Woke up at about 10:30, rolled down for breakfast. Read a cool SlateStar review of Eliezer’s Inadequate Equilibria book. It contained a really interesting example about using the wrong lipids in nutrient fluid killing lots of babies, but since FDA approval would be required to change the formula things go on as baby-killing usual.
I went out, hit up Home Depot for some badass mechanical pencils for the test, then off for lunch. The lunch place I’d found on Google Reviews had all tables booked until Tuesday (!) so I improvised and found a sandwich place. Met some neat people there, including a struggling entrepreneur. “Touristy” places in Europe contain a lot of interesting tourists.
Got some sugary snack food on the way back to the hostel for the exam, barely rushed in and out of the hostel, and ran all the way to the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics campus. It always comes down to this frantic run for me :D which I do not mind one bit.
Arrived at the campus, and joined the one guy in the beautiful old room where the exam was being held. Soon more people came in, and ten of us started the exam.
The first session was a disaster. I overthought myself, failed to lose my mind in the problems. I came out 0/6, and felt exhausted and bleary. We went to a Korean restaurant for the break, which cheered me up immensely. Nobody had done too much better, it was a tough session. Really enjoyed hanging out with the BSM mathematicians; as a group they reminded me of UW physics students; idiosyncratic, full of inside jokes, and friendly.
Back to the grind! Went quickly through all the problems to decide what to do, and then immediately solved the first problem, which seemed almost trivial. Then I went to work on the second. It was a tricky and very interesting problem. I pulled two neat tricks, thought through the aftermath. Came up with a strategy. I kept hitting little technical hurdles and making sure I could overcome them in the picture of the whole proof strategy. I thought I had and very nearly did have a solution, but it came down to proving one annoying statement, that I had worked very hard to get down to, but didn’t simplify the way I’d expected. As I wrestled with it, the stroke of midnight–time ran out.
Exhausted and yet somehow energized, my fellow mathematicians and I decided to go out on the town. We had to deal with some forgotten phones first, which led to logistical shenanigans in the course of which I was discreetly sequestered and politely asked my sexual orientation by one of my buddies from dinner :P
My new comrades (Andrew, Ryan, Saffa, and another girl Iris who joined us after the test) and I went out to a party hostel called ReToX. We drank a bit, enjoyed ourselves, met a really drunk Italian dude, and went to this awesome cheap restaurant called Pizza King Express, where we got pizza and gyros. That was really great.
Headed back to the hostel and crashed!