10 Months and 19 Days ago : Corvallis shrank a little more today. I estimate that this cowtown is now smaller than the Little Prince's asteroid. I also got an overdue notice for Theroux's "The great railway bazaar". As Pink said : "I've got a strong urge to fly. But nowhere to fly to"
8 Months and 22 Days ago : I attend a study abroad information session. I was hoping for a few drinks, a map, and a bucket of darts. We only got handouts instead. Apparently eastern Europe has the most scholarship money. Russia, here I come!
5 Months and 4 Days ago : I turn in my essays and application for the Boren scholarship. I hold my breath.
5 Months and 3 Days and 23 hours and 58 minutes ago : I start breathing again and cross my fingers instead.
1 Month and 26 Days ago : I am rejected as a Boren Scholar.
1 Month and 19 Days ago : Cha-Ching! I hit pay dirt with the American Mathematical Society. They're sending me off to Russia with seven and a half dimes (an odious, practical, abundant, and even number)
15 Days ago : Summer starts along with my three jobs at Oregon State. I'm continuing with my work at the Giovannoni Lab, working magic with math to pursue the ecological role of bacterioplankton in the ocean's surface. I landed a sweet research gig with Holly investigating the combinatorial significance of analytic functions which describe properties of integer partitions. And who knows what directions working with Bob will take us? (No, I'm serious. Does anyone know?)
1 Month 29 days 6 hours 45 minutes from now : I leave for Moscow and within a short time period, 20 other students will descend upon Moscow from the US and Canada to begin a program aptly named "Math in Moscow". There, at the birthplace of modern mathematics, the largest metropolitan area in Europe, a city of culture and also hedonistic debauchery, where hot water during the summer isn't to be taken for granted, the land of бабушки eating sunflower seeds, of chessmasters, of borsht, the land from which came the man who would crush the west with the heel of his shoe, and whence came the mad monk; in the culture of madness, beauty, bitter winters, and vodka we study math.
The itch that led Daniel Boone out of Kentucky, that drove Pytheas out of Marseille, that chased Jacques-Cousteau 500 meters below the ocean's surface; the very same itch which goaded Greg Mortensen up K2 has mobilized me from complacency in Cowtown to an adventure in Russia.
The itch is many things. It's foremost a desire to see the world, but it is also in a very appreciative way those who have made this trip possible. My advisors : Renee, Holly, Bob, Scott, Rachel, and Peggy. My donors : Parents, Grandma Jane & Grandpa Gerry, the AMS, my Step-uncle Alex. My tutors : Еvgenia, Dmitrii, and Аnаstаsia. My fans : friends, family, professors, and anyone else who puts up with my hare-brained schemes for adventure.
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Ersten, Primero, First!
ReplyDelete1) You're right, I did expect this one.
2) I totally left Corvallis 10 months and 26 or 27 days ago! Now I am insulted! Kidding, though you should tell me what was so cool a week after I left.
3) Good luck, have fun, and congratulations! It's been quite a ride, and this is just the beginning. (Like the first big hill on a roller coaster, not really as explicitly thrilling, but still impressive and weighted with the trepidation that comes in the knowledge that this is merely a gateway into things that come.) Hope it works out to visit me on the way out, but I'll see you in a month either way I suppose.
Well, your blog is off to a great start. How about your thesis? :P
ReplyDeleteRenee
PS. I wouldn't be me if I didn't ask.
PPS. I will definitely enjoy keeping up with your journey through the blog. Thanks for the link.