I'll be home for Christmas

Today is the day I have been bracing myself for all week. Today I am plunging myself into every expat's nightmare: the airport on the weekend before Christmas. I personally know at least five other -unrelated- people boarding a plane today and at an expected 1.2 million passengers pouring through Heathrow airport over the next week that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have chilling visions of queues meandering all the way from Gatwick to Croydon and anticipate a long, long day.

Last year I got stuck at Gatwick for 9 hours after my flight was cancelled due to fog. Of those nine hours I spent about 4 queuing with nothing to eat or drink and no way to get out and buy some without losing my spot in the queue. I will not let that happen to me this year. My carry-on luggage is stuffed with high-energy snacks and water. Things aren't looking all that promising this year either. Yesterday more flights were cancelled, again courtesy of the English mists. On top of that airport staff has been threatening to go on strike over the Christmas period. That threat has now been pushed back until two days after my return to the Big Smoke but with people cruel enough to entertain the thought of striking over Christmas, you just never know.

Why o why do we submit ourselves to this annual horror? I am actually not that keen on Christmas at all and wouldn't be too put out by just pretending it isn't there. My mum would strangle me though, I fear, if I didn't make the effort. Like most families we'll sit through the obligatory Christmas dinner and stuff ourselves. It's the season to be jelly. So here I am, with my bags packed and a heart filled with dread at the day ahead of me, ready to cross the puddle.

See you on the other side!

Workaholic

My first flatmate in London was a real workaholic. We didn't share a house for very long but in those few weeks I lived there I hardly ever saw him. He would come home from the office really late and lived on take-out meals and cigarettes. It didn't seem a very healthy way to live. It is the way a lot of people in London live though. This city is known for the long hours people work. Before I came here, I was never even aware of the existence of the European Working Time Directive, which forbids employers from making their employees work more than 48 hours a week. That is of course, unless you sign an 'opt-out', something which many large companies here enforce.

I work at the university and academia is not generally a place where people are being worked to death. It is not that PhD students don't work hard. Often times they work really hard but it mostly is on a semi-voluntary basis, as in: sooner or later that thesis needs to be finished. I have worked the occasional weekend or evening in those days as well, but it certainly was not the rule. Our group now though is a bit of a chimera of academia and business. The work we do is definitely research based but many of our projects are commissioned and that means we have to work to the client's deadlines. This time of year is the worst. Everybody is trying to get things finished 'before the holidays'. I had two projects with major deadlines on it this week. One of them in particular has kept me working weekends and evenings. I haven't slept properly in days. My eyes are bloodshot and my muscles tight like the strings on a violin.

But the work is done! I managed to deliver to my deadlines, in part because London is 5 hours ahead of Washington where our client is based. I am pleased to have managed but am exhausted to my very core. I have now snuggled up on the sofa under the duvet, for the first time in days doing something other than work on my laptop. As soon as I type the last sentence I will go brush my teeth and surrender to Morpheus' sweet embrace.

Zzzzzz.....

The ivory tower

Most of my working life I have had the same job title: researcher. Research to most people conjures up images of people in scruffy white labcoats or stuffy book-filled attics. And these cliche images exist for a reason. For five years I worked in a lab, fiddling with pipets and coloured solutions, although in all fairness I only ever wore a labcoat to keep me from shivering in the 'cold room'. My work was far divorced from a tangible reality. The lab was a playground where we did not often consider the outside world.

My job title may still be the same but my new job has hurled me out of the confines of the ivory tower and smack-bang into the real world. What a brave new world it is! It is a world of meetings, focus groups and consultation events. I have spent the last two days in hospitals talking to people on the receiving end of all that we brew up in our scientific pressure cooker: the patients. Sat on hospital beds talking to patients with a dozen tubes running in and out of their bodies. Listened to tales of woe from people who suffered medical errors or hospital bugs.

It is inspiring and illuminating to deal with the people on the ground. In the ivory tower you can loose sight of the purpose of what you are doing. Words become increasingly complex and bogged down in jargon. When you go back to the patient you find you no longer speak the same language. We even need to have our documents and questions 'Plain English-ed' before we can take them out. In chemistry the jargon is so outlandish that you don't expect people outside of the field to understand phrases like isotope labeled medium or beta-mercaptoethanol. In management and social studies it is more subtle. That makes the risks only bigger though. You think you talk like a normal person and instead you find you may as well have been talking Greek, which in some cases might even have been more helpful.

Welcome to the real world!

And then it was over

It's official: I am no longer a student. Yesterday I received my final results and I am pleased and proud to inform you that I have mastered my degree. I am even more pleased and proud to tell you that I did so with distinction! Forgive me for bragging but I am really happy about it. I wasn't expecting it as my results throughout the year, though good, were not straight A's. It was my thesis that tipped the balance in my favour. I am particularly pleased at this as my thesis was what I was most eager to get right. My thesis supervisor is my current boss as well so it mattered a great deal to me to impress him.

Getting my results does not mean I have officially been bestowed my title yet. For the graduation ceremony I will -bizarrely enough- have to wait until 14 May 2008. Of course nothing can ever top receiving my PhD degree. Academically that will always be the most special day in my career. But receiving this degree will be special in its own way as well. In true Anglo-Saxon style the whole affair will be Cap & Gown. For somebody coming out of the Dutch academic system that is quite a change. The venue is another special touch. Our graduation ceremony will take place in The Royal Albert Hall (pictured above)! I was gutted when I first found out that, due to renovations, my PhD defense would not take place in Leiden's beautiful Academiegebouw but I think graduating in the Albert Hall sweetens that bitter pill somewhat.

It will not be the personal affair that my other graduations have been. This is mass production. All the postgraduates from Imperial College graduate on that same day so it's one looooong procession of gowns streaming over the podium. My family will also have to pay for tickets if they want to attend! A lot of my classmates were not from the UK or even Europe and I expect a lot of people will not bother to travel all the way back for this overpriced mass production event. I personally have decided that I most definitely want to be there though. I have worked hard enough for it!

Who's that girl

There is a stranger in my bedroom. She is looking at me through eyes that are just like mine but are framed by blacker lashes. She is me and yet she is not. The girl looking back at me is a version of me: Office Girl. Five days a week I wake up and begin my transformation into OG. I wave my mascara wand and do my hair. OG's costume includes ironed blouses and heels. All dressed up and ready for a day at the office.

I actually enjoy this game of adult dress-up that we all play. By putting on a suit or a skirt we assume that aura of professionalism. It doesn't matter that we barely know what we are doing, the clothes make us look like we do. It is a cloak of invincibility. But the cloak is not that thick. As the hours in the office pass the mascara gets smudged, the hair tossled and the blouse wrinkled. And it is not very comfortable either...

As soon as OG walks back into the house at the end of another day, the butterfly metamorphs back in her cocoon. Before anything else, the shoes are banned to the corner. Then the make-up comes off and the clothes are replaced by comfy PJs and fleece. Time to snuggle up on the sofa with a cuppa tea. Office girl becomes Tulipgirl again.

The Mogwai

My instruction manual is fairly simple but there is 1 golden rule:

NEVER, and I do mean NEVER, talk to me before I've had my breakfast.

I am not a morning person. For the first 30 minutes of every day I am in fact barely a person. When the golden rule is broken I turn into a Gremlin as a poor flatmate of mine once experienced after an accidental early morning wake-up call. I think she still has nightmares of the death threats I snarled at her. Don't ask me how I slept; don't tell me what the weather looks like; just DON'T talk to me. Then, if I am left in peace and quiet, I usually become human again within an hour or so.

In winter time it's worse. Waking up in the dark is insufferable. It takes sunlight to drive out my gremlin. But now I have a new toy. This weekend I got an alarm clock that works with light. Over a period of 30 minutes it slowly increases its light emission to gently wane me off my sleep. Apparently this decreases the levels of sleep-inducing melatonin and increases cortison production. Naturally, as a (ex-)biochemist this concept instinctively appeals to me. The product specifications promise me I will wake up a brighter, nicer, more energetic person. More Gizmo than Stripe.

So, does it work? Well, it's only been one night so far and as all you scientists know the validity of a result is in the reproducibility of the experiment. It was definitely a smoother waking up this morning though. Of course that might also have had something to do with the fact I have been working from home today and could sleep in for an additional half hour. It will take some more time before I can tell you if the days of the Gremlin are gone. Until then best not to feed me after midnight.

Fragile

Promises are like glass. They are easily shattered and once broken, you can never quite put them back together again. Breaking promises is as walking through broken glass. No matter how carefully you tread, sooner or later you will step on a shard that digs into your foot and nestles itself under your skin from where it sends up shooting pains as you walk on. Although the sting is painful at first, the longer you trample over the shards the finer they are ground. Eventually they will have been reduced to mere grains and walking across them becomes as painless as a stroll on the beach.

We all break promises. Sometimes we know from the onset that the words that just rolled off our tongues are meaningless but we say them anyway. Most of the time though we set out with the best of intentions. Life just gets in the way. Yes, I really intended to complete that report by next week. Yes, I really did mean to email back that friend soon. It just... didn't happen.

This blog is one of my glass splinters. Although never explicitly stated there was an implied promise between you, my readers, and myself. I would write regularly and in return you would come here to read it. Lately I have been breaking my end of the deal. Life got in the way in the form of a fulltime job. Every time I turn on my computer I feel the sharp splinter in my flesh and every time I then later turn it off, without having posted yet again, the splinter punishes me with pangs of guilt. I have broken our pact. You, on the other hand, keep returning to me, forgiving, like wide-eyed puppies pleading for comfort with the very same person who just kicked them. I don't know if I deserve such loyalty from you. My workload is not about to diminish and at the same time the well of my inspiration is drying up. We may soon have to renegotiate the terms of our silent contract. But first I will try to earn back your trust. I promise.

Of silver and gold

When I was a child, I had a song book called Sing around the campfire. Riddled with songs like Michael row your boat and Kumbaya, I have no idea how it ended up in my distinctly secular home yet somehow it did. It came with a casette which I played over and over until the tape wore thin. To this day I can still sing along to the mournful sounds of Nobody knows. There is one song in particular of which the refrain dug itself into my memory:

make new friends
but keep the old
one is silver
and the other gold

As I child you think friendships are forever. Nothing or nobody can drive you and your friend apart. You share the good, the bad, the secrets and giggles. You solemnly promise each other in your poesiealbums that you will be best friends forever. But then one day you go to different schools, different universities, different lives. You try to keep in touch but eventually they become people you once used to know.

As you get older the duration of friendships tends to decrease. Very few people nowadays work in the same place for more than a couple of years and we change countries almost as easily as we do underwear. My friends live in half a dozen different countries or so. It is difficult to keep friendships alive when you live far apart. Even when neither of you has really changed since the days of your friendship, everything else has. You don't know the same people anymore and don't share the same present so instead you fall back on your shared past. Friends for old times' sake. It is heartbreaking to realise sometimes that time has eroded the foundations of your friendship. Keeping the golden glow on old friendships takes a lot of dedicated polishing.

New friendships can also be fragile. Over the last year I have met many new people some of whom I would now consider friends. But already I have lost some as well. For a year we have worked together day in-day out but when the final term ended we all went our separate ways again. Sure, we can send each other emails and virtual Facebook presents but experience has taught me that we are more likely to remain friendly acquaintances than friends. Only the alchemy of friendship can turn silver into gold. Whenever it does we should cherish it for the rare treasure it is.

Ingeburgerd

Inburgeren: "to get accustomed to a new place of residence"
(van Dale Dutch dictionary)

More commonly interpreted as knowing and respecting the habits of your new country after emigration. Well, it's been 12 months and 19 days since I arrived so it is a time to take tally of how well I have been ingeburgerd into British society. A quick summary on some key indicators:


Five out of ten ..., not a very good score. Then again, inburgering doesn't dictate adoption of foreign habits, merely understanding and respect for them. That, for the most part, I can do. I don't think I'll ever stop being amazed about carpet in the toilet or separate faucets for hot and cold running water but it is such peculiar differences that make it interesting to live abroad.

It's hard to say here in London whether or not you have been accepted by the English. The truth is there hardly are any around. Almost everybody is a foreigner. I have met more Chinese, Germans and French than I have English. My accent, for one, still does not fool anybody into thinking I'm English though lately I have been getting "Canadian?" a lot . I'll consider that a step in the right direction from earlier accusations of sounding American.

This weekend was a clear reminder that I am far from being assimilated. Those of you Dutch like me may not know this but for the English this was a BIG weekend. It was the final of the Rugby Worldcup and England was in it. I watched the match in a pub full of rowdy fans looking at a scrum of rugged looking men having absolutely no clue what was going on on the field. Out of a sense of solidarity, mixed with an instinct for self-preservation, I decided to side with England. They lost and now the English are in mourning. I, on the other hand, am completely indifferent. My support for England was only skin deep. Maybe that is the true touchstone of inburgering.

Growing pains

When I grow up I want to be
The little girl dreamt
An interpreter for the UN
To help the whole world understand

When I grow up I want to be
The teenager then pondered
A doctor, a psychiatrist maybe
Or perhaps a GP, she wondered

When I grow up I want to be
The student then resolved
A researcher of biochemistry
Deduct how life on Earth evolved

When I grow up I want to be
The PhD envisioned
Working for the vulnerable and sick
In countries far and near to which I'll be commissioned

When I grow up I want to be
The woman suddenly thought small
Mumbling softly so no one would hear
Do I have to grow up at all?

Lost in translation

O my, will I indeed be looking forward to that weekend! Only two days into the week and already I am feeling knackered. It's been a while since I was a nine-to-fiver, let alone a 8.30-6.30er. It's tough, getting back into the rhythm.

My supervisor clearly does not belief in easing into the job either. I have had to hit the ground running and running fast at that. I shouldn't be surprised as this is the man who once told me we "could not afford to be average". It is what makes working in this group both a wonderful opportunity and a daunting challenge.

My first project is immediately a meaty one. It is my job to take inventory of the different so-called performance measures for healthcare in no less than 42 countries. Draft results to be deposited on my supervisor's desk by the end of the month, please! I am not sure whether this is an acid test of my abilities or simply business-as-usual. I am inclined to believe it is the latter. As if the scope of the work wasn't testing enough in itself, the work comes with a substantial catch. Performance measures are usually set by some sort of governmental or professional qualifications body and, as such, they are not to be found in the standard scientific literature. Instead, I have to dig through websites and policy papers. Naturally these papers are written in the language of its target audiences. Well, with 42 different countries you might see why that could be a bit of a problem.

I am rather pleased to find that, despite my schoolgirl detest of German, I can still understand a fair bit of the German, Austrian and Swiss papers. After all, qualitätsindikatoren is not that hard to comprehend. Also the indicateurs de qualité I can still more or less handle. And for once even knowing Dutch comes in good use! The difficulties begin with the literature on kvalitetsindikatorer and indicadores de calidad.

So here I ask you, my wonderful international group of friends: those of you proficient in Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese, or Arabic: may I perhaps invoke your services?

Leaving limbo

The vast majority of people will have gotten up this morning thinking to themselves "aaah, it's Friday. Only one more day of work and then it's weekend!". I, on the other hand, woke up thinking "aaah, finally I get to go to work!". After weeks of sitting at home I have at long last started my job at the university.

At first suddenly having no deadline hanging over my head was a welcome relief. Then it became a nice opportunity to catch up on my reading, correspondence and ailing social life. Another week later it turned into a maddening nothingness. A big empty void of days with no purpose other than beating random strangers at online scrabble. I would make one desperate housewife!

Thankfully as of yesterday I am put out of my unemployed misery. I have rejoined the ranks of the working masses to become a good little worker bee. A poorly paid worker bee without a desk to call her own that is. It doesn't matter. I am just so pleased to be spending my days usefully again. Soon I might even start to longingly look forward to weekends again for at least I will have earned them.

The London overdose

I lived in Amsterdam for a good eight years. In all that time I have not been to the Anne Frank House once, nor to the Rijksmuseum, the Allard Pierson museum, the Tropenmuseum or even the Sex museum. I have not visited Carré, de Kleine Komedie or the Stadsschouwburg.

Twelve months have I been in London now. In that whole year I had not been to the British Museum, the Science Museum, the Victoria&Albert Museum or the National Portrait Gallery. I haven't seen a West End show nor have I gone up in the London Eye. I have barely glimpsed the Tower or Big Ben. You just don't get to do a lot of these things when you live somewhere. Part of 'going native' means snubbing the clichés, even if that means missing out on some interesting experiences.

By far the best motivation to get off our sorry native butts is to have guests over. This week my mum came to visit me. In five days time we have shuffled past the Chinese Terracotta Warriors and the Egyptian mummies at the British Museum. We have been baffled by the suspended tube lights and even black canvasses that pass for art at the Tate Modern. We have sipped champagne cocktails at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. We have looked at everything from 16th century locks and keys to Vivian Westwood dresses at the V&A.

In a city like London you are never done. There is always more to see, more to do, more to experience. At least this week I have been giving it my best. I need some time to recover from this cultural overdose. That is, until the next guests come knocking at the door...

Blow the bank

I hate banks. No, this is not a literary hyperbole. I really do hate banks. They are the most customer unfriendly type of business I have ever come across. They lure you in with nice offers and wide smiles but as soon as they have your business the masks come off and the smiles are replaced by passive 'sorry-but-I-can't-help-you' faces at best and evil smirks at worst.

I have easily spent a year of my life arguing with my Dutch bank. I have been given the run-around so many times I must have talked to every single employee. The only reason I still bank there is the introduction of online banking. Taking out the people factor has in this case been a blessing. No more arbitrary decisions where things can be done one day but not the next. I control my money when I want, how I want.

London may be the financial capital of Europe but, if anything, my banking experience here is even worse. The whole system is archaic. Since I did not have a job this year I have had to settle for opening a student account. As a student you are the lowest of the lowliest. You're not likely to have any money to spend and for that reason banks despise you. Credit? Ha, you must be joking. Service? Why on Earth? Online banking? Funny. Seriously, I can not do anything with my account without physically going to my bank branch; not even change my address. Everything takes forms, people and mostly...time.

All I wanted to do today was pay my rent and deposit. The money had to go from my UK account to another UK account with a different bank. Obviously I had to go to the bank. My annoyance at this was only surpassed by stunned disbelief when I found out they wanted to charge me 23 pounds for this simple transaction! The only way to do this free of charge was to withdraw the money from my account and walk 5 minutes to a branch of this other bank and deposit it again. They've gone mad. From now on I just might have to start keeping my money in a shoebox under the bed again.

Danse macabre

My university is located on exhibition road, so named because it houses three of the main London musea. One of these is the Natural History Museum. Normally this magnificent building radiates a stately tranquility, but not this week... something eerie is going on there.

The liveless skeletons that are the museum's regular tenants have had to relinquish the limelight to other, slightly more lively, skeletons. Outside these grimfaced carcasses rattle their bones dressed in the pelts and feathers of the dead ones inside. Up and down they walk, looking without seeing.

This week the NHM has been hosting London Fashion Week. All over the papers are images of walking sticks disguised as humans wearing dresses no real person can ever fit. Unlike their Italian counterparts the organisers of LFW have refused to ban the so-called 'size 0' models. Instead, they have introduced compulsory health checks for models. Although I am by no means trying to ridicule the seriousness of eating disorders, I can't help but wonder who we are really trying to protect here... In a country where underweight people aren't exactly the biggest problem, the whole debate seems a bit skewed. Maybe the rationale is that, instead of getting the fatties to slim down, it's easier to pick on the skinny girls so they won't make us feel so bad about ourselves?

Moving day

Just one. One suitcase, that was all I had with me when I got on that plane a year ago. Granted, it merited a "heavy luggage! Lift with care" label but still... it was only one suitcase. When I moved house again three weeks later that single suitcase had sprouted a little offspring but nothing I couldn't carry by myself. So how can it be that just a year later it took me 9 runs with two suitcases on each to carry all my stuff into my new apartment?!

The studybooks and lecture notes I have accumulated this year are already worth a full two suitcases. Then there is my cursed desktop. Why o why did I not just buy a laptop? I arrived with merely some all purpose London-in-the-fall clothes. Throughout the year I have gradually smuggled most of my wardrobe here by filling the excess space in my suitcase every time I went back to Holland. How can I have so many clothes yet find nothing to wear? And there is paperwork, office supplies, trinkets. So much stuff...


Since my new place is only a 7 minute walk up the road from my old one there was no point in using public transport. Nine times I walked back and forth. Forth with a suitcase dragging on my arm so heavily I am almost surprised to find it still attached. Back with an empty one, mentally preparing myself for the next run. To-and-fro, to-and-fro, to-and-fro until then finally it was all done.

I have officially handed in my old keys and am fully installed in my new little piece of heaven. It is even better than I remembered it. I am like a child with a shiny new toy as I walk around, opening cupboards and exploring the rooms. My bedroom is a comfy place where I know I will be at home. I am snug as a bug in a rug, so pleased. All that I need to be perfectly content is a trip to IKEA and somebody to help me set up that darn wireless router!

My place

E=MSc2

Today it is exactly one year since I heard the words 'Hora est' and was told that I should carry my new doctoral title with honour but should never forget the responsibilities it brings towards science and country. Big words to live up to.

As for carrying the title with honour, I try not to flash it around wantonly. Here in the UK though it seems academic titles carry a lot more weight than they do back home. I was advised quickly after I arrived that I should use it in official dealings whenever possible. On that advice I added the Dr. to my name when I applied for a bank account. I fear to think how banks treat people otherwise but that is a different matter. The unintended side effect is that the title appears on all of my bank statements and even gets printed on the receipt every time I pay for anything with my card.

Soon after I moved I also applied for a student travel card. In a frivolous moment I ticked that box marked "Dr.". I had just gotten my title a few weeks before and I suppose I was just trying it on for size. A silly impulse. Once, at the station, I presented my card at the ticket window to top up my credit. The guy there took a long hard look at the card, then at me, and back again at the card. Then suddenly he hollered to his colleague in the next window "hey, look: we have a real doctor here!". My cheeks flushed a bright red and I thought I would die of humiliation right there. I know I shouldn’t be embarrassed about a title I worked so hard to get but I do feel that there is a time and a place for it. The ticket window and the check-out counter, however, are definitely not it.

The Anglo-Saxons on the other hand sure do like to show off their titles. They have a wide range of them and they’re not ashamed to use them. It is not like the Dutch system where there is essentially a succession of titles and as you get a new one, you drop the old one. Here you keep them all, stacking them up like Lego blocks. And it is not just the MSc or PhD titles; they have some very specific ones too. My project supervisor, for instance, carries the impressive epithet "MBBS MBA DIC MFPH FRCGP". Now that I have handed in my thesis I will soon also be allowed to add the letters DIC to my name: short for Degree of Imperial College. Of course the main title I have earned myself this year is MSc, but I already have one of those in my collection. So what shall I do: MSc² DIC PhD?

Barnes to Fulham... to Battersea

Almost 12 months have I been here now. I am about to move to my third address in this city and know that I will see the coming and going of another winter. I might as well face it: London is where I live now. In recognition of this I have decided to make an effort to get to know the city better. Since the best way, the only way, to do this is on foot, I have treated myself to a book with 50 walking tours of London. Yesterday I picked my first one.

I start at Barnes Bridge Station. Although strictly speaking a part of London, Barnes is essentially one at those many little river towns that got swallowed up by the city but has managed to retain some of its small town feel. It looks prosperous and is full of families with young children. Apparently it is also rather full of Dutch people as several times I pass families warning their bike-riding children to be 'voorzichtig' or to stop 'zeuren'. Barnes is also where the famous Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race finishes.

The route continues along Putney which, for its sheer number of boat houses, reminds me of the sea-side villages I spent my childhood holidays in. This is rowing central. At the end of the route lies Fulham Palace, the former summer house of the Bishops of London. Although I have been to Fulham many times before I have somehow managed to completely miss noticing this. London is so full of history mixed in with the present that you develop a blind spot for it.

Barnes to Battersea

According to my guide book this is where the route finishes after a walk of two hours straight. In a reckless over-estimation of my own fitness I decide that, since I made it this far, I might as well continue walking all the way home. All I need to do is follow the Thames for another few twists and turns. A pleasant surprise is that I am kept company by hundreds of boats on the river participating in the Great River Race. Less pleasant is that in the last stretch my knee joints decide it has been enough and go on strike. I hobble the last 15 minutes home like an old arthritic woman. Sitting at home all these weeks, writing my thesis, has clearly not done my shape much good. Three and a half hours after I got off the train I stumble through my door. Home.

One down, forty-nine to go.

Kill your darlings

Almost there. I have written all I had to say, entered all my references and did the formatting. Version 1 was sent off to my supervisor yesterday who promptly returned it to me two hours later with relevant suggestions and a general nod of approval. All should be well then with nine more days on the clock. Except that I am 1,000 words over my allowed word count of 8,000. I need to cut.

Easier said then done. I have spent so much time giving birth to these words; how can I kill them now? They are my children, my darlings. How can I choose between them? But like Sophie, I too have to make my choice. This is no time to be soft-hearted. Chop chop. Off with the adjectives. Bang bang. Another paraphrase mortally wounded. Like dominos they fall, hapless victims of a brutal verbacide. I am judge, jury and executioner.

Here the fallen lay
never will they be read
a thousand silenced words
some good, some plain, some bad

The unbearable lightness of being

Soon I will be changing my address. For most people that is a big deal. The hungry databases of departments, institutions, companies, governmental bodies, and charities all demand to be fed the information of your new whereabouts. And even after you have surrendered that information to everything and everyone, the lesser remnants of your mail are still likely to haunt the new residents for many years after your departure. Not for me, not this time.

I lead a shadow life in London. Almost nobody knows I am here. As far as the city of Amsterdam is concerned, Oost is where they still believe I lay my hat. The English government and the city of London are blissfully unaware I walk amongst them. The only ones who know where to find me are the bank and the university. Here I have no subscriptions, no bills, no taxes, no ties. I can disappear quietly into the night.

At the moment a significant part of my life is taking place on this almost etherical level. My new tenancy agreement is written in the pale-hued ink of good faith, at least until the estate agent becomes aware of the changes in the household. My job offer is a mere spoken promise, figuring no figures, dating no dates. All I can do is have faith as I walk into my new life across this bridge built from promises and cemented by trust.

Exodus

And so it begins. Like Jews out of Egypt, my flatmates and I are marching out of the house and into our respective promised lands.

In a wholly coincidental, yet magnificent display of unison all five of us have chosen September as the month to move out. It secretly gives me great pleasure to think of the distress this will have caused my landlords. They and I have not always been on the best of terms. In general I think it is fair to say the feelings amongst us flatmates are not unlike those of the Jews towards the Pharaoh. There is a definite taste of revenge in this miniature Exodus.

Unfortunately, unlike in the biblical story, it seems some of the seven plagues are not being visited upon our landlords but on us, poor tenants. First there was the river. Although it did not turn to blood, it definitely turned into sewage forcing its way into the flat. Then came darkness. One by one the lights have started to go bust. But the most recent plague is one we indeed brought onto ourselves: locusts. Swarms of hopeful prospects have descended on the house to view our rooms. Day after day they come and chirp noisily. Soon hopefully they will have eaten everything and the sounds will quiet down again.

The first of us has already crossed the sea and over the course of the next few weeks the rest of us will follow. Off to our lands of milk and honey.

Tiger stripes

The explorer wanders through the jungle
Unhurried for he feels safe
He knows the beast is far away

He marvels at the tangled vastness
He catalogues, collects
Naïve to her approach

Slowly, steadily she sneaks near
One soft foot before another
Till underneath a branch snaps

Frightened he takes flight
Fast as his feet will carry
Dashing through the green

He turns, feels her hungry breath upon him
Through the trees he sees the deathly lines
Deadlines

My thesis is due in 14 days.

Innuendo

Imperial College has seen its share of celebrities pass through the doors, from scientific powerhouses to royalty. Not so long ago, for instance, IC celebrated the centenary and new-found independence from the University of London by inviting HMQ over. A few weeks ago I walked into the building only to run into a photo shoot for another sort of Royal. Queen guitarist Brian May was having his picture taken.

I stuck around for a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on. The reason for the shoot was unclear. There was another guy in the picture as well and they seemed to be passing what looked like a thesis between them. I jumped to conclusions. Either the other guy had written some thesis on Queen or worse: May was being awarded some nonsensical honorary doctorate. The impudence! The arrogant scientist in me fumed with indignant outrage. Blood, sweat and tears had I poured into my thesis and here they were bestowing this precious title on some... some rock star?! How dare they! Then last week my eye fell on a news headline:

"Brian May completes doctoral thesis in astrophysics: Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud."

Right... I'll very humbly be shutting up now.

Carnaval des animaux

Saturday afternoon I am strolling through Hyde Park when from a distance a low sound starts to pound on my eardrums. Intrigued I follow it to its origin. As I come closer the sound becomes richer and swells in intensity. At the source I find hundreds of steel drum players. About a dozen steel bands are battling it out in the Park as a prelude to London's biggest annual street festival: The Notting Hill Carnival.

Notting Hill Carnival is held on the August Bank Holiday weekend with the climax on Monday. It's something you should at the very least see once when you live in London. The feeling I got there was oddly enough very much that of a Queen's day celebration though with a touch of Gay Parade. It's essentially a Caribbean Carnival so the costumes are colourful and exotic. Somewhat less so are its participants. In the true spirit of the multicultural society a very substantial part of the dancers is white to the point of being transparent. It's a weird sight: the sparrow dressed up like a peacock.



The more exotic birds are for the most part no long-legged flamingos either. This may be Notting Hill but the ladies sure do not look like Julia Roberts. Down here, 'big is beautiful' appears to be the credo as the excess flesh is shaking and gyrating to the music.



The weather was sunny and dry and yet it somehow felt too quiet on the streets. You could still walk around normally and the festival seemed confined to a fairly small area. The organisation proudly says the festival is the second biggest street party in the world, first being the Rio carnival, but I wonder if they have ever been to Amsterdam on Queen's Day.

More pics

Too-early bird - The reprise

I may not believe in Heaven or Hell but I have just found Paradise...and I'm moving there!

Last week I looked at a really nice apartment close to where I live now. It was love at first sight. The apartment is on the waterfront, as close to living in Chelsea as one can get without having to pay Chelsea prices. It has a cosy bedroom, a gigantic living room, a really nice kitchen and a clean bathroom. There is a communal garden and a balcony with view over the river. In short, I loved it. Unfortunately the current tenant also had a friend who was interested and naturally friendship obliges. I was very disappointed to hear the friend had decided to take it and consequently I could not.

This morning I got a phone call. The friend has had to decline after all and the room is mine if I want it! I am deliriously happy. It really is excellent value for money. Of course it can never compete with my flat back home which is my true home and has all my beloved belongings but it is as good an alternative as I could dare hope for. I can't wait to move.

Too-early bird

The early bird catches the worm, or so at least the saying goes. Lately though I have been finding this misses a crucial point. It is not about being early. It is being timely that counts.

I have given notice to my landlords a couple of weeks ago already since my contract with them requires I give them about two months notice. I did not think that was terribly unreasonable. I have a similar arrangement with the tenant renting my apartment back in Amsterdam. Leaving sufficient notice allows the other party to find a new tenant. But here in London there is something strange going on.

Ever since I gave my notice I have been scanning the flatshare websites for a new place to call home. There are, however, surprisingly few ads that are worth responding to. That is not because the flats on offer themselves are not interesting. It is because they are all available NOW. Everything is done on such short notice. You essentially don't start looking for a place until after your moving boxes are already packed. Another example of that famous high-paced life in the city I suppose.

I have a few more weeks left on my contract so there is no point in taking a new place before that. Paying double rent is not something my budget allows for. Nonetheless, I have looked at a couple of flats in the past two weeks: exceptions to the rule. They included some lovely places that I would have been very happy to live in. Unfortunately there were more birds pecking for the same worms and I bit nothing but the dust. Apparently I will need to wait patiently for the rest of the worms to come out.

Bright lights, big city

The engines roar and once the plane is in the air the view from the window bathes in green. Even here, over the coast and close to the city, Sweden reveals itself as a green and spacious country. Underneath the colours glow intensely as the sun slowly sets over Scandinavia.

I have spent the weekend in Sweden to join in the wedding celebrations of one of my eldest friends. The man of her dreams is a Swede and several years ago she followed him there. As the scene for their happy day they had chosen an island about an hour away from their home town Göteborg. This island epitomizes Sweden: green, quiet, picturesque. It is great to get away from the city to a place like this every once in a while. The air you breath is salty and fresh and nobody is in a hurry. Here stress falls away like water off a duck's back.


But imagine you live there every day... I could not do it. I am too much of a city girl at heart. In the city, the air might be thick and greasy and everybody is always rushing to get somewhere where they are not, but there is something magnetic about life in the city. Cities are about possibilities, about choices. I have not been to a theatre in months, true, nor have I been to a concert since I moved to London. But I have the possibility to go whenever I feel like it, as well as the choice not to if I don't. All options are open. The decision is entirely my own.

As the plane approaches London the city is hidden from view by a thick cotton-candy layer of clouds. You can tell the days have started to shorten again as it is only nine o'clock but already dark. Then suddenly the plane dips below the clouds, revealing a breathtaking sight. The city stretches as far as the eye can see and is ablaze with thousands of lights. My pulse picks up speed, resynchronizing itself to the familiar rhythm of the city. Yes, I am a city girl.

Packed and ready

Alright, let's see... Clean socks and underwear, my festive dress and matching shoes. Ouch, my feet already hurt just looking at those. Well, that's the price you pay for beauty.

Something warm to wear, just in case. You never know with these scandinavian summers. What else? Make-up, toilettries and toothbrush. Check, check and double check.

The present for the happy couple? Yes, that's save in my pack. Did I get the card too? I'm sure I did. Something to read for on the plane ofcourse. Ooh, I should not forget my iPod. My own in-flight entertainment. And where is my camera? Damn it, I know it is around here somewhere... okay, found it. Phone and half a dozen chargers, bank cards. Yes, all there. I think that's it. I believe I am ready. Sweden here I come!


O wait... my passport.

Generation O

The UK holds a sad record: according to statistics it is the country with the highest rate of obesity in Europe. It's not hard to believe. I see it with my own eyes every day; people so big they take up two seats on the bus, men and women who haven't seen their toes wiggle in years.

Seeing what people eat around here explains a lot. Fish & chips are never far away. At college I myself have picked up a nasty lunch habit. Our cantine is fairly small and does not serve much that takes my fancy (yes, how surprising) so when I can't be bothered to head over to the larger and slightly better main cantine I sometimes lunch British style: with a pack of crisps. It's a terrible habit and I can't believe I'm doing it but when in Rome... . It is also known as the "Heathrow diet": new arrivals are said to start putting on the pounds as soon as they set foot on British soil. I don't have any scales to test this hypothesis for myself but the overly snug fit of my trousers suggests there is an element of truth in it.

The real tragedy is that a lot of the obese people here are only teenagers, sometimes not even. Of the generation that is growing up now already 1 in about 5 children is considered obese. Unless something dramatically changes soon that number is not likely to decrease. Jamie Oliver for one has been waging his legendary war on fa(s)t food on the battle grounds of the school cantines. It is of course a start but in the era where Wii is considered sports and a crisp sandwich a wholesome lunch I fear the worst. This island seems doomed to slowly sink into the sea, unable to carry its weight.

The Big Issue

I first met Yevgeni outside the supermarket. I guessed him to be in his fifties though his unkempt grey beard and tired eyes made his face hard to read. He could have been much younger for all I knew, but life had weighted down his years. He wore a faded green army jacket and a warm, friendly smile. Yevgeni sold the homeless newspaper.

Every other week I would buy his latest issue and sometimes we would share a brief chat. Yevgeni took pride in his job. He was not very comfortable accepting charity and rather had that you bought his paper than gave him money. In our conversations Yevgeni told me in his rudimentary Dutch that he was originally from Belarus. I also learned he was plagued by back pains but that he did not belief in doctors. Some days I looked forward to seeing him, other days -when I was too tired or too cranky for small talk- I secretly hoped he wouldn't be there. Then one day he was gone. I never found out why he had come to the Netherlands or why he lived on the streets. I do know that in his own country Yevgeni would very possibly have had tuberculosis.

Once thought a disease of the past, TB is now rampant again throughout large parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states. Especially homeless people, addicts and prisoners are at high risk of infection by this horrible disease. Thousands of people needlessly die of TB each year. Needlessly because the drugs to fight TB have been around for decades. The big problem is that patients have to take a handful of pills, several times a week and for months on end. Any interruption of this strenuous regime can lead to a recurrence of the disease and most alarmingly: to the appearance of drug-resistance. Ironically, those patients most likely to contract TB are also those most likely to default from their treatment; that is, they are for a variety of reasons unable to keep up with their medication.

My thesis centres on this problem with so-called treatment adherence. We are looking at why patients stop taking their medication and what can be done to help them stay on their treatment. One way of doing this is to offer them incentives. There have been examples in the US where patients receive a small sum of money or some grocery coupons to entice them to attend their clinic appointments. In the countries my thesis focuses on food support is an inherent part of most anti-TB programmes. At the moment most of these programmes are run by organisations like the Red Cross. For the long-term, however, it is important that countries absorb this sort of care into their own healthcare systems. The work we are doing will hopefully help towards understanding how TB care can best be organised to help those people most vulnerable. People like Yevgeni.

Fruit of knowledge

This I know - that I know nothing. -- Socrates

If all goes well, in just a few weeks time I will have handed in my thesis and, assuming it meets the standards, I will then have successfully added another academic degree to my substantial collection. I don't have the exact numbers but I am pretty sure that in terms of formal education that puts me somewhere in the highest percentages globally. And yet, all it has done is make me realise how little I really know.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. -- William Shakespeare

Especially writing my dissertation and preparing for the defense of it, made me very aware of just how small the box we think in is. The thought of having to answer questions even just slightly off-topic scared the living daylights out of me. I remember many years ago a friend of mine, a social scientist herself, wanted to know what as an exact scientist were my thoughts on Big Bang Theory. I replied her with stunned silence. More frequently I have had to answer questions concerning genetic engineering, stem cell research and such. I feel slightly more equipped to handle those types of questions though my approach is usually that of the objective scientist and not that of the opiniated ethicist.

The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves. -- Oscar Wilde

I often find it hard to publicly defend an opinion on something that lies outside my comfort zone. That is not to say I have no opinions. In fact, opiniated and argumentative are words that have both been used on me frequently. My problem is that I don't remember sources very well. I am the uncrowned queen of the statement "I recall reading somewhere...". I did read it somewhere and usually in a credible source but I tend to forget where exactly the 'somewhere' was, thus undermining my own credibility. It makes me too easily blown out of the water by people less hesitant to bluff their way out of an argument. Fiction can sound like fact if said with enough conviction. Internet is a great help. At least it will retrospectively tell me what the real facts of the matter were. But of course by that time it is too late to save face in the discussion.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt. -- Abraham Lincoln

Imagine

The doorbell rings. I walk downstairs to open the door, expecting some delivery. Instead, I find two ladies caressing a book.
"Goodmorning, we are here to talk to our neighbours".
These ladies have not come to borrow a cup of sugar. They are not that kind of neighbours. My house is only a few doors down the road from the City Mission. This is indeed not the first time I have had them come knocking on my door. They have come to the wrong house though. I am not one to be converted.

My family has a long standing tradition of atheism, going at least three generations back. I would not even know for sure which exact flavour of Christianity predates atheism in my family. I myself was raised on a healthy diet of cynicism and realism. My atheism is as much the result of that upbringing as it is of my own trust in science and the faculties of reason. As Richard Dawkins explains it: I have no need for the 'God hypothesis'.

Of course even as an atheist I am not entirely immune to rituals and superstition. I can occassionally be found to cross my fingers or to knock on wood in an attempt to thwart bad luck. But do I really believe these little acts of superstition make any difference on the way life rolls the dice? Absolutely not. They are ritualised habits, ceremonial rather than meaningful, to feign control over an uncontrollable situation. When my father had just been diagnosed with cancer, for instance, I temporarily developed a habit of stepping over the cracks between the paving stones. I told myself that if I did that the tumour would be operable. No part of me ever seriously thought that I could magically revert cell division by the placement of my foot. I just needed something to stop me feeling so powerless.

Despite these small digressions into superstition, I am perfectly comfortable in my atheism. I find no particular solace in the idea of an afterlife. It is difficult enough to just live for today and I'd rather focus on that. The idea of an omniscient overseer is chilling more than anything. I value my privacy too much. My moral compass does not need to be calibrated to any particular religion to show me how to lead my life. I set my own course.

Of course I did not think there was any point in explaining all this to these devout ladies. I merely told them that I was very busy and closed the door.

Travelling without moving

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia... in my mind I have travelled thousands of miles already, visiting new and exciting places. In reality I am still sitting in my room looking out over the familiar skies of London. For weeks, months now, my travel plans have bounced around like a restless pingpong ball. I have been moved like a pawn over an invisible chessboard drawn across the map of EurAsia.

My original project was to be in Central Asia. Then, just weeks before it was about to start we had to reconsider. The twinned stars of science and funding had not yet lined up and until they did, the project was at a standstill. Kyrgyzstan transformed into Russia. The contacts had been made, the plan was drawn up and the research done. Suddenly, for reasons still shrouded in mystery, the Russians dropped off the radar and went incommunicado. A mild panic started to grip me by the throat. Only seven more weeks until the thesis is due and the rug gets pulled out from under my project! More back-up plans were dreamed up, like rabbits pulled out of a hat. Turkey, Moldova, Bulgaria. What country east of Hungary wasn't suggested?

Then cosmic intervention. The stars have finally started to align. Kyrgyzstan has come back into focus. Not for the orginal plan but for an improvised patchwork formed of the original and the new project. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I am excited but by now won't actually believe anything anymore until I land at Bishkek airport and the custom officers let me in.

Thesis blues

i know exactly where to go
but how it is
i am to get there,
that, alas, i do not know

i see the sentences before me clear as day

but when i reach to grab

and pin them down

they turn shy and slip away

i try to catch them with my butterfly net

but every time i take a swing

the thoughts dissolve before my eyes

and hollow air is all i get

i have all the puzzle's pieces

but can not make them fit

there is no picture on this box

to help compose my thesis

Life in limbo

The alarm clock by my bed shrilly informs me it is 9 o'clock. Still half asleep I punch its buttons and set it forward by 20 minutes. I roll over on my side again. This process repeats itself two more times before I finally feel ready enough to get up and face the world. It is not a weekend. It's just a Tuesday morning and yet I don't get up before 10 o'clock. This is starting to become routine. What is wrong with me?

Ever since I stopped having lectures I have slipped into this disturbing nocturnal rhythm. I sit at the computer or read my book until deep into the night. My flatmates have been asleep for hours. Only my light is still shining out into the hall through the cracks above and beneath the door. I am leading the life of the unattached and unemployed. I stay up late and get up only when the working masses are already on their morning coffee break. I feel guilty, feel unproductive.

My thesis is not moving along very fast. I mostly sit at the computer and gloss over the countless articles but without mentally processing much of what I read. I allow myself to be distracted by anything. I check my email every 5 minutes. A pointless effort since if I really do have new messages they will announce themselves both visibly and audibly. Every unknown word I come across in my papers can send me on an hours long quest over the internet. I can not find the inspiration. All I have are chapter headings. Is there such a thing as scientists block?

Kew Gardens

It is Saturday and although I am not exactly living a normal 5-day working week these days I feel like doing something special with the day. I could scavenge the sales on High Street Kensington before they finish but I could also go for a more memorable option. The weather is dry for now and who knows how long that will last. Consumerism can wait.

My grandfather lived in London once, a lifetime ago. For the last year, every time I have seen him he has asked me if I have been to Kew Gardens yet. Every time I have had to disappoint him. He is not well and I do want to be able to tell him I have been and so I find myself on a train to Richmond. From here I take the route suggested by my thus far unused guide book. It quickly leads me away from the busy high street and past the local common, where people are having a picknick and playing cricket. I don't know the first thing about cricket but even I can see this lot isn't any good. While passing them, I keep the guide book half-hidden under the jacket I hold casually slung over my arm. Why is it that we are so embarrassed to be identified as tourists? I memorise the next few lines of the route, then quickly stow the book away in my bag.

My route leads past beautiful Tudor houses, down to the river. From here I don't need directions anymore; I simply follow the old tow path. The Dutch girl in me feels right at home here amidst the houseboats on the river and the cyclists on the path. It is scenic and quiet by the Thames, which here seems a meek shadow of the swift flowing river that runs by my house, with only the oars of rowers splashing on the water. The path leads all the way up to Kew Gardens. The entrance fee is steep, even with my student discount, but the grounds are vast. I start with the greenhouses and look at towering palms, exotic flowers and suggestively phallic cacti. I smell the fragrant lavender and the roses. In the gardens I find ancient trees bent under the weight of their own history. Many will have already been here when my grandfather visited.

The grounds of Kew Gardens are speckled with countless benches, dedicated in loving memory to husbands & wives, fathers & mothers, sons & daughters now gone. Wooden tombstones without graves. Most benches are empty -it is not busy here today- except for the ones by the waterfront. I sit down on one dedicated to a man who died the same year my father did. The sun is shining now and is reflecting off the water. I close my eyes and sit in the sun for a while. Every other minute the serene silence is shattered by airplanes moaning overhead. Heathrow airport is not far. Eventually I get up and walk back through the bamboo gardens. I have a strong feeling I will be back here. On my way out I stop by the giftshop to buy a postcard for my grandfather.

Richmond & Kew Gardens - London

Panta rhei

Everything flows and nothing is left unchanged. (Heraclitus)

Change. A choice to do away with the old and let in the new. To cast away that what we know and to embrace that which we do not.

Change. Change takes courage. It opposes our instinctive need for safety. Stability and routine bring safety, change brings chaos and uncertainty. Rather we hold on to the status quo, with all its imperfections, than be swept away by the currents of change.

Change. A decision to move on. Literally. Figuratively. Change can bring great things. It can lead us to new and exciting places. It can also rip us away from that which we cherish or find comfort in.

Change. We can try to fight it; hold on to false beacons of stability in a turbulent sea of unrest, but no matter how hard we resist, everywhere around us change rushes by. Continuously and irresistibly, until we surrender to it.

Today I have given my landlord notice that I will be moving out. It is time for Change. Panta rhei.

The midnight train

Bowler hats, Beefeaters, Burberry. Such cliché images have nothing to do with real London life. For a true glimpse of what makes people in this city tick, you should get on an innercity tube train on a Saturday night. It makes for an entertaining, yet potentially stomic turning, ride. It's not all humanity's finest specimens that gather here. Despite the fact that since last year pubs can apply for a late license, many have passed up on this opportunity and so between the hours of eleven and twelve the inebriated populace of London spills onto the streets and into the tube, crawling and falling its way back home.

Last night.
After a Brick Lane curry dinner, I am on the tube home from Liverpool street. Standing next to me is a young guy, early twenties or so I suppose. He oozes a sickly sour smell and is struggling to hold himself upright. With every turn in the track he sways dangerously in my direction. When a seat opens up I jump at the opportunity to put some distance between myself and him before he can vomit on my feet. The guy now sitting next to me is trying to soak up the alcohol in his blood with a helping of sweet&sour pork. His motor skills have already fallen victim to his drinking. The food that was intended for his mouth lands on his T-shirt instead. Unfazed he simply redirects his fork to his shirt and continues eating from there.

Two men, each with their heads leaning against the glass in perfect symmetry, riding the train all the way to the land of Dreams. Giggling girls with bosoms overflowing from their glitzy tops. A woman in a dress so frigid that it would have made her look Amish if she hadn't at the same been holding a bottle of Corona. An elderly gentleman in a three-piece suit with a pocket watch on a gold chain and eyebrows turned towards the heavens like Dali's mustache.

As long as you're sober enough to take a good look around you, the midnight train shows a wonderful and hilarious cross section of London life. Mind the smell.

When the floods come in

"Torrential downpour". It sounds poetic enough when they forecast it but it doesn't really mean anything to me. So it rains...big deal. This is the UK after all. Well, it does become a big deal when the water starts to come into your house! And not from above but upwards from below.

I'm sitting at home, recovering from yesterday, when a loud bubbly noise comes from the loo downstairs. Water is being pushed up through the toilet! I try to fight the water back by closing the lid but to no avail. Within minutes the water goes from bubbling to gushing and soon water is starting to come into the hall. A look outside into the pouring rain shows that the sewer can't get rid of all the water quickly enough and has started to overflow. The force of the water has pushed the sewer lid clean off giving way to a violent fountain of water.

How do you fight back the water without sandbags or even a bucket? My DIY solution involved a salad bowl and a dinner plate. And in my PJ's since those are the only shorts I have here and I wasn't about to go mucking through the water in my nice trousers! The nice thing about when disaster strikes it that you finally get to meet the neighbours. Nothing better for some neighbourly bonding than disaster tourism. Everybody is a photo journalist these days. The scene outside my house was indeed impressive enough to attract people from everywhere. Cars were stuck in the road, about to get swept away by the current, while the fire brigade had to rescue the poor/stupid drivers from their vehicles.

It's stopped raining now and the sun has even come out, trying to pretend it never happened. I have the smelly proof in my house that it did. As in many British houses our toilet is -very hygienically- outfitted with carpet on the floor and both the toilet and the hall are drenched in liters of sewage water! I've called the landlords hours ago but they have not returned my call at all and are taking off on their holiday this weekend. Great timing.

I've turned up the heating everywhere hoping this will help to dry up the place a bit but I think the best thing to do is rip out all of the carpet. I just beg the skies will stay blue.

More pictures

Put through the wringer

Squeezed like a lemon. That's how I feel after yesterday's experience: the assessment centre. All year long I have been hearing the buzz about these things but I haven't actually talked to anyone who has been through one so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

The day was in Cambridge and since registration started at 9AM and it takes me 2 hours to get there, I decided to go the night before and stay with friends. I must have been more nervous than I realised because I didn't sleep very well. In the morning I joined a group of 7 others who all turned out to be very highly qualified people. With 4 PhD's and 2 MBA's between us I suppose it is fair to say it was stiff competition.

The whole assessment consisted of 4 parts, not counting the usual sales pitch of "our company is the greatest". First up was a 30 minute interview with one of their analysts. It was actually a very agreeable chat with a girl about my age who did a PhD in protein NMR! Next up was a more hardcore interview with two of the senior consultants. This is also were I had to give my 10 minute pitch on me. Things got a bit hairy when they asked me about my "socio-ethical" perspective on the job but I think I managed to bluff my way through that one! At least I didn't use the words "Satan" or "money grabbing".

My biggest disaster was the case study. To test our analytical and numeracy skills we were given an hour to complete two tasks. It was a weird case on a travel agency for which we had to identify the cause of their declining profits and suggest solutions based on a bunch of tables. I didn't realise when we were supposed to start on the second one so when it was announced we had "10 minutes" left, I still had to start on it! I wrote some utter nonsense. I'm sure I look like a real fool on that task.

The pièce de resistance was an "observed group task": four of us had an hour to come up with an innovative business idea, a logo and a slogan for a railway company and then to present this. During the whole task three people sat there in the room with us, not saying anything but just taking notes. I've never felt more like a lab rat in my life!

Now I'll just have to wait and see. If chosen there is in fact one more step: a one-on-one conversation with the company boss. This is as far as I am taking it though. Even if they do pick me now, I won't continue any further. I got what I came for; the experience, but I can't justify wasting anymore of their time.

Russian Roulette

I know you are all waiting to hear more about my Russia trip. The problem is that so am I. It turns out the whole project is experiencing some serious hiccups and I still haven't had a definitive answer on when I can go. I first need to get a letter of invitation that I will need to apply for a visa. It's all extremely frustrating because even though I know I will be on this project for some time and eventually it will happen, I still have the small matter of a thesis deadline to deal with. The deadline is completely non-negotiable so as I see the weeks pass by without any news from Russia, I am getting more and more squirmish.

Yesterday the British government announced it is expelling four Russian diplomats from the country to put pressure on the Russians to cooperate in the Litvinenko murder case. The Russians have already announced they don't intend to take this lying down and warn this will have "serious consequences". Taken to the extreme, this could even affect the issuing of visas. I really hope this will not interfer with my trip. At least I will be travelling on a Dutch, rather than a British, passport but I still need to get my visa through the Russian embassy here in London.

As a European citizen you tend to take your passport for granted. Dealing with visas is new to me. The only other country I have ever needed to apply for a visa beforehand for was Australia and that you could just do over the internet. I know plenty of people in my circle of friends who aren't so lucky and have found themselves trapped in the slow churning wheels of bureaucracy simply because they are not EU citizens. That burgundy passport really does help to make life easier. I just hope that it will help me out this time as well. Fingers crossed.