At 6 AM in the morning, I am in a Shinkansen bullet train to go to Nagoya university conference “SCGT (Strong coupling gauge theory)09“. On my left I can see a beautiful oscean scenary in the dawn. The train is moving at the speed 270 km/h, and I have never imagined that I would be such a frequent (and fast) traveler, 15 years ago when I was an undergraduate student. At that time, I had my own imaginary view of what is a physicist, probably by extrapolating just views of some professors whom I could see at lecture rooms in Kyoto university. But it was of course very tiny part of professors’ daily life, I could never know it. I thought that any physics professors spend their time mostly for just sitting in front of a desk and “think”: this is what is written in books, as long as I remember. Every physicists in books looked just wondering around his/her desk or having discussions with their colleagues, at universities and sometimes in mountains, like Heisenberg, and then, just sitting at a desk and thinking something about physics , going down to the deep thoughts. This was what I thought. But the reality is so different from that.
However, I am enjoying this life. It is wonderful that I could see many friends and enjoy discussions, at many places in the world. For example today, I will see friends from all over the world (again!), and will definitely have joyful discussions. Waking up at 5 AM is nothing. (But last night, I drank until 10 PM at a farewel party for my friend, at RIKEN…..)
