Mama PhD

Last week some singing friends and I attended a tango class in midtown Manhattan that had been advertised as beginner friendly. They wanted to go because they are fine dancers who are interested in investigating unfamiliar forms. I went along because I enjoy their company, but I had some apprehension. I am a klutz, and dance lessons are not my most comfortable milieu.

In some of our classes that fulfill the math requirement for the core curriculum, we occasionally teach sections involving logic, asking questions such as, “if we say ‘if A, then B’, does that mean that ‘if B, then A’?” I found myself thinking of these questions as I was delighted at the signs that sprung up on campus this week directing new students to various events on campus.

The two weeks before the semester begins is a busy time, a time of fresh starts, new pencils, and crisp back-to-school-outfits. Now that I’m a parent, the fall begins with a joyous parade to my daughter’s school, collecting other parents and their children as we walk the four blocks of our tree-lined street.

It hit me this year that someday I’ll be one of the elders in my family. My parents are ageing gracefully, and both are still in fairly good health. However, I realized that in the not too distant future my sister and I will be responsible for passing on our family lore. We’ve heard many stories and cherished bits of wisdom from both my parents, but to be honest, the details tend to blur.

My first teaching day is a week away and I think my syllabus is ready, amazingly. I e-mailed a link to it to all my students and I believe it was less than an hour before a student e-mailed me back to ask about a date confusion--alas, there was a typo in what I sent out. It's fixed now, but it's not exactly how I intended to appear to my students. Ah, well, perhaps it's just as well that they get used to the idea that I am not, in fact, always going to be right. (Far from it.)

· My first teaching day is a week away and I think my syllabus is ready, amazingly. I e-mailed a...

Over the past few months, I've watched friends prepare to send their children off to college with a mixture of admiration and relief. I admire their ability to focus on the positive aspects of the situation—look at all the interesting new people she'll meet! An experience of another way of life, in another part of the country (or world)!—and am filled with relief that it isn't me, at least, not yet.

There is a theorem in Economics known as “Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem” that, as proposed by the Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow, discusses the impossibility of coming to a conclusion that completely satisfies the preferences of a multiple of voters. I thought of this theorem recently when I attended the memorial service for a former colleague who had done what I thought was impossible. As plans for this service came together, I learned that he did not just die suddenly, as the announcement of his death informed us. In fact, he had actually taken his own life. I found myself at a complete loss in explaining what happened to him to my daughter, who, until now, has been relatively sheltered from this dark reality.