Mish-mash of Words

The strange thing about life is how things seem to occur in cycles. Like how out of a sudden, Linear Algebra is returning once more as a major topic in the classes that I am taking. In two completely disparate classes, the concepts of linear algebra popped up today. And of course, coming from the GCE 'A'-level examination system meant that I had previously messed around with the linear algebra before.

The strange thing about the term "linear" lies in the fact that it always sounds easy, I mean, what can be easier than a linear system, right? Except not. Everything else that is called "linear" as far as I know, display characteristics that are much further from the truth. Linear algebra is one of them, another might be that of linear cryptanalysis, a technique for code-breaking. And of course, trying to attain linear time for many algorithms is just too much of a hassle for the most part, which makes this hard too.

The strange thing about this post is that I started this post quite a while back, but didn't have the time/energy/heart to put more words to it to finally complete it. Until now, I guess.

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On a wholly unrelated note, I realise that this semester is not as smooth-sailing as initially envisioned—there seems to be a huge amount of work that is to be done, though in theory most of all these can be completed in a not-too-hard fashion. The quantity is tremendous, but perhaps I might prevail. Past images of the previous semester keep coming back to haunt me, but I think that perhaps those images are not justifiable—I'm more than half way through my undergraduate career, and so in theory I am a little wiser than before and am not taking classes that can totally wreak havoc on all that I strive for.