Time.

If I am honest, it is hard to believe I have been back in the US for an entire month. I miss everyone and my life in Europe terribly, though hopefully I'll have a semblance of that here soon as well. There has been so much going on around me, the last several weeks have all blurred together. To be honest, I have a hard time distinguishing the chronological order of several events. Now that I am settled once more, time seems to be progressing linearly again, which is a great relief. However, it was one of my favorite parts of Slaughterhouse 5 when the protagonist described his ability to travel through the time dimension of his life and becoming accustomed to seeing in 4 dimensions. In any case, in all this time, I have reacquainted myself with my surroundings, made love to my wife, argued with my wife, walked my dog, actually made a few dinners, had a few beers, sent in my passport for renewal, begun teaching, given two research talks, established a routine, set up a home office, had a paper accepted, made serious headway on two drafts near completion, started thinking and discussing seriously a few exciting new projects, begun the process of learning some mathematical biology, figured out how to use a cell phone again, missed using German and strolled longingly passed a Brooks Brothers in search of a new umbrella. This weekend I will host my first visitor of the semester and next week I make my first trip to a conference. Needless to say, it has been a full month and seems to be a full year ahead of me. I will be sending out some job applications to see if I can get a permanent position this year, which is both exciting and overwhelming. All I can do through all this is try to keep my head above water, get some work done and try to become the man I hope to be by 30, which may be here before I know it at this pace.

On a side note, an opportunity has arisen to go see The Marriage of Figaro at the Met with an old friend for her 30th birthday in November, which makes me incredibly excited. With all the poverty and podcasting in my life the last couple years, there has not been nearly enough music.