10 countries,
3 continents,
dozens of conferences ..
.. and i still haven't learned:
never underestimate the toll that traveling takes on you.
i have a new rule about summer traveling:
no matter how exciting traveling may sound,
never organize two trips with only 1-week interim period (or less).
it's not worth it.
last weekend i was visiting friends in d.c. all of this week, i struggled with setting up a new work routine [1] and accomplished nothing. i couldn't even pinpoint what problem i wanted to work on!
instead, i was running errands and planning out the next 3 weeks ..
1 for visiting family,
2 for a workshop in montréal ..
.. the key concern being: what can i do in that time?
my father is retired, keeping busy with projects and repairs in the house. does that mean i have uninterrupted time to work on my own, or will he pop in, every five minutes, complaining about the water piping?
maybe i should revise the preprint(s). then again, there will be a lot of emphasis on optimal transport in the workshop; should i read about that topic instead?
i'm getting older. the pessimist in me would say that i'm becoming more inflexible and brittle; the optimist would say that i've begun to appreciate consistency and order. forgetting the interpretation, those two (and i) are in accord:
[sighs]
i should have planned more carefully.
why did i ever think that summers were long and slow, with plenty of occasion to think matters over ..?
[1] from an economical viewpoint, i'm being a blockhead. i'm unemployed but still working as a mathematician in my free time (i.e. for free). on the other hand, it's fun .. in a frustrating way .. and i'll be better off if my research comes to fruition.
i have never heard of a job application being harmed by having too many papers! (-:
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