November-4th-08. The Z Algorithm - Telegraphic. Disappointed They didn't read web page Didn't learn about project 1 ?? Will hurry up Lack maturity More's the pity
Pattern Recognition class last Tuesday Linear-time algorithm I say "today's class will be demanding" Preliminary definitions Zi Z-boxes numbers r and l Snort a little The algorithm Z Long explanation More Snorting Delicate explanation Sweating Many details Subtle ones More and more snorting Dense silence Tormented looks Marina Ocaño what-the-hell look
Whispers while my explanation case 2b Try to keep concentration Afanoso Rol and Crisma Ritintan do it I turn around See tickling each other ?? Incomprehensible Proof of correctness algorithm Complexity analysis Solving the SPR problem in linear time
End of class Ask about a similarity problem Silence first Vague ideas later Not used to be creative Creativity= self-esteem How is their self-esteem like? Crisma Ritintan gives right idea They aren't getting started
November-11th-08. Insecure. I feel insecure, I don’t know, they say, alledgedly, that it is a natural emotion, everyone has experienced. However, I don’t know whether I am qualified enough for teaching string finite automata. Why is that? It is so hard to transmit those ideas, those lemmas, those recursions, those suffix functions… Furthermore, I don’t know how motivated they feel about it. My legs are trembling with nervousness. Are all my students in the classroom? Lord Lasciva is missing. Why? Am not I a good teacher?
That insecurity bothers me greatly. It’s a merciless critic who has judged my past and, even before it will happen, also my future. Is my teaching good enough? With my insecurity I don’t have a way to assess it. Lord Engañoso Cruz is recuperating from a flu. Was I who transmitted it to him? Oh, I hope not! –I wish. My hands are sweating. Granuja Malo seems to pay attention, he’s got an expression of following my explanation. Or maybe he is lost in his own thoughts, who knows? –only a conjecture.
I must learn to trust myself. Well, here they have three lemmas that prove the correctness of the string finite automata. Umm, they won’t like this, will they? Will they appreciate how important those ideas are? What about their beauty?... I don’t know what to think about this. Avalar Vivales Odji doesn’t take his eyes off his notes. He does understand me, I just wonder, that is, it is just a real question, not a rethorical one, I ask myself, of course. He looks at me in a phlegmy way. Ouch!
Hesitating and also hoping for widespread acceptance, I make some questions –why not?- about the suffix function. Bounds for the suffix function? Recursion? Marina Ocaño gives reasonable answers to my questions. Does it mean she is understanding? I hope she does, I wish she did, I long for it, it must be so!... How much uneasiness!
November-18th-08. String-matching finite automata (continued) - Disturbing. Today I teach my Pattern Recognition class. I'll cover the suffix function for string-matching finite automata. I come into the classroom with my accustomed decisiveness. Strange enough, they all wear black leather jackets. Something is going wrong: serious countenances, frowing at me. Tension, a great deal of tension.
"Good morning"
"Good morning, we are very happy to see you." They reply in unison.
I notice a disturbing tone in their voices. They utter the syllables rhythmically, with extreme and hard inflections. I feel tautness.
I start my explanation. They do not take notes, nor make questions. They look at me with contempt. I wonder what is going on, but I can give no satisfactory answer. A hoarse rumbling is heard. I turn around, but I do not manage to recognize its author. All, without exception, look at me with hate, a hate that I can't understand.
"I remind you that on December 2nd you have to hand over project #2."
Afanoso Rol gets up from his seat and made his way to me slowly. He is looking at the floor, shaking his head in denial and clicking his tongue expressing his annoyance. He puts his hand on my shoulder and approaches his face to mine. I feel an intense smell of hate. I have never smelled such a smell before, but now I can recognize it unmistakably.
"What are you doing?," I ask dryly.
"So, on December 2nd…" he slowly comes back to his seat.
"Yes, it is so," I am bewildered, I am sweating. "Is there any problem?"
Afanoso Rol turns and swift as panther landed a tremendous punch on my face. He crashed me into the white blackboard. My cheek is burning.
"This is the problem," Afanoso roars at me.
I try to get up. I stumble. Somebody grabs me by my back and crashes me against the blackboard again. It's Granuja Malo, who turns me facing him and throws a terrific punch on my nose. I stay facing the blackboard. My blood gushes out and blends with the formulas I wrote in my last lesson. It's a beautiful metaphor. My legs give way.
"You don't know what you are doing," I groan.
I notice a boot on my back. At the beginning it only leans, but taps more and more forcefully. I turn my head a little and see Marina Ocaño, her hazelnut-coloured eyes standing out, grinning at me. She lands a heavy kick. I bump against the blackboard and barely stand up, facing them all. I see the classroom in front of me through the large, rectangular glass walls. Fernando Arroyo is teaching there, but he seems indifferent to what is happening here.
"So, my doubts seem to you nonsensical, illogical, absurd and frustrating." Avalar Vivales talks to me in a unsuspected rancor.
"I never said that," I complain.
"But you were thinking so!," he bellows at me.
He tightens the muscles of his face, as an infinite force had pulled them. All of a sudden, he trips me up with a accurate kick. A voice plenty of sarcasm sounds.
"Effort, creativity, intelectual rigor, perseverance… Go to hell," Marina Ocaño shouts to me.
"What do you want then? Where to get all that but here?," I can barely speak because of pain.
"Give us the fucking degree, bloody hell! We're fed up of this School so full of mediocrity and corruption."
"Effort? What for?," Lord Lasciva mocks. If you make no effort, why should we? Just because you are in power."
I hear a bellow. Lord Engañoso is preparing to charge at me from the bottom of the classroom. Tears roll down my face. He charges. I cough up blood. I curl up so to relieve my pain. Lord Lasciva boots while talking.
"Creativity? You're an asshole. Who do you think you are? Will those fucking companies paying a thousand euros a month appreciate any creativity?"
A big gob of spit splashes on my face. Zanca Mogil Onze looks at me with disdain, satisfied with her work to her heart's content.
"Perseverance? Here you only teach us how to pass the bucks. You all make me feel sick, gang of mediocre rats. Give us our degree at once," Zanca cleans off a thread of saliva dripping from her mouth.
"No, it isn't true, not everything is like that at this School," I bleed, cry, feel a deep stab of pain.
"How dearly expensive education has cost me here!," Afanoso moans.
"If you think education is dearly expensive, what's the price of ignorance?," I expectorate blood suffocating me.
A rain of kicks, gob of spits and punches washes over me. They all howl "My degree! My degree!" Their shouts deafen me. My vision gets blurry because of my tears. I feel like I am going to faint. All of sudden, they step back and a hazy figure shows up. It is familiar to me, but pain refrain me from recalling. It's a woman wearing a low-cut sweater and the beginning of her breasts is recognizable to me. She shakes me, she shakes me even harder.
"Wake up! It's me. It's seven o'clock. You're yelling. What's wrong," My wife looked at me very worried.
I wake up trembling and, indeed, am crying. I don't know why, but I can't stop crying.
I have my breakfast in silence, lost in my thoughts. I try to smile at my wife. I take my car and drive to my School. Today I teach my Pattern Recognition class. I come into the classroom.
"Good morning"
"Good morning, we are very happy to see you." They reply in unison uttering the syllables rhythmically.
I am sweating buckets.
November-25th-08. Karp-Morris-Pratt's Algorithm - Tick-tock. I want to widen the time. Tick tock, tick tock… My mind can’t subdue it within that time window, it can’t. Tick tock, tick tock… I am overcome by sleep. No, a thousand times no!, I’ll manage all this. I just need a little extra time; I need some time to distil the solution from the alembic of my mind. Tick tock, tick tock… But time is getting on and can’t work it out. It isn’t formed by that many pieces, but their layout is quite delicate. My mind can’t span it yet. Tick tock, tick tock… I hate that little tick! Shut up, damn clock! How relentless is the passing of time! I am not asking to reverse time’s arrows, only stop it for a few hours. How would time be measured during that stop? Tick tock, tick tock… Mind, understand. Mind, penetrate. Show me that you have the power. Tick tock, tick tock…No, I can see I won’t achieve it. I should have started earlier, I should have bought a little bit of time for myself. Only a tiny little would have sufficed. Tick tock, tick tock… I misused my time (tick tock, tick tock), so what would entitle me to complain about its brevita? (tick tock, tick tock). Sometimes it seems I have got (tick tock, tick tock) the solution, but unexpected dificulties arise (tick tock, tick tock). This is more serious (tick tock, tick tock) than it appears (tick tock, tick tock). Very little time (tick tock, tick tock) is left (tick tock, tick tock)… I have to run (tick tock, tick tock) off my feet (tick tock,
tick tock)…Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock… Bong! Tuesday, December 2nd, 23:59 p.m. Handing over of the second string pattern recognition project.
