Work on math. Cry a little. Socialize. Cry some more.

Well, let's take a break from the traveling blogs because that is not my day-to-day reality. The classes here are rough. The hardest classes I think I've ever taken, and it's got me questioning if math is still my one true love. The videos I share and the pictures I post all show the glamorized version of my time in Budapest, but I can assure you that's only 30% of my life here. I do work for hours a day and am still left confused, every class is 2 hours long so the fatigue sets in really quick, and I am learning content at a pace that is so quick my brain is having a hard time really grasping the concepts in lecture. I have never been this challenged in classes before - and specifically math classes - and it has been the steepest learning curve imaginable.

Hungary is known for their discovery based learning approach, which focuses less on lectures and more on students solving problems and coming to their own conjectures. This might work for some students and they might love it, but personally, it has been far from enlightening. I would much prefer to have lectures so that I can learn the information and apply it to problem sets rather than go straight into problem sets with little to no background knowledge. It is just not the way I'm used to learning and let me tell you, it is quite discouraging to stare at a piece of paper for so long and have no idea where to even begin to solve the problems. The amount of times I've had tears in my eyes in the middle of class and texted Shayar how stressed and dumb I feel is more than I can count. Many weeknights have been spent crying wondering how I even made it into this program, questioning how much more I want to give, and thinking: is all this stress really worth it? Midterms crushed my self-esteem, and recovering mentally from those took quite a bit of work, but luckily I have some great people here and my close friends from back home that are there for me :)

Alright, I know that was quite depressing, but the good news is I've decided to use it as motivation to prove myself wrong and make it through this program! I may not thrive but I will certainly make sure I survive and make it to the.other side a much better math student!! I am very grateful to have this opportunity to learn in such a unique way in a country that is so well respected for mathematics, and I know this opportunity will never come again, and that is my main driving force to keep chugging along. High school Mackenzie never thought she would study abroad, let alone be on her way to being a badass mathematician, traveling around Europe for 4 months. So I'm sure once I'm back at Tulane I'll have a much more positive outlook on my time here in the academic sense, since traveling has been AMAZING!! So, verdict is: math is still my one true love and BSM will not break that for me, as hard as it may try!

But on a more fun note, I was able to do a lot in Budapest and be a tourist in my own city! Cara, Sam, Shayar, Eashan, and I saw Tosca in the Hungarian National Opera and it was SO COOL! The story was a little hard to follow but the opera house was absolutely stunning and I couldn't help but be distracted by the sheer beauty around me. Bianca and I went to a 50 Cent concert which was INSANE and so fun and also something I never thought I would do, but hearing In Da Club with 30,000 other people and THE 50 Cent singing it fulfilled a dream of mine I didn't even know existed. Brandon and I have our THC (Theory of Computing) study sessions and let me just say, pushdown automata are just so exciting! SO many arrows and circles! Drake and I are coffee shop study buddies, and other than Shayar and Eashan, he's who I spend like all my time with. He is such a source of light in my life and he is so funny to the point where one time he made me laugh so hard I vomited! He's given me my motto to live by for this semester: BBB, always be boolin'.

Shayar and Eashan are my guys though and I basically live with them for half the week at a time and I don't know what I would do without them! Eashan can't believe he's friends with someone as dramatic and emotional as me, but I'm glad to offer some excitement to his everyday life. He always finds the best places for the three of us to go out to eat, and I love the dedication he has for finding well-rated food places, he really is a top tier food critic!! It's nice to have the two of them as a sounding board and rationalizers because they always tell me to just calm down and breathe and I really need that. And how could I forget about Shayar, the one who puts up with most of my craziness here! We always go on fun adventures, and I even got him to watch Dahmer with me!! He's becoming a true crime fan! It's nice to have a comfort here, and someone who makes you feel so safe and protected, I wish I could just keep on traveling with him around Europe and forget about the math! But seriously, I found a good one and am so incredibly lucky <3

Now off to do more homework and explore a new coffee shop in the city!! Prague blog is coming up next :)

xoxo, Mackenzie