Mitt liv som Tobin

Nathan and Ben, two of the new first-years, working on their homework. We'll be spending a lot of time here... Also, a second shot. I'm not sure which I prefer.

It's pouring rain in Pittsburgh now, and I'm hiding in the library at CMU. I did get to go up to the thirty-sixth floor of the "Cathedral of Learning," an inexplicable gothic monolith dominating the city. They say it was featured in Batman, and it's easy to believe; the thing is 100% pure Gotham, but with charming "Nationality" classrooms on the first floor: The Polish Room, the Lithuanian Room, the Swedish Room, the German Room, the Early American Room, the Czeckloslovak Room...

Sigh. I'm waiting for some kind of spark when I meet a professor, and it's just not happening. I haven't been able to get excited really by anyone's work here. It might be a failure just as much of communication as anything else, their ability to make their projects sound exciting. But projects that I'd jump at for a summer term I'm a lot more hesitant to accept for dedicated pursuit over a term of six years. As much as anything, I want them to want me as I want their work to be interesting. One professor - one who I already liked the most - mentioned with interest, "You lived in Lund, right?" And I was thinking: "She actually read my application!"

There was one professor I went to because his work sounded pretty exciting, quantum chromodynamics and all that. And this guy was terrifying! He seemed like an ordinary guy, but we asked him about his past grad students. He said, "Well, I've had three.. but two of them left me." Small warning sign: can't retain grad students. Big warning sign: "I'm so glad he is gone. Gosh! He just wasn't talented enough, he wasn't worth my money, he wasn't worth my time... He didn't even speak English very well!" Egads! I nod while crossing him off my list. Quite literally. And then he turns out, moreover, to be a bit of an intellectual chauvanist: when the guy from MIT comes into the room, he stops talking to the other two of us. He asks the MIT guy to come back later for another meeting.

But then I met his one surviving grad student, who he described with admiration in his eyes as his "star". And this guy was really fabulous, eight times more energetic than the normal mortal and a little bit crazy to boot, in exactly the way I like. So I'd love to work with this grad student, but his advisor seemed like he ought to be avoided within a certain radius.

I have the occassional feeling that, although the Physics dept here and elsewhere admitted me, the professors are far more skeptical. It can't be entirely true (the admissions committee is composed of professors), but still I had one prof sort of skoff, "You mean your degree is not in Physics??" The experimental particle physicists are nice to me, but that's not what I want to do. I think I did impress a particular condensed matter experimentalist that I knew What Was Going On, and I was able to converse intelligently with a medium energy experimentalist.. but...

WHERE ARE THE LASERS???

Carnegie Mellon seems like a nice place, and Pittsburgh is an interesting city. If Rochester's physics department were here, I think I would accept without much hesitation. But otherwise I think I could only leave Berkeley with a heavy heart, and I don't think I could ditch the feeling that I left someplace wonderful for something substandard.

It's not that this is a bad place, it's just that I have extremely high expectations. I have half a mind to just accept and see what happens, and half a mind to just stay at Berkeley and take the graduate physics sequence through my own guerrilla initiative. From my job interviews at Aerospace and at UCSD/IGPP, I came away thrilled with the idea I'd be working for them. I haven't gotten that feeling here or at Rochester.

I also occassionally wonder whether Physics is really what I want to study. I always come to the conclusion that it is, because physics is hard and I want the challenge, because physics is at the core of anything else I'd be interested in, and because I have this idea that if you're going to study something, it ought to be physics. But in engineering / computer science, I can really hold my own. Concepts come very easy to me and engineering is nicely compatible with my intuition. In physics I don't feel quite so brilliant.

One of the prospective students — from Caltech — here also got into Chicago and Berkeley. One of the professors he was talking to here at CMU learned of this. The professor whispered to him, emphatically:``Go to Berkeley.''

So, I went to campuswide Commencement today. Lacking a ticket, I had to sneak into the Greek Theatre in order to attend, scaling the chain-link fence in the back --- Let me tell you, that's a metaphor for the UC Berkeley experience if there ever was one.

Oh, no, wait, it isn't a true story. They had extra tickets at the gate and I just walked up and asked for one. The desperate can draw a new metaphor.

* * *

I almost left near the beginning --- the RallyCom and Californians and other student group speeches were so boring. But the other speakers were interesting, so I stayed. It was almost like they conspired in writing their speeches... lots of common references to "it takes a village," two speakers calling for the establishment of a mandatory two years of service (military, public health, civil service, peace corps, americorps, etc); and lots of (de)motivational warnings about the precarious state of the world: no jobs in the economy, huge budget deficits, tax cuts borrowing from future generations, American without allies... It was not really an uplifting Commencement. Funny, too, because I was sitting with the audience (not the graduates), and because it's so sparsely attended. At least there was free food.

* * *

These days are good ones. I went for a run yesterday morning, in the prenoon overcastness, loops around Clark Kerr Campus and the track. Shower, coffee, went to work feeling refreshed and energized. I joined Michelle, Chuck, and Luis for some time on one of the electron microscopes...

Let me tell you, it's like Mission Control in there, with all of the illuminated plastic buttons, the checklists, the TV monitors, the subdued lighting. The microscope works in almost exactly the same way as a light microscope, except --- in addition to costing millions of dollars and filling a room --- illuminated with electons shed from a filament and accelerated through a 400 kilovolt potential and focused with a sequence of field-producing coils (yeah, electromagnets!). All of these magnetic lenses have to be aligned just right, or you lose the beam into the side of the microscope or somewhere. Comments about the "flux capacitors" defuse the frustration of steering the beam... Eventually the beam is found.. focused... and there in the phosphors at the bottom of the microscope column, there's the image of our zinc crystals...

* * *

At dinner I started building an icosahedron from newspaper and masking tape, but then I had to go so I just turned it into a tetrahedron. The edges are easy, but I need to find a better way to make verticies.

* * *

Jamie emailed me from Chile, a "quick hello to the little red head bundle of joy." To Jason she wrote, "Give Tobin a big kiss for me." Hmm. Eeeue? I think something is lost in the transfer. She's sweet and sentimental, and expresses her desire to go travelling together, sometime in the indefinite, imaginary future.

* * *

After dinner Alex and I wandered over to Cory Hall to meet IEEE for the `subsidized' Matrix viewing. That group's done well in the last two years, with a fun group of people percolating up to the officer level, and now the student branch spends their money doing fun things... the play about Buckminster Fuller, the Dim Sum in Oakland, Midnight Matrix at the Metreon. They joke that I am in the representative member since I'm apparently the only non-officer member to go on these little escapades.

At the last minute Nadia joined our little crew and we were off to the Metreon, driven by this guy Jason who seemed pretty cool and who I had apparently met some years ago. I feel like I have some special status with this group of IEEE'ers, from being Micromouse chair during their freshman year, or something.

It was fun spending time with Nadia; she's sweet and clever and we seem to have at least a few common interests; travel, research, and general geekdom among them. Too bad we have only one common language between us --- something will have to be done about that.

* * *

Listening to Sigur Ros with headphones, sitting in the cool dark. Talked to Eric yesterday, he promises we can have some Scandinavian music at our slumber party after special dinner. It could be great. Yay for vemod! I was thinking I could pipe in some Radio AF via RealMedia... but I would probably be the only one to appreciate that station identification... ``Du lysnar på... RADIO A-F, direkt från LUNDAGÅRD!'' And words in Hopelandic. There is a tender happiness in vemod that I quite like. And that dance music popular in Europe 2000-2002 goes right to the heart of anyone who was there then -- Kenny and me at least.

* * *

One of my coworkers brought to my attention the movie Crash, and specifically the fact that it is rated NC-17 due to the following automobile-related fetishes: ``man / woman sex, woman / woman sex, man / man sex, woman / aircraft sex, man / tailpipe sex, woman / parking brake sex, man / car cigarette lighter sex and woman / woman / strap-on-rearview-mirror sex.''

* * *

There was a lunar eclipse tonight.

Well, I ended up registering for just the two classes I need to graduate and not the two that would fulfill the L&S requirements for a Math degree. I met with my advisor and we had a very nice chat, coming to the conclusion that ($1300)>>(probability of successful petition)*(value of 2nd degree). So, that's that.

My advisor, however, is the staunchest supporter I could wish for. When I told him of my latest troubles with Dean Shun he immediately reached for the telephone directory, ready to talk some sense into the appropriate authorities. In the end though we came to the conclusion that this is pretty much the end of the line. I might still sic the Student Advocate Office onto the bureaucracy, however. I should have retained their services a long time ago.

The Dean of L&S ended up claiming to not have the power to grant my request. I don't actually believe that, but I was referred to the next higher level of authority, The Faculty:

Hello Tobin,

You are bringing up an interesting question--one that's at the core of all requirements and the purpose(s) they serve. Unfortunately, the question you are raising has to be asked in every instance because the regulations (formulated by the Faculty) apply to all students in the College; some of the regulations also apply beyond the College.

The Dean has been charged with the responsibility of abiding by and ensuring adherence to the regulations. Questioning the rationale for the regulations needs to be addressed to the body which formulated them--the Faculty. Consequently, the Dean is acting in accordance to his charge.

How one brings an inquiry before the abstract entity known as "The Faculty" I do not know. I do know that any individual faculty member would grant my request in a heartbeat. (Hilfinger almost stormed the Dean's office for me last semester just based on me noting that they were giving me trouble counting complex analysis as a technical course.) Nonetheless, the effort required to elevate a claim to that level and the additional $1300 it would cost me don't really seem worth the uncertain success.

In dealing with this, I cite Mark Twain, paraphrased for increased appropriateness: ``Don't let school get in the way of education.''

I add to my official list of complaints that the Extension personell are not competent. They could not answer my questions and I did not feel that I was treated with respect.

On a brighter note: When I showed up at work today (my first day as an authentic "Computer Scientist" -- heehee) I couldn't find Ken, the lab director. So I wandered about for awhile, eventually entering the computer room. Immediately some guy addressed me: "You're not Tobin Fricke by any chance? Excellent! I've come on a plane from Arizona just to meet you!" Not entirely true but I was entertained by it. He's a physics prof from ASU who came to meet with Ken and to bring us up to date on the project. Nice fellow. Anyway, the project will be grand.

So now I'm only officially in two classes, attending a half dozen or so others. This actually gives me more flexibility in how I allocate my time, which is kind of nice.

I think one of the main things I am feeling is an unwillingness to let go of this campus. It's really an unbelievable smorgasbord of intellectual offerings. Admission to this university is only a permit to gorge oneself on the buffet for a limited time only. Even in gradschool there is not such freedom to take courses at whim, so the undergraduate offer really is limited-time-only. I really have a sense of wanting to stay, not only to take advantage of these opportunities, but to prove myself -- to not leave until the job is really finished and done properly, all the courses completed, all the projects finished... I felt the same thing in Sweden, where the possibility of omtenta makes it almost tractable. In this sense, it's good and necessary that they're kicking me out.

Successful day, overall. I finished my two papers (for english 117b and for engin 190), went to Esperanto class, and ate a hotdog in the sun. What more could one ask for? In the mail I received a letter saying that I wasn't accepted to the PhD program at the Royal Institute of Technology, which amused me because I hadn't really applied either. And, finally, if all goes well (crosses fingers) I'll get hooked up as a "Computer Scientist (Trainee)" at LBL tomorrow. I only got three hours of sleep last night, but weirdly I feel fine. Maybe I'll read some more Beowulf.

I'd like to add that I think the California Poppies I planted on the roof seem to have sprouted.

To: Editors, Academic Press
Subj: Why are books so expensive?

I've recently been wondering what it is that makes mathematics textbooks so expensive. For example, Enderton's book Elements of Set Theory, far from the most egregious example, costs more than $100 in our campus book store. It can't be printing an d distribution alone that account for this enormous cost -- similarly sized books often cost less than $20. The typesetting is more complex than books in many other fields (such as those books that contain only prose) yet even this must have been paid for long ago -- the book was originally published in 1977. I wonder if you could estimate, for my own curiosity, how much of the $100 textbook cost goes to the reseller, how much goes for distribution, how much for the direct publication costs, what percent goes to the author as royalty, etc.

thank you,
Tobin Fricke

EDIT: They responded!