Woke up early this morning to be a flag bearer for the conference and dressed up nice for the occasion. The opening ceremony for the conference was today to introduce the 67 home countries represented by the 480 students at the forum. I was an extra in case someone didn’t show up for flag duty and as it turns out everyone here is a science nerd (go figure) and showed up! So me along with five others were out of a job and could enjoy the ceremony from the comfortable seats in the audience.
The opening ceremony was really well done with speakers including the deputy mayor of London, Joanne McCartney, the President of LIYSF, Richard O’Kennedy and a UNESCO goodwill ambassador from Saudi Arabia, Professor Hayat Sindi. The opening ceremony stressed the theme of the forum, science making life better, and encouraged women in the STEM field to pursue their dreams and make a difference in the world. Myself, as well as many other young women in the room felt inspired, and I look forward to seeing some of the achievements some of the women at the forum will accomplish sometime in the future.
Today we also had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Rolf Landua, a research physicist at CERN, speak about the particle accelerator and the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Being a biologist, the majority of his talk went over my head, but I was impressed at the depth of knowledge and the philosophical questions being asked by researchers the facility. The research at CERN investigates into the origins of the universe and the Big Bang, as well as the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy and how they effect the expansion of the universe. At it’s core, CERN is a facility that investigates tiny particles that make up atoms by colliding millions of protons every year. I was impressed to learn that CERN was also involved with the invention of the Internet and that not only are there bosons but also muons, leptons and neutrinos. The standard model created at CERN is just one example of why I am not patient enough a physicist. I wouldn’t have the patience to read it all. But the talk was truly amazing and I appreciated every minute of it.
Since the 480 of us are a somewhat large group, we have a tendency to take up a lot of space and stand in a lot of lines. Today after our lecture, we stood in line to pay for our optional visits where 480 students paid cash for pre-ordered and not pre-ordered excursions. Turns out you can learn a lot about a lot of people in 2.5 hours waiting in line. I met a wonderful girl from Ireland, a girl from Australia, a boy from India and others from Sweden, Indonesia, Estonia and Whales. Although the line was long, and I am positive it will not be the last one we stand in during the next two weeks, it was good to meet so many new faces.
A few of us at the end of the line missed dinner but ended up going on an adventure to find some food, then heading over to the welcoming party. I got a wonderful compliment from an Argentinian girl telling me I danced like a Brazilian and we all enjoyed watching a Portuguese guy named Francisco dance his heart out all night.
Until next time, T.
Ah yes, the Line-SF experience