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+## HACS
+
+## Hello!
+- I'm here in Toronto for HACS, which is a workshop just before Real World Crypto. Yes; RWC was the conference I
+attended in 2020 that was *just* before everything locked down, and I haven't really been back in-person since!
+Things are so different since then. Can you believe back then I was learning about Differential Privacy back
+then, and since then (1) published a paper in that area (2) do cryptography now?
+- There is something about this year that has made me feel more "in my own skin" than I have ever felt in a LONG
+time. I have so far attributed it to Berkeley, but I really can't say why for sure right now. However, my peers
+have found me to be a riot because it's been a long time since I've just been *myself*. I even spoke with a mentor
+recently who said that since she met me, everything about me is so much lighter in terms of disposition. She attributed
+it to my staying home and working from home, and also my trip to Berkeley, which she said it sounds like "I really
+needed to do to get a break".
+
+## Getting to HACS
+- Okay, this was sort of more involved than I expected. I have this thing I do where if it's a red-eye, I will
+stay in the airport the night before, and I did that, and usually it's just fellow travellers doing the same,
+but this time apparently there was this one guy who was "on something" who was camping out near to my usual
+spot. And the police got involved and told him "whatever you're using, you need to stop" because apparently he
+was freaking people out. And then I realized that everyone had gone downstairs (probably to avoid said person).
+Then they advised me to be careful, and that it was safer downstairs as that is where they were (i.e. the police).
+So I moved downstairs, and there were some people hanging out (but it's not as comfortable as my usual spot),
+and there was this random dude who was sleeping on a chair who kept talking in his sleep saying "I'm not a r@pist"
+which creeped me out. So then I went back upstairs and it was pretty much just an hour or two before the front
+desk opened. It kind of reminded me of my Greyhound days in LA, but maybe not as fun (no guy in a wifebeater
+buying pickles from a vending machine!).
+- The flights were pretty fine; I passed through LaGuardia, which is new and shiny and has good places to eat.
+A big thing for me is eating healthily while travelling and avoiding the usual soda and pasty / fried everything
+in airports. I arrived and the thing I was looking for (because of lack of experience) didn't show up on my
+map to my hotel, so opted for a rideshare instead. This was a good choice because the driver was pretty helpful,
+even being gracious when I accidentally called the CN Tower "the Space needle" (no, that's in Seattle). Yikes.
+Oh, and Nexus scanned my passport successfully this time, which was a major win. Hooray!
+- It took me about three hours to check-in, but that was also something I guess I handled with grace because
+I had been having back and forths with the place for a couple days down to the day before leaving because a link
+on their website was broken. But they were super great about everything, and I was just exhausted afterwards.
+However, I did attend Graph Theory class in the lobby.
+
+## HACS Day 1
+- HACS, fortunately, was barely 10 minutes from where I'm staying, which was awesome (so is the thing that is
+not the Space Needle, so don't call it that or we'll throw you back over the border!).
+- What is HACS? It's short for High Assurance Cryptographic Software. It's a mix of people from academia and
+industry and they skew towards inviting nice people who can contribute positively to the space; this year,
+the topic was the intersection of cryptography and formal methods, specifically for zero knowledge and post-quantum
+cryptography. And yes; there were a handful of isogenists I knew from other workshops there!
+- So how does HACS run? They're updating the programme each year, but this year they opted for a smaller group;
+last year (in Japan) it was around 150; this year they had an upper bound of 100 people. It was a mix of persons
+who ahd been there before and those who hadn't, and when you sign in, you can choose (a la Strange Loop) whether
+you want a lanyard indicating it's okay to be photographed vs not. Most people opted photographs okay.
+- The first thing we did is went around the room and did introductions (three sentences). Yours truly kicked it off,
+as I was in a mood because I woke up to my ticket back being cancelled (yay, Canada wants me to stay!) and frantically
+(I mean like ten minutes before I left!) was rebooking so that I could, idk get back to the US when I said I would.
+Yeah, my life "do be like that" sometimes.
+- After introductions, we had about 11 smaller breakout sessions where people who wanted to have discussions had groups
+of chairs around their board, and every 30 minutes or so, we would switch to another group. I started off with Chipala's
+group on [fiatcrypto](https://github.com/mit-plv/fiat-crypto) and bedrock and learned about the Vale programming language.
+- I went to some other formal methods stuff and avoided the PQC stuff, because we were advised to go to sessions we know
+less things about. No; people did not have a Lean session :) Also, I went to an FHE group and the cryptographer there
+squealed in delight when I kicked off the session asking about operating "over a torus" and what that means :) So that
+was pretty neat!
+- Then, we had lunch, which included some amazing fried eggplant and we felt like taking a nap for a bit, but it was
+time to get to work! We had working sessions for longer periods of time. There were two in the afternoon; the first
+I attended was on isogenies, with people I knew, and I took some notes live TeX-ing, because well, I like doing that.
+That was pretty productive and we found a lot of possible avenues and things to work on! The second group I attended
+was on risks of Quantum Computing, and I enjoyed that session a lot, too. At the end of the first day, which
+I really liked, they passed around the mic to everyone, and you could choose to pass, but everyone had an opportunity
+to say something they were thinking of or wanted to see tomorrow (some of those will be included!). I really liked this
+because sometimes at workshops, people who are "not the loudest" can be ignored, and they can have some really
+insightful contributions! This gives everyone a chance to do so.
+- Finally, we had a reception. I ended up chatting with some people from Signal, which was mind-blowing and definitely
+not something I can imagine coming from my institution I would ordinarily have the chance to do. Also, when I met my
+current Maths advisor, I took her mathematical cryptography class and for a final assignment wrote a paper on Signal's
+protocol. So it was like coming full-circle. When one person asked me just to be clear "do you know X in our protocol?"
+in regards to post-quantum migration, and I said "yes, actually I wrote a paper on it for this class where I met my
+Maths advisor". They smiled, and really enjoyed that. And then we spoke about Maths for a couple hours and introduced
+me to some other people on their team. It's just been quite wonderful!
+
+## So in short
+- I totally understand why people would make this a yearly thing; the one workshop they make sure to attend! I met
+one person in industry who said that it is one of the workshops they attend every year. It is full of THE top
+cryptographers but with a specification that they have to be also in the "no jerks" category.
+- The energy of the space is quite wonderful; I generally have a lot of workshop / conference anxiety, but one of
+the organizers, Trevor, greeted me with a smile; we had been chatting back and forth for months now.
+- I'm super grateful that this year I had the opportunity to attend! :)
+
+## Oh
+- On the way home, I picked a random place and tried their thai curry and sesame balls. I was so happy! I promised
+myself I'd also try the Trini food here, as quite a few people I know migrated here from my home country. On the first
+day, I already found a website with some options!
+- One thing I always underestimate is how TIRED I will be at the end of the day. I had planned to stay up late working,
+but I ended up falling asleep instead. I think it's important to not burn out, so maybe I really needed to do that.
+Besides, I was strangly up at 3am watching Suits lol (just seasons 1 and 2). Needless to say, I do have to catch up
+on two sets of homework, but good news! I found out I got into a Quantum-Safe workshops based in IBM Research
+Zurich that I thought I had *no chance* of getting into, *and* they gave me funding!
+- Zurich has been one of those places that has been within my grasp but the timing has never quite worked out (every
+academic seems to have a place like this). It started pre-grad school, actually, when I wanted to attend ZuriHac.
+Then EuroCrypt is this year in Zurich, but I am interning. So we'll see if this also is outside of my grasp.
+I am jockeying for my internship to show me mercy and grant me a possibility of going. There must be a reason
+this year that I was given this opportunity, and it would be sad not to be able to go, but we'll see.
+- So...this is my life right now. I'm really happy that my room has one of those coffee / tea makers, and I'm happy
+I was able to make a bunch of friends today. Someone even came up to me and said "there you are! I was looking all
+over for you!" and I was in shock, and they had a Maths question they though I could help with (surprise!).
+Someone said that they found what I was working on to be "super interesting" , and they were legitimately
+blown away / fascinated, which was so validating! I had a similar thing happen to me in Berkeley, which is nice
+because it encourages you as a budding researcher in confirming that what you are doing is interesting enough,
+people care and they are questions the community cares about.
+Also, people
+cared that I was there, knew my name (!!) and I feel super grateful to have been given the opportunity to be in this space. It's been
+wonderful!
+- HACS is to be experienced! If any of this interests you, I *highly* recommend going! 
+
+## Anyways, Here are some photos
+
+<img src="/images1/hacs24pics/hacs1.png" width="200">
+
+- From the space of HACS. The views are breathtaking.
+
+<img src="/images1/hacs24pics/hacs2.png" width="300">
+
+<img src="/images1/hacs24pics/hacs3.png" width="250">
+
+<img src="/images1/hacs24pics/hacs4.png" width="200">
+
+- View from LaGuardia before waiting to board
+
+## And that's it!