Newsletter for 1993

Chris Taylor---January 1993

[This is one of my first signs of old age. I am now old enough to write an anual newsletter. Here is my first in a series. Be warned that much of the material in here is based on the assumption that you care about me. After all, I wrote it to people I care about.---CCT]

Last month I received a number of Christmas newsletters from different people. The thought crossed my mind that I was probably old enough and far enough removed from a number of my friends that I should jump on the Christmas newsletter bandwagon. Realizing the added strain placed on postmen/women at Christmas time, I restrained myself. Now that 1993 is here and the mail glut is over, I have decided to write my first annual newsletter.

Typically newsletters cover the highlights of the author's life since the last newsletter. Since this is the first one, I am left in an awkward position. I will try to hit the highlights of the highlights for my first 21 or so years and then get a little more detailed on the last six months. I apologize in advance for the next few paragraphs but include them as a matter of duty as opposed to any interest they may be to you. If you find them down right boring skip past them and I will not be offended.

Highlights from the 60s:

I was born 12--14--69 and enjoyed 17 peaceful days of life in India.

Highlights from the 70s:

Went to Finland to see an aunt and uncle get married. Had a close encounter with a snake charmer and his cobra. Experienced my first elephant ride. Moved to Indonesia. Came to the U.S. for the birth of my younger brother. Caught pneumonia. Saw my first snow. Returned to Indonesia by way of Hawaii. Went to 1000 Islands in Indonesia. Stayed in a hotel with that had a baby elephant in the lobby. Slept through my first minor earthquake. Climbed inside a volcano. I've had enough, I'm only up to 1973. I'm bored, let's just say that I made it through the rest of the 70s, all of the 80s, and the first 2.5 years of the 90s.

Highlights from 92.5 --- present:

In August I finished my work at EROS Data Center and moved to West Lafayette, Indiana to pursue Masters and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering at Purdue University. I am living with my Aunt and Uncle there. My uncle is a professor in Ag Economics at Purdue, and their home is a little over a minute walk from my office on campus. My living arrangements have been ideal.

My responsibilities at Purdue this last semester included three real classes (probability, digital signal processing, and linear algebra), a one hour a week seminar, and a teaching position. Two of my three teachers were excellent, and although my courses were challenging, I enjoyed them and learned a lot. My teaching position involved teaching two introductory electrical engineering labs. Each lab consisted of 26 students and met once a week for three hours. I lectured for one of the three hours and the other two were spent performing the lab assignments. I also wrote a quiz and summary questions for them every week. Although my teaching commitments consumed around 20 hours a week, I enjoyed it immensely and view it as a conformation of my career goal of teaching at a university. I am teaching the same lab this next semester with 60 new students and taking three new courses (estimation theory, circuit theory, and complex math).

I feel at home at Purdue having made a number of friends and a host of acquaintances with classmates, finding a church in which I feel at home, joining its choir, and getting involved with the Navigators Christian fellowship on campus which has helped to meet most of my social and some of my spiritual needs. God has met all of my needs and all of the wants. Life is good and for this I am grateful.

Highlights present --- near future:

It may be a bit presumptuous for me to place in writing what will happen to me in the near future, but I do feel qualified enough to give a rough prediction. I plan on completing the three courses I already mentioned, passing all of the students in my labs except two of them who will quit showing up three quarters of the way through the semester (this is a bit of a stab in the dark since I have not met any of the students I will be teaching), becoming more involved with the Navigators (I have agreed to be on the committee to help plan their weekly large group meetings), playing intramural racquetball, getting a start on my dissertation (probably just the page numbers), and returning to EROS Data Center this summer for a few months of gainful employment. Boy, I thought I had a long sentence in the last paragraph, but the last sentence is even longer. I am relying on your uncharacteristically long attention span to allow you to comprehend it. Don't let me down.

Highlights from the rest of my family: My mother and father are making another visit to the far east this month. Dad is presenting a paper in Tokyo. My older sister (Stacia) is still in China. Her big news is that she recently got engaged to an x-roommate of mine (Brian Steward). My brother is a junior at Stanford in industrial engineering. He has been invited to spend his spring quarter at Stanford's campus in Washington, D.C.

Be good at being good,

Chris Taylor
This letter is copyrighted 1993 and I retain this copyright. You may freely copy it as long as this copyright notice remains intact.