I am fucking inspired.
I'm not sure why, but I was compelled to search for the research thumbnails that the MIT NSE department posted to their YouTube channel a few years ago, particularly Scott Kemp's, because I liked the professorial way he said "I want to update you on..." It made the rest of what he had to say seem more interesting. Almost immediately I went down a rabbit hole of different videos. I saw a thumbnail that Artyom, one of Jacopo's students, recorded about his research on boosting CHF margins in LWRs after I left MIT, and it brought a smile to my face (I'm Facebook friends with his dad, Sergey!)
I watched the first few minutes of Mike Short's introductory lecture to 22.01, the introductory class to ionizing radiation that I audited a few times. I loved the way he absolutely hit the ground running with his class and got to talking about the content, in a compelling and exciting way, almost immediately.
I also watched some of Scott's talk at the APS March Meeting in 2019, which absolutely piqued my interest.
All this increased my gratitude and wonderment at the fact that I have this job at all.
May I honor this gift that the universe has given me. May I use these videos as inspiration and fuel. For the critical ingredient, the sine qua non, is inspiration. It will propel me forward.
In this moment, more than in most recent moments, I know that this life is the life for me.
I should mention that I felt more emboldened to use the language that reflected directly what was on my mind while writing the welcome message to my students for ME 351, based on Mike Short's lectures.
ReplyDelete