The Number Field

I looked down at my key ring yesterday and realized that in ten days, every single key would be gone * . I've sold my car, although the buyer won't pick it up until this weekend. I have to move out of my office this weekend. I'll turn in my boathouse key once I wrap my single scull for traveling, although it won't follow us east until this fall or next spring. The last key to go will be for the apartment, once our things are packed and loaded and the apartment is all clean.

Tonight we have the first of several farewell dinners and other events. Thanks to Isaac and Julie for inviting us over! Jenny has timed things perfectly, and our formerly full freezer is now almost empty.

Tomorrow we're having a big going away party, and everyone is invited. If you are in Austin and read this, but somehow haven't seen the evite or facebook event, send me an email or leave a comment on this post and I'll make sure the information gets to you. We've had a good time in Austin, mainly because of all the friends we've made. We want to share our memories and say goodbye to as many as possible.

* I keep the key to Jenny's car on a separate key ring, which is useful when we start the car up and then realize we've left something important, such as Elena's blanket or sippy cup, in the apartment.

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We've had a busy week. It's become clear that we've officially entered the transition zone. We're checking things off the list of everything we ever wanted to do in Austin, and preparing for our big move.

Elena had her eighteen month doctor's checkup on Wednesday. We added another data point to her incredible growth chart: she's still big. The doctor was very pleased to see how well she's communicating. She also reminded us to feed Elena a varied diet and try to get her to eat vegetables as often as possible. Looking back, it was probably just her standard advice, but from our point of view, with all the attention we've already paid to her diet, the advice seemed somewhat glib and impersonal. Elena eats green beans, broccoli, mango, rye crackers, and all sorts of other healthy things. She just eats a lot of them!

Jewel also got a checkup recently, to make sure that she's in good health before our big move. Like Elena, she had to get some shots, but handled them well. We have a new airplane-ready kitty carrier for her, and have left it out in the apartment so she can get used to it.

To celebrate the completion of my studies, Jenny and I went on two dates this week; it's sort of like the rain returning after a long drought. We had an incredible dinner at Jeffrey's one night, and just got back from seeing Inception at Alamo Drafthouse , which is a movie theater that has restaurant service during the movie. Jenny had been there before, but this was my first time. It was quite an experience; definitely a good thing to have crossed off my Austin bucket list. Both nights that we were gone, Elena had a good time with her babysitters. Sometimes she's almost too happy to see us go, as if she's tired of us.

Preparations for our move are progressing. I snapped up a great deal on the Clear iSpot , which is a 4G wireless hotspot. We'll be able to stay connected until we get settled in our new home. Also, our movers came to do a pre-move survey and estimate the amount of time it would take to pack up our apartment. Jenny was home when the guy came by, and said he was nice and helpful, but it was still odd to have a stranger looking around the apartment and opening all the cupboards and drawers, even if it was his job.

Some time ago I wrote about travel trouble flying from Washington, DC to Austin. At the time, I didn't want to call out the carrier, Delta, because I had written them a long email detailing my negative experience and making some suggestions. To their credit, I received a response thanking me for sharing my experience, as well as some additional compensation for my trouble. It's enough to improve my opinion of Delta, which is a good thing, because our big move is booked with them. Even under the most ideal circumstances, it will be an adventure to travel with both Elena and Jewel; I hope we don't run into delays that make the trip any longer than it has to be.

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My father finished his Ph.D. when I was eleven years old. Although he enjoyed the challenge and achievement of earning the degree, in part he was forced into it--caught up in the currents of change that have slowly changed the structure and culture of higher education over the past several decades. When he started, he was able, as a holder of a masters degree, to get a full-time job as an assistant professor at a good state school. As time passed, in order to progress along the tenure track, he needed to earn a terminal degree, and so he went back to school.

This required sacrifices from all of us in his young and growing family. He had a full-time job, and could only attend classes in the evening, so he would take one our two courses every semester. He attended the state flagship university, which was about an hour's drive away, so those nights represented a significant time commitment.

Although it took many years, he made it to the dissertation stage of his program. Working in music education, his project focused on an experiment to see what techniques would help student musicians with auditions. He hypothesized that showing them a video with suggestions on how to prepare for an audition would have the greatest impact, so he produced such a video. It told the story of a young woman who did all the right things in the days before her audition, which led to her getting the part. I got to be in the video, playing the younger brother of the main character.

Other events associated with his dissertation stick out in my mind. At one point he needed to print out copies, presumably to give to his committee members. They needed to look as nice as possible, so he wanted to print them on a laser printer. Laser printers were not very common, but a friend of his worked at a school that had one. We went there one Saturday, thinking it would be a simple task: pop in the disk, open the file, and print it out; but something went wrong. Their computer had a different version of the word processing software, or the printer required different margins, or something along those lines, and it destroyed his formatting, especially the page numbers. We stayed much later than expected while he fixed it.

When his dissertation defense approached, I felt nervous and anxious. I was under the impression that it would be an interrogation, during which the committee members would ask him anything and everything about his dissertation and also everything that he had ever learned. I imagined that he would have to study so hard and know so much and still there would be a significant chance that they would deny his graduation. I was so relieved when he made it through. I think that after the defense is when my mother presented him with the Ph.Dad hat that she had custom ordered from a silkscreener at the local mall.

My whole family attended graduation, and I'm pretty sure that my father's mother also flew in for the event. Somehow I had managed to save my best piece of Easter candy, a Cadbury creme egg, and decided that this celebratory occasion would be the perfect time to consume it. I made a hole in the little end and attempted to extract the sugary yolk before eating the chocolate shell. Bill Cosby was the commencement speaker, but I don't remember anything that he said. I also don't remember the context or sentiment of the following, but I remember my father remarking about all the young people getting doctorates--where young meant anyone under the age of thirty.

I do not, in general, have vivid memories from my childhood. I've been trying to figure out when I decided that earning a Ph.D. was one of my main goals in life; the earliest evidence I've found is a brief statement, written when I was a senior in high school, that I wanted to be a math professor. The strong, coherent recollections about my father's doctoral process have surprised me as they've bubbled to the surface. It seems so obvious--my father earning his degree at precisely the time when I was beginning to grow up, to think and make decisions for myself, must have had a profound impact on me, because I am now done with my degree, just barely before my thirtieth birthday.

Elena will not remember anything about the time in her life when I was in school: our humble apartment, an academic schedule that let me be her primary caregiver for the first summer of her life, the stress I sometimes brought home when my research didn't go as well as I hoped, the joy of finishing and moving to start a new life. But my mother, a psychologist, tells me that early childhood experiences, things that none of us remember, influence us throughout our lives, even if we don't know why.

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Even though Elena turned eighteen months old today, that was not the biggest event in our family, because today I defended my doctoral dissertation. I was pretty nervous going into it, but confident that my results were correct and substantial enough to be approved, so that eased my worries. I also received lots of encouraging emails in the last day or two, which also boosted my spirits.

All things considered, my talk went very well. I appreciated the moral support of the few courageous friends and colleagues who were able to attend. The slides only had a few small errors, which committee members pointed out but didn't complain about. At the end, I fielded one or two questions, but didn't get grilled. The committee deliberation was short, and my advisor came out with congratulations. Most importantly, they all signed the necessary paperwork.

At the very end of the talk, while I was answering questions, I heard the telltale sounds of a toddler in the hallway--Jenny and Elena came to see the verdict and celebrate the success. Elena was wearing a new Texas Longhorn shirt, and they brought cupcakes. Little did we know that my friend Ben had ordered a custom cake with my picture on it! We had some of that and left the cupcakes as a celebratory offering for the students and staff of the department.

Even though it was early, I was ready to come home with Jenny and Elena. Jenny surprised me with presents: a burnt orange water bottle and a metallic Bevo magnet for my car. These decals are ubiquitous around here, but I imagine that it will be more distinctive in our new home. With the defense done, we're one big step closer to making the move!

Gluttons for punishment can download the dissertation itself, An Analogue of the Korkin-Zolotarev Lattice Reduction for Vector Spaces Over Number Fields , or just the slides from the presentation, The Mahler Product for Twisted Heights .

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One of Jenny's friends posted a link to a new single from Guster on facebook. As soon as she clicked on it, Elena started dancing. Elena cried whenever the music stopped--Jenny had to play it on repeat for a long time.

We're not sure which Elena likes better, the sounds or the lyrics. She loves music and dancing, but she also likes giving hugs, which matches the Do You Love Me theme. In this picture, the hug recipient is Mason, her regular play date companion.

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At Elena's one year checkup her pediatrician recommended some precautionary measures. At the time, we didn't think it would be a big deal, but we've spent the past six months following up. We think we've come to the end of it all, and it turns out not to be a big deal, but it's been quite a journey along the way.

Everything started when Elena was so big at birth and also had a big tongue sticking out all the time. At one year, she was still a very big girl, and although she had better control of her tongue, it was still more prominent than usual. These two factors led the pediatrician to recommend a visit to a geneticist. We took her recommendation, and that's where the real fun began.

There aren't very many pediatric geneticists, so we couldn't get an appointment for several weeks, but it was okay because we needed all of that time just to complete the extensive paperwork(I mean Jenny needed the time to complete it-I don't do paperwork). Despite the preparation, when the appointment finally arrived, we were caught off guard. It was as if the geneticist made a de facto assumption that there was a problem, when we were pretty sure that there wasn't. The geneticist all but ruled out the most likely condition, but then continued to order additional tests for it. We came out of the appointment with no definitive diagnosis, but we did have orders for lab work, several different tests that needed to be completed and referrals to three other specialists. We left feeling overwhelmed.

Some of the visits turned into more visits. We eventually saw a cardiologist, otorhinolaryngologist (ENT), two speech therapists, a plastic surgeon, a dentist, an endocrinologist, and two nutritionists. Elena sat through two multi-vial blood draws for which we were more nervous than she was. Throughout it all she was a wonderful patient--she smiled at the doctors and nurses, let them poke and prod and examine her, and always had fun playing with toys in their offices. She didn't like the procedures where we had to help her be still: an x-ray, sonogram, and cardiac ECHO.

Although the geneticist described herself as a detective assembling clues, I might have preferred her to be more of a statistician. It seems like she sent us chasing after things that had only a vanishingly small probability. I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about our health care system, and how much all of this was costing. It was a little bit more out of our pockets than we had expected, but nothing to break the bank or even complain about. The insurance payouts, on the other hand, were very high. Was it all necessary? It's hard to say no to a doctor when she's recommending something that in her professional opinion is important for your daughter.

All the tests came back with normal results, and almost all the follow-up doctors sent Elena away with a clean bill of health and no need to come back for more follow ups. Some were even surprised that we ended up there in the first place. The dentist chastised us for not having taken Elena in already, but that's just how dentists are. The endocrinologist congratulated us for recently slowing Elena's weight gain, even though we told her that it was probably because Elena had self-regulated her food intake. Then she told us all about the connections between biology, history, and anthropology. Jenny filled a binder with all of the reports and findings, but we hope not to add too much more to it.

There is one element of ongoing care. Although it was too early to say that Elena had a speech delay, she wasn't making all of the expected sounds, so she's been working with a speech therapist. The therapist makes house calls, which is nice, and has suggested all sorts of interesting techniques to help Elena's speech muscles develop. It seems to have helped, even though it's hard to separate the effects of therapy from the natural progression that would have occurred anyway.

When we move, we'll find a new pediatrician and make sure she knows about all of this testing, but we don't plan to see any more specialists or do more tests unless certain red flags pop up; some of the doctors gave us things to watch for. For now, Elena's a happy, friendly, outgoing little girl and in our eyes, her good health is not in question at all.

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Sometimes after we put Elena down for bed or a nap, she's not quite ready to go to sleep. We hear muffled thumps from inside her room, and we're not exactly sure what's going on. If we go in to check, she'll just want to come out with us, but if we don't she'll eventually settle down. We're content to let the mystery stand.

Occasionally, she'll leave evidence of her activities. She's now tall enough to reach over the side of the crib and grab things from the nearby bookcase. Her favorite is a classic book--maybe it helps her to dream about what she'll be able to do once she escapes the confines of the crib.

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Last night we took Elena to see the Zilker Hillside Theater production of Annie . Jenny and I have gone to see their production every year that we've been together except for last year, when Elena was just too little. This year, however, she was ready to go and be a good audience member.

The only bad thing about the show was how late it started. They don't start until it's at least somewhat dark, which means an 8:30 curtain, which is already after Elena's usual bedtime. We arrived at 6:15, lucked out on a parking space, and managed to find a good spot in the shade. We put out some blankets to reserve spots for Jean, Jeremy and Amy, and their kids. After that, we settled in with our pizza and strawberry picnic. Elena was hungry enough to eat a whole piece--crust and all.

We did find some things to do before the opening number. In honor of the canine actor playing Sandy, there were some rescue dogs down by the stage, so we went down to say hello. Later, when Jean arrived, I took the kids to an empty area and let them play with my marshmallow gun * . Of course, we had to defend our blanket territory from latecomers. Elena wanted to steal toys from the baby on the next blanket over, but we eventually convinced her just to wave. But that was it; there was a limited amount of fun stuff to do, and Elena got pretty wiggly towards the end of the waiting.

As soon as the lights came up and the orchestra started the overture, Elena was hooked. She loves music and dancing so much--she must have inherited a love of musical theater from Jenny. Sitting in my lap, she was watching attentively and swaying back and forth to all the classics, from "Hard Knock Life" and "Tomorrow" to "Easy Street." She even applauded at the right time. The spoken scenes didn't hold Elena's attention quite as well, so she tired Jenny and me out by wiggling back and forth between us, but it was mostly quiet and didn't harm the experience for anyone else.

We left at intermission, because it was already ten o'clock. Elena was still awake and watching the show, but we could tell that she had become a little zombie girl. It would have been nice to stay for the whole thing, but we got most of the good stuff and certainly had a good time. I hope we can find similar cultural events near our new home.

* The marshmallow gun went home with the kids--they'll play with it more than I did.

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For the past several weeks, Elena has had a regularly scheduled play date with her friend Mason. Jenny knows Mason's mom from her former workplace, and it's also a good chance for them to get together and chat. Elena and Mason are still too young to play cooperatively, so they mostly play alone in the same general area.

Yesterday's get-together involved a visit to the Hoppin' House , which has lots of fun things to play on and in and with. Elena really enjoyed the bouncy playground and the foam pit, as did Mason.

There was one unpleasant moment while they were there. Elena was playing in an section reserved for toddlers, when two older kids, a brother and sister, invaded the area and started to take the toys that Elena was playing with. Despite the fact that they didn't belong their, and were being mean to Elena, their father did nothing to intervene, even though he was watching them. Jenny didn't know what to do; she didn't want to make a scene, but the kids were breaking the rules and something should have been done about it. The staff member who had been circulating to maintain order was nowhere to be found. Elena didn't mind too much, and eventually the older kids went away, but it was a blemish on what should have been a completely positive experience. What would you have done in that situation?

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Jenny and Elena invited a very little guest into our apartment this week. A new mom that Jenny is friends with needed to take care of some business and couldn't take her two-month old boy along. Jenny offered to take care of him on Tuesday and Thursday; both times, he was here for most of the day.

Elena was very excited when the baby showed up. She had a similar experience several weeks ago when another of Jenny's friends came for a visit with her four-month old girl. It was clear that she wanted to do two things this time: play with the baby, and take care of him. She had a hard time distinguishing between the two, and that caused some conflict.

The first day, the baby cried as soon as he arrived. Jenny soothed him by rocking his car seat basket. Elena wanted to help, but she isn't even big enough to pick up the car seat, much less swing it. Later on when he was crying again Jenny had to hold him. Of course, Elena crawled up on the couch and wanted to hold him too, but it just didn't work out.

Thursday's visit started out differently--the baby fell asleep as soon as he arrived. Without even taking him out of the car seat, Jenny put him in our closet, the only place where could nap in the dark and quiet and be outside of Elena's reach. She did not approve of this at all and threw a fit because Jenny wouldn't let her play with him. Even after she accepted the situation, she would go running down the hallway as if to check on him. When he woke up, Jenny put him in Elena's old baby chair and rocked him gently for a bit. She went to the kitchen to check on something, and as soon as she looked back Elena was rocking the baby as fast as she could.

Elena's a good little girl. She just wants to help, but it will take time and practice. Jenny took a trip down memory lane with this little baby, remembering all the things we tried back then. She reminded me about some things--those were crazy times! Being a new parent is hard.

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