The week gone by...

I have spent the last week at a conference on "Multiple Dirichlet Series and Applications to Automorphic forms" in Edinburgh. I really enjoyed it. Some of the talks were very interesting. Notably "Arithmetic analysis of the multiple zeta values" by Alexander Goncharov, "Quasi modular forms" by YoungJu Choie and "Unitary Periods" by Omer Offen. It has really given me a lot to think about. The good think about conferences is that if there is a a talk that you don't particularly understand (and at my low level; this is a guarantee) you can just work on your own material and you obtain "free maths." I feel like this week I have had some very productive hours.

The weather in Edinburgh was not very good. When I was walking around the castle with a person I met at the conference the heavens just opened and we got absolutely drenched. This set the precedence for the week, as the weather continued to be shit. The castle was very impressive though. Instead of taking accommodation with the participants I stayed with a friend of mine (Paul) who graduated from my university the year before to do his PhD in Differential Geometry in Edinburgh. This was pleasant, we cooked nice food, saw some street performers, went dry-wall climbing and in one of the rare breaks in between the showers we climbed Arthur's seat. The view from there was beautiful. His flat is amazing- he is like a real person now. Very grown up. It was a very tiring week. I had to get up at 7.30 am each morning and because Paul wasn't rising until much later we went to bed quite late. It was all worth it though. I had a great time!

On my way back home I dropped in to visit John and Kirsty (and Luke) in Durham. This was fun. We watched Princess Mononoke, which is absolutely fantastic. John introduced me to World of Warcraft. Although I initially mocked; this is potentially something I may do. I can see myself now in Germany- rushing back to my poky bedsit (note: this is actually wishful thinking on my part given I still am yet to make any headway on "operation find somewhere to live") to carry out fictional quests. We met our (ex-)lecturer for coffee and had "good maths chat." Although it made me feel a bit sad that I wouldn't be around next year, instead I'll be elsewhere not able to access my email on some Unix based computer...

Moral of the week: people do not relish being filmed on my video phone. Although apparently this makes me laugh a lot.

Result of the week: I feel happy.