Phew! Thanks heavens this week is over. I came back tired from FSMNLP and then I had to prepare and teach and attend StringMasters the rest of the time. SM is not like other workshops: it is more of a week-long brainstorming session. At the start and during the days that follow people pose certain difficult research problems. Participants break up into about three groups at a time and work on the problems as much as they can. We joked around way too much, but I think I had at least one good-ish idea during the workshop and I have lots of ideas that I want to pursue further. They should really go on a little list…yes, I’d better do that. I cannot really work on them right away, and if they are recorded somewhere, they will disappear into the ether. This weekend I still have a lot of work to catch up on, but from next week things should return to semi-normal.