Preparing for Italy

I am very fortunate to work at an institution that provides "pre-tenure leave" for one semester in our 4th year on the faculty.  The expectation is that we will make significant research progress during it, with no commitment on campus (teaching or otherwise).  One year ago, I was beginning to plan for it, not entirely looking forward to spending a semester by myself in my lab on campus.  I wasn't sure how much progress I would make.

I had a particularly brave moment and sent an e-mail to a researcher in my field; I respected the work he and his group have published, but had never met him.  Suddenly I had an exciting plan: spend 3 months in Milan, working on a new research collaboration.  Since then there have been a number of ups and downs: a grant proposal I was proud of, but that was not funded; feeling uncertain of my abilities, and then proving myself knowledgable about Geant4 (my primary research tool).  Somehow nothing has fallen apart, though I try to keep in mind it still could.

I depart January 15th.  The flights and AirBnb have been booked for months; my Italian skills have been inching along since last spring.  I now have 2.5 weeks to pull together the final details...

Teaching: While I do not have any teaching obligations this spring, I have a terrifying amount of things on my to-do list regarding teaching (past and future).  I never finished the assessment/notes from last spring's courses or from this summer.  There are notes to write up from this fall's courses.  A small pile of recommendation letters have impending deadlines...  On top of that, there is some planning for this coming summer and fall that cannot entirely wait for my return in April.

Technology: After many years of service, my little netbook had a scary moment of "cannot find a hard drive" on the way to India this month.  I already knew my (new-ish) large laptop would be going to Italy with me, but it isn't particularly portable.  I finally bought a table - after 24 hours of ownership, I'm fairly happy with it.  It isn't going to run Geant4 simulations or build LaTeX documents, but it seems to have its uses.  I'm even experimenting with eBooks now (don't tell my books!).

Travel: While my priority for the next 3 months is research, I want to take this opportunity to travel.  I'm half-way through the first guidebook of three (Northern Italy, Croatia, Eastern Europe) that I will rely on for this trip, and I already know that I won't have enough time to go everywhere that I would like to.  I have many planes and trains in my future...

Research: This is my first time doing a "visiting collaborator" stint, so I really have no idea how to approach it.  What fraction of my collaborator's time will be spent on our project, versus his typical duties and other projects?  Will I have a desk and computer?  I'm asking some of these questions, but I'm also trying to relax and "go with the flow."  Luckily, I can distract myself with a different, ongoing project that I need to wrap up ASAP.  Before I leave, I do need to try to organize my research resources.  Do I take the relevant papers (in printed form), or just organize my digital research library?  I need to get my research computer (in my lab) set up for remote operation and update the version of Geant4 on it.  I may not need it for running simulations, but it is likely that the extra computing power will be helpful.

I intend to maintain this blog over the next few months, documenting my travel and research adventures.  My tablet is never going to have Facebook on it, but there is probably a way to blog from it...  

Lecture Bonus Day!

I had been so busy before the trip that I hadn't completed all of the planning and scheduling that I had hoped to do.  Since I had taught at the same monastery before, I figured I knew what I was doing and I didn't need to worry about it too much.

It turns out I missed a big change: I knew that we had one more day for math this year, but we also had one more day for physics!  Of course, I learned this on what I thought was my penultimate day of teaching.  Luckily, I hadn't completely prepped my slides for the next day. 

In the end, this was very fortunate.  Yesterday (when I thought I had only one day left) I hadn't been able to do conservation of energy in enough detail and it was clear that it did not make sense to the monks.  With the additional day, I spent the entire lecture time working on conservation of energy and the additional lab focused on energy measurements and calculations.

Of course, it would have been better to know my schedule earlier so that I would have made better use of the previous lecture, rather than rushing through.  I could consider this a valuable lesson in the value of planning, but many people seem to think I spend too much time planning as it is.

Now I truly only have one day left of lecturing.  I am looking forward to making the most of my remaining time, but I do feel the tears starting to creep up when I think about leaving.  Even though my time here was longer (by two days, oops!) than last year, the visit has felt shorter.  There has been a lot that I haven't had time for - like blogging - but my visit has been incredibly rich.  I will certainly return, and hopefully each trip will be two days longer than the previous one. 

Monk on a skateboard

Apparently skateboards can be purchased in the local region in India, to my surprise.  The skateboards are excellent for demonstrating inertia, low friction, and Newton's laws. We have possibly had a ton of fun with them as well!  Importantly, no one has gotten hurt (yet).

A Telescope at the Monastery

(Hopefully pictures will be posted later, when I get them from the photographer)

Drepung Loseling owns a lovely telescope, clearly optimized to be portable and simple.  Last year there was an evening where some of the physics instructors set it up and many monks were invited to come and see the planets and moon.  I saw fliers up around the monastery!  However, clouds quickly rolled in.  I believe that was the first time the telescope was used.  I wasn't there - I was either sleeping or working on slides.

Tonight, a group of us were leaving the monastery after dinner and I noticed the sky was clear.  Given the whole "monsoon season", this is a bit of a surprise!  I had previous discussed the lack of clear sky with some of the other instructors.  Seeing the clear moon and some planets, we turned around to find our Science Monk and set up the telescope.  Luckily, we also found the physics instructor who actually runs an observatory and could identify the planets.

Since it was last minute, we didn't have that big of a group of monks.  Many would walk by and someone would yell out what they could look at.  We were able to see the moon, Jupiter and 4 moon, Mars, and Saturn and its rings!  The monks asked many questions about the planets and moon, and many were excited by what they saw.  In many ways it was like having American students look through telescopes - some of them tried taking pictures through the eyepiece with their cellphones.

One of our instructors had a nice camera and grabbed the tripod for it to do long-exposure photography.  He got a number of nice pictures of the starts and planets by the monastery, the monks at the telescope, and a number of pictures of the instructors.  There was some fun with long-exposure "light writing" as well.

Amazing, I got to use a portion of my Tibetan vocab.  The days of the week are named after the planets, so I can name all of the objects we saw in Tibetan!  I don't know if the Tibetans have names for the specific moons of Jupiter, but I barely know those in English.

We hope to get the telescope back out tomorrow evening, as it is the monks' day off and many will be around.  I don't know if we will be lucky enough to have two clear nights in a row - the clouds did roll in today after we were out there about an hour.  Hopefully the sky is clear for a bit tomorrow, and more monks are able to look through the telescope.

Morning Meditation

Many people asked if I did much meditation at the monastery last year... no, not at all.  I hadn't even been aware of any opportunities, and I do not believe there was any.  This year, it looks like I will be able to do a morning meditation every day!

The Emory-Tibet program has a number of facets, and teaching science to the monks in India is only one part.  There is also a student program that brings students (mostly from Emory, but open to others) to India to visit the different monasteries and learn about Tibetan Buddhism.  Last year, I left Drepung before the students arrived.  This year, they were already here.

The students have a meditation session, but it is when we are teaching.  Geshe Lobsang Negi, who runs the Drepung Loseling Center in Atlanta, runs their meditation session and has agreed to run one for the faculty.  Of course, ours needs to be before breakfast, at 6 AM.

I've been to meditation sessions at the Drepung Loseling Center that he has run, so there were many similarities.  However, he has a small number of monks come up to do chants at the beginning and end of the meditation.  While the center in Atlanta is beautiful, it does not compare to being in the meditation room on the roof of the monastery!

I'm looking forward to continuing the morning meditations, even if it does require getting up before 5:30.  I'm still a little jet lagged, so I actually woke up at 3 AM last night.  While I am still spending all of my time working on class prep (and not much time sleeping), I can't pass up on the opportunity to meditate here.  I actually didn't have my notes finished for class today, but the lecture still went fine.  That hour was certainly well spent.

Compared to last year...

When I taught at the monastery last year, I experienced emotions that I did not have words for.  Possibly the jet lag contributed, but when I first arrived I was giddy with awe and could barely process what I was seeing.  Even after a few days, hearing the monks (hundreds!) chanting or seeing the detailed embellishments of the monastery left me in shock that such a place could exist.  And I was there.

I've done some amazing things in my life, but last year I quickly decided that this was the most amazing experience I had ever had.  I swore to come back and hoped to return many, many times.

I was very blessed to have the opportunity to return this year and eagerly signed up.  I possibly volunteered before anyone ever asked me.  However, I had a small fear that the experience couldn't be as amazing a second time.  Possibly the chanting would be less loud or the the paint less bright.  Maybe the thrill of teaching the monks depended upon the novelty.

Amazingly, I think I am having a better experience this year than I did last year.  There are many obvious ways in which I am having a different experience - living in a different guest house, traveling during Monsoon.  However, the lack of novelty of a second visit means that I have more context.  I'm still experiencing emotions that I cannot name and they feel less fleeting than those of last year.

After teaching here last year, I tried to learn more about Tibet and Buddhism.  Unsurprisingly, I read a number of books.  These ranged from the popular books written by the Dalai Lama and others to reach a popular audience to academic books.  I frequented the Drepung Loseling center in Atlanta, where I attended meditations and took a few classes on Buddhism.  Now I have a much better understanding (though it is probably still at a Wikipedia level) of the Tibetan history and the cultural experiences of my monk students.  Instead of only appreciating the beauty of the monastery building, I am also struck by the miracle that the Tibetans have been successful in preserving their culture and escaping genocide.  I wonder how many of my students have fled over mountains and overcome obstacles before reaching the monastery.

I am enjoying the teaching more for a number of reasons.  In addition to learning about the Tibetan history and culture, I worked on the learning the language.  Over the past year I made some progress being able to pronounce (badly!) written words and learn some vocabulary.  The vocab was mostly random words and phrases, rather than anything particularly useful.  While I cannot talk to the monks (other than the many who speak English), I was able to label my slide in Tibetan based on a list of words provided by one of the translators.  I think it makes the lectures more effective, and I enjoy listening for the words that I do know.

I am teaching the same class as last year, so I am able to improve and refine my slides, rather than start from scratch.  While this is taking as much time as last year, it is satisfying to fix the issues from last year.  My co-teacher and I have been working closely on how to best present the math and have the monks do hands-on activities.  It is nice to discuss the pedagogy and scaffolding, especially since my co-teacher has experience working with the monks at Emory.

Finally, there are a number of things that I am experiencing and participating in that did not occur last year.  Most of them deserve their own blog post, but I have deep gratitude for the hard work that so many people are doing to run this program.  It has been great getting to know the other instructors, most of whom are new to the program or to this location. 

Arrived at the Monastery!

My trip from Atlanta to Paris to Mumbai to Belgaum to the Monastery was mostly uneventful.  The flights were wonderful (yay, Air France!) and all of my luggage made it.  One of the people in my group did not have their luggage make it, so my concerns about packing survival clothes/supplies in my carry-on was warranted.  We got to the hotel in Mumbai extra late, due to waiting at the airport for the person to deal with the lost luggage.  I'm not sure how jet lagged I am - I didn't sleep for the first 24 hours, so I think my clock was well reset by the first night of sleep.

The flight from Mumbai to Belgaum was later in the day this year, and it ended up being delayed.  This meant we had many, many hours in the domestic terminal of the Mumbai airport.  I bought some scarves and a cell phone power source.  A group of us chatted and drank chai - not a bad way to spend the afternoon.  We landed in Belgaum in the evening, so much of the drive to the Monastery was in the dark.  It rained for half of the drive, which slowed us down substantially.

I will definitely get to witness Monsoon this year.  When we were at the hotel in Mumbai, the news said that Monsoon had reached Kerala, in the south.  I believe it takes about a week to move up to Mumbai - so we should have it in a few days.  It was raining for part of yesterday, but not very hard.

There has been one major surprise so far - I am not staying where I thought I would be.  The guest house (that I stayed in last year) is full, so many of us are in a second guest house.  It is on the other side of the Monastery, and is a bit older.  There is still AC, but it lacks many of the small items that had been in the room at the other guest house.  Luckily, I had over-packed and brought many things I wouldn't have needed had I been in the other location, like AC adapters.

The power outages have been worse this year, though I only have a few data points.  Last year the power outages were short, and there was only one long one.  The power was out almost the entire first night we were here - that was bad since it was hot and hard to sleep without AC.  I expect this will get worse, which is why I bought the power source for my phone.  It will likely be harder for me to regularly blog this year, depending on how bad the power outages get.

Otherwise, everything has been wonderful so far.  The food is as amazing as I remember and the monks are incredibly friendly and helpful.  It is nice to know so many of them already and be familiar with the common names - I am going to do much better at remembering names this year.  When we toured around the building, we looked into the neuroscience classes taking their final exam.  In the 3rd year room I recognized some of my students from last year! 

I'm excited to go off and start teaching today.  I don't have as much ready for later days as I would like, and I don't know if some of our materials for today (math assessment, afternoon lab) have been translated.  But the slides are ready and I'm feeling good about it.

India Trip 2016!

I am very excited to be returning to India to teach in the ETSI program again!  Interestingly, a few things have changed.  This year, other instructors that I know are going!  I'm excited to be able to share a few meals with friends and spend time with them on the plane.  Sadly, they are all teaching at Gaden.  I won't be working (directly) with Tsondue this year, but will have a translator and be co-teaching with a recent graduate from Emory.  I will also be spending some personal time in India after, spending some days in Goa and Mumbai.

One of the biggest differences this year is the time in which we are teaching.  Last year at this time, I was about to leave London - my trip was over.  Now I am only getting on a plane to begin my journey.  It has been nice to have more time between graduation and departure, but the biggest effect is going to be the climate.  I spent a lot of time last year getting excited about storms and exclaiming that Monsoon had begun.  It hadn't.  Now I will actually get to witness Monsoon and it will likely rain almost every day.  I do not actually know whether it will rain all of the time or how heavy the rain will be, but there shall be rain.

While many things will be different this year, one constant is the teaching.  I am again teaching the 2nd year curriculum (Mechanics) and Drepung Loseling.  I had wanted to stay at Drepung, but had originally asked to teach the 3rd year curriculum.  I'm glad that I have been kept on the same class, as it means that I am modifying my work from last year, rather than creating a whole new class.  Sadly, I haven't made as much progress on my modifications as I had hoped.

I plan to maintain this blog again this year during my trip.  Hopefully the internet access will be as good as it was last year (despite Monsoon) and I will have more time to write and reflect.  I am especially looking forward to documenting my attempts at integrating Tibetan into my slides!