I am less than smart :)

I posted my note on programming assignments, and then wondered why there were no comments. It turns out that I forgot to monitor my moderation list, and when I checked, there were tons of comments ! apologies to all the commenters: your comments are available now, and I'll start replying shortly.

A day in the life...

Here's a list of things I did today:

• I taught one lecture of my class
• I attended a departmental committee meeting
• I had a meeting with collaborators to work out a paper outline for something we're submitting
• I met with my student and did some nontechnical advising
• I had a (brief) discussion with a collaborator about a pending grant proposal.

In other words, I covered the entire gamut of activities one might expect of an academic - with one significant exception. Did you notice it ?

Nowhere in there was any actual research done ! Gaaaah !

Teacher's Day

I've been out of India for far too long, or so it seems. I had to be reminded by this article that Sep 5, Wednesday, is Teacher's Day in India. This day was chosen for its co-incidence with the birthday of India's second president, S. Radhakrishnan, a statesman and politician famous for his erudition and learning. According to Wikipedia, only 21 countries have an official celebration of Teacher's Day. Much to my surprise, the US is among them, with the day being part of a week called Teacher Appreciation Week.

Teacher's day in my school was always a big event; teachers did not teach that day, and came to school mainly to be entertained and feted in an assembly with variety shows/skits/gentle mockery. Senior students would mind the junior classes. when I was younger, this meant a day of partying in school. When I became one of the seniors, this meant I was able to come to school in "civilian clothing" (most schools in Delhi had strict uniform policies) to boss over the younger students. Good times...

Now I'm a teacher myself (after a fashion), and find it both easy (and fashionable) to grumble about the lack of respect shown by students in the US, as compared to students in India. The truth of course is far more complicated than that. Schools in Delhi appear to have acquired many of the "bad traits" of the worst high schools here; my mother has taught in Delhi schools for nearly 20 years and has seen them acquire more "western" habits (which is a shorthand for more boy-girl interaction, less "studiousness", less fear/reverence for the teachers, take your pick). And ultimately, as a university professor, I'm not even on the frontlines of education here in the US, and have no business complaining about the largely excellent students I teach.

In any case, here's a cheer for the teachers I had; the ones who tolerated my brashness, general arrogance, and constant questions, and helped me reach the teaching pedestal I find myself at today. And here's hoping that one day there'll be some student who might think as fondly of me as I think of all my teachers long past.

I'm moving to academia

(WARNING: personal information ahead. If you prefer to think of the Geomblog as written by robotic monkeys pounding on millions of keyboards, read no further)

One of the reasons the Geomblog has been silent these past few weeks is that I've been busy moving, and falling sick, and unpacking, and unpacking, and unpacking, and...

Now, where was I ?

Oh yes, moving. After many years of cloistered comfort at AT&T, I've decided to take the plunge into the exciting and dangerous waters of academia, at the University of Utah (30, count 'em, 30 minutes from the best powder skiing imaginable).

Why the move ? Many people have asked me this, and the answer is actually simple: because I finally wanted to. AT&T has been a wonderful place for me to work (and they're hiring next year, so get those applications ready), but I realized that the kinds of things I wanted to do (teach, initiate my own research programs, guide students, and participate in the academic conversation in general) were better done at this point in a university setting.

It's not a decision I made easily. It is said that the real value of a workplace is in the colleagues you have, and from that point of view, leaving AT&T has been hard. Leaving for a real job after completing a Ph.D felt like a natural rite of passage, much as leaving India for grad school felt like. But leaving the labs was a purely elective decision, and as such makes the transition a little more jarring.

And now here I am, in Salt Lake City (technically, I'm in Cincinnati airport waiting for a much delayed flight to New Orleans, but I digres...), preparing for my geometry class, working on a proposal, and doing my research. On the one hand, I have the basic day to day business of research more or less under control, and work and collaborations go on seamlessly. On the other hand, I often feel like a fresh Ph.D at his first job, managing myriad things that seem new and foreign. It's a strange feeling.

But I'm genuinely excited to be teaching, and am looking forward to interacting with students; something that I sorely missed at AT&T, except for the occasional summer. It will be an exciting adventure.