For  those of you who don't know I started out my college career as a computer science major. (Please know that this has nothing to do with computer fixing or anything of the like, we only learn how to write our own programs and how to fix our own programs; but that's another day another blog.) And as you know from my previous entry that I soon learned the wonders of having computers be the lords of monotony, rather than allowing myself to be subject to it.  

  Most of my close computer science friends were usually people who I considered rather smart, so I was happy with my choice of academic calling.  With time I did get disheartened with computer science. Not that I disliked programming --on the contrary I greatly enjoy nerdulating in front of a computer for hours on end-- but I soon found many people in computer science who didn't live up to my ideal of a computer scientist. First I found many professors who new very little more than what they learned in school. These weren't stupid people, mind you, they were very intelligent. The problem was just that they weren't up to date on current programming technology, and it was upsetting because I couldn't bring my questions about things that I was doing on my own to them. Later I was again shaken when I started working with my fellow computer science majors because they also knew little more than what they learned in class.

  Finally, being discouraged by c omputer science I decided that I would pick up a math major. I'm still not sure exactly how I justified to myself to be a math major as well. I think it had something to do with frustration with computer science classes being too easy and certainly it had something to do with my frustration with my fellow computer science majors, but other than that I really don't know.

  So on to the true purpose of my blog entry. Keeping in mind that as a computer science major I've found that I can't stand doing truly monotonous things, because my computer is made for just that purpose. This summer I've been doing undergraduate math research at Texas A&M and have really enjoyed it. But the other day I had little to do and so I went to one of the other student's rooms. She was writing out various trees with 4 nodes (really it's five nodes). I watched her for a while and soon realized that though there was a little thought involved it was still such monotony. I couldn't exactly explain to her how strongly I believed that a computer should be doing that, so after a short while I was duly disgusted that she would lower herself to do the job of a computer, so I had to leave the room.

  A few days later I was chilling in my room and my roommate came back from his office. He had used Maple to calculate some 100 integrals. But he didn't know how to do loops or output in Maple so he'd done them all one after another and written down the answer. So that meant when he came back to the room he had to type each answer back into excel on his computer. Now this isn't nearly as bad as coming up with those 2000 + earlier mentioned trees, the idea of having to write something long down from one computer and then type it into another one is still rather disgusting to me in this day and age.

  Now don't get me wrong I still greatly admire the mathematical intelligence of my fellow math researchers. I guess I'm just amazed that they don't think like I do (which I admit is a highly silly thing to expect.) I just wanted to share my feelings about this matter, because it's becoming more and more a part of me.