Parsed Participle

This entry is one week late. I got to New York last Monday, and have been attending classes since Tuesday. The lectures are engaging, and I've already got some homework. I have spent the week getting settled into student lifestyle at NYU. The initial jet-lag was effectively handled with some energy drinks that I picked at Narita Airport (to get rid of extra change in Yen).

I still have a few left.

New York is very cold, but the snow is gone. East Harlem, where I now live, is obviously in every way imaginable, a huge change from the various Tokyo localities where I've lived over the last few years. But it has a lot of character. Not far away is a Mom-and-Pop joint that serves delicious Dominican food. Many a five-dollar meal was had there until a home-food routine was finally established this weekend. A trip to Flushing, Queens has provided a reassuringly high selection of Korean (Kimchi here is delicious) and Japanese groceries. In Manhattan, I have been spoken to in Spanish a few times; I probably ought to start learning it. I am taking the subway until I get down to re-assembling my bike. (I carried it with me on the plane!)

Initial impressions of grad school:

• Fewer classroom hours than I expected, but much more than everyone else (who asks me how many courses I am taking) did.
• There are too many interesting courses, and too little time.
• Homework is harder than lectures.
• Both the central NYU library and the department library are to me, utterly awe-inspiring.
• Lecture-halls (at least the ones I've seen) are strictly non-posh.
• Superficial differences at the inter-departmental level (appearance and styling of infrastructure, etc) are enormous.
• Efficiency: Things are so fast and low-ceremony (at NYU). I got an ID card in less than a minute.
• Campus food is good.
• I think it might be more fun than I expected.

I'm flying to New York tomorrow, barely in time for classes. I will be in grad school for a minimum of one and a half years, and it appears likely that I may not even return to Japan in that period (though I am trying to work out a summer break where I can work in Tokyo).

My flight leaves Narita at 11:00 AM Japan time. I have a few hours to finish packing, and apart from two suitcases I am carrying with me a guitar and a bicycle. The last few days have been far too busy for any last-minute nostalgia, but I'll probably miss Tokyo very much anyway.

My next post should be from New York. Once I get settled in, that is.

I'm off to grad school. I will be leaving Japan to go to the US - in 2 days from now! I got into New York University, and will be starting the program this Spring.

The Computer Science department at NYU is part of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The department seems nice, and there's a decent amount of interesting research they do. While the program is more computer science as opposed to engineering (which is what I want anyway) it appears in line with NYU's reputation for interdisciplinary research/study.

So, after five years of working in Japan, writing software and programming in too many languages (for my own good) I find myself headed off to academia. I honestly never thought this would happen. But I'm looking forward to it, and as much as I am dreading actually leaving Tokyo, I am excited by the prospect of change. Classes begin as soon as I get there. I arrive on Monday morning, and with any luck I can make it to the semester's first lecture on Programming Languages.

While my research interests and long term goals are still fuzzy, I'm looking forward to a semester of course-work, and most of it seems like fun.

Having moved out of my apartment, I am staying with Thilo and his wife Cissy and their seven-month old son. My visa finally arrived (i.e., in hand - I was told that it would be approved but after a delay), thus making me feel somewhat confident about announcing that I am actually going!