I'll never cease to be amazed by the power of introspection that a day off due to illness brings. Taking a sick day is completely different from a weekend or a holiday. In the latter I always find myself walking around, dreaming the future or simply enjoying the present with my beloved Lyx; in the former, it happens to me that the ever present feeling of vulnerability brings forward those thoughts that I usually leave in the background and care not to visit often such as the alien idea of "career."
It may be that, last year, I found Boss Lee committed to the task of building his legacy; also, now and then my dear friend Doug would drop an email containing the phrase: "at this stage of your career." Or it may just be that I'm sick, old and nostalgic.
Anyway, what career? I have it clear in my mind that my researcher career will be based on the optical manipulation of matter; be it the transfer of dynamical constants from electromagnetic fields to atomic systems or to microscopic systems beyond the optical angular momentum, as well as engineering of ground states in radiation-matter systems applicable to cavity-QED, circuit-QED or Bose-Einstein condensates interacting with electromagnetic fields. This I want to complement with a teaching career trying to present these ideas to undergrad and even junior high and high school students, mainly trying to help with education in Mexico. Of course, that research does not sell as far as it is theoretical and we do not manage to collaborate with an experimental group, the other is just an idealistic fool's dream and the plain equivalent to a death wish as far as safety in Mexico go; plus who will hire just another theoretician more back home?
My career, the real one that does not depend on the group I belong or the country where I live, is to try and help each and every day with the research of those at the office, or at least not interfere or being a burden. The same without the sphere of work, to smile, to listen, to find time to sit down and hear. While these things will not score me a position, they provide me smiles aplenty for these somehow gloomy sick days. I might not be building a landmark, or exploring the edge, or being an example of chivalry, but I'm trying my best to be a builders and wayfarers host, a cartographer who can give away maps to places near the edge and someone you can simply rely on.
It may be that, last year, I found Boss Lee committed to the task of building his legacy; also, now and then my dear friend Doug would drop an email containing the phrase: "at this stage of your career." Or it may just be that I'm sick, old and nostalgic.
Anyway, what career? I have it clear in my mind that my researcher career will be based on the optical manipulation of matter; be it the transfer of dynamical constants from electromagnetic fields to atomic systems or to microscopic systems beyond the optical angular momentum, as well as engineering of ground states in radiation-matter systems applicable to cavity-QED, circuit-QED or Bose-Einstein condensates interacting with electromagnetic fields. This I want to complement with a teaching career trying to present these ideas to undergrad and even junior high and high school students, mainly trying to help with education in Mexico. Of course, that research does not sell as far as it is theoretical and we do not manage to collaborate with an experimental group, the other is just an idealistic fool's dream and the plain equivalent to a death wish as far as safety in Mexico go; plus who will hire just another theoretician more back home?
My career, the real one that does not depend on the group I belong or the country where I live, is to try and help each and every day with the research of those at the office, or at least not interfere or being a burden. The same without the sphere of work, to smile, to listen, to find time to sit down and hear. While these things will not score me a position, they provide me smiles aplenty for these somehow gloomy sick days. I might not be building a landmark, or exploring the edge, or being an example of chivalry, but I'm trying my best to be a builders and wayfarers host, a cartographer who can give away maps to places near the edge and someone you can simply rely on.
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