Hmm.  Not entirely upset or challenged by this.  My relationship towards mathematics is something that I've been giving some attention to.  Like pretty much any other profession I guess, though maybe to a larger extent than some, I get the feeling that one is either working full-time or else completely out of the loop.  But I never really got a feel that I was in any loop, and this is maybe what is issueful for me: at best i have been absorbed in the study of mathematics, at worst I have felt completely removed from it: but never have I felt myself on the inside.  And it's as much psychological as social.  I feel that, leaving it be, things will have fizzled out without every having been realized in the first place.  That there's something fragile about it.  If that's how it's going to be, then that's how it's going to be: it's not that in and of itself that I have an issue with.  But I do feel that there is some trauma (in the sense of some issue that I cannot put my finger on, verbally or otherwise) lurking around here.

I spotted a conference today on Ultrafilters in pisa, and forwarded the notification to a friend who's big on ultrafilters.  He said that he would be totally up for going, and asked if I would be interested in going along with him.  This brought up several separate 'issues' for me (four, at one count, maybe five).  In that sense, it was beautiful.

I've said to myself that, come june I'm going to try to do something mathematical, that I'll put a bit of pressure on myself then to start looking at stuff again, but until then I'm totally not giving a damn about my activities mathematical.  This is working out okay so far, and not part of my plan that I'm at all worried about.

Specializes? Hmm.  I do try (not to, that is (at least most of the time)).  I am trying to say something, really.  I'm not sure that saying any more will make things any less cryptic :|  The problem with this particular issue is that it has a habit of rather obliterating every statement that I try to make about it: nothing fits, and everything is false, it feels.

Here's something more explicit then, something what you might be able to get your teeth into.  [subsequent waffle removed]

(OH, and I totally posted this on the wrong MLC&U  thread.  Any chance of moving this and the two above to the proper MLC&U thread?)

While I can't offer any crumbs of comfort, or insights with regard to the other four items, I attended a specialized conference some years ago with a number of presentations on medical and psychiatric topics and gained quite a lot from the experience despite never having been a medical practitioner.
And the accommodation was rather comfy too!

I am in a quandry and would appreciate some thoughts from those of you who can see the wood and not just the trees.

My much loved cousin is currently in hospital because of dodgy ticker problems. The past year has been difficult for him - he discovered he had cancer which had spread to his bones, his diabetes has become difficult to stabalise and he now has renal problems. The ticker was the last straw. He's now stuck in hospital because of a Norovirus and MRSA. I'm the only relative that's able to just drop everything and travel to see him in Shaftesbury (his peer group are all in their eighties and rather restricted in what they can do).

Now the problem. His long term partner of 50-odd years lives in the States. They love eachother to bits but didn't feel the need to sign a bit of paper. I was in regular contact with her on his last hospital admission but this time, I can't contact her. I keep getting a message saying 'Memory full'. I don't have contact numbers for any of her family. She is a rather frail person and often unwell. I am concerned that something may have happened to her. So, do I try and find my cousin's address book and try to contact her family?  I checked his answermachine the last time I was down there and there was no message from her or her family. Most unusual. The two of them spoke every Sunday without fail. He gives her and her children/grandchildren financial support. He is part of the 'family'.

If something, God forbid, has happened to her I suppose that news is better delivered by me, rather than him finding out on the end of a phone, but, but, but ...

Clarity, anyone?

I agree with Milly - after all, it is an emergency.

Hope it all works out ok.

I agree too. If you've been in contact with her in previous situations when he's been in hospital, and if he's given you access to his house anyway, then she's not going to find it strange and neither is he if you now do whatever you need to do to get in touch with her/her family.

Thanks to one and all. Yes, of course you are right. My hesitancy comes from the fact that my cousin is a very private person and much of his privacy has already been taken away. I didn't wish to trample on that which remains.

However, if someone else had posted my question (if you see what I mean), I would have said 'get the address book'.

Thank you again for taking the time to respond. You're a great bunch of people