It has been a little over three years since I last blogged regularly. A strange anniversary, in a way. So why am I writing again today? To be honest, I am not really resuming anything. I simply took a few days off, found myself alone with my computer... and here I am, writing something on Hive and sharing a few words after three years of silence.
The somewhat unusual story behind this post is that I am still keeping an eye on what is going on with STEMsocial, both on our Discord server and through the management of our curation tools (the bot, reward sharing with delegators, etc.). About a week ago, we had a brief conversation on Discord with a few familiar fellows from the good old days (@alexdory, @katerinaramm, @gentleshaid, @eniolw, etc.), which convinced me that it might be time to leave a trace on-chain again. After all, it is the holiday season, and I am deliberately slowing down to go back to a fundamental state (something I really needed, believe it or not!). So why not write?
In addition, I am also genuinely curious about who is still around, who is new (within the various STEM tags), and who will react to this post and leave me a message. Note that despite my long absence, I have always answered those who reached out to me, or the few rare blogs I happened to stumble upon (for instance @agmoore, @azircon, @geekgirl, @howo, @itharagaian or @mobbs to highlight those involved in my most recent interactions).
[Credits: me, flying to Vienna last November]As can be guessed from my low activity on chain, my life has become increasingly busy since 2022. In the end, I had to make choices: there are only 24 hours in a day (including a good quarter of them spent sleeping) and 7 days in a week. Teaching duties, research activity, hobbies and family moments... I am still struggling to find a good balance between all of this, and unsurprisingly, my time on chain has been significantly reduced.
To start with, I would like to emphasise that I am still very active in particle physics research, involved in dozens of projects with collaborators from all over the globe. However, this blog will not be a dedicated science blog. The truth is that I would love to write more about science, about what I work on and why I find it important, but I will directly kill a myth: the time when I was blogging once a week in English and once a week in French is gone. I dream about blogging once a month, but even that is currently too much relative to the time I have.
That being said, the usual keywords relevant to my past blog posts are still central to my research today: collider physics (present and potential future machines like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN or its potential upgrade, the FCC), dark matter, top quark physics, phenomena beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, and so on. All of this embeds many potential blogging topics. However, when it comes to science popularisation, I have prioritised real-life interactions at high schools, science fairs and similar events rather than online writing.
[Credits: D. Dominguez / CERN]Starting in 2021, I took on important responsibilities related to organising physics student life in Paris. I somehow decided that spending a significant fraction of my time helping hundreds of young adults was a good move. But this comes at a cost: less time for me and for my hobbies (as I want to maintain my research activities to the level they were). This is the main reason why I stopped writing on chain. Here, I want to stress that by 'responsibilities' I do not mean politics. This is something I have zero interest in. Instead, I mean helping shape professional projects for younger students, designing and updating curricula with complex constraints, and things like that. Helping students move closer to their goals is something which I genuinely enjoy, and these responsibilities have grown year after year.
Alongside this, I still have my own teaching duties, and my practices have evolved over time. For instance, today AI tools are a reality and most students use them regularly. These tools are impressive, but far from perfect, and it is crucial to teach students how to use them responsibly. While many colleagues have stopped assigning homework, I continue to do so. Using AI is now part of the exercise: the grade comes from analysing the AI output: what is correct, what is wrong and why. Of course, this understanding is evaluated at the blackboard. What matters most to me is that students actually understand the material as always, and only the path to reach that understanding has evolved.
[Credits: me, view of Notre Dame from Sorbonne Université central administration tower]In addition, I have noticed a change in the attitude of students over the years, and not all of it has been, in my opinion, positive. There is sometimes a strong emphasis on rights and entitlements, while duties and responsibilities fade into the background. This is particularly problematic as many students choose physics with the ambition of becoming researchers, either in academia or in the industry. These paths are rewarding, but they are also demanding. They require sustained effort and perseverance, and there is no way around it. I fully agree that private life and a healthy balance are essential. However, doing only the bare minimum (or occasionally even less) is not compatible with certain goals.
This is not about blaming a generation, but about aligning expectations with reality: ambition and balance are not contradictory, yet the level of engagement inevitably shapes what we can reasonably expect in return. Perhaps this is where I am starting to feel my age. Finding a balance between personal life and professional commitments is crucial, but that balance is a personal choice closely tied to the objectives that we set for ourselves. I work around 70 hours a week and am formally paid for a little more than half of that time. This is not an obligation imposed on me. It is a choice that I made because I care about doing good research, delivering quality teaching and fulfilling my responsibilities to students and colleagues. I could certainly do less and merely meet formal requirements. No one would complain, but I would not be satisfied with myself.
[Credits: Turn2538, CC BY-SA 4.0]Finally, for those who may wonder, my family life is also active. While I mention it at the end of this post, it is by no means the least important. My weekends are sacred, and I generally disconnect from work during that time (with rare exceptions when deadlines are unavoidable). I have always been a board-game enthusiast, and this has not changed. We now mostly play Dungeons & Dragons, much like when I was a kid. We created our own campaign, which has been running for more than a year and a half (AI is actually very helpful for efficiently generating scenarios). I also restarted doing some sport, which probably helps health-wise. On the fun side, my son and I are both part of a medieval fencing club. Role-playing is never very far!
Anyway, I think I have mumbled enough, and it is time to stop this post. I would be happy to give more details in response to specific questions (including why I included coffee in the title of this blog ;) ).
I wish you all a joyful and relaxing holiday season, and see you on chain, on discord or in real life (I am still travelling a bit, although not as much as I used to).
