As I sit here in the early morning, having a first briar of the day, I have been ruminating about what it means to be a professor. To be a professor may in a stereotypical sense invoke images of a frumpy fellow, with a beard and pipe (an accurate portrayal of me, actually) but those are only surface trappings (and infrequent ones at that) of the profession. Most professors are not frumpy, do not smoke a pipe, and only a large minority of the male professors sport a beard & moustache. However, a deeper truism for the profession is that most professors are truly locked in a battle of the mind..... at one end attempting to find ways to help others (students usually) understand the world around them in ways that the professor has discerned, and at the other end to strive to find and understand something new and hopefully relevant to the world.

These in a nutshell are the goals that I have for myself, and even though my effort may vary considerably from day-to-day in this regard, I do see it as a very noble and worthwhile mission.... something that I have fortunately chosen as my life's work and equally fortunate it is something that I am reasonably well suited to pursue. If there is a mission for this blog, it is simply to allow others to see into the mind of a professor in the trenches.... an attempt to show how his mind works, and how he thinks on a more intimate level than is typically seen. I do not represent all professors by any means, but I do think I have similarities in many ways to many of the cadre of people who choose this profession.

I will now go get a cup of coffee, have another briar, and read the Sunday newspaper.