Take it one day at a time

Pula, Croatia

We all like to take it one day at a time. I do. We live in the present and every day is one more day. But in addition to one day, I also tend to have some additional units of time I usually consider. This blog post is just that!

1. Week 

Each day can be different. Monday to Sunday. But weeks tend to have this rhythm. Often all the Fridays feel the same, and all the Sundays feel the same. That is why week is my favorite unit of time!

2. Year. 

I want each of my year to be better than the previous. There are a few ways we can measure the year though!

2.1. Calendar year.

Yes, new year, new diary, new resolutions. I love how we start each year with that energy and optimism. Every year has a winter, spring, summer, autumn, and winter again! It is a circle. I love it.

2.2 Academic year.

This is going to start in the August. New academic year, new students, new faces. Also, coming back from the summer, ready for new adventures and the cold winters.  

2.3 Age.

Counting from the birthday. Age++. This feels special too. Getting older. Yes, we get older each day. But when the age is incremented by one, it feels special.

3. Month 

This does not feel that special. But, it is important in adult life. Bills, rent, salary, and other money stuff usually revolves in a monthly cycle (even though currently I am paid bi-weekly).

 4. Decade 

4.1. Literal decades.

From 1980s (I was just 2 in 1989, so it does not really count), 1990s (this is the first decade I should count. I have memories starting from 1992), 2000s, 2010s (this is my most favorite decade so far), and 2020s (hopefully this decade will overtake my 2010s. It is ongoing, after all. Started as a bad decade, but recovered quickly).

4.2. Age. 

0s, 10s, 20s, 30s, .... I am in my 30s and will be in my 40s next year! Decades of age feel special for a reason.

4.3. Decades counting from 5 y/o.

Although I was born in 1987, I have memories only from 1992. So I tend to calculate the decades  of age as 1992-, 2002-, 2012-, 2022-, and 2032-.

5. Half Periods 

This is dynamic. Any event, whether a semester, a year, a vacation, or a project visit, can be split into two. By tracking the half-period, you know which half you are in. If you have completed the first half, you know you have one more half to go. Just like a merge sort, splitting into halves help you plan the time surprisingly more efficiently. It also makes you appreciate the time better as this is more of a relative unit than a fixed one like everything else above.

6. "Seasons"

I look at my life as if it is a telenovela. In that sense, I see it as several seasons, with several episodes in them. Season 1: The young days (1987 - 2012), Season 2: Grad Student Life (2012 - 2019), Season 3: Postdoc/COVID-19 Period (2020 - 2023), Season 4: Faculty life (2023 - ). In that sense, I am in Season 4 since 2023 August and enjoying it! Bring that main character energy!

2017

Karlstad University, Sweden

I like to consider myself as someone who is ready to move to another place rapidly. I always have prepared for that since moving out of my country 13 years ago. However, in reality, I was relatively stable in most places when I moved somewhere. 2012 - 2018, Lisboa. 2018 - 2023, Atlanta. 2023 onward Anchorage. However, 2017 is an exception. In certain sense, it also feels like the peak of craziness. In a good way. I moved between countries real rapid. Portugal -> Belgium -> Portugal (and then some back and forth between Portugal and Belgium) -> Belgium -> Saudi Arabia -> Belgium -> Portugal. A year that tested my limits and also the summit of "seek discomfort." It is also the year I traveled most. I went to 9 new countries - and 16 countries in total in that single year. Often I have thought about this year. I have even tried to intentionally overtake the record of 2017. The last time I put a serious effort was 2020. But then the pandemic hit and ruined the plans. Although I tend to believe my subsequent years 2019 and 2024 have greatly overtaken my 2017 in general, the peak of adventures, discoveries, new lands, travels, and sleepless nights (there was a 60-hours no sleep for 2 nights) of my 2017 have left 2017 sort of a peak in my life. I still think of overtaking the year at some point. But not everything can be planned. Stuff happens organically and 2017 had its magical moments.

Academia and how it distorts your perception of age

9-month academic contracts and
a little vacation in Barbados

Being a student can be fun. Yes, childhood and school days are fun. But I am not talking about that. I am referring to the university life. Especially if you do not have to earn separately for that. A lot of people, including me, lived with their parents during their undergraduates. It is very common when your university is in the same city where you already lived with your parents or family. That makes the undergraduate life more of an extension to the high school. For me, the real fun started when I went to grad school - two years after the graduation from my undergraduate program. For most grad students, one year gap between their undergraduate studies and grad school is inevitable. Because, you apply when you are done with your undergraduate program (usually in the fall semester) and that means, you are accepted for the following fall - making it a year-long wait. Some choose to apply for grad school while they are still in their final year of their undergraduate program. Works best if they already are extra-ordinary. But does not work for most. However, working a little before applying for grad school can be good idea if your grad school is going to be in a foreign country. So I worked for one year before applying for grad school. That gave me a two years of job experience in between my undergraduate program and grad school. In Sri Lanka, school years is meant to be 1 - 13. It shifts the US K-12 system by 1, with kindergarten becoming grade 1. So, there is no additional time. But our A/L exams, at the time I was a student happened in next year August (a delay incurred by 2004 tsunami) and then the university entrance was following year's August. Two extra years added! I was among the youngest in my undergraduate batch and I was among the oldest during my MSc... because of these two additional years and that I had worked for two years - compared to 0 to 1 year of the others.

Then, in Europe, compared to countries like Australia and the US, you usually must do a masters before starting a PhD. However, their BSc programs are usually 3 years compared to our 4 years. Oftentimes, in the EU, students do an integrated MSc of 5 years, where they complete their BSc coursework in 3 years and do the MSc courses in the last two years. For me though, that was a 2 years of MSc followed by a separate PhD program. In the US, MSc is often coupled with the PhD. You could start your PhD with just a BSc, and you could quit with an MSc in around two years if you have completed the necessary credits, on your way to acquire your PhD. I went on to do a PhD in Europe (Erasmus+ for the win!). I loved it. I was not in a rush. I spent five years to complete my PhD. I had scholarship after all. It allowed me to live comfortably. While US grad programs usually last up to 5 years, my MSc + PhD was 7 years. This added two more years, compared to my US peers.

I went ahead and completed a postdoc for 4 years, before moving on to my tenure-track position. In the US, a postdoc is usually considered a trainee. Or even a "student." Being referred to as a "postdoctoral student" was annoying to me. Postdocs are not very common in computer science. I did mine in biomedical informatics, as part of the school of medicine. Postdocs are more common in medicine after all. They last up to 5 years. Anyway, compared to many of my CS peers in tenure-track positions, my postdoc added 4 more years. So, I started my tenure-track position after a whole ten years, compared to someone who entirely studied in the US and then went on to their tenure-track position without spending time in a postdoc position. A decade spent extra indeed: one extra school year, one gap between school to undergrad program, two years working in middle, two extra years during MSc + PhD, and the four years of postdoc! I started my tenure-track position at 36. This is basically the early career in the academia, whereas, one in IT industry in this age will be in a mid-senior level as an engineer director or manager. The tenure-track assistant professor position lasts up to 6 years before you get tenure and get promoted to associate professor. These "early-career" years give you some benefits - such as additional training opportunities and grants targeting just you! You are young again, while you are heading towards tenure and (first) promotion in your life, in your early 40s! Fine, I just admitted I spent a whole decade with the slow academic progress due to my Sri Lanka -> Europe -> US migrations and long years spent due to these circumstances. But I tend to believe academia in general makes you feel younger since you are early career while those who went to industry are well into their mid-career. I know there are goods and bads in how this distorted perception of age. That probably is for another post.

My new years since 2013

2015 NY Lisboa Hard Rock Cafe

Since 2013, most of my new years have been in Europe or the USA: 2013 (Lisboa), 2014 (Lisboa), 2015 (Lisboa), 2016 (Lisboa), 2017 (Zurich), 2018 (Lisboa), 2019 (Atlanta), 2021 (Kanab), 2022 (Utqiagvik), 2023 (Fairbanks), and 2024 (Anchorage). 2020 was my first new year in Sri Lanka again after eight years. Most new years have been quite exciting since I left Sri Lanka.
 
2013: Lisboa, Portugal.

Praça do Comercio/Lisboa, the most remarkable one ever.  My first new year abroad: my first one in Lisboa, with my EMDC friends. No other new year's memory could overtake that one, I am sure. We repeated this experience in 2014 and 2016.

2014: Lisboa, Portugal.

Praça do Comercio/Lisboa again, after a remarkable trip in Scandinavia. The second remarkable one was the 2014 new year. We had a cruise to Helsinki from Stockholm, then flew to Copenhagen, and also visited Malmö. But we came back to Lisboa for new year's eve. It was an eventful Christmas - new year vacation. A most remarkable year-end vacation to date.

2015: Lisboa, Portugal. 

This time in Hard Rock Cafe. We were too late to go to the Praça do Comercio and decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe instead and had some drinks with the festive mood amid a huge crowd. 

2016: Lisboa, Portugal.

Back in Praça do Comercio. Same as 2013 and 2014. Crowded metro. We arrived quite late and couldn't reach the usual spot in Praça do Comercio. But we witnessed the firework show a few 100 meters away from our ideal spot in front of the river, blocked by a happy crowd.

2017: Zurich, Switzerland
2017 in Zurich was equally exciting when we traveled to Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein. 2017 was also the first time we celebrated the new year in a country other than our resident country. No wonder 2017 became the year of travels.

2018: Lisboa, Portugal.

This time idling at home. 2018 was the first new year (since moving abroad in 2012 August) when we decided to idle at home during midnight. It also implied either we were getting used to Lisboa New Year's Eve and not too excited anymore, or we were getting old!

2019: Atlanta, GA, USA.

In SunTrust park. 2019 in Atlanta was quite fun as well. But we did not wait until midnight. The SunTrust park had countdowns for every hour since dark, at 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm, ..., giving a new year countdown experience early on.

2020: Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Back in home in Soyzapura. A vacation in Sri Lanka brought back memories of 2012 and earlier new years.

2021: Kanab, UT, USA.

A road trip with a colleague. It was a small boring town. But our hotel had a good view.

2022: Utqiaġvik, AK, USA.

A walk in temperatures reaching -40 to witness the fireworks on a frozen Arctic lake. A magical moment.

2023: Fairbanks, AK, USA.

Yet another Alaska new year. This time it was frozen Chena River.

 

2024: Anchorage, AK, USA.

First Alaska new year after moving to Anchorage. In between returning from Adak and flying to San Diego. So, we stayed home during the New Year's Eve.

 

2025: Shenzhen, China.

Extremely crowded OCT, Shenzhen and a boat ride in the river, enjoying the bright LED lights. 

Before Sunrise

Vancouver, a day with friends.

I recently watched the movie "Before Sunrise" on a flight. How did I miss it for this long? The movie follows the two lead characters as they walk across a new city, enjoying minor activities, all while having a non-stop conversation along the way. One thing that I loved was how the hero did not try to make perfect conversations, and did not hide their imperfections and conflicts. The lengthy walk and the conversations reminded me of some of my days. However, one thing that stood out was their decision not to share contact details by end of the movie, and rather deciding to meet at the same location six months from then. This is obviously in close contrast with how I have (and most likely most of us have) dealt in similar situations. We do not leave the friendship or relationship in the hands of fate when there are technologies available to be in conversation beyond the day we bid goodbye to each other.

But it got me thinking. The "online phase" of a once a real-world close relationship often just make the magic fade away. The tail end may not be as exciting as those few days. The frozen memories are powerful. The person in the memory does not change or age. They remain intact until the time does its thing. Events happen in order. Memories does not have to follow the same order, although the ordering dictate the experience. The most beautiful aspect of an experience is the memory it leaves behind...

This time for Africa

Kigali, Rwanda

My desire to travel to Africa started almost as soon as I moved to Europe. 2012 August. The Erasmus Students Network (ESN) planned a trip to Morocco. It was a cheap flight to Barcelona and then onward to Morocco in a cheap ferry. I really wanted to join that trip. Unfortunately, I could not join that trip as that group trip was for anyone who did not need a visa for Morocco. 12 years passed by and I visited every continent except for Africa and Antarctica. Of course, Antarctica is not even permanently inhabited. I visited Australia in 2024 August. Since then, countries of the African continent dominated my top-20 bucket list - with Sierra Leone and Kenya in my top 2 spots.  

Eventually, this month, I visited Kigali, Rwanda. Rwanda was my 51st country. Kigali is a very safe city. A solo trip. But with many friends I made there, it felt home. Now, finally I have also visited Africa, and Antarctica is the only continent that I am yet to visit.

The missing pages and the return to normal

Charlotte: A pandemic era local trip

It has been five years since the pandemic was declared. Many posts are resurfacing to recall that weird period in time, the early pandemic. Hopes and fears. It took me four years to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic era. COVID-19 is a name unfair to the year 2019. Sure, the disease started in 2019. But it was not known to most of us until the last two weeks of January. The full impact of the disease was realized only in February with the travel restrictions and then March with "work from home" mandates. People eventually started to return to "normal." For me, 2024 was the first "fully normal" year. A full year with no more work from home. 2024 felt like a natural continuation of 2019. A perfect year. The stories of pandemic feel like a weird dream in the middle.

Recently, Microsoft announced it will discontinue Skype and migrate its users to Teams. No one likes Microsoft Teams. It is bundled with Windows Operating System and admins keep using it when better alternatives are available. As for Skype, its fate is sad. Skype started its journey as a peer-to-peer system. Microsoft acquired it, but still Skype was largely untouched. The pandemic time could have been a good time for Skype to pick up momentum. But somehow it lost that race to Zoom. Skype was a tool we used to communicate with family and friends. Teams was entirely for work. Merging Skype and Teams would be like merging Facebook with LinkedIn. Imagine your Facebook friends are now forced into your LinkedIn, as you have no option but to use the newly merged LinkedIn where you also have your Facebook friends. I can understand Microsoft realized there is no business potential for Skype. However, Skype will leave a gap no app can fill yet. Whatsapp and similar apps are phone-based, where Skype is available to computers across the operating systems as well as mobile phone. There are computer-based video alternatives based on computer operating systems - but they either lack mobile support or do not have the support to add friends. Having friends that you can check to see whether they are online and then calling them is a nice feature which Zoom does not have. Apps such as WhatsApp and FaceTime are also tied to the mobile phone number. Skype gives some sort of anonymity as it just needs an email address. Perhaps, that might be another reason Windows wanted to give up Skype?

Blurred memories of early 2020s

Social media keeps evolving. We had a period of "being nice" that made us all tip even the Starbucks baristas for that take out coffee order. Now, that habit sticks around, incorporating tipping in cashiers and self-checkout machines. Twitter was a refreshing part of our life during the early pandemic days. When the outside world was dark, Twitter gave us some light. Now we are back to normal. Twitter has gone dark and X. It is filled with weird people and bots. Everyone with a blue tick is focusing on engagement to get their cashback. Algorithm is skewed to incentivize arguments rather than happy memories and celebrating achievements. Most of my friends have left Twitter. I am still around although the conversations have either become boring or died down. It maybe time to quit. I am unlikely to quit while I minimize my time there to focus more on the physical world. The world has a lot to offer, and we are so back to normal.

The hope and the fear of AI

There is both panic and excitement around the AI in the tech world. Some of them, well founded. Others, exaggerated. In one side, we see celebrations how months-long efforts became an hour-long task. How a complex undertaking that would take a proper training on the topic (for example, write a modular, distributed algorithm in Erlang programming language) now can be done in the matter of minutes in ChatGPT or a similar LLM. Then, the other side, panic that AI is going to wipe off the junior software engineer roles. It is probably widening the gap. In one side, engineers paid in millions to write the tools. In the side, the fresh graduates reducing themselves into "prompt engineers." Do we even need a 4-year bachelors on computer science if all we do is becoming a prompt engineer?

When we grade the take-home assignments and open-Internet exams, it is very clear that most of the answers are ChatGPT-inspired. We do not ban the use of LLMs in assignments. We just ask the students to disclose their source and tool, and almost all of them honestly report the ChatGPT use and it is ok. We are a StackOverflow generation. When we got stuck with an error message, we would ask StackOverflow and someone from 10 years ago had the same problem and there is the solution! Then, we would copy-paste. When we did not know the answer to a question, we would ask Google and Google gave us the answers. So, Internet copy-pasta is not new. Perhaps, ChatGPT has made it easier. It still needed some serious effort and "expertise" to find the answer from Google and StackOverflow. Maybe ChatGPT has made the entire process easier by giving you the answer, entire answer, rather than bits and pieces of it. StackOverflow was a crowdsourcing human effort. ChatGPT is using that human effort second-hand. Proponents of AI would argue even the use of tools like ChatGPT need some level of expertise, what to ask. There is some truth in it. What differentiates us is the human element. Everyone has the tools. But tools are not going to give you the answer we need.

Friday Feeling

Sesimbra, 2018, before leaving Portugal

This year is going fast. That is something I often felt with many years. Some years start eventfully. This year did! Especially with the new year day. We came back from our travels by the second week of January. But then when we returned home, the momentum slowed down. Drastically. It took some time to recover from all the food overdose. The year was already on full swing. January 10th. Weirdly, Anchorage is not as cold these days, although we are in the peak winter. Temperatures at mid 40s! (that is, 7 c). 2024 was a great year. 2025 so far felt like a hangover from the remarkably fun 2024. The semester is already getting to its speed. We are planning the summer and travels for 2025 already. Although it felt like a continuation of 2024, 2025 is starting to have its unique features too.

View of Tagus River

I often wonder how travels are an inevitable expense in the life of a person who is living abroad. Even when international students struggle with their finances, they travel back home once a year or once in two years. I did. We all do. Such a long-haul trip would feel like an unwanted expense or a luxury for a person who lives in their own country (unless they take pride in being international travelers). But for foreign students and foreign employees, travel is just a part of their identity. Most of us don't even consider going back home as a "travel."

When I hear from students who just got accepted to grad school, it brings me back to 2012. A time that feels so close, yet too far. An intermediate time between now and a time when I was in Sri Lanka. It feels like a previous birth at times. Grad school is a fun experience. As grad students, we already knew how to build things, how to write proper software. We felt like adults. But we also felt like kids - we were students, after all. Things look beautiful when you look back!

It doesn't feel right that I must spend thousands of dollars to fly across the ocean to walk on the same riverside I walked ten years ago or to enjoy some bacalhau in my favorite restaurant of my 20s.

Why does the world feel big sometimes? Don't mind me. It's the Friday feeling.

Patterns across the years...

The familiar ANC Airport

Life is full of deja vu, and I like to see patterns across the years. I see patterns in days, weeks, and more importantly, years. As the first year fully based in Alaska, with spring and fall semesters and largely free summer, this year is unique. However, I can already see this could become a template for many years to come. I will likely say in 2025 and in the future years, "this year largely felt like 2024." This was my first 9-month work year! That allowed me to travel extensively in the summer for conferences and personal trips.

Be intentional when you contact a faculty for grad school

Morning walk to work

I hear from students at times: "I sent  emails to 260* professors for my grad school and no one bothered to reply." I sympathize, but then ask, "Did you put the effort to write those emails?"

(*some really high unrealistic number!)

"Yes, I did. I spent a day drafting that email." Remember these are often not native English speakers. So, drafting that email can be intimidating. They can be intimidating to even native speakers.

"Can I see?"

"Sure."

"Ok, that is a well-written email. But you did not make a connection to why this university and why this professor. The email looks too random and not directed to this professor."

"Oh, I see."

"Can I see another email?" "

"Another email?"

"I mean, one you have sent to another professor?"

"Ok, here!"

"It is the same email!"

"No, I changed their name."

Now, you see the problem. They drafted one careful email. Sure, they spent one whole day drafting it. But then to send them to each individual faculty in different universities in different countries: all they did was merely changing the name in the "Dear Dr. ____"

Why should I reply to an email that was actually sent to 260 people? Some do not even bother to change the name. So, they make it easy by just sending "Dear Professor," I mean, "Dear Professor" is great. But the email should specifically say why you contacted me rather than an email that could be sent to other thousands of people.

In the era of ChatGPT, drafting these emails also do not take one whole day anymore. I receive many emails from students which I sense written by or with the help of ChatGPT. That is okay. But why should a professor reply to an email that was too generic? Same goes to employers too.

Sometimes I receive somewhat personalized email, but obviously phrases copy-pasted from my profile, even showing different fonts. For example, "I contact you because I share the same research interests as you: Distributed Computing, Wide Area Networks, Middleware, Telehealth, Circumpolar North.

I mean, if you really have that perfect overlap, your CV, experience, and email should reflect it more, rather than giving an impression it was copy-pasted from Google Scholar (because it was!).

Now, students complain, why should I waste an hour to send an email to a professor who would anyway ignore it. This is because you have already assumed they will ignore. In that case, there is no need to send at all, rather than doing a Russian Roulette of doing a numbers game and throwing arrows everywhere hoping at least one would land.

So, what should I do?

Consider an email as the first meeting. Find the professors and universities that you really like to work with. Be honest with yourself in the email. Do you really like all these research fields or are you just open to any field. Maybe skim through a few recent papers of the professor and their research team. Anything impresses you? No? Then probably better not to send that email at all. Yes? Maybe read more. In your email, mention what you liked about their research. Do you specifically like their university or city for whatever reasons? You can mention too. Spend an hour drafting each email individually and personally, rather than spending a whole day drafting a "perfect" email which you then mindlessly send to 260 people with no change except for name and email address.

I always want to reply to all the emails I get from students all over the world. But I also notice they were just sending as a mass emailing scheme. In the rare case I reply, those students do not even bother to reply back.

When I was a student sending such emails, my emails never got ignored. Because, those were intentional and carefully and personally written. So, focus on quality vs. quantity when you reach out to faculty for your grad school.

Good luck.

Google Summer of Code 2024 - Wrap up thoughts

A Successful GSoC 2024

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2024 came to an end this week with me filling the evaluation for the 4th (and final) contributor of our GSoC organization, Alaska. A group of open-source projects related to Alaska and crafted from Alaska. We could have named the organization "University of Alaska." However, we had interested mentors and support from other Alaskan entities, such as the state employees of Alaska and contributors from the AK Dev Alliance. So, "Alaska" is a more fitting name. The four projects' primary mentors this year were based in either Anchorage or Fairbanks, two of the populous (and popular) cities in Alaska. Given the GSoC happens in the summer, we couldn't show our mentees the true wilderness of Alaska in its blizzards and snow storms. But we did give a glimpse of the true north to our contributors. We had a great time as mentors. I am sure our mentees did too. They all did great work. We are very excited for the potential for GSoC 2025 and already polishing up project ideas, getting messages from interested contributors from across the oceans, and discussions of scaling up for more contributors/projects in 2025.

My personal story with GSoC started in 2009 with AbiWord. During those years, there was no limits on how many times one can be a contributor. So I was a contributor (we called that "GSoC students" during those days) four times. Twice (2009 and 2010) when I was an undergraduate in Sri Lanka, once (2014) when I was an MSc student in Portugal, and then the final time (2015) as a student again in Portugal when I was a PhD student. In between my stints as a student, I was also a mentor for AbiWord (2011 - 2013). During this time was my first time participating in the GSoC Mentor Summit 2011 in Googleplex. It was my first time visit to the US too! Since 2016, my role permanently shifted to being a mentor. Since 2019, I have been a mentor and an org admin, onboarding new mentors to the GSoC organizations that I am a part of.

So far my life has gone in 3 seasons: Sri Lanka (1987 - 2012), Portugal (2012 - 2019), and then Alaska. Time in Sri Lanka feels like childhood when I look back, although I was 25 when I left Sri Lanka. 2012 August - 2019 August is my grad school days. I lived in several cities during this period. But my base was Lisboa, Portugal. This was my second "season" and one filled with fun. Then I moved to the US. More specifically, the Lower 48. I moved to Alaska in late 2023. However, I started traveling extensively in Alaska from 2021 summer, and had traveled to Alaska four times before actually moving to Alaska. This makes me feel like I had been in Alaska for much longer. With the dark and vague memories of the COVID-19 days in the Lower 48 (2020 - 2022), my base had shifted to Alaska two years before I moved to Alaska. I moved to Lisboa randomly. But Alaska was a more careful planning. Time changes perspectives. With every move comes goodbyes, and also a new set of people. Except for the family, very few people stayed in my life across the seasons. This is probably true for all immigrants. But I am a serial immigrant, having lived in seven countries and nine cities. Every time I move to a new city, an inevitable question always lingered in my head - what/when is next. This is also probably the academic life. Grad student life as an Erasmus Mundus scholar came with mandatory mobility. I probably overdid it by moving across six countries during my grad school. But then postdoc in the Lower 48. A postdoc position, is by definition, a temporary one. Mine lasted 4 years, although officially I was titled a "Systems Software Engineer, Senior," allowing me to earn a bit more than a postdoc who is officially listed as a postdoc. Now that I am in a tenure-track position, I feel more stable in Anchorage. However, until an academic is tenured, they must be willing to move. I am aware of that. I looked back at my journey. I have evolved from being an introvert to an ambivert to an extrovert over my life journey. Many things changed in my life. A de-aged me would be entirely different from my younger-self, if we go back 20 years, to the first season. In such a dynamic nature of life, only one thing that remained constant - from 2009 to 2024. That is, Google Summer of Code!

Across various roles (contributor, mentor, and org-admin), I associated myself with different organizations. I presented GSoC to different audiences in Sri Lanka, Portugal, and the US (both Lower 48 and Alaska). I attended two more GSoC mentor summits. 2019 Munich was my favorite among the three. It was a new environment, first time outside the US. But it also felt nice to be back in person to the familiar settings of California for the GSoC in 2023, after the pandemic-induced virtual GSoC mentor summits in 2020 - 2022. In a way, 2023 felt like a trip in nostalgia to return to the Mentor Summit in California. The chocolate table has a story of its own. Then the unconference. Now I am prepared for the Oct 4 - Oct 7 Mentor Summit trip, likely the last professional trip of the year. This is also the 20th Anniversary of GSoC. As someone who was associated with GSoC for several years (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024), most of my summers are filled with a GSoC memory - as a contributor (AbiWord, OMII-UK, and Emory BMI) or a mentor/org-admin (AbiWord, Emory BMI, caMicroscope, and Alaska). I love this constant in the otherwise ever-changing settings and people of my life.

I have worked with resurrecting organizations (Emory BMI) and helping create a mentor organizations (caMicroscope) in the past. However, this was the first time forming a group of mentors and creating a new place-based mentor organization ground up successfully. We mentored 4 contributors. It was a rewarding experience. I am very much looking forward to meeting familiar and new faces at my 4th GSoC Mentor Summit in less than 3 weeks. Cheers and long live GSoC.

That Feeling

A neighborhood cafe

I like this cafe. It is within walking distance of my home. It is nothing too special for someone who is not me. But it is unique in that it sells not just coffee but also plants. The name feels special too. That Feeling. Sometimes, you do not have a name for that feeling. I ended the previous blog post with a sad feeling, a feeling with no name. Feelings are like cocktails. Sometimes, you can point fingers at the ingredients. Many times, you cannot. Most languages do not have adequate words to describe the shades of love, friendships, and other relationships in the world. We have friends. Good friends. Best friend? I dislike that phrase. It assumes there is one best friend. You must break up with your previous best friend because you found another one. 

The interiors of That Feeling

Often we assign biological roles to friendships. In many countries across Asia, we call our older friends "elder brother" or "elder sister" and younger friends "younger brother" or "younger sister." We don't mean anything with that, as it is more of a matter of respect for the age rather than an actual sibling-like feeling. Then, I also intentionally declared certain friends to be brothers and sisters. But do we need close friends to be siblings, children, parents, or uncles/aunts? Languages lack words to describe feelings and relationships. We are using something that probably is close enough as a loose replacement. Maybe those brothers and sisters you made in friends are not siblings, after all. They are more than just a friend. You do not have a label on them. We don't care about words that much. 

 

Memories define us

Literature has words. But I look for words we use in everyday practice. Love, 爱, and ආදර are used more generally (for example, love my country/ආදර මගේ රට.) காதல் is used more specifically for love between romantic partners, although some people use it as in "love your country" too. There are other words, too. We have பாசம்/நேசம்/விருப்பம்/அன்பு/කැමතියි/desire/lust/... But we still don't have enough words in daily use (not poetic literature) to explain all the shades of love and friendships. I look for words like the 12 levels of friendships in Arabic. Nibras taught me a few Arabic words on Twitter. Hubb (love in general), Ishq (deep, passionate love, soulmates), Mawaddah (mutual fondness between friends), Rahmah (compassionate or merciful love), Gharam (romantic infatuated love, passion), and Hawa (romantic sentimental love). He also shared some similar words from Urdu: Mohabbat (love/affection), Ishq (passionate, intense love), Pyaar (casual term for love), Dosti (friendship), Izzat (respect/honor in a relationship), Khuloos (sincerity / pure love), Jazbaat (emotions/feelings), and Dil ki Baat (matters of the heart). I am sure we are losing something in translation here. Not everything is easy to translate. We need more such words for common use across all languages. For you and me. Not just for elites.

Random walks

But sometimes, we do not need words. Most of my beautiful friendships/relationships are with people who do not speak my mother tongue. I recall one of my favorite songs: உள்ளங்கள் பேசும் மொழி அறிந்தால், உன் ஜீவன் துடிக்கத் தேவையில்லை. இரு கண்கள் பேசும் வார்த்தைகளை, இரு நூறு மொழிகள் சொல்வதில்லை. This loosely translates to: "If you understand the language of the hearts, you don't need to beat your soul. Two hundred languages will not express the words spoken by two eyes."

At least for me, feelings are usually mutual. If I like someone, usually they like me too. Sometimes, I feel like I do not like someone, and I imagine that feeling is mutual, too. "I think I dislike you for reasons unknown to me. Do you dislike me too?" That would be borderline weird in a bad way. But that is rare. I like people more than I dislike them. But that is where the word "like" fails me. I like people in general. But I like-like a few specifically. I love them. The word "love" is loaded with layers of romance and patriotism. And morning coffee. I love my coffee with coconut cream.

Hello, fellow traveler...

Memories shape my perception of a place. Sometimes, we are all travelers. Other times, one of us is a local. Mahas taught me an Urdu word on Twitter. Humsafar. It literally means fellow traveler. While it is used romantically to refer to a soulmate, it could also refer to others. I like that. This reminds me of the sweet people I encounter on my journey. In a way, I treat new countries and new friends similarly. I personify the land. I fell in love with Portugal and Alaska almost instantly. Then, a few places took their time to impress me. Some cities did not even try. Maybe they did not want to be friends with me, and that is okay. The feeling is mutual. Probably. I often travel in Alaska during mid-winter. I got stuck twice in blizzard conditions. I had to stay two more nights in Fairbanks and three more nights in the Adak Island, beyond what I initially planned. Lands have a soul. Sometimes, they do not want you to leave.

People are like lands, too. You meet someone. They become friends with you. You learn about their culture. A little bit of their language. Their philosophy. And their mannerisms. There is a little bit of their country in them. If they are an immigrant, there are probably two or more countries. People you meet along the way influence you the same way the lands influence you. Fellow travelers, after all. Our universes collided at that little point in time-space. Will the place still be the same when we return, if not for the people? We met by chance once when we were strangers. Now that we know each other, will we meet again by choice?

Desire for change vs. pattern

I used to blog often. But then I slowed down. Maybe because I already write a lot professionally (#AcademicLife!) and post a lot on Twitter. Writing more is not something I really need at this phase of my life. Tweeting is easy. Those are random unpolished thoughts while I am on the move. But with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter and using it as his personal toy, I often think it is time to move back to blogging. This reminds me of the time when I made the decision to quit Facebook at a time when I was using it regularly and had around 5000 friends there. I also have this GitHub-based personal site where I could blog. I am uncertain how long blogger will last as a platform for blogging, given Google's history of killing its least used platforms. For now, I will keep using blogger.

Walk to work!

 

I like change. I have lived in several cities. But I also like the little patterns in life. I often see the same persons in the building, walking in the opposite direction. They also have the pattern. We have synchronized! I arrive early to work, when it is still dark and buildings are empty. Except when it is summer, sun rises early and others become active too. Then, everyone is out early in the streets. Patterns save time. As a researcher, what we do constantly evolves. The topic I researched in 2014 isn't something I am not working on anymore. Forget 2014. Even the material from last year, once published, we moved on to the next one - maybe the next research topic in the pipeline, or an extension of the topic. It is of drastic change to how many other jobs are. Now I also teach. I see the patterns. While I review the slides, the content do not change drastically. That is pattern. That gives me some time. And space. Space to breathe and do some research.

My life goes up and down. I am random. Well. Nothing too drastic. More like, eventful-slightly boring-eventful-slightly boring-eventful-slightly boring-... Regardless of how I perceive a year, I always try to see some moments of fun, 30 things to be precise, each year, since 2010 (when I turned 23! Adulting, I think?). 2010 was fun. 2011 was slightly boring. But then 2012 and 2013 were fun. 2014 got a bit into the pattern. 2015 was fun. 2016 was a sad year. Then 2017 came. It was a crazy year. Crazy in a good way. To date, it is the year I visited the most amount of countries (16), including 9 new countries. I also lived in several cities/countries that year (Lisboa in Portugal, Louvain la Neuve and Brussels in Belgium, and Thuwal in Saudi Arabia). 2018 was boring, although it had its changes and migrations. I love migrations. It is like pumping new blood into your veins! We throw away old stuff as we leave a city and get shiny new things. 2019 was a year of celebrations. It easily became my favorite year of times. Then, came the pandemic and eternal darkness. It is easy to see how I was obsessed with 2019 for long! 2019 was also the year I left Portugal, Belgium, and Europe for good. I defended my PhD thesis, twice! Thanks, Erasmus Mundus for making my MSc and PhD journeys exciting and unique by design. 

The pandemic came. It was a weird and dark period. Loneliness. I started my life as an introvert, but I kept heading towards becoming an extrovert throughout my life. I used to describe myself as an ambivert by the time I joined my undergraduate program (2006). I tried to sit with different students/groups of students every day during my early days, making friends with students from all 25 districts. Portugal had turned me into a full extrovert. Party never ends. I was forced to be home and alone in a boring vanilla city in the Lower 48. For 2.5 years. Circumstances. I extensively blogged my pandemic survival in my COVID-19 blog series and on Twitter.

This was also the time I was thinking of what is next? I had moved from the eventful Europe, that is Lisboa, to a boring Lower 48 city. The work-from-home did not help much. I started traveling locally. I was looking for where to move next. After 4 trips to Alaska, I found myself aligned in Anchorage. In many ways, I felt Alaska represents who I am. Alaska is huge. Alaska is wild. Alaska is also quiet and calm, when it wants to be. It also transforms itself magically with brutal blizzards without notice. Alaska feels fragile and frightening - both at once to those who are unfamiliar. Alaska has space for everyone (despite its housing crisis). It is diverse. Anchorage is the most diverse city in the US, after all! After 4 years, we were back in a city where we belonged, when we moved to Anchorage in fall 2023. That was a long wait. But with the pandemic fading away in the distance (into an endemic or whatever, depending on who you ask), 2023 brought back the life which was on hold since the 2020 February. Moving to Alaska made me feel like myself again. That is huge, after gray years (2020 - 2022) in a boring Lower 48 city.

It is nice to feel home. Alaska gave me the feeling of home, which I previously had felt in Portugal. I have not visited Portugal since 2019. My first home abroad and where I spent most of my 2010s.

My beautiful bookshelf

I like traveling. I did not travel long distances since the pandemic kicked in. My last long trip was to Singapore and Bali, right before the pandemic hit the world full swing. Now, after 4.5 years, August 2024 brought me the most eventful trip of the 2020s. Anchorage ➤ Toronto ➤ Melbourne ➤ Abu Dhabi ➤ Toronto ➤ Anchorage. I made some friends. At this point, I am probably at the extreme end at the spectrum, as a true extrovert. I like meeting people. Alaska does not have many people. But it also lets you see the same people again and again. It is funny I now even remember the faces of some Anchorage airport staff. I don't know whether they remember my face though.

August started with this 15-day mega-conference trip. Together with my students, totally we had 5 papers presented! I also met many interesting people. Family, friends, new friends, and online friends. Meeting people is easy. Goodbyes are difficult. I even made friends with introverts. That feels special when an introvert becomes a friend, from being a stranger. This is in stark contrast to my recent extrovert friendships where we both burst into a tall glass of cocktail and beers with a loud "cheers, bro!" I remember the advice some of my friends gave me when I went for faculty job interviews. "Don't drink in front of the interviewers during the dinner, even if they drink. It may not affect you. But it will never be a positive thing to drink at your job interview-dinner." I don't remember the exact words. They said something along those lines. But you guessed it. I don't say no to a good drink. A beer feels good with colleagues. And that includes future colleagues, especially when it is in a fancy restaurant. "Cheers!" I said loud, clinging my beer glass with everyone else's.

The library was closed

I am very verbal. Or verbose? I am direct. And very direct. I know what I feel. And I am never shy to share what I feel. But sometimes, it is also difficult to spot a feeling. Human mind is complex. One Portuguese word I love, which is how I connect with Portugal itself. Saudade. This has been a great month. I have a recency bias. I even say this is my best month ever. Now, this great month is coming to an end. Months and years are arbitrary borders in time. Nothing really changes between August 31st and September 1st. Anyway, I felt sad for no reason. Usually, I can connect a feeling to a source. I am very self-aware of my feelings. I can explain why I feel something: sad, happy, excited, angry, lonely, or whatever. But I couldn't figure out this morning. It was 9:10 am. I decided to walk to the library. The library usually cheers me up. The library sells some overhead books for 0.50 $. I have rescued several interesting books and collected a diverse set of books in my office bookshelf.

The library was closed until 10 am. Yes, weekends - not many people come to the library. But I have a meeting to attend by 9:30 am. So I returned empty handed. Now I am sad, and I know why I am sad. It was the disappointment of a long walk where I couldn't even enter the library. I will likely return in the afternoon to fetch some books. So, that feeling will disappear. The previous unknown sadness might linger around though.

Anchorage is beautiful. The summer is coming to an end. The skies are cloudy. Days are becoming shorter. It rains. The new semester is in full swing. It is like you are standing on the footboard of a fast-running bus. An analogy that is probably unfamiliar to those outside South Asia. You hold on as the strong breeze soothes you until you reach the next stop. It is funny when people ask, "how did a Sri Lankan end up in Alaska?" I usually have to start with a "that is a long story."

Change

There is this old movie where twins who got separated at birth grew up with opposite personalities. That leads to confusion in the movie as they meet the same man, who did not know he is dealing with two different women, twins. The sisters did not know each other or their existence until late in the movie. This song in this movie is more interesting and realistic than the movie itself. The lead actor assumes that his wife has changed with time. She is equally confused, not realizing he was referring to her twin and comparing the twin with her. The song goes on with her justifications (on why those changes are trivial) and his complaints on the obvious changes in her character. It is a Tamil song and I am not going to translate it. But I find the lyrics amusing, especially as people indeed change with time and that is part of the nature. Human nature. A process of growth itself.

5 years...

Emory 5 years, November 19, 2022

So I am 5 years with the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University this month. However, that is counting in the 7 months I spent in 2016, March - October. If not for that, my continuous 5 years would be on June 19, 2023. In both cases, I am reaching the 5 years soon. This is very long, especially for me as I consider myself nomadic with frequent migrations. This period also includes my 3.5 years of postdoc life since I defended my PhD thesis in 2019 July (ULisboa/Portugal) and 2019 August (UCLouvain/Belgium). The pandemic, travel restrictions, pandemic-related challenges, and other factors made the time go faster, I guess? The years 2020 - 2022 feel like a big monolith, rather than 3 whole years. It is not to say all the three years were same. But they kinda went fast. Really fast. Despite the 5 long years (or 4.5 years, if I do not include the 2016 stint), I was also working with different PIs over my time here. So it was not like I was working on the same projects or topic/domain for the whole time.

In addition to this Emory 5 years, this year feels special to me for two more reasons along the memory lane. First one is, it is 10 years since I left Sri Lanka for my grad school. Then it is also 3 decades since I turned 5. I started counting decades from 15, considering my earliest memories are from when I was 5 years old. So, this year, as I am 35, makes me 3 decades of memories (1992 - 2002, 2002 - 2012, 2012 - 2022). Surely, the last decade (2012 - 2022) was the most eventful and remarkable. I hope the next decade 2022 - 2032 will bring me interesting memories too!

I was interacting with my mentees who apply for gradschool this year. That made me recall my time applying for gradschool in autumn 2011 and my first semester in ULisboa/Portugal in autumn 2012. We had a cool bunch of Erasmus Mundus EMDC MSc 2012 - 2014 group. Our EMDC batch was the middle one among the 5 years program. We had 2 years of seniors before us, and 2 years of juniors after us. That left me in a great spot to observe the past and future of EMDC masters program as I did that. (Same situation with my Erasmus Mundus Ph.D., EMJD-DC as well.) Some of us did a PhD. Others joined the industry after the MSc. Among those who left academia, some started companies. Most others joined big companies in Europe and elsewhere. A few others joined some crazy startups. Some of us left Europe and ended up in third countries (i.e., countries other than our home country and countries in the EU). Some stayed in Europe. Others went back to their home country. Among those who did a PhD, some did an Erasmus Mundus PhD (like me), while others did some other PhD program. Again, after PhD, some joined the industry while the others continued with academia. Among those who continued with academia, the lucky/smart ones became a tenure-track professor instantly, while the others like me became a postdoc. Now, I have the capability to reach out to everyone to give the exact numbers for these categories. But I think that is not important as this is just for my personal blog after all.

Neurasmus page showing students and alumni

EMDC first years were either in Portugal or Spain, where we all spent the 3rd semester in KTH/Sweden. For the forth semester, some of us came back to our host countries (Portugal or Spain), some stayed in Sweden (mostly just with KTH, while some went on to do an industrial internship at Sportify), and some did an internship in a third European country (such as France, Germany, or Switzerland). I came back to ULisboa/Portugal, making it ULisboa/Portugal -> KTH/Sweden -> ULisboa/Portugal for my MSc. That also means, I was one of the few with minimal diverse experiences during my MSc, as I spent time in just two countries where many of us were in three countries. I compensated for this lack of migrations during my Ph.D., with my 3 international research internships (Croatia, USA, and Saudi Arabia) that spanned continents, in addition to my two universities (ULisboa/Portugal and UCLouvain/Belgium). I started my affiliation with ULisboa in 2012 August and spent 7 years doing my MSc and Ph.D., making it the longest university of my life so far, even longer than my 5 years (so far) at Emory University. #WeAreTécnico!

Today a Twitter friend introduced me to Neurasmus, a EU joint-degree MSc program influenced by Erasmus Mundus, but with a neuroscience focus. They also have a nice web page that documents all the students and alumni of the programs in a single place neatly! I wish our Erasmus Mundus programs had something similar. We actually have one for our Ph.D. (EMJD-DC), although not as fancy. But we do not have one for our MSc (EMDC). I remember some of us from the EMDC 2012 intake made a pact to visit Lisboa in 2022 August/September (marking the 10 years). But a pandemic and 10 years have changed many things.

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