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michiexileA new year.
A new decade even.
Or, at least a new tens digit when we write the year. I'm not really all that interested in the kind of semantic quibble that arose so fervently a decade ago - even if I was then.
And as such, a rather good point to look backwards, at the past decade, as well as forwards, to the decade that comes. To my hopes and dreams, such as they are today.
A decade ago? I was still in Gymnasium. I was finishing up - the last semester was about to begin. Today, the 2nd, in 2000, I was In Love, and I was Recently Broken Up, and not quite knowing it yet, I was about to embark on the Spring Of Grand Drama that ended up with me finding my beloved![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amerikabrev.
A decade ago, I was headed full steam into undergraduate mathematics studies, right after my graduation, and was almost unique among my peers in knowing full well exactly what it was I wanted to be doing after high school.
A decade ago, I had still never even heard of homology.
In the decade past since then, I've started and finished a mathematical course of study. Bachelor, Master, Doctor. I have worked as a cryptographer in the mobile phone industry. I've lived in four metropolitan areas in three countries. I have travelled to more places than I had in my entire life up to 2000. I went to the Republic of Georgia, I went to Australia, I went to the USA and to Canada. All of these in the latter half of the decade, all of these firsts.
I've grown tremendously in the years that went past. I'm a married man now. And still deliriously happy, and not a little surprised.
I don't know if there really is anything I know now that I would tell myself 10 years ago. All in all, I think I pulled it off decently well as I went along.
In a decade? I hope I'm still in academia. It is what I want. I just hope that I don't get chewed up and spit out along the road. That I manage to land a decent, stable job at a nice and good university. That I keep on getting nice ideas, that I keep on loving teaching, and that I don't burn out along the way.
I know there are perils lining the road as a career academic. I know I would have an easier career outside academia. I would also have a much, much less rewarding career, and I would grow frustrated at losing mathematics while I'm outside.
I might not lose mathematics; I know sigfpe combines a vivid interest in mathematics with a career outside it. But I also know that the time I've ventured out in the industry, it didn't feel right. I felt myself losing my prowess and my comprehension.
But if everything goes as I hope, in a decade, I will have tenure. I will live in the same city as my wife. I will have a child, or possibly two. I will be on the brink of leaving the time frame in which my accomplishments may be considered for the Fields medal - but then again, maybe the Fields medal is best left to the brighter stars among my peers.
I will be spending my time teaching, advising, and doing research. I will still love conference travel, and I will occasionally bitch about how my life prevents me from doing it as much as I used to.
I will think back on the past decade, and dream myself back to the leisure days of my doctorate studies and my postdoc times, when I could travel the world, and spend almost all my time just bouncing from city to city, talking to new mathematicians everywhere.
And I will still, I hope, be going to Stockholm every winter, regardless of where I'm living, to celebrate Christmas with my extended family, throwing a Christmas party for all our friends 'back home', and going to Blåkulla for New Year's.
I'm conservative like that.
A new decade even.
Or, at least a new tens digit when we write the year. I'm not really all that interested in the kind of semantic quibble that arose so fervently a decade ago - even if I was then.
And as such, a rather good point to look backwards, at the past decade, as well as forwards, to the decade that comes. To my hopes and dreams, such as they are today.
Retrospection
A decade ago? I was still in Gymnasium. I was finishing up - the last semester was about to begin. Today, the 2nd, in 2000, I was In Love, and I was Recently Broken Up, and not quite knowing it yet, I was about to embark on the Spring Of Grand Drama that ended up with me finding my beloved
amerikabrev.A decade ago, I was headed full steam into undergraduate mathematics studies, right after my graduation, and was almost unique among my peers in knowing full well exactly what it was I wanted to be doing after high school.
A decade ago, I had still never even heard of homology.
In the decade past since then, I've started and finished a mathematical course of study. Bachelor, Master, Doctor. I have worked as a cryptographer in the mobile phone industry. I've lived in four metropolitan areas in three countries. I have travelled to more places than I had in my entire life up to 2000. I went to the Republic of Georgia, I went to Australia, I went to the USA and to Canada. All of these in the latter half of the decade, all of these firsts.
I've grown tremendously in the years that went past. I'm a married man now. And still deliriously happy, and not a little surprised.
I don't know if there really is anything I know now that I would tell myself 10 years ago. All in all, I think I pulled it off decently well as I went along.
Prospection
In a decade? I hope I'm still in academia. It is what I want. I just hope that I don't get chewed up and spit out along the road. That I manage to land a decent, stable job at a nice and good university. That I keep on getting nice ideas, that I keep on loving teaching, and that I don't burn out along the way.
I know there are perils lining the road as a career academic. I know I would have an easier career outside academia. I would also have a much, much less rewarding career, and I would grow frustrated at losing mathematics while I'm outside.
I might not lose mathematics; I know sigfpe combines a vivid interest in mathematics with a career outside it. But I also know that the time I've ventured out in the industry, it didn't feel right. I felt myself losing my prowess and my comprehension.
But if everything goes as I hope, in a decade, I will have tenure. I will live in the same city as my wife. I will have a child, or possibly two. I will be on the brink of leaving the time frame in which my accomplishments may be considered for the Fields medal - but then again, maybe the Fields medal is best left to the brighter stars among my peers.
I will be spending my time teaching, advising, and doing research. I will still love conference travel, and I will occasionally bitch about how my life prevents me from doing it as much as I used to.
I will think back on the past decade, and dream myself back to the leisure days of my doctorate studies and my postdoc times, when I could travel the world, and spend almost all my time just bouncing from city to city, talking to new mathematicians everywhere.
And I will still, I hope, be going to Stockholm every winter, regardless of where I'm living, to celebrate Christmas with my extended family, throwing a Christmas party for all our friends 'back home', and going to Blåkulla for New Year's.
I'm conservative like that.
