Galaxy Theory's Got Talent

On Friday afternoons, I take the role of Simon Cowell.

The British television personality came to fame through his notoriously harsh criticism of talent show contestants. His ability to slam anyone and everyone's attempts on stage got him both a talking wax work model at Madam Tussaud's (where visitors could enjoy being insulted themselves) and a spot on every future talent show on both sides of the Atlantic pond. 

Fun fact: Before appearing on 'American idol', Simon Cowell had his teeth veneered to give him the showbiz white smile. This move was ridiculed in the UK, where cosmetic dentistry is frequently viewed as excessive vanity. As a side note, the view that Brits actually have bad teeth is not correct (at least, not my generation and below) but having work done for pure aesthetics is still relatively uncommon. 

The afternoon on the last day of the week is the time for our research group meeting. In this hour, a hapless student is made to do a presentation in English on a research paper they have recently read. Bearing in mind that such publications are frequently jargon-heavy, excessively long turgid reads that often refer back to a string of previously published works by the same authors, this is not an easy task. 

This week one of my own students was on the podium and he was doing an admirable job. While still struggling with speaking English fluidly, he had put together a comprehensive review of the paper, pulled out the relevant highlights from past related works and added helpful diagrams to demonstrate some of the newer concepts.

None of this stopped me tearing him apart limb from limb. 

Really, he loved it. If he shows up again on Monday.

The main issue was that --in common with most of his peers-- my student tended to copy out relevant sentences of the paper word by word, rather than using his own terms. The reason is quite understandable: if you're concerned about the quality of your own English, why not use someone else's that's already made the point? However, such a tactic has three problems:

The first is that paper writing isn't designed for presentations. Sentences tend to be long and heavy with technical terms than may (if you're lucky) have been defined in an earlier section. A presentation, on the other hand, needs to have short pithy comments that people can quickly glance at while you're speaking.

The second problem is that --since the sentences are long and technical-- I knew my student would never have written them. This leaves me wondering if he has truly understood the underlying concept.

Finally, since I am the only native English speaker in a group that consists of many 4th year undergraduates and Masters students, using such constructs doesn't help the audience understand the presentation. 

This led to each slide presented being dissected and re-explained. Sadly for me, the answers left little to insult. I wasn't able to use any of the lines I had planned. Not even "You're like a singing candle. You just stand there and melt." or "I won't remember you in 15 minutes." or "Did you really believe you could become an American Idol? Well, then you're deaf.". I couldn't even slide in Shut up and start singing.".

… Although admittedly if I had we would still be in the seminar room now while I attempted to explain why I had compared my student to a candle, demonstrated serious memory problems, promptly forgotten we were in Japan and then suggested he set his thesis work to music.

At the end, I just had one final question: "On your 4th slide, what is the difference between the data given by the black line and that by the blue?"

My student explained and then looked at me expectantly. "I actually don't know," I admitted. "It was a genuine question."

I organise an astrophysics conference at a carnival

"The physics department at Hokkaido University is organising an international conference and we'd like to see your meeting facilities."

The hotel employee looked at the three people in front of him; two foreigners and one Japanese, all wearing the equivalent of jeans and hoodies and two of whom were clutching cameras. There was no way around the fact we looked more like tourists hoping to go on the merry-go-round than representatives from a prestigious national university. 

Yes, there was a merry-go-round. I'm getting to that. 

To give him credit, the receptionist's face did not suggest that this was the most improbable story he had heard in his life and instead called through to the hotel's conference facilities to locate us a tour guide. 

While we waited, I had to admit that although we might look out of place organising a conference, the lobby of this hotel didn't exactly fit the bill either. Behind a decorative iron gate, a brightly coloured merry-go-round with the usual collection of ridable fantasies --white horses, dragons and a grinning pig-- rotated slowly. To its right, a collection of slot machines blinked an epileptic cascade of lights and directly in front of us, signs pointed up two escalators promising shops, restaurants and bars. 

I wondered how any participant was going to take this conference seriously. 

Our guide appeared in a crisp business suit and armed with envelopes containing details of the hotel's facilities. The usual bows were exchanged along with business cards, although the latter was a one-way transaction since I never think to get any made up. No doubt this confirmed all the warnings our host had been given when he was summon by telephone. 

"Do you speak Japanese?" he asked me, in Japanese.

"A little," I replied which was correctly interpreted as: 'None whatsoever. I've just got really good at guessing what questions people ask me'. The conversation was then directed towards my friend, who had the advantage of being:

(a) Japanese

(b) Not wearing wearing bright yellow Doctor Marten boots with a winky smily drawn on their toes. 

He was also not directly connected the conference, having been roped in to provide the wheels that made this road trip possible. However, the only person who was involved was me, and no one was believing that just then. 

I should add that had I planned to be touring these hotels, I would have been slightly more prepared. Astrophysics doesn't really use business cards, but I could have toned down the colour scheme to pretend I understood that copulation with a rainbow was unlikely. My plan had been to visit hotels under consideration for the meeting location and scout out the area. However, the regions surrounding the hotels were small and there wasn't much to see unless you went inside the building whereupon you get questioned and…

… this is where we started our story. 

Despite the pig riding merry-go-round, the attached conference suit was smart and evidently well used for purposes such as ours. When my friend directed our hotel guide's questions towards me, I was formally introduced.

"Sensei?!" (Professor?!) This time it was no longer possible to keep the blank astonishment out of his greeting. 

Hey, all geniuses have a unique look, don't you know? Mine says my research made me look into the Total Perspective Vortex, whereupon I lost my mind.  

After the final goodbyes, we were left to exit the hotel on our own. I was initially surprised we weren't escorted off the premises but apparently it was felt that if we had been terrorists, we would have thought of a more believable story.  

A letter to my version control software

OK, Mercurial, I feel the time as come for THE TALK. 

The talk about where I see my career going (grand slam of Nobel Prizes) and you see it going (down the tubes).  

Since I understand the best way to find common ground is by focussing on positive features of the other party, I will start by saying I do understand why you are widely used. Through your abilities, many people can work on the same computer code. They can make their own changes, share them with a community of code developers around the globe and in turn, implement other people's adjustments seamlessly into their version. In fact, for a large project --such as the two my research depends on-- I would go as far to say you are the essential component that prevents every one of us working on discrete, subtly different code sources.

Code version "elizabeth-170313-v5-old" never had that great a ring to it.

When I use you for the simplest of situations, we have no problems. 

Do you have anything nice to say about me, Mercurial?
Maybe that I'm persistent? Pointlessly so.
Maybe that I scream well when I fail? And that makes you laugh. 

Because this isn't the whole story, is it? When things get a little more complicated, you and I seem to break apart. We are like the estranged siblings who can manage to nod politely at one another during family gatherings so long as no one mentions the incident with the pancakes in 1982. Let's take a look at a recent example together, shall we?

I was adding a small new routine to the code. A fresh bit of programming that sat in its own file and never did anything to upset anyone. It was an innocent, Mercurial, you didn't have to treat it so badly. Initially you pretended to accept it, adding it to your register like Snow White's stepmother counted the princess within her family. Then I tried to merge with the main online code version and your cruel intent showed.

You refused to perform the action; your excuses involved branches, conflicts and heads. May I just say now that telling a lady she gave you 'multiple heads' is just not acceptable manners? Not to mention quite outside topic. You couldn't resolve, you couldn't update and the only option left to me was to 'force' my changes through which you proposed in a manner than suggested I'd regret it quicker than Voldemort after the birth of Harry Potter. 

I couldn't help but feel you weren't really trying. 

And I have to ask why. I wanted to love you. I felt we could work well together in the same way Lisa Simpson wanted to adore her substitute teacher. Yet, Lisa was despised by her teacher because she was thought too pretty. Is that your problem, Mercurial? Are you jealous because your execution command 'hg' reminds everyone your name is akin to a poisonous grey liquid metal? Or perhaps you just enjoyed the fact I gestured so rudely at my computer during these troubles that I was forced to leave the coffee shop in short order afterwards?

I liked that coffee shop and I may never be able to return.

I know other people do not have the same troubles with you and I feel bullied, tormented and terrorised by a piece of inanimate software.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO FEEL INFERIOR TO  A PILE OF 1s AND 0s?

It's not good. You make me feel like the Penny of my research family. And I don't even like cheesecake. 

 

--

DISCLAIMER: The problems the author has alluded to in this post reflect more on the difficulties with version controlling a large project than the Mercurial software. This is possibly supported by the Mercurial site which claims you can "Work easier. Work faster" but doesn't specify with respect to what. 

Keep calm and eat a teacup pig

 The problem with having a prolonged break from blogging is … how do you restart? Should you wait for an occasion SO MOMENTOUS that even an illiterate teacup pig would find a way to communicate it to the world:

 "I'VE JUST GIVEN BIRTH TO SEXTULPETS AND THE FATHER IS EITHER JUSTIN BIEBER, SHELDON COOPER OR THE RETIRED POPE'S GROOM OF THE STOOL!"

 (Just so we're clear that comment was entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to real events, occurring in any country, is purely coincidental.)

 Or should you just pick up from an entirely random point :

 

"WHEN I WALKED DOWN THE ROAD TO GET MILK, I SAW A CAR!!!"

(That comment was rather less fictitious and aren't you all glad I didn't decide to blog that?)

After a few false starts, I have picked a moment when I'm sitting in a gay and lesbian friendly coffee shop in Rochester, USA. Its name, 'Equal Grounds', is testament to their ideology, although they stress this just applies to people, not to coffees, since they have an extensive menu of drinks that includes their own blend. The artsy interior, huge flat screen fireplace and funky mugs for the almond steamer I ordered are enough to reinvigorate even the (blogging) dead. 

Back in Japan, the teaching year has finished (the undergraduate year runs April to mid-February) and marks the end of my first year as a faculty member! Frankly, that alone puts any talk of Justin Bieber's sextuplets in the shade. It should have resulted in the MOST GLITZY BLOG POST OF ALL TIME, but I confused my laptop with a teddybear and went to sleep. 

Teddybear laptops. That's where we were at, people. 

Then there came a new dawn and I  remembered my real job was a researcher. Whereupon, I promptly took off back to Canada to write up projects with my old institute that I'd been treating as the unmentionable Frankenstein monster of an unloved bastard teacup pig for the last 12 months. 

Then I crossed the border and found a coffee shop.

Hi.

Procrastination

I have a confession to make. 

I hate reading research papers. 

I'd love to blame this on the fact I'm dyslexic. But --since I read half of 'Game of Thrones' yesterday on my kindle-- I can't honestly say that really holds me back. 

It's not even that I don't want the information contained within their double-columned depths; I just find the majority of them turgid, somnical toilet roles.

I'm pretty sure this makes me a terrible astrophysicist. 

However, today I was out of excuses. I had a paper that was so overdue for publication, it could have predated Brian May's thesis. The introduction had to be drafted and for that, I had to find out what everyone else in my field had been doing while I was failing to form a world famous rock band. 

Unfortunately, I had the insurmountable problem of not possessing the right coloured highlighters with which to probably annotate the papers. Clearly, they needed to be purchased before any progress could be made and --since I wanted to be sure of a suitable selection-- the store to go to was the one on the other side of campus. If only I had remembered while I was eating lunch in the canteen next door. So sad.

Admit it. You're impressed with my ability to avoid work.

The highlighters in the shop were easy to locate and --in true Japan style-- they had every single shade imaginable to choose from. The difficulty of the selection was being proved by the elderly couple standing directly in front of the shelf trying every single pen.

Every. Single. Pen.

I have no idea what they were avoiding doing, but man! It must have been bad. 

Even the woman behind the cashier was hiding smiles as the couple kept turning away, selection in hand, only to change their minds and continue to block the display. 

I filled in the time by selecting a clear file. Frankly, I don't really understand clear files. They are plastic wallets but are too thin to take more than a few sheets of paper. For incomprehensible reasons, they are immensely popular in Japan and are sold in all different colours and designs. 

Finally, the elderly couple departed and I was able to pick up my highlighters. I tried to dawdle and convince myself that the EXACT SHADE OF BLUE was desperately important but … it just wasn't and I knew that. 

I was finally out of excuses. I returned to my office and promptly wrote half the introduction. Then I stored the papers I had printed out in the clear file. It already felt overfull. I looked down at the design I had chosen; it had a picture of a train track on it. Where is that track going? TO PAPER PUBLICATION LAND. 

PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! …. Itty-bitty living space.

 "You may have heard that you are included as a candidate for the MEXT grant. It will be a great honor and of huge merit in research fund if you are selected. I have to discuss with you, however, about some possible demerit you would face ..."

I sat back in my office chair and pondered this email. The grant in question I had applied for at the end of July; the details had been scant but it involved a HUGE SUM OF RESEARCH MONEY for five years.

… or possibly the details hadn't been all that scant but I hadn't read further than the HUGE SUM OF RESEARCH MONEY. 

Either way, it was apparent to all involved that I wasn't aware of the small print. 

Money for academics comes in two types: First, there is my salary which I may squirrel away to spend on a stack of Pokemon plushies if I desire. Second, there is my research grant. This grant money broadly covers items such as paper publishing expenses, conference trips, laboratory or computer equipment and sometimes students. While my salary is part of my job (and I'd have to be sacked not to collect it), research grant money needs to be applied for through different national or international bodies. MEXT is the Ministry of Education in Japan. 

'Small print' in this context usually applies to what the grant money can be spent on. For instance, my last grant allowed me to buy my computer but not an office chair. 

Evidently, comfort was not considered essential for work.

This particular grant, however, turned out to be different. 

"MEXT would take over your salary as well as supply a grant..." It was explained to me at a subsequent meeting with our faculty office. "… the University will be very pleased and this would be a prestigious award for you...

So everybody wins?

… but you'd lose your pension contributions, your annual leave would be halved and you'd get no maternity benefits."

Except my mental health. 

I opened my mouth to make a response and then closed it. Well, what does one really say to that?

The message was clear: people who receive this grant are supposed to RESEARCH NON-STOP UNTIL THEY DIE! 

"However, the Japanese Government has made it compulsory for pregnant women to take 5 weeks maternity leave." The plot thickened as the details were expanded on. "But, on this grant, it is not possible to pay you." 

"Well … uh …" I had a sudden image of nursing a small infant surrounded by cans of pickled eggs akin to wartime rations. 

In truth, I had no plans to have a baby but the whole process did feel like a Borg-esque assimilation. You are now 3 of 5: research drone. There was however, some light at the end of the tunnel. 

For a start, the chances of me actually getting the grant were slim. My name had been put forward by the University but my competition was researchers in every area of science all through the country. Let the medics eat the pickled eggs.

Secondly, while the rules surrounding grant administration were strict, a few backdoors might appear. Such as 'work days' at that …. World renowned… astrophysical... institute in the small Leicestershire village my parents happen to reside in.

Of course, I could turn the grant down but it would be rather hard to refuse a HUGE SUM OF RESEARCH MONEY when there is no guarantee of getting funds through an alternative source. 

FUNDING… SANITY… FUNDING… SANITY…

DAMN IT.

Feeling dazed, I returned to my office and promptly took a 90 minute lunch break in protest. 

The final part in this stage of the saga came in an email yesterday evening:

"The dates of individual interview in Tokyo at set for September 21 and 22. They ask you to save the both days for the purpose intended in case you are selected."

Where am I planning to be on September 21 and 22? North Hokkaido on a holiday with my parents. I sniffed the air. I smell cubic space ships.   

Wish upon a star

I had lost my student.

This was unfortunate, since I wanted to blame him for our group's analysis computer suddenly and mysteriously dying. 

Walking into the last office at the end of the hallway, I found my other student dutifully working. (This was quite impressive since I'm fairly sure each and every time my supervisor crept up on me, I was reading the BBC news). Stopping this productivity mid-flow, I asked if he knew the location of his counterpart.

"He saw a star last night," came the explanation.

… and so …? Left the field of astrophysics in shock? Was kidnapped by aliens? Made a wish for a real job and is even now on a flight to Tokyo? 

My present student made a whooshing motion with one arm. "He saw a…. comet?" 

He'd been crushed by a falling meteor. That would definitely make a fairly original excuse. 

Then a more likely explanation occurred to me. "Oh, he was watching a meteor shower; shooting stars?" 

"Yes," my student nodded as I filled in the correct English term. "All night."

Aha!

"So… why isn't he in?"

I'm a bad ass supervisor. 

Dirty experimentalists

"Look." I stood at the boundary between two areas in the Faculty of Science. In front of me was the building's foyer with rooms leading off for the office staff and mail room. Behind me was the ground floor of one of the adjoining twin towers; an 11 storied building containing physics and chemistry laboratories. My own office was on floor 9.

The foyer area was sparkling clean; gleaming floor tiles in a peachy marbled design reflected the attractive ceiling lamps and white washed walls. A central stained glass window depicting symbols of Hokkaido University splashed coloured patches of light across a collection of tables and chairs.

In the tower, a bulb in the dimly lit corridor crackled and went out.

"Why don't they clean past here?" I asked. "We get grimy grey flooring with foot deep grit embedded in each corner and there is clearly the ability to keep it nice!"

 

"It's because there are experimentalists here." I was told. "It's not worth it."

Dirty experimental scientists.

I knew it.

Theory needs a new building.  

… hello

It was 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon when I finished the last part of my class preparation for the following day. Looking at the clock, I felt almost irrepressibly excited; I had finished early enough to go grocery shopping AND clean the bathroom!

… it was shortly after this that I realised I was failing at life. 

Arguably, the cat-biscuits-in-the-rice-cooker incident was an earlier indication but I've never been one for dwelling on events. 

I was planning to write long, insightful posts about my experiences as a first year faculty member. They were to be filled with thought provoking statements about the balance between research projects and teaching commitments; the rewards and difficulties, the pain and the pleasure. It would undoubtedly be nominated for a Nobel Prize and become a white paper for future developments in higher educational resources. 

... if only it were possible to move a touch further away from the odor of RAW HYSTERICAL PANIC that filled my mind each time I attempted to rationalise my situation into coherent thoughts. 

Guys. It comes down to this:

Teaching.

Is.

Hard.

Who knew? Well… teachers. But who believed them? No one. 

I am now half-way through the year (Japan is a half-year out of sink with the West, so I've completed one semester and taught one course and still have a second semester and a second course to go) and have been sent a cheerful reminder that my first tenure-track assessment will be next month. 

Picture the gateway into Mordor.

ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR.

Because one must teach a class. Then, the gateway is behind you, that small box in the top left corner of the form is ticked and the rest of the assessment will be on the WORLD CLASS RESEARCH YOU'VE SURELY DONE TO FIND THE ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL.

Frankly, I'm holding out hopes for big marks allocated for keeping on top of things to the extent of not posing a significant health risk to the rest of the department.  

The saving grace is that I WAS in fact told life was gonna be this way. I was assured that first year faculty was tough but --unless you had the grievous misfortune of teaching a different class the following year-- the second year was significantly better and you might actually get to do research. Or shower. I'm hoping this means my review committee have seriously low expectations. 

Meanwhile I have six teaching-free weeks. I'm thinking 6 research papers. Or 60. Aim for the stars! Because if you fall short… I'll be doomed because I'm an astrophysicist. Darn. 

Bugs & birds

I stood in my new office and looked around. Everything was big. The room was big, the white board was big, the bookcases (and their number) were big, my desk was big and my desktop computer was big. 

Then there was me in the middle wearing jeans and a baggy 'grape Fanta' sweater. Ho hum.

Until last week I had been sharing an office. While slightly unusual for a faculty member, I had not minded the situation. My office mate was friendly, spoke great English and --perhaps more to the point-- was never there. He was involved in the design and construction of astronomical instruments and spent most of his time at various observing sites preparing his mechanical off-spring for their deployment. 

Unless observational astronomers are vastly different from their theoretical counterparts, I could see why getting a new instrument to the stage it could be safely left was a prolonged process. 

The previous owner of this office had retired. In academia speak, this meant he had accumulated the addition of 'emeritus' to his professor title and moved to a different building. As I examined what had been left in the drawers and cabinets, I wondered if retirement happened through choice or was something that was foisted upon you once your office contained a critical number of floppy disks. By the time it is my turn, that unit of measurement will probably be USB thumb drives. 

In addition to the large box of floppies, I discovered a collection of astrophysics books in Japanese and a variety of small magnets of the type used to pin cards and notes to metal surfaces. I picked one up and attached a card to my white board. There. Much more homely. 

Most of these magnets were a standard round shape in a solid colour such as blue or red. However, two were shaped as pink hearts and four were miniature lady birds. I raised an eyebrow. 

When a couple of students rolled into my office, I pointed out these surprisingly aesthetic additions. The ladybirds were promptly stacked on top of each other and attached, pointing outwards, to my board. It looked like an erect org--- Well, never mind. 

"In Japanese, we say 'tentoumushi'. 'Mushi' means 'bug'." I was told. "What are they in English?"

"Ladybirds," I supplied. "In UK English, 'Ladybird' and in US English 'Ladybug'."

"Bird?" came the surprised retort. "But they are not birds, they are bugs!"

I opened my mouth and then closed it. Then I scratched my head and examined the magnets. "Look, " I said at last. "It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the Americans get it right."

"And why lady? They are not ladies!"

I scowled. "Because ladies are pretty and delicate unlike boys."

Sometimes, even professors need to resort to school-yard insults.