I am on my first trip to CERN as a real collaborator in the ATLAS experiment. I have not earned the right to call myself a “member” yet – at least, in the sense that I can sign papers. I am a newbie (n00b, if you will), a greenhorn, and I am going to CERN to start building a path to membership. I’ll be keeping a travelogue on this trip, less as a means to avoid the work I so desperately need to accomplish and more to have an outlet in case I overwhelm myself with that work.
Stress has been catching up with me in the past few weeks. I had started skipping my exercise routine again, in part because it’s getting dark so early (and I hate running in the dark) and in part because I wasn’t making time otherwise for exercise. I’ve learned, as I’ve started the long journey through my thirties, that the Greeks had it right. One should exercise the mind and the body if one wishes to truly be wise. I personally find that if I neglect my body, I start to feel rushed – stressed – even when I am resting. This feeling is NOT fun, nor a good sign for things to come.
So I try to squeeze exercise in every chance I get. I’ve learned to respect scholar-athletes – students who come to university and excel at sports and academics – in a way I never did in the past. It’s hard – damn hard – to meet the demands of the sit-down world while keeping yourself active and fit. I know that I accomplish MORE when I do several things on the side: exercise, write, and sleep. This may seem counter-intuitive to most – less sleep, less distraction, naturally equals more work. This is the lie we’ve been sold, and while it’s true for some for me it will surely scrape decades off my life.
As I sit here in the airport, I recognize that I should NOT be sitting here in the airport. I’m going to be sitting on a plane for the next 10 hours, so I should do everything possible to move, move, move. So I took a walk. I started out from my gate, walked to the highest-numbered gate in the terminal, doubled-back and walked to the teen gates. I realized that there is more life in an airport than we travelers give credit. The signs are all over: a pair of flight attendants, one male and one female, sitting at an open-air table nibbling on food and sipping drinks, trading laughter and smiles; a barber shop, a real barber shop, tucked in between show-shiners and fast food, with more empty chairs than seems right; an airline ticket agent standing next to a Christmas tree, cloth reindeer horns on her head with jingle bells jingling as she turns her head and types on the computer.
I would recommend a walk in the airport to anyone doing long travels. Get the blood flowing, burn some calories, but most importantly sample the lives of the airport. There are many, even in small ones. Airports are like small towns: there are people out in front, colorful or otherwise, living their lives and doing their jobs, but there are even more behind the scenes making it all work. What I saw was “out-in-front”. Today, as I sit on my two flights before arriving in Geneva, I can honestly say I tasted a little life before I lifted off for CERN.
