Either last night after getting back from the test, or this morning before heading in for work, I realized that I must work harder to pass the quals. I have a lot of linear algebra to learn. I have a lot of analysis to learn. I have a lot of complex analysis to learn. Class is incidental to me learn these topics. So, I need to learn each topic on my own. I need a good undergraduate linear algebra text, so that way I can be prepared to work through my graduate text. I need to buckle down and start reading Royden. I need to find our complex anaylsis text, and read that. Class is incidental to my learning these topics.

A good sign that I am willing to buckle down is that I went into school today. This is the first thursday that I been at school, and this was the fifth oppertunity to go. That pleases me.

An role model would be nice. Hero is not the right term. One who inspires. this person must have had a tremendous non-competitive (i.e. non-sporting) goal in front of him. It must be a personal goal. It must be tremendously important: the thing that changed his life forever.

I hope I am not building up my expectations for this.

I will be succesful.

I think that I can sincerely say there is nothing that I wanted more. There is nothing that I have been willing to sacrifice so much for. I am willing to trade a year's worth (now eleven months worth) of friendship, family time and various recreational joys to be succesful. I will forego that. In eleven months' time, I could become a fast cyclist. I will not get faster in these eleven months. In eleven months' time I could move back to southern oregon, find a job and girlfriend. I will stay in corvallis, sustain myself, and remain alone.

If my family thought me reclusive before, I am now monastic and fanatic.