full circle

Liz and I have been forgotten. We come to work but there is nobody here. The project we were working on is finished. Yesterday, in leiu of work, we just went to the cafeteria and drank hot chocolate and read our respective books (Georgi's Lie Algebras in Particle Physics in my case).

There was a thunderstorm and lightning struck something nearby. Power went out at the test beam and the whole place shut down. When the power came on again, there were alarms going off everywhere. I wondered what they will do at LHC to prevent meltdown in such a situation.

I was all about to skip the second lecture this morning when I realized that the lecture was to be given by Bob Jacobsen, my physics prof from 7A, back in 1999. We've gone full circle, from F=ma to experimental particle physics, with four semesters of Clarke in between. It was a good lecture.

We've come to an odd point in the summer where things aren't quite over, yet we feel the time slipping away, we count the weekends left on a single hand. The initial bonding experiences are over now, and for some reason it feels exactly like high school sitting in lecture in the morning. I feel icky about it. I think it's a combination of a loss of innocence plus a project that's stagnated.

More and more I'm looking forward to getting back to the good life at Berkeley.. living in a co-op, spending time with Nadia, having a quiet life basking in the pleasant Berkeley ambiance.. reading math books, learning languages, going to quantum field theory lecture with Kenny²⁰⁰⁰ and Michelle, sitting in the sun. I'm still balancing my travel plans (I've got to get to Slovakia and Sweden at a minimum) with the desire to get back to Berkeley at the time classes start.

Someone working at the test beam drives a Porsche Boxter.. how a physicist could ever afford such a car is unknown to me, but here's a picture of "my" Citroën Berlingo next to the Porsche Boxter:

This evening I went into Geneve to get tickets to Paris.. Had good lebanese food and a nice walk with Kenny. Anyway, I'm all set on the Thursday evening TGV! There's a zillion and one CERN people going this weekend, but I think there will be a good chance to wander off and do my own thing, perhaps with a small group of people. I'm sleeping on the floor in Reid's room... Chris (aka Sambucca) and I are going to do some graveyard wandering, Hemingway reading, and cafe sitting. I think it should be a nice trip. (Think of it — Paris!) There's talk of some Robin-Tobin-Mengkai dinner tomorrow.. and the usual frantic whispers about cloud chambers. I'm also supposed to show some high school teachers around the test beam, and I'd like to whip up some liquid nitrogen ice cream.