Last event of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics: Men’s Ice Hockey final.
Anybody who doesn’t comprehend how important hockey is to Canadians simply needs to watch this commercial.
The Canada vs. USA game which happened earlier in the non-elimination rounds attracted over 10 million Canadian television viewers. That’s almost a third of the population. This game will almost certainly smash that record. How high could it go? 12 million? 15 million?
There’s a hilarious soundbite on the video montage here where a Canadian couple are interviewed at a Canadian hockey game.
“Better than your wedding day?” the BBC interviewer asks.
The wife and husband hesitates for a moment, then they both shrug and go, “Yeeeaaaahh!”
Here we are. Quarter finals for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games.
Canada versus Russia.
There’s just so much history between the two nations and their hockey—most of it stemming from the Cold War and what happened in 1972.
Yesterday, when Canada played Germany, something like 10 million Canadians were watching the game. That’s like a third of the nation. And even for someone like me, who’s not normally a big hockey fan—it’s hard not stay up and watch this game, with heart and soul rooting for my home team.
“Why do you wear such baggy tops?” I asked, holding her gray top to my chest so I could measure.
“Are you kidding? D’you know how tiny that would look on you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Try it on.”
“No.”
“Just to see.”
“No.”
“It’ll be funny.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I sighed dramatically.
“First it’s a little innocent, ‘Try this on. It’ll be funny!’. Next, it’ll be, ‘You’d look hilarious in a skirt. Let’s just see.’ And then before you know it, our little game will involve high heels, hot pants, and a camera. That’s one slippery slope. I ain’t playin’.”
On February 9th, 2010, I officially accepted a position with the Princeton mathematics department—to begin in September.
And so now, hopefully the reason why I took my blog offline since November 2009 will become abundantly clear. I suppose I just couldn’t risk any of the potential hiring committees googling me, only to find out about the time I…
…Well, you can go to the archives and dig up whatever dirt you like, I s’pose.
Applications for the 2010 year were–I was told–one of the most competitive in decades (because of the American economy); a lot of schools had cut back on the number of positions they were offering; sometimes from three or four, to maybe only one or two. So when you take in account the fact that there were only a handful of positions at the top institutions, you see how lucky I was to have received multiple offers to choose from. In the end, however, it came down to two.
My two final choices were so different in benefits that I decided choosing one over the other might one day lead me to two different careers.
The first choice was the safer one. I was offered an Assistant Professorship (non-tenured) at a leading research institution. There, I’d be working on a subject I’m rather familiar with. It’d be comfortable and I’d be happy.
The second choice (Princeton’s) was the riskier one. I’d be moving to a mathematics department which—let’s face facts—has a non-existant applied group, and I’d be doing something I know absolutely nothing about (at least for the moment). But I also realized that this option would lead to bigger payoffs in the future. I’d be a better mathematician, having dabbled in a wider range of disciplines.
Comfort and stability? Or big risk and big rewards?
In the end, it was an easy decision.
After all, when have I ever sought comfort and stability?
