Teachers from the past

In a remarkably odd sequence of events, I ran into a math teacher of mine from undergrad at the conference I was just at. I thought I saw someone who looked vaguely familiar a day before, and the next day I walked up to her, clarified who she was, and re-introduced myself to her.

We ended up talking for a while about the going-ons.

Apparently, she’d taken a break from teaching for a couple of years and was pursuing some post doctoral research work, publishing at some mad rate and working for a guy nominated for a Nobel prize. I didn’t get to see her present her work because I left Vail before she was scheduled to give her talk. We were, I later found out, the first batch she’d taught, and yet she had little idea who I was. She referred to Pauk (apparently he discussed some “high level fluid mechanics” – oh yeah, Pauk, HAH!), Sandhya, and Sushanth of all people, but hello, I’m standing right here.

I’m a genius.

She was happy to find out people from our humble origins are making it big, financially and intellectually over here, and back home. I was irritated to find out a teacher can actually forget me. And then go on to refer to me as, “Oh, that guy in Sandhya’s batch.”

I mean, come on, they all love me.