Insomnia.

I am feeling restless tonight. The semester is finally over, the holidays are around the corner and somehow I cannot sleep. The truth is I did not accomplish everything I wanted to this semester. Two of my three big projects are still teetering on the precipice of submission (though I did receive a positive review of another article that made my day earlier this week), I did not blog or take photos in any way as diligently as I did before this semester, and I cannot say my personal relationships benefited with anyone from the last 4 months of my life. I miss everyone but did not say so nearly often nor sincerely enough. Too often I found myself bogged down in my own stresses too look up and simply enjoy something. My thoughts strayed to the negative more than the positive. I essentially gave up writing, rarely talked to or seen friends and family, hardly cooked anything interesting or original ... basically I feel like I have been in neutral. The transition back to the states, back into marriage, back to Columbia, back to everything that is both the same and yet somehow very different to what I left behind so long ago has been much harder for me to cope with than I imagined.

Professionally, I would say I have been focused because at least there I have seen results. I have traveled for work to give talks, started some fascinating projects, applied for tenure track jobs, finished a paper, nearly finished three others, found some tricks along the way to solve some other projects, learned something about quantization, reviewed several papers and taught a graduate course. However, as a scientist each little victory always seems to be shrouded by the mushroom cloud of repeated failures. I know it is the name of the game in my profession to constantly go head to head with ideas that may or may not actually work, but the devastation starts to wear on you ... especially when you work in a basement, never see the sun, do not get health insurance and pay New York rent.

Personally, I just feel a void. I feel distant from everyone around me for some reason. Despite a desperate desire to connect, it seems like I am always fumbling around the right words, struggling to find the energy to reach out or just flat out avoiding interacting with people ... blogging included. I worry that having been truly alone for so much of the past 2 years, maybe it is my natural state and I just really do not know how to handle real, up close and personal relationships. I get the feeling that even my dog knows she does not get as much of me as there is to offer. Perhaps despite my willingness to communicate openly about everything with those around me, I am guarded, distracted or tuned out in other ways? Honestly, having felt isolated since my early childhood, maybe there is just no other way for me to function?

One joy I seem to find these days is in playing with the few kids I have the pleasure of knowing. However, to be honest, I have been woefully neglectful of my god-daughter, nephew, young cousins, baby cousins and the kids of friends I also treasure. However, what little time I do get to see them or learn about them makes me happier than I have felt otherwise. Honestly, a baby smiled at me in the Subway the other day and I felt some kind of crazy emotional surge. I think a lot of that feeling is that I truly love teaching and in particular watching someone learn. Sadly, my course this year really did not satisfy that need. With only two students, too little time to cover the material properly and it being my first real course to manage, many things felt lacking about the experience. I sincerely hope my students learned something but cannot say I came away feeling confident and renewed. Usually teaching takes stress out of a semester because I know I am doing something beneficial or have a particular student I came away feeling benefited from having had me as an instructor. I am teaching a larger course with a more reasonable time frame next semester, so maybe I can get some of the old verve back from transmitting knowledge. I may also get the chance to work in the discovering science room at the American Museum of Natural History soon, which could be a lot of fun and hopefully help fill the teaching void as well. Plus, I will be at NYU most of the semester, meaning my surroundings will be a lot more desirable as well.

In any case, this is completely rambling and incomprehensible but the long and short of it is that I hope to keep writing. I am not sure New Years Resolutions work, though I do know this ... in 2010 I need more emotional nourishment than I have had in 2009. When I think of the earth shattering events of this past decade, it is astonishing to me what I have borne witness to in the course of my adult life ... both from a global and personal perspective. But with horrific acts of terrorism, wars waging for the unforeseeable future, millions of citizens unable to afford basic health care, our educational system in extreme peril, global poverty and disease, near economic collapse, a culture of greed and consumption that has led to a lack of investments in our future from the top management of our corporations looking only 2 or 3 years out to maximize current profits down to the individual family member unwilling to invest in technology, infrastructure, education or anything else that would bring our local economies back, the sharply rising wealth gap, environmental dangers, prejudice and discrimination against homosexuals being built into our laws, the suppression of democracy in Iran, hurricanes, tsunamis, illiteracy, intolerance, human trafficking, religious extremism, scientific ethics violations that breach the public trust in something I love, an uncertain future for professional journalism, etc ... I need to feel like a force for good out there in this world. What my place is in it, I do not really yet know, but I would like to do something to make just one of these situations better in my lifetime. Any ideas out there?

Pride and Prejudice

Just finished it ... very funny.

Thanksgiving.

After making three loaves of buttermilk bread for our various festivities on Wednesday night, I went out to see an old friend I rarely get to see these days. I rarely get to see him because he lives in restaurant New York ... where night is day and day is night. In any case, it was good to see him, despite being incredibly exhausted when I woke up the next morning for my first New York Thanksgiving.

First, we went to a pot luck with a rather eclectic group, where for the first time in my life people actually gave me business cards. It was a pretty good time with a copious amount of food and nice people. The bread received a rather warm reception and the conversation flowed pretty easily given that some people there were aspiring Broadway stars, some MBA's and quants, some lonely churchgoers with nowhere else to be and well ... me. All of us crammed into a somewhat warm New York apartment and ate well more than is humanly natural.

Second, we went over to have dinner with some old friends, their parents, their 2 year old son, as well as their son's playground friend and his family. My friends were cooking so much food they had commandeered the stove in a common room of their building to assist in the preparations. Now, ideally, this meal would have started at 4, putting us home right at 6:30 or so when I expected my friends from LA to arrive at our apartment after their transcontinental flight. However, this was not to be. Everyone ran a bit late but fortuitously my friends and their family had prepared SO much food, my friends were able to come from the airport and join us for a Thanksgiving meal. The turkey was perfectly cooked (though the hosts declared it too dry), the sweet potatoes were marshmallow free and delicious, there were homemade cinnamon biscuits, crisp green beans and fresh, tart, homemade cranberry sauce. This delicious meal was then capped off by the presentation of the largest apple pie I have ever seen in my life. It was big enough to feed an army. Even though everyone had a fairly large piece, less than half of it was gone. All this delicious food was enjoyed while the kids chased each other around, played with Mindy, made music and tried on fireman outfits to the general delight of parents, grandparents and guests alike. It was a great meal, but we were all exhausted and before it was too late grabbed a cab home for the four of us ... plus Mindy of course.

Upon arriving home our friends surprised us with a new version of Scene-It, which we gladly cracked open and played several rounds of while our stomachs began to slowly forgive us (or at least I felt this way) for the day of overindulgence. It was a lot of fun and my personal record was 5-1 for the night. Though sadly I felt I had no real astonishing answers or flashes of brilliant, insightful recall. I pretty much got lucky. But, I will take it as this morning I am not nearly as lucky, since I am sitting in my office waiting for a collaborator to be free in order to discuss a project we need to have submitted within a week or two. I hate abandoning my friends for a morning, but this does need to get done so hopefully it will pay off in the end. In any case, he is about to be free, so I should wrap up. In any case, that was Thanksgiving for me this year.

AMNH

Well, it is in. My application to volunteer at the Natural History Museum is in. We shall see if it works out, but hopefully this will give me a way to get out of the house and do something worthwhile.

Catching Up on Photos...

These photos go back to my last night in Germany with a very old friend, attending the US Open including a Williams Sisters match and my trip to Austin where I saw my cousin D. Sadly I have been bad about taking my camera with me these days, but hopefully I will be able to steal some photos from Amber to document other experiences I have had. In any case, on this night before Thanksgiving, I wanted to try to catch up and bring myself back to keeping up with documenting my adventures.

Austin:



The US Open:




































Last Night In Bonn with Anne:

Everyman

While my second loaf of buttermilk bread is coming together, I figured I would write about the book I just finished, namely Everyman by Phillip Roth. This is my first Roth novel, and he is certainly gifted at concisely capturing the emotions one feels in various parts of their life. Death is the central theme here, and the character relives his greatest triumphs and tragedies, moments of extreme virility and tremendous frailty. It is a life both well led and full of hurtful acts and regrets. Though this man was perhaps too old for me to fully understand his reaction to things like the terrorist acts of 9/11 and a loss of one's former perceived glory, but it was a captivating perspective on death and dying. As I think about death more than I care to admit, I did appreciate the read and particularly will come back to this book for the words to express the way I am feeling when I eventually lose those I love.

For Shame.

So, although it is not reflected here, I have been in the mood to write quite a bit lately but often just too tired or distracted to do so. To that end, I want to try to start posting stories more often (hopefully daily) and get back in the routine of the actually recording my thoughts. If anyone out there who actually reads this blog would do their best to prod me along in this, I might need it.