Disorder, disorder, disorder

Here is a summary of the last three weeks of MATH 301.

1. Ooh look, a higher-order DE in more than one variable!
2. Hmm, how to solve?
3. Separation of variables
4. How exciting, a list of ODEs which all contain the constant k.
5. What could k be? Positive, negative or zero?
6. Furious investigation of the value of k, followed by application of boundary conditions
7. The only nontrivial solutions for the first ODE come from a particular value of k, and here it is.
8. Let's put that value of k into the other ODEs.
9. Solution sequence!
10. Are there any ugly-looking [inhomogeneous] boundary conditions?
11. Messing around with Fourier series to find a sum or series of the solution sequence which satisfies the ugly BCs
12. Solution!
13. What happened to the last four hours of my life?
14. Repeat twice daily for the next 20 days
15. Discover you've actually been doing linear algebra all along, and it would have been much quicker if you'd known that at the start

Today I attended a Meeting and also visited Rob The Graduate Studies Coordinator, both of which made me feel better about things in general and next year in particular. There are still exams to get through, though, and I'm tired.

Tonight I'll probably be up all night, and I'll probably be lucky to get half the assignment done in that time. It's a real beauty this week - must be Peter's idea of a going-away present.