Thursday, October 05, 2006

Life has been really difficult this past week. I'm taking two courses this term, 'Structure of Stars' and 'Introduction to Relativity', and there's a homework for each course every week. I seem to have to spend a day or two just reading through the material from the previous weeks' lectures before even starting on the homework, and then a few more days doing the homework. The problem with this is that I'm supposed to be doing research as well...it's Thursday evening and so far this week I've been doing nothing but homework, and THAT hasn't finished yet. I might be able to finish it if I work full-time this weekend.

I seem to be the slowest person in the department. A couple of my classmates are really smart and clever compared with me, which is fine with me apart from the fact that they don't seem to be as stuck with work as I am.

They have a phrase in Princeton, 'impostor syndrome', which is very apt to what I'm feeling right now. It's the feeling that somehow Princeton made a mistake in selecting me to come here, and that I've somehow managed to bluff my way to high grades in undergrad.