I scrapped my plans for the seminar, and in fact, I essentially did not go to school for several months. Anything that was related to quantum computing became very depressing to me. A series of events related to research into quantum foundations and information, collectively called “Taming the Quantum World”, was scheduled to take place that summer at IQC and PI. But I couldn’t stomach the idea of being surrounded by people who would have told me what a moron my father was, if they had known about his opinions on their research, even though I had wanted to be there. I also had to avoid the other graduate students at IQC because I didn’t want to hear any discussions about QIP and their plans for going to India.
One of the activities that I undertook to cheer myself up was a hiking trip to the Bruce Peninsula with several people, including Mina, who became my girlfriend over that summer. My parents had thoroughly destroyed my ability even just to be in the presence of my academic colleagues by continually attacking them and their research throughout my life, but despite their persistent efforts they had not managed to eradicate my social life entirely, and I still had friends who supported me.
In the meantime, I applied to have my surname legally changed… » [Expand post] [Permalink]