Voice from the past: the season of study begins

There were no blogs in the early days of the web. I’ve dug up an email from those days and will be presenting it, (very) lightly edited and with explanatory notes, broken up over a couple of postings. Editorial comments have been placed in square brackets [they look like this]. In a moment of day-dreaming, I imagined that some people might be bashful or might actually care about what I say in my postings, and so I decided to change the names of most people and do a couple of other secret things to confuse the readers.

This email was written early on in my postgraduate days. The season of rest was over and another season of study had just begun. In more mundane words, I had just returned to California after a nice long summer break. The immediate challenge was to find a professor willing to be my Ph.D. supervisor. Not requiring funding from them (e.g., if you were able to acquire external funding, from Hitachi or elsewhere) usually smoothed things out considerably.

The start of the email is in regular email style (regular for those days) and is a prelude to the actual text (which is a recount of my first couple of days back in California). I had just read a Gore Vidal novel that summer. I decided to sincerely flatter the author by imitating his style when I wrote the recount. My imitation of that style may not fool anybody, but I hope it is as much fun for you reading it as it was for me writing it.

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Dear XYZ,

How are you? I am in the Rains computer room. Actually, in one of the two Rains computer rooms. This one is next to the 2 music practice rooms. As I write this, Kel is in his office working (preparing for his coming mechanical engineering quals [popular abbreviation for Ph.D. qualifying exams] and research proposal presentation ... he has to pass both to be admitted to the PhD program); Kenny might be back in the room after spending some time this morning in a Korean church; Jerry is in his room reading a paper by Fox, the prof who has agreed to let Jerry do independent work with him (because "it doesn't cost me anything")... he can't unpack till his boxes arrive maybe tomorrow. Anyway, I shall now write a little about the activities of the past week --

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The aircraft tilts to the left. We are circling while preparing for landing. I look out of the small window and see the grand layout of the Bay Area. I spot the Bay Bridge and see the city of Berkeley in the distance; here below us, Route 101 winds and turns its way through the busy city, a river of traffic, oblivious to the observers from above. There is the airport down on the left. I try to find Stanford on the right, but realize I am sitting on the wrong side of the plane. I make a mental note to ask for a seat on the right side the next time I fly here. We circle twice. I'm home. Sort of. I feel a little funny, perhaps from the wine ... 12% alcohol by weight. Like the champagne we had the week before in my other home. Real home.

Here I am. I finish the Toblerone before customs just to be safe. I catch a glimpse of H.P. from Singapore, together with his female traveling companion. I actually saw them first in Hong Kong. My thoughts strayed to the woman - Mother? Sister? Not very old. Girlfriend maybe? Only later do I read my email that new grad student H.P. has arrived ... with wife. Ha! It's funny to think that he was just a year ahead of me in Math Olympiad training camp so many years ago. Immigration is a breeze. The officer does not look at my folded I-20. He stamps the documents and says, "Thank you for being organized - it helps." I glide through customs as well. Yen is waiting for me outside.

We arrive on campus. Looks the same as usual. Yen has been yawning the whole trip - he pulled an all-nighter the night before to finish packing and moving. Yes, some things don't change.

The door is opened by Jerry. Kenny is there too! I am the last to arrive in my room on the first day that we are officially allowed to move in [a rare occurrence - usually if you arrive on the first day that you are officially allowed to move in, you will be first in and get your choice of bedroom (Kel had been allowed to move in earlier, since he stayed on campus over the Summer. Jerry came yesterday and Kenny flew in 2 hours ago). We smile and greet one another. The suite is complete.

After lunch, I get my key. I go check email and mail. My Princeton transcript is waiting for me, as are lots of magazines and journals and junk mail and real mail and stuff. No word about the Hitachi fellowship, though. Bummer. So I don't get to take the easy way out. Anyway, I nap for an hour. I still feel strange. I don't know if I am sleepy or hungry... basically the body is a little off-balance and confused. Poor I, wondering what time it is. The dinner we have is good, and we do some late-night shopping. We buy things like cereal and milk and bananas. Kenny has a rented car, so we can do all this. I try to get in touch with Jean, E.K's roommate, to get my boxes from their room. No luck, but we do drive over to T's and retrieve the rest of my assortment (including the long one which was originally the receptacle for Doug's golf clubs). I call home then go to bed.

TO BE CONTINUED