Movies of the week
Yesterday was an official holiday at UCSB. I went to see the new Cohen brothers movie: A serious man. It is about a physics professor in the late 60’s who is facing tenure and is besieged by all kinds of things that make life not worth living. It is a very dark comedy, in a sense about the meaning of life (or the lack of it). For some strange reason I felt at home in the movie (never mind the fact that I belong to the category of people who can spot errors in the uncertainty formulas as they’re b

Turning of the seasons
Time keeps on passing by. Right now, apples, pumpkins, squashes and persimmons are in season, amongst other vegetables and fruits. The fall weather has settled in nicely, and the usual seasonal events are happening. For example, this is the season when postdoctoral applications are made, and I find myself writing a lot of letters of recommendation. In over a month, I will be reading these applications with the rest of the folks here, to make decisions on who we are going to hire. Imagine my surprise this week when going to a grocery store, they are already setting up their Christmas decorations. Isn’t it a bit early for that? I was hoping that they wold be setting

A first time ever
Yesterday night I attended a reception for the international scholars to UCSB. This was the first time that such a celebration took place in Santa Barbara, thanks to an anonymous donor. It was a lively event, and various important people from the UCSB campus showed up. I won’t bore you with the details. Amongst the interesting facts that I collected yesterday, was that most international students in the US come to study in the science and technology fields, while very few people from the US go out to study and when they do, the statistic is mostly on humanities. I also found out that there are about 640000 students from abroad in US Universities, and that US Unive

A rare gem
Rather than complain about my lack of time for doing anything, I thought I would share something that I stumbled upon and I just had to stop for a few minutes to listen. Posted in Music

If you have cats, you’ll understand
Take out the popcorn and watch this. If you’re a cat owner, like me, you see situations like this very often. It’s nice to finally understand what the arguments between cats are about. Posted in humor