During this last week, I've watched two good movies about mathematicians: Proof and A Beautiful Mind. Both deal with the border between insanity and genius, and both manage to catch - more (for me) in Proof than Mind - that feeling, however fleet, of what it feels like inside your brain when you have a beautiful idea inside it. As much as I hate and complain about the teeth-grinding theoretical work in math and physics classes, I also love it. I miss it. There's something different about the world while you're looking at it through the experience of ideas like that, once in a blue moon when you actually understand a little.

I'm not very good at it, but I think sometimes I can see why the really good people would like it. Not that I understand what they understand, but I might understand why they appreciate understanding it. Occasionally I wonder what it would be like to have a brain that worked that way. True genius is something that I can't even start to conceptualize.

Today I do not feel smart. Today I feel like somebody that is wasting her potential. Someone that doesn't have much to begin with - or did, maybe, but managed it poorly. Today I have gotten one assignment - CompArch - done. Today I have one lab - CompArch - late. Today I have one report - MatSci - late. Today I have slept through class. Today I am trying not to fall asleep so I can work, and spending more time trying to stay awake to work than I am actually working. Today I am feeling unsustainable and stupid for bringing unsustainability upon myself. Today I know that I have far too much pride, don't ask for help, fall behind and stay quiet because I like to look smart by not having to have a hand up. I don't want to have to be saved. I can ask for help, but it's always in such a way that I'll appear competent while doing so. That any questions I ask stem from lack of information, not lack of responsibility or ability.

I want to be smart and responsible. But I'm not sure that I always know what that means.