prospecting

Out of muddle-murk
Arise network connections
And prospects galore!

EGAD, YOU GUYS.

Yesterday afternoon I accepted a job with CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, beginning on 11 January.  The group I'm going to be working with is called INSPIRE, and I don't know a lot more than that yet.

Conversation:

Joe: so what are you up to in Spring?
Me: oh, I think I will hang out in Bloomington and do some research with Rawlins.
Joe: um.  I am going to get you a job.

<6 hours pass>

Joe's boss (on the phone from Geneva): so Joe told me you would be good at this job.  I looked at your resume, and I think you would be really good at it, too.  I'm going to look into funding for you to come to Switzerland, ok?
Me: ...YES.

The next day, I talked to his partner at CERN, who helped with details, and now I'm in the process of getting things arranged.  So that I can move to Switzerland.  In 4 weeks.

That in mind, I ask kindly for warm things (I do believe the Alps are chilly this time of year) or plane tickets for Christmas/graduation.  ;)

One of my roommates (Sam) mentioned how ironic it is that I worked for Google, which runs the world, and am now going to work for CERN, which will end the world.

GRADUATION IS SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON

a few photos

Soaked to the skin, up
To my neck in water and
Advertising.  Ha!

 

hello, goodbye

Footprints from the sky,
Cast darkly across cacti,
Wavering in heat.

Arizona is more gorgeous than I remembered.  I haven't been here in... what, like 8 years or something?  Anyway, it's been a while.  Flying in, I was once more enthralled by desolation from the air.  Excuse me for a moment while I wax poetic about the scenery, and then I'll get to talking about Grace Hopper:

Desert towns make no concessions.  Grids cross their space in the sand, and they don't taper off so much as they just stop when civilization does.  Sometimes a street will waver with a suggestion of organic shape.  The roads that connect the towns are Hugh Hefner-straight across flat, sandy inbetweens.  There are no curves to follow around hills.  There are no speed limits.

Dark veins of runoff channels spider across the dunes, giving the desert an appearance of old life.  Dots of brush don't seem like much from so high.  The outlines of sanguine mountains in the distance are made fuzzy by saguaros, which up close seem to be classic cowboys with their arms askew.

On the ground, one sees that there is more to this place.  The burning sun and the dry heat it brings are interrupted occasionally by a plane-shadow: the footprint of some great, rigid bird-god.  A lizard suns himself on a rock.  Some of the cacti are blooming--strange spots of bright in a landscape of brown and muted greens.  Some of the cacti are dying, but there is a romance in the extinguished ones covered in spiderwebs.

At sunrise and sunset, when Helios is at an end of his long drag across the southern sky, the silhouettes of hills and flora make dramatic backdrops for the southwestern dance music floating out of the conference centre.

Ok, anyway, I really loved the desert and actually am rather going to miss it.  The conference was way more fun than I expected, too, and I learned about a few really awesome grad school opportunities that I'm going to have to look into (including the Media Lab at MIT).  I think I also landed an internship for the spring, but we'll see how that goes.  ;)

There were lots of cool talks about things ranging from Lego Mindstorms to expanding involvement of women in technical fields (no surprise there) to how to best use the fairly extensive penetration of mobile phone service in Africa to improve medical care.  There was also a really inspiring panel about interdisciplinary research, which is most likely where I'm going to find myself.

There were also, of course, parties and lots of swag (Sarah and I got some great umbrellas from Bloomberg).  The platinum sponsors of the event were Google, Microsoft, and Intel, but there was a lot of participation from Amazon, Yahoo!, Bloomberg, IBM, Raytheon, and others.  I came away with a lot of free t-shirts (and 5 sets of Google sunglasses for the llamas back home).  I also got the chance to squaredance with Alan Eustace, to set up Guitar Hero and play with the Intel folks, and to jump in a pool fully clothed, which I haven't done in years, haha.  :)

I had a good time.  I hope that I have enough time to get my homework done on the plane flights home, but we'll see how that goes.  Oh, the life of a jetsetter.

graduation and grad students

Leaves outlined yellow,
Nights cold, snuggle into bed,
And watch the sun rise.

I'm now a few steps closer to graduation: all of my degrees are officially going to be complete, my minors are recorded as they should be, my general honors notation is filed-for, and I'm going to get (ugh) senior portraits.

Huzzah!

I've been hanging around grad students a lot this term (unsurprising, considering that I'm in three graduate courses and fully half of my fourth course is graduate students), and life seems good for them.  I know that I don't have nearly so much work as I was anticipating, which leaves good swaths of time to do things like go to the Lotus Festival next weekend, which I definitely recommend to anyone who'll be in the area.  It's a show that takes up all of downtown with performances from artists around the globe: last year I watched some throat singers, which was basically crazy.

Good news!  My LaTeX equation editor, which launched in knol a month or so ago, is now available in Google Docs!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I'm a bit shocked at how fall-y it's getting.  It's easy to tell what time people got dressed when you see them--those with sweatshirts were probably up before 10, and those without, after.  I am excited about cold weather, though, and wearing sweaters and all that.  Oh, and the Pikachu hat, of course.  :D