![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astra_nomerThe five question interview meme. Which means you can ask me for five questions of your own to answer in the comments.
Questions from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shumashi:
1. If you could remove one person from your personal universe, who would it be? Note, it doesn't have to mean something bad happened to them, just that they are in a place where they no longer have any affect on your life. Perhaps they retired to the Bahamas.
Well, my first reaction is, My Parents! But that isn't really fair to them. Besides, they could retire to the Bahamas or the Moon, and they'd still expect me to come visit them at least once a year, and make me feel guilty about not coming more often. And even if they were dead, their spirits would come back to haunt me about not tending their gravesites properly.
Then I'd go on to prominent figures in the current US government, but I suspect that doesn't count as within my personal universe.
How about that guy who keeps coming by to chat with the IT guy down the hall? The one with the really loud and whiny voice, whom I accidentally sat down to lunch with one day and immediately couldn't stand him? Though, you see, there are certain advantages to changing institutions
periodically...
2. Ever moving back to Boston? (C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it!)
I wish! Sadly, I think that is largely out of my hands. I am at the whim of which institutions have jobs opening up in the next several years and in what particular sub-fields of astronomy, at that.
3. Due to a rift in the space-time continuum, you find your journal from the future. Do you read
it? If so, what are you looking for?
Of course I read it! I have the bad habit of flipping ahead in novels I read, just to see how the story ends up. I think I would look for whether or not I end up Achieving Tenure, regardless of the institution, because I seem to have completely bought into the academic model, where success=tenure. And if I don't end up achieving tenure, I'd want to know why, what I ended up doing instead, and whether or not I am happy with the end result.
4. I never actually heard the story of your engagement. How'd it go? The process, I mean. I know the outcome. ;)
You do realize that DH is possibly the least romantic man I know, right?
It was the fall of my senior year in college, and we were coming on our third anniversary of going out. I asked DH if he had any ideas on what we should do, and he said yeah, "I won't tell you where we're going, but dress up." So immediately knew that something was up, and he knew I knew it too. So I'd say things like, "gee, you wouldn't be thinking about the E-word, would you?" And he'd response with things like, "yeah, the E-word, and the P-word, of course. There will even be a "R-word." "With dinner at the T-of-the-H?" "Yeah, that too."
So on the night of our anniversary, we went to the Top of the Hub and had a lovely dinner and went for a walk on the Esplanade afterward. And I kept pestering him, "does this look like a good spot? How about here?" Which meant that by the time he selected a nice well-lit spot and got down on one knee, he was giggling like crazy. And he gave me a ring and asked me to marry him.
And since it was November, it was cold out, and besides, I had problem sets to work on and classes to go to the next day, so we went home pretty quickly after that. However, it took over a year and a half before we were actually married. That's a story for another day.
5. What's something about you I ought to know, but probably don't?
My goal in life is to have a physical process named after me - the Nomer Effect, the Nomer Model, the Nomer Equation. Yes, I do have quite an ego, I try not to let it show.
Optional Extra Question of Impertinence: I find it mind-boggling how much you have on your plate, with your family and work and all, and you've often spoken about how strongly you feel on the subject of working moms. Even so, everyone has their limits. Do you ever get the urge to simplify? Say to hell with it, pack up the family and all run off to become goat farmers in Tibet or something?
Cheater! Actually, I do think it's a good question, so I will answer it.
I do often feel completely overwhelmed with responsibility, but the urge to run off to grow potato trees or farm goats or whatever is fleeting at best. I occasionally will take a day off to spend it with one or both kids, usually coinciding with a school holiday, and every time I do this, I am forcibly reminded that I would not make a good stay-at-home-mom.
I've simplified what I can in the sense that I don't do much other than work and parent. I don't sing or play violin regularly anymore. I don't do any community service. While I made time to train for that triathlon last year, I haven't made the time to do much exercise at all this year - just planning workouts took more mental energy than I expected. Working and parenting fill my plate just fine.
I think part of it is that I feel like my education and training would be a big waste if I quit. Plus, I'm honestly not sure what I'd do if I left astronomy, so the idea of calling it quits scares me. So long as the foreseeable future looks reasonable to me, I'm going to continue along the path I'm on. And hey, I've made it this far, right?
Questions from
shumashi:1. If you could remove one person from your personal universe, who would it be? Note, it doesn't have to mean something bad happened to them, just that they are in a place where they no longer have any affect on your life. Perhaps they retired to the Bahamas.
Well, my first reaction is, My Parents! But that isn't really fair to them. Besides, they could retire to the Bahamas or the Moon, and they'd still expect me to come visit them at least once a year, and make me feel guilty about not coming more often. And even if they were dead, their spirits would come back to haunt me about not tending their gravesites properly.
Then I'd go on to prominent figures in the current US government, but I suspect that doesn't count as within my personal universe.
How about that guy who keeps coming by to chat with the IT guy down the hall? The one with the really loud and whiny voice, whom I accidentally sat down to lunch with one day and immediately couldn't stand him? Though, you see, there are certain advantages to changing institutions
periodically...
2. Ever moving back to Boston? (C'mon, all the cool kids are doing it!)
I wish! Sadly, I think that is largely out of my hands. I am at the whim of which institutions have jobs opening up in the next several years and in what particular sub-fields of astronomy, at that.
3. Due to a rift in the space-time continuum, you find your journal from the future. Do you read
it? If so, what are you looking for?
Of course I read it! I have the bad habit of flipping ahead in novels I read, just to see how the story ends up. I think I would look for whether or not I end up Achieving Tenure, regardless of the institution, because I seem to have completely bought into the academic model, where success=tenure. And if I don't end up achieving tenure, I'd want to know why, what I ended up doing instead, and whether or not I am happy with the end result.
4. I never actually heard the story of your engagement. How'd it go? The process, I mean. I know the outcome. ;)
You do realize that DH is possibly the least romantic man I know, right?
It was the fall of my senior year in college, and we were coming on our third anniversary of going out. I asked DH if he had any ideas on what we should do, and he said yeah, "I won't tell you where we're going, but dress up." So immediately knew that something was up, and he knew I knew it too. So I'd say things like, "gee, you wouldn't be thinking about the E-word, would you?" And he'd response with things like, "yeah, the E-word, and the P-word, of course. There will even be a "R-word." "With dinner at the T-of-the-H?" "Yeah, that too."
So on the night of our anniversary, we went to the Top of the Hub and had a lovely dinner and went for a walk on the Esplanade afterward. And I kept pestering him, "does this look like a good spot? How about here?" Which meant that by the time he selected a nice well-lit spot and got down on one knee, he was giggling like crazy. And he gave me a ring and asked me to marry him.
And since it was November, it was cold out, and besides, I had problem sets to work on and classes to go to the next day, so we went home pretty quickly after that. However, it took over a year and a half before we were actually married. That's a story for another day.
5. What's something about you I ought to know, but probably don't?
My goal in life is to have a physical process named after me - the Nomer Effect, the Nomer Model, the Nomer Equation. Yes, I do have quite an ego, I try not to let it show.
Optional Extra Question of Impertinence: I find it mind-boggling how much you have on your plate, with your family and work and all, and you've often spoken about how strongly you feel on the subject of working moms. Even so, everyone has their limits. Do you ever get the urge to simplify? Say to hell with it, pack up the family and all run off to become goat farmers in Tibet or something?
Cheater! Actually, I do think it's a good question, so I will answer it.
I do often feel completely overwhelmed with responsibility, but the urge to run off to grow potato trees or farm goats or whatever is fleeting at best. I occasionally will take a day off to spend it with one or both kids, usually coinciding with a school holiday, and every time I do this, I am forcibly reminded that I would not make a good stay-at-home-mom.
I've simplified what I can in the sense that I don't do much other than work and parent. I don't sing or play violin regularly anymore. I don't do any community service. While I made time to train for that triathlon last year, I haven't made the time to do much exercise at all this year - just planning workouts took more mental energy than I expected. Working and parenting fill my plate just fine.
I think part of it is that I feel like my education and training would be a big waste if I quit. Plus, I'm honestly not sure what I'd do if I left astronomy, so the idea of calling it quits scares me. So long as the foreseeable future looks reasonable to me, I'm going to continue along the path I'm on. And hey, I've made it this far, right?
