[Perso] On the other side of the Border

I crossed the border around 11pm yesterday, I am now in Rochester, where Mirela is giving a talk and trying to collaborate with Dave Mattews, a very nice guy not much older than me but who has a big lab to himself, and 8 students working for him! We left Waterloo around 9pm, and arrived at 12:30, with a small break of 30mns at the American border: timing was good, jetlag almost forgotten! I learned about the bombs in England in the hotel's lounge :( It will raise more fear in the world, and especially in the US. Now that I think about it, we were probably lucky to cross the border before, othwerwise it might have taken us longer... My usual paranoia whispers things about conspirations from governments to raise fear in their own country and be given more powers, but I think that I will just ignore it: I am not convinced and even if I was I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Tomorrow (Friday) we leave for Virginia, a 7 hours trip to visit Calin, Mirela's brother, and his litle family. If I understood correctly we will stay 3 nights, and come back on Monday. I sure hope that nobody in Waterloo will take offense of my numerous travelings, but my conscience is clear: sometime I work better when traveling, at least to help refocus on the next topic to study, and as I submitted my paper to the conference SODA yesterday, this is the right time to refocus :) I will try not to think too much about the international situation and to think on doing good research to improve my chances to get a job where I want in 3 years (wherever that will be...): see you later!