All great mathematical ideas come with a single instance of realization. But then you spend several days trying to make sure it works and many many times it's a dumb idea.
It's a lot like baseball, mathematics is frustrating, you fail most of the time, even for the great ones, even when you think you understand everything.
I didn't know, Torie, that you were a UChicago Maroon (assuming the movie didn't change the location and UChicago are still the Maroons). How did you come out alive?
With some difficulty. That first year in college was the toughest year of my life, in almost all aspects. It was an annealing experience. The intellectual demands, the demand to read tough convuluted prose original texts, in qualtity, was almost simply too much for an 18-19 year old. It really was. Those that survived it, back then, are truly a band of brothers. After that, it became somewhat easier, and the MBA at the Chicago business school, and the JD at the Michigan Law School, were relative bunny slopes for me.