The Rest of the Homevisit, and Return to Normalcy
So I only really told half the story of my time at home in DC. Maybe even less than half. I mentioned visiting with Jon and Carla and Nevin, which was gloriously awesome. Nevin is more responsive and interesting than when I last saw him, although he's yet to develop any really entertaining behaviors. But it would have been a pleasure to see them all even if nothing had changed. Hannukah with the folks (or holidays with the folks, really -- Hannukah isn't even the big deal) is just extra-special, and a good time was had by all. Many other people were also in town for the holidays, which meant getting together with some folks I went to high school with. I managed to get to see two largely distinct crowds at a get-together to watch football (at which we did not watch football) with a few UMD alumni (including grysar), as well as at a New Year's Eve party thrown by shogun_lunn. So it was good to touch base with people, see we're all surviving, and that some of us have gone in unexpected directions (that "some" does not include me. My life- and career-arc surprised nobody, except maybe for the ending up in Kentucky bit).
In among this I and the folks had an enjoyable time together, boardgaming, eating well, and visiting a few museums (the Udvar-Házy Center is impressively complete, thoughtfully laid out, and spacious; the National Museum of American History is, despite its recent makeover, none of those). I pretended to work on my research and actually worked on the classes I was teaching in the spring. And then came the Joint Meetings.
The JMM was, as always, an exhausting madhouse. I'm rocking some of the networking, building connections I hope will be valuable. My talk was also a success -- I had an excellent crowd response, and some folks took enough of an active interest in my work to request copies of slides, notes, etc. Another notable event was the AMS Fiber Arts Session: the last time we did this was Atlanta in '04, where I got to talk about Sierpinski triangles. I had neither a talk nor a project to exhibit this time, alas, but it was excellent to see what everyone else was up to, and people are still coming up with interesting things to say about mathematical fiber arts (and in spite of not beign involved this year, I got my ego stroked by Ted Ashton, who is, like me, exploring Sierpinski triangles and gives me a lot of credit (I keep trying to remind people it's really meep's idea and that I just played with it for a while, but I guess we can all only see the shoulders of the person we stand immediately on).
And then came the return to DC. The trip was uneventful except for terrifying freezing rain which glazed instantly onto my windshield outside of Morgantown, and by evening I was home and unpacking. It is worth mentioning, of course, that the reason I drove out was in order to cart a lot of stuff out of my parents' basement, which I did! I now have much of my arts and crafts here in Louisville, as well as a hell of a lot of books. Amazingly, there seems to be a place in my house for most of it without too much rearranging of furnishings.
On Monday I had to get classes together. I'd missed the first week, which I hate doing, and started off on the wrong foot. As always, a new class involves a period of adjustment to the students' proficiency level, which I'm still in the midst of doing.
In addition, I'm getting my research together, shipping out papers and suchlike, hoping to pull my act (which I've let slip for too long) together.
Things are going well, I think. Whyever do I feel such a sense of trepidation? There's a lot about life that could be better, I guess. My social circles are still kind of insular, and I need to be working harder on my professional development, but still, these are things I should be able to weather and work out.
In among this I and the folks had an enjoyable time together, boardgaming, eating well, and visiting a few museums (the Udvar-Házy Center is impressively complete, thoughtfully laid out, and spacious; the National Museum of American History is, despite its recent makeover, none of those). I pretended to work on my research and actually worked on the classes I was teaching in the spring. And then came the Joint Meetings.
The JMM was, as always, an exhausting madhouse. I'm rocking some of the networking, building connections I hope will be valuable. My talk was also a success -- I had an excellent crowd response, and some folks took enough of an active interest in my work to request copies of slides, notes, etc. Another notable event was the AMS Fiber Arts Session: the last time we did this was Atlanta in '04, where I got to talk about Sierpinski triangles. I had neither a talk nor a project to exhibit this time, alas, but it was excellent to see what everyone else was up to, and people are still coming up with interesting things to say about mathematical fiber arts (and in spite of not beign involved this year, I got my ego stroked by Ted Ashton, who is, like me, exploring Sierpinski triangles and gives me a lot of credit (I keep trying to remind people it's really meep's idea and that I just played with it for a while, but I guess we can all only see the shoulders of the person we stand immediately on).
And then came the return to DC. The trip was uneventful except for terrifying freezing rain which glazed instantly onto my windshield outside of Morgantown, and by evening I was home and unpacking. It is worth mentioning, of course, that the reason I drove out was in order to cart a lot of stuff out of my parents' basement, which I did! I now have much of my arts and crafts here in Louisville, as well as a hell of a lot of books. Amazingly, there seems to be a place in my house for most of it without too much rearranging of furnishings.
On Monday I had to get classes together. I'd missed the first week, which I hate doing, and started off on the wrong foot. As always, a new class involves a period of adjustment to the students' proficiency level, which I'm still in the midst of doing.
In addition, I'm getting my research together, shipping out papers and suchlike, hoping to pull my act (which I've let slip for too long) together.
Things are going well, I think. Whyever do I feel such a sense of trepidation? There's a lot about life that could be better, I guess. My social circles are still kind of insular, and I need to be working harder on my professional development, but still, these are things I should be able to weather and work out.