Time in Seattle and Day 5

I’m a little tired today

• We took a trip to Seattle yesterday evening around 5pm, and did an underground tour, a ghost tour, and then hung out at a karaoke bar. And yes, there was karaoke. I can’t unhear my Italian friend singing “just the two of us” while I sat there, sipping on a glass of Merlot. It was a fun time!
• On top of that, there was a Coldplay concert in town, so there were lots of people milling about for that. All in all, I got home after 1am, and went to sleep around 2. I had a research meetings at 7am and 8am, so I managed to attend those, and then took a nap from 9am to 10am, and then had to head to the conference because well, lunch.
• On Day 4, I student-volunteered, and they put me for a workshop involving a domain-specific language for quantum (so I got to learn about that and the tooling), which I thought was funny, considering my path (did they know things about me? lol). And it was super relevant, as the research project I was picked for in the (research) class I am doing is exactly on Quantum Walks. So I was able to ask some of the people running the workshop for resources to get started before the class officially starts next week, and never have I met people so willing to give me resources. It’s just a really nice culture right now, perhaps because the field is so new. I want it to stay that way, but I know that as more people eventually catch on, the culture will inevitably change. But at least for now, we have the opportunity to have this nice, friendly, thoughtful, collaborative and interdisciplinary culture. And I love it!
• This is the first year I’ve felt like my constantly knocking doors has begun to pay off, and it feels really great. And what is better, people keep wanting to listen to what I have to say to make it better, because they want me here. What’s even better is that I’ve made friends who have had to find there way here like myself, and who are just as passionate about this stuff, too! And we support each other. And I’m really grateful to be a part of that community. These are truly my peers, and it’s just all been super cool.
• Another great thing is that a lot of the tooling already builds upon things that I was already using from early on in my PhD (i.e. most of the libraries and experiments are done in collab or notebooks), so things are all coming together, which is lovely.

Here are some photos

And that’s it!