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Leaving Town

MathFest is this week in Boston. I've done a lot of work getting ready for classes beforehand hoping not to be too frenetic when I return.

I have wonderful memories of MathFest and the Joint Mathematics Meetings over the decades and so there is a confidence that the time will be well-spent being challenged in the company of friends. One of my university roommates went to MIT for grad school and so between visiting him in the previous millennium and my brother-in-law and his family in a suburb of Boston, I have confidence that I will enjoy Boston, especially outside of its 11 winter months.

As always it is a bit hard to focus on the here and now as the logistics of travel (flight schedules, hotel booking, compensation paperwork for the trip) take residence in my mind. I don't really unclench even after all these years until I am unpacked in my hotel room and feel free to explore.

I am not as ambulatory as I was when I started my career, both in terms of stamina and in having two prosthetic knees. I have identified some places I wish to see when I am not in meetings but may rely more on Lyft than I'd like. Convention sites are all based on the optical illusion that you can see the sign for your destination with a clear line-of-sight even though it's four football fields away. I know that I will get a good deal of walking in.

I know the content of my talk pretty well and practiced it for timing twice this past week so my comfort level there is pretty high; I've done this before and know that I am better now than when I began in my twenties. My timeslot is a decent one so I may have a decent audience depending on what else is going on and what is near my talk's room.

Travel is fatiguing, more and more with each passing year. Being on my own affords me the opportunity to go to sleep when I wish and arise when I wish. My natural cycle seems based on farmwork, waking normally before sunrise, and I yield to it when traveling on my own.

Note:  I have been a member of the organization hosting the conference (the Mathematical Association of America) for 48 years now, joining as a student member in 1978. I still have trouble processing that kind of seniority. It has been a good organization striving to be better, and the folk I have worked with in it are enthusiastic and creative problem solvers, the kind of people I truly enjoy being around.

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