I still have a few left.

New York is very cold, but the snow is gone. East Harlem, where I now live, is obviously in every way imaginable, a huge change from the various Tokyo localities where I've lived over the last few years. But it has a lot of character. Not far away is a Mom-and-Pop joint that serves delicious Dominican food. Many a five-dollar meal was had there until a home-food routine was finally established this weekend. A trip to Flushing, Queens has provided a reassuringly high selection of Korean (Kimchi here is delicious) and Japanese groceries. In Manhattan, I have been spoken to in Spanish a few times; I probably ought to start learning it. I am taking the subway until I get down to re-assembling my bike. (I carried it with me on the plane!)

Initial impressions of grad school:

• Fewer classroom hours than I expected, but much more than everyone else (who asks me how many courses I am taking) did.
• There are too many interesting courses, and too little time.
• Homework is harder than lectures.
• Both the central NYU library and the department library are to me, utterly awe-inspiring.
• Lecture-halls (at least the ones I've seen) are strictly non-posh.
• Superficial differences at the inter-departmental level (appearance and styling of infrastructure, etc) are enormous.
• Efficiency: Things are so fast and low-ceremony (at NYU). I got an ID card in less than a minute.
• Campus food is good.
• I think it might be more fun than I expected.

The Computer Science department at NYU is part of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The department seems nice, and there's a decent amount of interesting research they do. While the program is more computer science as opposed to engineering (which is what I want anyway) it appears in line with NYU's reputation for interdisciplinary research/study.

So, after five years of working in Japan, writing software and programming in too many languages (for my own good) I find myself headed off to academia. I honestly never thought this would happen. But I'm looking forward to it, and as much as I am dreading actually leaving Tokyo, I am excited by the prospect of change. Classes begin as soon as I get there. I arrive on Monday morning, and with any luck I can make it to the semester's first lecture on Programming Languages.

While my research interests and long term goals are still fuzzy, I'm looking forward to a semester of course-work, and most of it seems like fun.

Having moved out of my apartment, I am staying with Thilo and his wife Cissy and their seven-month old son. My visa finally arrived (i.e., in hand - I was told that it would be approved but after a delay), thus making me feel somewhat confident about announcing that I am actually going!