Atlantic article

Like everyone else in the blogosphere, I feel the need to weigh in on Anne-Marie Slaughter's article on women in the workforce and women in leadership. I'm exactly her subject matter: a female in her early thirties trying to figure out work, family, ambition, and what to do with her PhD.

She mentions that academia made it possible for her to do it all for a long time because of its flexible schedule. I agree, if you can live near your work. When I've lived near my academic job I've enjoyed a lot of freedom and flexibility: I can work really hard and still get a haircut, get groceries, go to the dentist, etc. I've also lived far from my academic job in order to deal with a two-body problem + a mortgage. When I'm commuting a substantial distance, living at home rather than coming home only on weekends, and teaching classes in the morning and attending required committee or department meetings in the late afternoon, I too have felt the stress. Hate it. I hate leaving home by 7 am and coming home at 8 pm. If I have to do it again I will quit -- I learned a lot about work-life balance!

And travel is rough. This summer I am spending five weeks on the road. Sure, it's a choice, and one I've looked at closely. (I believe in making conscious choices to the extent that's possible.) I have considered canceling some of those weeks on the road -- but the conferences seem essential to the progress of my career, if I want to have a career, and the family time seems essential if I want to maintain family connections. On the other hand, time at home with my nuclear family seems pretty important too! I want to see friends and go to cool city events and do a triathlon and weed the garden... when is that going to happen?

I am very fortunate: I get to do work that I find interesting and meaningful while being financially supported for travel to interesting locations. Many people I know find the life, from the outside, almost glamorous (crazy to say about a mathematician's life). On the inside, I don't know. What price am I paying in trying to climb this ladder that in the end seems to have little sawed-off rungs every few steps? It's not like I've got a steady job to rely on...

Time for a real vacation

I think it's time to take a few days really away from math and the web, mostly because I have some pressing family events coming up. Those events need some real attention: I have a lot of family here in the country I'm visiting and am in some sense bicultural, but I have not lived here for any length of time as an adult and so the dance of politeness and family can be less than fluent. We'll see what can be done. Poor introverts! As I learned from the book "Quiet," introverts observe human interactions as keenly and insightfully as anyone, but at times have trouble performing the dual tasks of observing and participating. I need to do both for the next few days.

So, to what extent do complete vacations improve mathematical thought? I am used to keeping a problem rolling around like a stone in a polisher, tumbling into my conscious thought at odd moments. Really setting it aside is a bit unusual. Perhaps during the semester while paying close attention to student needs I did so, but did not notice so much because of the pressing demands of the moment. Maybe it's better to make a real choice to put aside the math for a few days rather than having it be accepted under duress. People say it's good for you. Are they right?

The book "Quiet" also has a lot to say about why I found teaching 3-3 stressful in a way I hadn't imagined. I don't think I made enough time during the day for retreating into my introverted shell after being "on" for 2-3 hours teaching, 2 hours with students, and a meeting or two. This is a drawback of an open-door policy that is taken very literally. I need to mull over this a bit. Dreamed about teaching last night: I had to come up with a bunch of readings on ethics -- good and evil -- for a small seminar class. I was excited about it although rather stressed by the short time frame given for coming up with a reading list, especially since I've never taught a philosophy or ethics class! Maybe my desire to teach is reviving from its wilted state.

June... almost over...

see you in July!

Notebooks redux

I am in a country thousands of miles away from home -- the annual migration to the land of my ancestors. (As a guy I was chatting with last week said, "You guys are like wildebeests or something!") I forgot my research notebook.

My spouse said, "That's a Freudian slip if I ever saw one."


I did remember my personal journal, and it's been co-opted now for mathematical purposes. This is one reason I know that I'm still in the right field: I can't stop the mathematical itch. Can't stop! Maybe I get tired out by "parenting" students, maybe I get tired out by committees, but I can't stop wanting to know how this combination of group actions acts on my geometric object of choice. I got a nice couple hours in on the plane and have some cool ideas. I can't wait to find out if my crazy insight is correct. There's a nice and clear combinatorial correspondence between the things I'm looking at but I don't know if the geometry will hold up.


Now if I ever get famous enough to have a biographer write my biography they'll read all my grousing about all my neurotic thoughts... combined with math.

The difficulty, though, is that I'm with the family. There is going to be a whirlwind of social activity, from yardwork to running to coffee-drinking. I need a vacation, Lord knows, but I also want to find the answer to my question. How will I find some time? Do I need to beg off with jet-lag induced need for alone time?

Also started reading "Quiet," a book about introversion, which may be lending me some insight into why my last year at a liberal arts college stressing student interaction was, well, rather stressful. Maybe with such information I could do better in the future.