In the past few months I've published some new results. Mostly I've been working on avatar research- and we submitted some work to a conference in Japan that my boss suggested to us. My student, Laura, will hopefully attend that conference and enjoy seeing some companies in Japan. We'll continue that work and submit it to IEEE-VR in early September. Also, my work with organizing conferences is fortunately coming to a close soon. EGVE 2008 was pretty successful and I was happy with that. APGV 2008 is coming up in early August and I'm excited to go to LA and check out Disney as well as some other universities while I'm in town. Mostly, I'm excited to stop off in Pennsylvania on my return flight and see the family. I'm tired of living so far away from them. Most of the time I don't want to return to PA-- it is too humid there for me and there are far too few mountains to view on that side of the United States. However, I miss being home and sometimes I think it would be so much better if I never left home. I could hug my mom more often and I could go to the lake with my dad a few more times a year. I wouldn't have to talk to him every so often and hold on to the funny things he says. I would get to see my nephews and nieces age and I'd learn more about my sisters and brothers and their marriages.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I spoke with my sister Becky the other day and she was saying that she could never be so brave as to leave PA. I don't think she was at all thinking that she would want to leave PA- but I can imagine that my "being brave" has lead to a lot of good things. I always think of it as being mostly carefree. I trust that all things will work out in the end and I have a high tolerance for pain- usually when you move you don't experience pain- but you do experience a lot of aching for the old things to come back and surround you. I've managed to not worry so much about those things and focus on the good things.
That being said, the reason I'm writing about this is that this week I've had an especially hard week with work and feeling like I don't belong here in Germany in general. It makes me want to leave and find a place where people know me really well and trust that I mean well and value the qualities I can bring to the table without always asking for more from me. I generally just want people to be satisfied with the work I do- as I think I work quite hard. I also want them to recognize that I'm very far from perfect- and I know it quite well.
I always thought getting your PhD would make you feel very qualified for something and confident that you knew something fully. Well- I thought that up until about the last two years of graduate school. Now I know that getting your PhD is the most humbling experience in academia. Some people respond by being arrogant- terrified by the idea that someone might find them out that they know nothing. I hope I always fall into the catergory of people who are the first to admit that they know very little in the grand scheme of things.
Anyway, I miss my family and I'll post a few photos here quickly- before I have to run off and run an experiment today.
The first one is of Oscar taking a scuba diving lesson from my brother Rob. Rob just started his new job and I'mlooking forward to hearing how it is going.
This last one is my brother danny walking across a log near Tucquan Glen in PA. We had a great hike there- even though the rains came down on us when we were walking back along the railroad. I enjoyed being with my brothers and taking Oscar to one of my favorite places near my hometown.
