My Last Day of Work.

Today will be my last official day as a postdoc here in Bonn. The year has been very hard for me in many ways, but professionally it was rather satisfying. Besides the department (namely my advisor) making my move to Germany fairly simple by providing me with housing and support, the resources and the facilities of the department are second to none. Because of all the activity here, of course the seminar schedule is constantly filled with interesting speakers such as Curtis McMullen and Edward Witten. The new building is rather spectacular actually, and the relevant groups are all placed close together. For me, this mostly means I have easy access to my fellow caffeine starved postdocs to grab them for a late afternoon coffee and discussion.

Somewhat miraculously, during a conversation over coffee in my second week here, my advisor happened to think he could answer a very hard question if I might actually be able to answer a slightly easier one. Well, in the end, it turned out to of course be far more complicated, but with a fair amount of work and a few helpful discussions with colleagues, we are now sitting here with a draft over 60 pages long incredibly near completion after just this one year's time. It is amazing how it came together and really would not have had it not been for some very key insights from my advisor. However, I am glad it did and look forward to getting it out there.

To be fair to Columbia, I am rather lucky to have both postdoc advisors I have had to this point. Though it can be exhausting some days, they have both been extremely generous with their time and each day involves at the very least having a coffee together to talk about our projects and other interesting mathematical concepts. This process will pick back up at Columbia next week where the coffee is a bit more expensive, but at least it is closer to the office. This way, my legs can get a bit of a rest.

In addition to my time in my group alone, with there being the separate HIM, during my first months I met some new colleagues with whom I became fast friends. From them, I have started trying to learn a few things about water waves as well as vortices in micromagnetics and other applications of the Calculus of Variations, a subject I have always liked. As I will be housed in a fairly applied department the next two years, getting some very physical projects going would be a nice development.

In no uncertain terms one can claim this year has been rather successful for me professionally. I am quite glad I came and feel rather lucky to have had the experience of living and working with the friends and collaborators I have met here. To be honest, the idea of going home seems so appealing and overwhelming, it has not really occurred to me that this is my last day to go to work in this department. It disappoints me to be leaving in many ways, but sadness is not the correct word right now. I have made some very good friends who I know I will miss terribly and have started a few interesting lines of research I do not want to lose momentum on studying as always happens a bit in long distance collaborations. However, I am very aware that those friends are organizing workshops I will attend within months really and of course know I will continue working with them on asking and answering interesting questions as long as they let me.

I guess all I can say is it is hard to leave a place that has come to feel like a bit of home for a period of time, where the people and department have made you feel so welcome and given you opportunities you never dreamed of having, where colleagues turned into both good friends and collaborators with great ease, and where something you love is studied with great intensity and passion. However, ahead of me lies moving back in with my wife, trying to reconnect, starting to teach, new and interesting challenges personally and mathematically, as well as the knowledge that maybe all the craziness that comes with a life of constant flux will finally dissipate if I can find someone willing to hire me permanently in two years. In short, though leaving my life here behind is hard to do, getting on the plane on Monday holds the promise of a future as yet unknown but one with great possibility.