Twenty things I will remember from 2017

1.    I got my first competitive research grant here. I started my first research study as principal investigator.

2.    I traveled (only) with dad for the first time. We went to Cambodia. We went to Thailand.

3.    In Nepal, I took a mountain flight to see Mount Everest up close.

4.    I got a summer position at TIFR, my first significant gainful employment in India. I taught my first graduate-level course there.

5.    My first Airbnb experience. This was in San Antonio. Ever since, I have become an Airbnb fan.

6.    My first time editing a book that got published this summer.

7.    I was hospitalized for peripheral vertigo. I also had dental surgery the day Trump assumed presidency. And this year, my lower back pain came back with full violence.

8.    I attended and presented at my first medical conference.

9.    I spent another year without driving.

10.I also touched the waters of the Arabian Sea for the first time.

11.I taught my first graduate-level course this spring.

12.My late-grandfather would have turned hundred this year.

13.My parents attend my public talk for the first time.

14.I installed a name plate outside my office in my mother tongue.

15.I gave my first talk at the American Center.

16.I went to watch exactly one movie at the theater (Murder on the Orient Express) and slept through most of it.

17.I started learning Urdu. On and off.

18.I went to my first American Thanksgiving dinner.

19.I packed all my things into suitcases, put them in my office, gave up my rental apartment and went off to spend a few months of summer traveling.

20.I got my first award after the name of a Bengali scholar. My CV got its first Bengali name (other than mine).

sunshine