a spectrum of courage

On Monday, I had lunch at a just-off-campus tavern with a doctoral advisee. The occasion was a pending job interview. -- for him, not me. A phone interview the previous week went very well and the work seems closely aligned with what he was looking for: smaller institution, high premium place on teaching, and a good place to raise a family. The downside is that the campus is in Texas rather than the mid-Atlantic area (Maryland to Georgia) that had been the dream. Next Monday he flies down for a day and a half of chats and school visits and a classroom presentation (no "research" talk). Lots of good signs and many reasons for optimism. To a certain extent, this is exactly what we've been working toward; it also seems to have snuck up on us.

He is fully prepared for the job. Despite being in a doctoral program with essentially one faculty member, he has done everything he should, in large part because that's his nature. His concerns about the phone interview dissipated as he listed all the things he's accomplished in the past few years. The break from Boston, the place of his upbringing, career and family roots, in order to come to Connecticut was quite a daring transition. But now I see courage in big bold letters because a crucial decision may need to be made.

Courage comes in many forms and one feature of courage is that it amazes those who witness it, especially in those who are in our care. For me, the prospect of going to San Antonio seems like it would be a calculated and reasonable risk. But then again, I wouldn't be moving two school-aged kids, and creating considerable distance between them and their grandparents (truth be told: the distance created by the previous move was a welcome relief to the adults). Nevertheless, the stakes are much higher than they would be for me.

There are other jobs posted that are within the geographic target. But only one of those called and it was clearly not a good match. In a nutshell, the prospective job seems to be a perfect match -- were it not for the location. Consequently, the visit for the interview becomes an important opportunity to look for flaws. If the work is perfect but the living is less so, then a tough decision will be made. What if there's an offer forthcoming but nothing else is very far along? Up until this point, I could base almost all of my advising on my own experiences. Suddenly, I feel inadequately suited to offer advice. The courage required will be something I will have to watch.

If I Knew

This is one of those "aren't kids crazy" entries. One of my most tech'd out advisees was spilling some crazy information on me yesterday. The guy builds his own computers, knows all the chemistry behind scone-making, and is turning into a pissed-off, jacked-up, urban teacher ... unless he goes into the Peace Corps. He drives me insane (e.g., "I was up late") but I love him like the Sun. He gets this huge glow when he's spilling arcane information.

I have no idea how we got onto the topic (but this is par when Ryan's around) but somehow Linux programming and The Craftsman book came up. I gave him my one last copy of that book. He in turn shared the term T3H with me. Apparently, I'm one of the last ones to know about this language where gamers and coders use numbers instead of letters: 4 for A, 3 for E, that sort of thing. And the character | is called the pipe. He also told me about sites where people attempt to post the most disturbing images -- so disturbing that you can't erase them from your mind. He said "there's no such thing as eye bleach." What a wonderful world he lives in.

I spent a little time looking this stuff up. Clearly some of this is "code" that keeps others (i.e., adults) from knowing what's being communicated. Another is that it produces an arms race in which one has to be heavily engaged to not be left behind. I suppose this is akin to knowledge of fashion that separates the hip from the not-so hip. One texting abbreviation I found on an urban (?) dictionary was IYKWIM ... AITYD. It translates to If You Know What I Mean & I Think You Do. What a liberating phrase. Don't you suppose that having the knowledge required to send, receive and translate this code would cause the brain to be wiree in different ways. I think I'm coming to grips with the notion of the Digital Natives. And just like Italian, I despair at the realization that I am never going to fully catch on to this way of interacting. But as long as I can check the weather online and point to the gelato flavor I need when in Florence, I don't suppose I'm going to suffer ... IMHO.