, or outside of math, and they all assemble together. The lounge is in full swing. Derek, Nick, their partners, Mom, the Quakers are all seated together. + Norman finds the circular lounge to be overwhelming. We talk about the acoustic effects of the room. Ellipses. Our stroll leads everyone towards the classroom. Once people start to get settled, I give him the puzzle and the Thich Nhat Hahn book. + Kasra introduces me, and I start in to the talk. + Sam Chapin arrives a little bit late, in the middle of the talk + The talk goes alright. The only flaw was a typo on the planar sponge problem (vol_n instead of vol_2). + Robert MaCann asks about the width-volume inequality and isoperimetry. + Someone asked about the constant 1/4. + We all file out. + I anxiously wait for the decision. Everyone says it was fine. + MacCann asked me to include more examples. + Robert told me to be more selective in my explaining my work, talk more about the techniques of how things were done. + I eventually get seated with the out of town and non-math people. + Nick Saika gifts me a pipe.