purpose...

it's 3pm on sunday in prague.  it's a fairly low key day.  i'm currently writing (or procrastinating on writing) slides for a talk i'll give at a math conference this week here, and it's extremely overcast.

i've loved the past week.  i find it incredibly refreshing to be in europe and away from most of my work and responsibility.  being in this part of the world brings back memories of fall 2002 (when i studied in budapest for a semester), which is probably the most intense/best/most influential half year of my life ever.  it is good to be here. :)

the magic word of the weekend though seems to be: PURPOSE.

it's come up in two contexts back to back, which i find interesting.

(1) jan and i have laughed all summer how hyper-organized i tend to be, and how i like to have things prepared in advance for work, for research, for presentations. 

i can tell you where i will be and more or less what i will 90% chance be doing every day for the next 6 months.  on the other hand, often 4 hours from now isn't even on his radar yet, and expecting him to have thought about what's going on a week from now is out of the question.  we both operate quite well as we do.

jan recently had me forward a few things to him that were in my personal email account instead of my work one.  the signiature on my emails is the following series of 5 quotes:

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~George Bernard Shaw
Too many people overvalue what they are not & undervalue what they are. ~Malcom Forbes
I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. ~Thomas Carlyle
Be who you are & say what you feel because those who mind don't matter & those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your work with excellence. ~Anonymous

Jan quickly responded to my email by copying the signiature and commenting:
People in Europe live their lives. People in the USA try to get something out of it, while accomplishing objectives they have chosen for themselves.

This explains somewhat the difference between mine and Jan's mentalities/personalities (I have the goal of keeping a lot of different groups I work with happy; I have a list of things I plan/hope to accomplish in the next few weeks, the next few months, the next few years etc.); Jan seems not to be too concerned with the long term, and takes things as they come one day at a time.

However, ever since his email comment, I've been wondering, is it really a US vs. Europe question? I know many americans who have more of Jan's outlook than mine, so is there a different distinguishing feature besides nationality? 

What do you all think???

(2) Purpose in another light:

This morning, Jo (one of my REU students) and I went to international church of prague.  next sunday i will miss church because i will be in a different part of europe, but in general, if i can make it to a worshop service, i like to be there.  something about taking part in corporate worship, and fellowshipping with other Christians makes my life feel more centered for the week, and it helps remind me to keep my focus where it should be.

anyhow, the sermon today was also about purpose.  the guest preacher put up two contrasting quotes to start. 

one from bob dylan :
"Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge"

and one from the book of hosea:
"...my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." (hosea 4:6)

normally you'd expect the other way around maybe -- there are parts of the world (that i'm extremely familiar with) where knowledge is practically a god, and there are groups of religious people who seem to push away from knowledge and keep things simple because knowing too much might mess with their currently compact view of the world.

the ultimate summary of the sermon was: with knowledge of God's creative power and His salvation plan, life suddenly takes on a very different purpose than without knowing these things.

whether you, my blog reader, are religious or not, surely you agree that when people take religion seriously, it affects their world view, so this should seem totally plausible too, whether it is a part of your personal perspective or not.

Wrapping things up:
In the last 24 hours it's been suggested that purpose comes from national mentality, and that it comes from religion.  It just makes me think:

What is your purpose?  Where does it come from?  What do you think are the most influential factors in finding purpose for people in general?

1,2,3, react! :)

perspective

today was like an ideal "relaxing" day in prague. post-math talks, i hung out for a little with my students. when i announced i was headed to the train station to buy my ticket to budapest for a few weeks from now, jan said he wanted to come with me because he likes going to the train station to look at trains. strange though it sounds, apparently it's true... while we were there he took like 2 dozen picutres of trains... go figure.

post-train station fun, we went to a park, got some beers (what else does one drink in czech republic?) and chatted for a bit. later, i went to an organ concert, but when i came back by the math offices to get my backpack (which i'd left earlier), he was still there and was up for dinner and watching "matrix 2". apparently the czech grad students set up the large math auditorium as a movie theater from time to time for fun since they generally don't own TVs themselves. we ran the movie off of my laptop and broadcasted it on the auditorium projection screen for just the two of us. (we watched matrix 1 at my house in NJ last week, and plan to watch matrix 3 here in prague next week).

anyhow, it's not that i did anything particularly extraordinary, or that i went somewhere particularly excitingly historic (except the church for the organ concert, which i've been to many times before :) ). it was just fun to hang out and chat with a friend about so many random things all day.

anyhow, enough rambling. the title of this post refers to the following. while jan and i were chatting and drinking in the park we were comparing how little europeans distinguish between states/american geography, and how the same is true for americans thinking about europe. as an illustration, here are 4 maps. in defense of my europe, i could draw things slightly better if i put in effort, (i do realize that countries are not oval-shaped blobs and i can place more of them), but not nearly as convincingly as jan of course...

enjoy:

Jan's USA:


my USA:


my czech republic and neighboring countries:


Jan's czech republic and neighboring countries:


how telling is that? :)

night y'all (yes, it's 1:45am in prague and i'm still awake... oops)

ahoj from praha!

i'm here, and things are off and running.

i have an entertaining group of students to travel with this year. of them, one has been to asia, but never europe, one has been to all over this part of europe and knows parts of prague better than me, and the other three had never left america before now. they're all fairly chatty and make for some good conversation throughout the day.

the format of this trip is just like the past 2 years: we listen to a math lecture from 10am-noon, get lunch in the university cafeteria, and then have afternoons to ourselves. I've wandered with students for the past two days, but i'm taking this afternoon -- at least until dinner time -- to myself to relax, wander, and not hear english for a bit!

it's seriously good for me to get out of the states for a bit like this. i've been to prague sufficiently many times that i have plenty of familiar hiding places to relax. i'm in email contact with work but not expected to be running around like crazy,... i mostly am free to sit back and enjoy a less hectic culture for a few weeks :)

i went drinking with my students last night -- 3 beers and 3 shots is about my limit for one day though :P... tomorrow when they all go on a "discoboat", i plan to be at an organ concert instead. :) i'm getting old. :P

at any rate, prague rocks, i'm safely here, and i'm quite content to be here for awhile. :)

and that's the update. be parties one and all!

transition time...

what a day.

it's not like i had anything profoundly exciting to do either... it's just odd.

i had problems with this day last year too. at the end of a semester of teaching, i go through a phase of "student withdrawal"... i miss the routine of working with them and know that most of them won't ever be in touch again. same goes for REU. somehow, the sudden transtion from "go go go!" to "chill out and take a vacation", and the sudden farewell to most of the students is tricky for me. i like helping solve their problems and being generally helpful, but post-farewell dinner, now my job is mostly done.

this summer's been especially weird since there are two things that generally keep me grounded: (a) having lots of work to do, and (b) being able to track down my friends.... now that (a) is done for a month, i'd normally rely on (b) to help keep me ok.... but (b) has been tricky this year since most of my usual NJ people have been out of town for the summer,... lately, but today especially, i've felt like i'm drifting, and i don't like that at all. hopefully i'll feel less like that when i get to prague. even if i know it's a false perception, i don't like feeling lost and useless.

since no one's around and i'm a little melancholy today (and thus don't feel like packing yet), tonight is movie night. i rented 2 that i've meant to see for a bit: "high fidelity" and "airplane!"

"airplane!" was... ok. i know it's a "classic", and since i'd never seen it, but heard references to it many times, i figured it was worth a chance. i didn't dislike it per se, but i didn't find it quite as hilarious as i expected to. cute, but not knocking anything off my favorite movies of all time list.

"high fidelity" was another story. i've been meaning to read the book and watch the movie for quite some time, but which order i'd do it was ambiguous. i plan to start the book on my flight to prague this weekend, but i thoroughly enjoyed the movie. i expected to like it, but it far exceeded expectation. the tone was perfect for my mood tonight, and i really liked john cusack's character. definitely worth the rental. :)

one more day in america (to be filled with errands and packing) before a month in central europe. i'll be happy when i'm safely there and my brain is on the right time zone. ;)

night y'all!

it's over...

REU is, that is.

and not really exactly, but my main part is over.

REU goes one more week for most of my students, but the final presentations were yesterday and today. the farewell dinner was tonight. the czechs leave tomorrow. i leave for prague with 5 of the american students on sunday.

i occasionally complain in posts about how much i have to do, but i really do enjoy it.

after every semester i have student withdrawal... no matter how stressful grading, etc. may get, i really do miss the fun of interacting with and helping students when i have the opportunity to do so. same with REU. although i'm more of an organizer/question-answerer than an instructor or a friend, i really do enjoy my work. this summer seems to have gone faster than ever, and i'm kinda sad that it's basically done.

tonight at the farewell dinner, each student got a certificate from the program for their participation, and as always the director of DIMACS gave me one too... he joked that it was for my work "june 4, 2007 through.... august 8.... 2009", which is a joke since this is my last year, but instead of the typical 10 seconds of clapping, for me, the students kept clapping, and clapping, and two of them fairly quickly stood up, which started a standing ovation... just for me. it made me smile... to the point that my eyes teared up... then one of them ran up and gave me hug.

this was the 2nd time ever i've gotten a standing ovation (the first was the last meeting of my 10:10 spring 2006 calculus recitation class). it's better than any reward you could plan on. i don't need a certificate to tell me i've done something well. i don't need a monetary reward. the fact that people feel happy enough with me to give me a sincere and heartfelt spontaneous thank you is worth much much more, and the memory of a whole room of REU students and mentors standing and clapping for me for several minutes is a fantastic memory to take with me. :)

nonetheless, REU is over faster than ever this year... i can't believe the american portion of the program is done, and i can't believe this is my last year running the thing.

time does fly.

the end.

some laughs...

Indian police on the trail of the spectacle-stealing monkey

and....

(i would credit a source on this next one, but i've only found it on blogs... too funny. :) )

surprisingly accurate...

Faithful Inventor

You are an Inventor

• Your imagination, self-reliance, openness to new things, and appreciation for utility combine to make you an INVENTOR.
• You have the confidence to make your visions into reality, and you are willing to consider many alternatives to get that done.
• The full spectrum of possibilities in the world intrigues you—you're not limited by pre-conceived notions of how things should be.
• Problem-solving is a specialty of yours, owing to your persistence, curiosity, and understanding of how things work.
• Your vision allows you to identify what's missing from a given situation, and your creativity allows you to fill in the gaps.
• Your awareness of how things function gives you the ability to come up with new uses for common objects.
• It is more interesting for you to pursue excitement than it is to get caught up in a routine.
• Although understanding details is not difficult for you, you specialize in seeing the bigger picture and don't get caught up in specifics.
• You tend to more proactive than reactive—you don't just wait for things to come to you.
• You prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute.
• You do your own thing when it comes to clothing, guided more by practical concerns than by other people's notions of style.
• Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.

You are Faithful

• Your trust in others, respect for tradition, and caring nature make you FAITHFUL.
• Maintaining a few intimate relationships is more important to you than knowing a lot of people, and you share a lot with your close friends.
• Those who have managed to get close to you value your camaraderie, and they know that they can trust you with anything; you're a good listener.
• While you can usually see several sides of an argument, you often have a strong opinion as to which side is correct—the order of things is usually clear to you.
• Your perspective on the world is based on careful observation, and you know a lot about how people feel in—and react to—many situations.
• Your exploration of others' feelings has led you to believe that although people generally act appropriately, having clear social rules is very important to a functional society.
• Time alone for reflection is important to you—you are introspective and aware of your own feelings.
• Faithful is as faithful does—you expect those with whom you are close to be loyal to you, and you take betrayal of your trust very seriously.

Glossary of Traits
Each number indicates the percentage of test takers who entered a lower value for that trait than you did. For example, if Confidence is at 80, that means that 80% of people entered lower values for confidence questions than you did. Based on a sample of 30,000 users.

• Confidence: 54
• Openness: 60
• Extroversion: 18
• Empathy: 60
• Trust in others: 76
• Agency: 60
• Masculinity: 28
• Femininity: 60
• Spontaneity: 32
• Attention to style: 10
• Authoritarianism: 76
• Earthy/Imaginative: 26
• Aesthetic/Functional: 30

grad student night IN!

hooray for relaxing evenings!

it's been a busy busy week!

saturday: i saw lion king on broadway with jessica -- it was AWESOME!

sunday: i was still tired from saturday, but after church i had a lunch meeting with amber (from church) and after an hour of discussion agreed to start helping run senior youth group in the fall. i'm excited, but apparently really am allergic to saying no (when someone tells me about a niche that needs to be filled and lists the skills they think i have to fill it, i don't think about the big picture of ALL of my time, and tend to say "ok, sure! sign me up!"... i enjoy all the stuff i'm up to, but haven't learned to necessarily budget relaxation like i should ;))

monday: worked in the TA office all morning until our 1pm meeting, ran around quickly to get last-minute errands done for tuesday,... then off to the coffee shop where met with baxter for 3 hours of studying for his qual, then met with esther for half an hour to set a reading list for a seminar we give this fall... while meeting with esther, i ran into a former student of mine, and after meeting with her i ended up chatting math with him for half an hour... so we're talking 11 hour day :)

tuesday: annual REU field trip to IBM... excellent as always, just from leaving campus until our return was 11 hours as well :P

wednesday: (1) meeting at 10am with colleen (not my housemate) to set the reading list for *our* fall teaching seminar, (2) attended presentation about prague by the czech REU students (it was HILARIOUS, see here, especially the intro (see slides 2 and 3) and the section specifically about prague (namely slides 6, 9, and 10) ; they promised there would be things i hadn't seen in the past two years of REU, and oh man, did the pictures deliver ;) ), after laughing for 1.5 hours of prague jokes, (3) i sat in on an hour long meeting where my coworkers at the TA office met with the manager of the campus student center to make room reservations/set up requests for TA orientation next month. it was 4:30pm by the time i was home again.

but here's one of the highlights of my week (besides the czech presentation and going on field trips at age 26 of course ;) ). some of the czechs had requested to go see a baseball game before we all leave the country in 1.5 weeks, so we were going to go tonight... and then it started pouring rain instead... i IMed the czech grad student (jan) and asked if monday would be ok instead (and he checked with the other students who were on campus). then, as we chatted a little more, i commented i was going to watch movies since there was no baseball to be had, and he asked if that was an invitation to join... i have no problem with movie company, so i ran errands and picked jan up from campus (obviously flying in from prague he doesn't have a car)... i introduced him to the wonderful world of "ferris bueller's day off", and we chatted until midnight about all kinds of stuff. for jan, he lives in the dorm with the other REU students, but is more like an analog of me. he enjoys it, but they're all 18-21 year olds, and he'll be 29 this weekend, so on occasion, like me, he feels old and needs a break :P, and i was happy to provide the escape.

most of my local friends are MIA lately... scott's busy, eric's in vermont or new hampshire or something, colleen is in minnesota, leigh's in maine... ben's been missing since april (not missing, just i haven't managed to track him down in person in 3 months). i've been hanging out quite a bit with sara, but most of the rest are gone... it's just fun to hang out with other fellow tired 25+ grad students, enjoy the chatting, and not feel guilty about energy level :)

it was a good day.

(and that's what i've been up to lately... how i manage to keep up with me, i'm not quite sure ;) )

end of ramble.

good night!

as if you need help procrastinating...

click it

just plain funny...

I get the NYC news on my TV... just now, the morning rush hour traffic report came on while i was eating breakfast:

"and check out this picture from I-80/95... we've got a 45 minute delay in the west bound lanes... (other stories)... by the way, that backup on 80/95? apparently rubbernecking due to a man on the side of the road holding nothing but a watermelon"

just when you think you've heard it all... :P

quotes of the day (and it's not even noon yet!)

humberto: lara! you're back! how was your trip! what are you up to this summer?
me: scotland was great! now i'm working two jobs and running around like crazy.... lots of fun!
humberto: wow... i hope that one day i'll be like you.
me: really? why?
humberto: you do so much! i work hard to keep up with just a little, but you do everything and do it well!
me: wanna know the secret?
humberto: what?
me: it's simple... i don't sleep nearly as much as i should.


> Hi Dr. XXXXXX,
>
> I'm reserving equipment for the week today and checking if you
> need extra equipment for your talk.
>
> FYI, the talk is at noon in XXXXXXX and includes lunch!
>
> Best,
> Lara

I will need a laptop projector and a forgiving audience.
Best Wishes,

star spangled...

this was the back of the church bulletin today... thought it was interesting: