Day 36: Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Because I like mathematics, and I think I didn't learn enough at the University of Salamanca, I have "enrolled" in a 4th-year mathematics course on differential equations called "Analysis III." Here in Dresden, mathematics subjects are taught this way: the professor-god gives the theoretical classes in a huge lecture hall with a couple of hundred students in the subject, and then other professors and doctoral students give the practical classes in groups of 4 students. Well, my first day in class in German, my first hour, was in one of those groups.

We were in the class: an older professor, with a short white beard, an open green plaid shirt, and glasses hanging from a chain, three Germans, and me. The professor hands out a sheet with some exercises. I look at it. It's a sheet with some tremendous integrals, full of sines, cosines, combinatorics, and exponentials. I think:

"My God! Not only do I not understand anything he's saying, but I also have no idea how to do any of these integrals."

I sink my head into the paper hoping that the professor won't address me…

"Let's see, the redhead… What's your name?" says the professor.

In my head: "shit"

"Mario…"

"Come to the board to do the first one, please," I assumed he said.

Then I look at the integral, I look at the professor, I look at the integral again, I look at the professor again, I look at my classmates… I have no idea how to do it… I get up and go to the board and start writing it: Integral… between "y" and "y squared minus y"… of… open parentheses… x over 2… While I'm writing it, someone talks to the professor behind me, one of the students; since I don't understand anything, I keep writing. The professor asks me to stop:

"Wow… What a mistake! I'm very sorry Mario, you're doing an integral from the Analysis I subject, and of course… this is Analysis III… I'll be right back with the correct exercise sheet."
The professor takes the sheet from me, takes it from the rest of the class, and runs out into the hallway. Uncertainty…

…

Will he bring something even more difficult? Do I run out the door, now that the guy isn't here?

…

After a minute, he reappears, handing out the correct sheets. When he gives me mine, I die. It's a formula twice as big, and he asks me to do the Fourier transform of it. I know what the Fourier transform is, but I have no idea how to do it; I didn't even know it could be done… The professor sees my panicked face and asks me:

"Do you know how to do the Fourier transform?"

"Uff… Well, the truth is I don't remember."

"Well, don't worry. Write down the formulas for the polynomial and the Fourier coefficient."

"Ehhh…"

"Come on, I'll dictate them to you."

And after dictating the formulas to me, and me managing to write them down (it's difficult when they dictate to you in German…). I started doing the integral and I managed to do it. The joy I felt at having achieved it eclipsed the bad time I had at the board. I really liked this class, and the personalized German teaching system much more. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to drop the subject, because it clashes with the physical chemistry lab practicals, which, as I've already told you, were the only ones they admitted us to. It's a great shame, but that's how things work with the Erasmus grant: you have to juggle a thousand things to get a reasonable schedule with the subjects you have to take, and that are equivalent to those required by the Spanish study system. But I think I'm managing it, and I'm ending up with a pretty cool schedule. Now I have to find time for the sports activity I've signed up for: Rowing.

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