For the last six months I have nominally been a member of staff at Victoria, albeit actually unemployed. Not one to forgo any opportunity that comes my way, I happily volunteered for mentoring, functions with free food, a welcome at the marae, professional development seminars, and I made good use of the free showers, computing and printing facilities. I met some excellent young people, and enjoyed walking about the nearby hills.
It was no doubt observed that I was uncompetitive in the currency of reputation. Every dollar counts, right? Of course, now along with several major international collaborations, I am also a crackpot. So farewell Te Upoko O Te Ika. This morning I head south again, into the winter, with no intention of ever returning. Let me leave with a few well known words from Gandhi: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
14 years ago
Kea,
ReplyDeleteGreat quote. But is has been a very long journey thru the islands of the Long Cloud, as the indigenous peoples called it, there at the center of the world's sea mass.
And were they not master navigators by the latitudes of the stars on maps of wood and shells? And the phases of waves that told of other islands in the ocean?
While we may not lose, some games of life are that we win, or just break even.
I too may need a rest to explore some hints of new worlds.
The PeSla
Go Marni, you're the hope of us female scholars-to-be, fighting a headwind.
ReplyDeleteMarni every time I come here you tell another story just like this. Good luck with whatever you do next.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mahndisa. Of course, there really are no options left. I am no longer a sexy young waitress, so I am unemployed. I suppose there is one chance in a billion that one of the professional lurkers here at AP, from Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford (etc) might take me seriously enough to mention me in public (shock horror), but I'm not putting any money on it. Even though it appears that we were more correct about the physics than the stringers. And the loopies. Not that that was difficult.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course polytopes for twistor physics and category theory are now the trendiest topics on the market. It sure as hell wasn't that way when I gave regular seminars on the subject almost 10 years ago. Anyway, thanks for visiting.
Hi Marni,
ReplyDeleteI created a mildly interactive java applet where you can use a slider to control the angle, from "that damn number" to pi/2. Nothing really new here, but it's neat to see how the masses fall into place when you get to "that damn number"...
http://home.comcast.net/~davelook/Quark%20Files/LeptoQuark_slider.html
Dave's link here ...
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dave. Very elegant and useful.