Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Catching up

Application sent. Some work on catalogues, some updating bibtex ... catching up.

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posted by Cris Da Rocha @ 11:23 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Some things, no science

Dentist, wedding of a friend and text for application. No science today.

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posted by Cris Da Rocha @ 11:53 PM 0 comments

Monday, April 27, 2009

Back in Germany!

Looooong time without any post! This didn't mean time without work, but time without "time"!

Summary of what has happened.

I was studying for the examinations for a professor position back in Rio. Interesting situation where me and Fernanda could get a permanent position in the same university, in the same city ...

After the last post, I remove my flat in Garching back to Goettingen, yep, my times in Garching got to an end (at least temporary), drove back to Goettingen during the day, and then to Hannover airport to get the morning flight to Brazil.

On the next monday Fernanda would start her examinations, but they were postponed due to a health problem of one of the panel members. No clue when it's gonna happen.

The next week, after easter, would be my turn. Kept preparing my self hard, managed to write an essay to each of the topics (finish the last one during easter), but no time to prepare the lecture on the topics.

The exams would be CV, research activities, an essay about one of the topics, picked randomly one hour before the exam starts and a lecture, also from the topics, picked randomly also, about 24 hours before the exam.

At the end a good friend, Paulo Afranio Lopes, got the position and I'm very glad for him. Did I wasted my time? NO! First, the topic for the written exam was the last one I prepared, so I really had to prepare all of them (on the one hand it was fresh in my mind, on the other hand I was very tired already). Second, I reviewed and updated a lot of concepts I learned a while ago.

The topics were as open as "Luminosity function of galaxies" or "CMB" or "Gravitational lensing" ...

Anyway, I don't like the system. I don't think that's the way to search for a new professor. Brazilian laws require an examination by a panel, since is a permanent federal job, and the process should be impartial.

The panel couldn't have been better chosen!! I don't agree with the exams. 

If instead of having:

- the written exam (yep, like back in school, with someone sitting and looking at you) and 
- the lecture that you have 24 hours to prepare (I don't intent to prepare my lectures the night before, when I get a professor position, so this exam proves nothing) 

they could have the following:

- talk with your research highlights and future research plan and an interview afterwards (they basically have this)
- lecture about a topic previously announced where you have about a month to prepare it (of course, then it must be judged as a lecture that had a lot of time to be prepared)

This way I think they can judge your researching and teaching skills. This would be a good mix between the european/US way, where they choose who they want from the applicants and the "legal" way we're required, but with things properly prepared and not overnight and not a written memory exam.

Sooooo, enough complaining. After that back to Sao Paulo and back to Germany and today was the first day of work after coming back, before was basically de-jet-lagging, what was aggravated by Matheus' jet-lag.

Today, more work on applications, back to the market, and checking some stuff for the velocity fields paper. Also organizing my bibliography.

Now sleep ...

Back in business

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posted by Cris Da Rocha @ 10:56 PM 0 comments