Yasas apo Hellas

June 10, 2005

It never rains but it pours:  before I completely unpacked my camping clothes from Strawberry I packed my "summer conference clothes" to go to Europe.  This week I am at a conference in Delphi, Greece, and I just gave two talks:  one on the MINERvA experiment, and one on the Fermilab Proton Driver Physics Study that I took part in over last year.  (The photo at the left shows me listening to the Oracle...) It's funny how there is so much preparation (days or weeks), and then when the talk is over you realize that you only spent 45 minutes speaking in front of an audience.  In truth what I benefit most from at these conferences is the chance to hear everyone else's talks on the progress their groups have made, and the chance to visit with other physicists "full time"--including dinner (see photo at left).  The irony is that some of the people I've talked to are people who visit Fermilab every week or two, or even people who themselves work at Fermilab.  But having the chance to talk physics without running to some other meeting, or without having to get to day care before it closes is a luxury. 

Of course this isn't to say I don't miss my kids while I'm away.  Talking on the phone with them is fun but our calls never last long enough.  One of the participants at this conference used to work at Fermilab and has two kids the same ages as Isaac and Sonia--they were all buddies at the Fermilab Children's Center together.  She has since moved to Valencia, and we traded pictures of our kids so we can show them how their long lost buddies are doing.  Just running through my photos to find good ones for Gabriela was tough enough. The other things that pull on the "motherhood strings" are every time I see a child on the streets, and when I see a conference participant who came with his wife and child enjoying the best of both worlds—being in a beautiful place and absorbing lots of physics and still getting to eat meals with his child. 

At the same time, I'm pulled in the opposite direction while I'm at this conference--I've travelled all the way from Illinois to Greece, a country I've never been to, listened to tapes to try to learn some Greek, yet I am soaking in far too little Greek culture.  Everyone in Delphi speaks English and assumes I wouldn't even understand "hello" in Greek, and there are lots of Roman letters on all the signs.  Before I had kids I used to take extra time to travel around whatever country was hosting the conference I was attending.  But now I don't feel good taking more than an extra day or so to see a little of this new country.  I sure hope the next time I come to Greece I do a better job as a culture sponge--I got to see a tiny bit of Athens and I saw only enough to realize I have to come back to see more. 

Comments

[Panos]

Hi Debbie!
A minor correction:
'Από' with "pi" (apo), meaning from, and not atto!
CU soon I hope,
Panos

[debbie]

Hi Panos--
Efharisto Poli--it's now fixed. This just goes to show you that you can't trust online foreign language dictionaries.
I hope you're enjoying the rest of your summer.