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I am back home after a week long trip to the west. The official purpose was to attend the big meeting of the American Physical Society and present my current research in the form of three talks. The unofficial purpose was to network with the prominent people of the community and catch up with old friends. All of this happened with gusto. The high point was seeing all my grad school colleagues that are post-doc-ing all over the country (and finding out that they are in comparable amounts of misery as me :)). I also got to meet college friends from India that I have not seen for ever. That was good too.

Usually, when you see somebody you have not seen in a while, you use them as a reference to see how you have changed since the last time you have been with them. That is one of the primary purposes that catching up with old friends serves. But somehow I did not do that this time. It could mean several things. The simplest thing could be that I was so distracted by all the physics that filled this week that in the brief time that I was actually in a social mode, I did not tune out of it enough to think of the “gauging the change in me” thing. Another rather Freudian thing could be that I am either really secure (unlikely) or extremely insecure (possible) with where I am now that I was subconsciously avoiding any comparison. I am not sure which of the above scenarios is the truth. In any case, all of this sounds like over-analyzing some rather simple thing and I have to get back to work.

Also, I have been out of the Blogsphere for a week now. Wonder what I missed here?