Winnipeg (Day 2)
I have come to the conclusion that Winnipeg is not actually that cold, it's just that Winnipeggers are wimps. I stepped off the plane in short sleeves and found it quite comfortable, but the people I saw gave me strange looks as they huddled in their jackets and sweaters.
For those of you who are not familiar with Canada, the coldest street corner in Canada has long been rumoured to be Portage and Main, here in Winnipeg. I walked by there yesterday when I arrived and it didn't seem that cold or windy (it's the wind chill that gets you) but I can see why the wind there would be particularly bad!
People seemed... kinda downtrodden when I arrived, although more cheerful when I went out for a walk after the volunteer meeting at the hotel yesterday. But the city while not spectacular is quite charming, so tried not to let the depressed people bother me.
Today, though, I found out from the locals why everyone looked so miserable: it's been raining and raining and raining here, and they're talking floods, and the inclement weather the day I arrived had everyone in a miserable mood. So now I know, Winnipeg is friendlier than it seemed. :)
I had a great conference day today. Today was the poster sessions, and I was presenting my poster. Normally I really love going to poster sessions and walking around talking to people, and although I have to admit it's less fun when I'm presenting and have to mostly stand around mine waiting for people to come to me, I still managed to meet a lot of neat people, including several other students on the same MITACS project as I'm on. MITACS funds researchers to do cross-university research, so most if not all the accepted grants are for groups of many researchers and students working together, and we're on one that includes people from Queen's, RMC and Toronto. I got to meet at least one student from each university, so that was pretty neat. :)
The posters are judged, so I talked to three judges and while I doubt I'm going to win any awards, they seemed interested enough (particularly the second two) and I got many positive comments on my enthusiasm for the topic. The real highlight for me was presenting to a bunch of high school students who came for the session. I wound up with a gaggle of mostly gr 11 girls, and explaining web security to them in terms of myspace and facebook seemed to really go over well. I think they were pretty convinced that it's important and seriously lacking right now, and possibly I helped convince them that computer scientists and mathematicians do work that's actually quite relevant to them. Lots of questions, at least from one of the girls. :)
Other than that, it's been a good time catching up with the friend who moved to Winnipeg, meeting new students and hearing about what they do (or just what they think of star trek ;) ), hearing some terrible math jokes, and having fun. I got to see a bit more of Winnipeg (there *are* nice green spaces! I hadn't found many on my first day here) and I'm looking forwards to seeing more!
For those of you who are not familiar with Canada, the coldest street corner in Canada has long been rumoured to be Portage and Main, here in Winnipeg. I walked by there yesterday when I arrived and it didn't seem that cold or windy (it's the wind chill that gets you) but I can see why the wind there would be particularly bad!
People seemed... kinda downtrodden when I arrived, although more cheerful when I went out for a walk after the volunteer meeting at the hotel yesterday. But the city while not spectacular is quite charming, so tried not to let the depressed people bother me.
Today, though, I found out from the locals why everyone looked so miserable: it's been raining and raining and raining here, and they're talking floods, and the inclement weather the day I arrived had everyone in a miserable mood. So now I know, Winnipeg is friendlier than it seemed. :)
I had a great conference day today. Today was the poster sessions, and I was presenting my poster. Normally I really love going to poster sessions and walking around talking to people, and although I have to admit it's less fun when I'm presenting and have to mostly stand around mine waiting for people to come to me, I still managed to meet a lot of neat people, including several other students on the same MITACS project as I'm on. MITACS funds researchers to do cross-university research, so most if not all the accepted grants are for groups of many researchers and students working together, and we're on one that includes people from Queen's, RMC and Toronto. I got to meet at least one student from each university, so that was pretty neat. :)
The posters are judged, so I talked to three judges and while I doubt I'm going to win any awards, they seemed interested enough (particularly the second two) and I got many positive comments on my enthusiasm for the topic. The real highlight for me was presenting to a bunch of high school students who came for the session. I wound up with a gaggle of mostly gr 11 girls, and explaining web security to them in terms of myspace and facebook seemed to really go over well. I think they were pretty convinced that it's important and seriously lacking right now, and possibly I helped convince them that computer scientists and mathematicians do work that's actually quite relevant to them. Lots of questions, at least from one of the girls. :)
Other than that, it's been a good time catching up with the friend who moved to Winnipeg, meeting new students and hearing about what they do (or just what they think of star trek ;) ), hearing some terrible math jokes, and having fun. I got to see a bit more of Winnipeg (there *are* nice green spaces! I hadn't found many on my first day here) and I'm looking forwards to seeing more!