When I'm feeling sad

This streak of sad news has to end somehow. It is depressing me and I even risk depressing all of you too and that's not why you read this blog, I'd imagine. I need to start writing about happy things again. I have been racking my brain about what happy news there is for me to write about.

I could write about Teflon Tony finally moving out of nr 10 but I prefer to withhold my verdict on whether or not that is good news until we know exactly what he has been replaced with. I could write about Tim Henman getting his butt kicked at Wimbledon, which always puts a smile on my face, but that might upset my British readers. I have searched the news for something upbeat but unless you are the kind of person who rejoices over the reunion of the Spice Girls, it is slim pickings out there today.

So unless you can all point me in the right direction and flood me with positive news, I am stuck for now singing to myself about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens so I won't feel so bad.

When it rains it pours

Occassionally life insists on kicking you while you're down. Sadly enough we have lost a second member of our family this week: our sweet old cat Karel. Some people might frown upon hearing me call him family but those people have clearly never had a pet. Especially not one like Karel.

We don't know exactly how old he was. He only showed up on our doorstep 9 years ago, but we do know he was pretty darn old. The best guess is that he was 21 which in human terms puts him more or less at par with my grandfather. None of our other cats were ever fortunate enough to live to such an advanced age.

They say you don't own a cat; they own you. That was definitely true for Karel. One summer he started coming around and eventually, after some phone calls to his then "caretakers", he ended up staying. He had chosen to adopt us as his new family. Karel was the sweetest natured cat you can imagine. Everybody in the neighbourhood knew and adored him. He was clever too. When he was younger he had figured out how to open doors by jumping for the handle and leveraging his body weight. His jumping days were long gone. These last few months he even needed a little stool to help him get up on the sofa.

Every time I left Holland this year I would take a long good look at him knowing it could be the last. This time I was certain of it though. He had stopped eating a few days before already and he was getting visibly older by the day. Walking out the door yesterday was heartbreaking. He passed away quietly late last night. He was old, tired and he has lived a long and happy life but the timing is awful. We are all going to miss him dearly.

Some days life just really sucks.

The end of an era

Last Tuesday my grandmother passed away. She had been in hospital for the last three weeks already after major surgery but it all still happened rather quickly.

My mum was supposed to come to London on Tuesday. In the days before, however, it was starting to become apparent that my grandmother was not making the kind of recovery that was expected. She wasn't eating anymore and was getting weaker by the day. On Sunday evening my mum decided that it would not be wise to go and leave her. When we spoke on Monday evening it was clear there was little hope left and on Tuesday morning she died. My mum, uncle and grandfather were all there by her side. The hardest thing about living abroad is not being able to be there for your family or friends when they need you. Thankfully, London is not too far and I managed to get a flight home that same day. The cremation service was this Saturday. It was a beautiful, dignified farewell to the special, proud and, at times, also very complicated woman that my grandmother was.

My grandmother was the last of my 'real' grandparents. My father's parents passed away a long time ago. I have only a few memories of my grandmother from that side of the family and my grandfather I remember mostly as an old man sitting in his armchair, smoking his pipe. My mother's father died before my brother was even born so unfortunately I have no memories of him at all; just stories. I do still have a grandfather. My grandmother remarried after her divorce and although we don't share any genes, I consider her second husband my grandfather for all intents and purposes. But of course he can't fill in all of the blanks in our family history. That link to my past is gone now. Of course, one never asks these questions while we still can anyway. It's only when the line breaks that you realise how much you don't know.

My grandmother was 87; a good age. An age where you have to accept that's how life goes and that maybe she's had her fair innings. That doesn't make it any less sad for those left behind though. My 96 (!) year old grandfather will have to find a new way to fill his days now that he can't squabble with her all day long anymore. My mum and uncle have lost their last remaining parent and are left having to sort through a lifetime of memorabilia.

Я не говорю на русском языке

Alright, I have promised you that I would explain to you all soon why I was talking about Russia before.

Some time ago I wrote here about a project my thesis supervisor assigned me to in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Unfortunately we are still waiting for the funding approval of this project to come through. Since I have a thesis deadline in September that is non-negotiable, we can't sit around and wait for that. Instead, he has now offered me a different project for which everything is already arranged. This project, as you will have guessed by now, will take place in Russia.

The focus of the project is slightly different but it still involves analysis of the healthcare offered to tuberculosis patients. The Red Cross is running a TB programme in several Russian regions and my project centres on the evaluation of the effectiveness of this programme in one of these. I am being thrown in at the deep end a bit by my supervisor because the information I just gave you is pretty much about all I know myself. I only know that I am expected to be travelling to Russia and spent about two weeks doing interviews with people there. That is of course, if I can sort out my visa application on time.

The Central Asia project is not necessarily out the window either. If the funding approval comes through soon, I just might get to work on that after my thesis project. It is all very exciting what is happening now but to be honest, I am somewhat worried I may be getting in over my head. For somebody who only last year was still trying to purify proteins from E.coli my career is making a very drastic sudden move. It is what I really want to do and why I came to London in the first place. It's just scary when dreams start becoming reality.

You've been Googled

After a period in which all my attention was taken up by exams and business plans, I have finally returned to job hunting. It's very half-heartedly though. I will be working with my thesis supervisor for at least the next couple of months and of course I hope this position will serve as a spring board to my dream career. Still, it would not be wise for me to put all my eggs in one basket. So when a job advert was practically thrown in my lap for which the profile fits me like a glove, I told myself I had to put in an application.

Writing CV's and cover letters is not exactly a hobby of mine. I always wonder what to include and how to phrase it. Of course lying on your CV is a big no-no but where is the line between embellishing and flat-out lying? For safety's sake I tend to be very much on the cautious side thus potentially underselling myself. The alternative is too dangerous to consider seriously. In this information era it is so easy to check facts that you're bound to be found out if you are anything less than truthful. Anybody can do a quick Google search. Especially people like me who keep a blog and are registered on Facebook and Hyves need to be careful. If you put anything potentially embarrassing out there you have to be prepared for the possiblity of a future employer seeing those pictures of you dancing on the table.

Although I am not aware of any particularly incriminating information about myself I have ran a Google search to see what shows up and if, for instance, this blog can be found that way. It looks like my internet presence is pretty much in line with what my CV says about me. It pulls up a rather dull list of scientific references and the minutes of student council meetings. A search for pictures is even duller and shows a crystal structure of the protein I worked with! Nothing to worry about then. Nonetheless, I will continue to be quite careful with the information I make public. I have just heard that my CV passed the first round of scrutiny and that I am invited for a phone interview. I guess I have been Google-approved.

Gone to the dogs

Last night I had a typical British evening out. A friend invited me to come along to the greyhound racing track in Wimbledon.

I didn't quite know what to expect so in my naivety I asked what I should wear. I had images in mind of women in flowery dresses and hats, sipping champagne. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dog racing is also known as the "poor man's horse racing" and is far removed from the high society image of horse racing. It was more a spectacle of big bellies, beer and betting. It was very entertaining to see the whole experience. The dogs waiting in their traps, eager to go chase that fake bunny, the trainers in their white coats, the betting frenzy and the tacky bombastic music as the race is about to start.

I did bet a few pounds myself that all woefully went to waste. My friend won £0.60 and one other person in our group managed to actually go home with a few more pounds than she came with. Other than that though we all lost. My bets were all pretty much wild guesses anyhow. We did get a stat book before the races but I had no idea how to interpret all those facts and figures. My chosen ones were primarily based on the dog's name. Unfortunately Fear Haribo, Rhincrew Molly and Unique Pharaoh did not bring me any luck. O well, I am more of a cat person anyway.

Sour grapes

I was hoping today's contribution would be a triumphant one. Instead what you will get is the sour ramblings of a sore loser. You may have guessed it by now: we did not win our business plan competition. We came in second. My rational side tries to tell me that is actually really good but to be honest, I am gutted and so is the rest of the team.

We gave a stellar performance today and I really can not see how we could have done any better a job. In fact, this is what our lecturer confirmed to us afterwards as well. This will sound very, very bitchy, I am well aware of that, but our lecturer confided in us after the ceremony that had it been fully his decision we would have taken home those brand new laptops that were the first prize. Even worse, he told us we could have taken home the first prize in the MBA competition! Not exactly much comfort, is it? Unfortunately it wasn't all his call and the other juror was somebody from the computer industry (hence the laptops) who had no full appreciation for the intricacies of the biotech business we were pitching.

I think I am mostly upset because I saw the presentation of the winning team and they were by no means my favourite. It is hard enough losing to a team that in your heart you have to admit were better, but the team that I felt were our genuine competitors only came in third. I know I am being ungraceful in defeat here but as I have said before: we were in this to win. Besides, I really could have used that laptop for my trip to Russia (I'll explain soon). Instead, I now have a brand new 20''W flatscreen monitor sitting in my room for which I have no use whatsoever. Does anybody want to make me an offer for it?

Petit Paris

There are days when I wonder if I managed to get on the wrong plane and fly to Paris instead of London. I live in a part of London close to the borough of South Kensington, one of the most affluent parts of the city (mind you, I said 'close to', not IN!). This area is so full of French people it is like little Paris out there. Aside from the French consulate, the area houses a French high school , a French cultural institute and several French bakeries and bookstores. The population of French people in London is in fact so large that Nicolas Sarkozy actually came over to campaign here a few months ago.

Out of the 4 people that I currently live with, 3 are French. We try to keep English the predominant language around the house but I do still get my fair dose of French. I should be able to handle that. I have had French lessons for six years in school and it was in fact one of my best subjects. I vaguely remember discussing the meaning of 'Le rouge et le noir' at my final oral exam. On my CV I actually claim to be business conversational in the language. At some point in my life I would have had no reservations about making such a claim but those days are long gone. I haven't practised it since I left school all those years ago and it has gone pretty rusty. I realised it again this morning at the bakery, buying my croissant, when two ladies were carrying on a conversation in French. I could just make out the words 'plage', 'soleil' and 'Marseille' so I assume they were discussing their holiday plans. My teacher would be very disappointed in me.

As I have mentioned many times before I would really love to end up working for international organisations such as WHO or the Red Cross. Their requirements include that you are fluent in one of their official languages and at least conversational in an other. The options are English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic and... French. Despite my efforts this year to learn some Spanish my best bet at this stage probably still is to go for French. Also, the headquarters of both these organisations are in Geneva where the primary language is, again, French. I suppose I should start taking more advantage of being exposed to the language so much. Who knew you could go to London to brush up on your French?

On your marks...

Everybody loves a winner. And everybody loves to be a winner. I'm not proud of it but I am one of those übercompetitive people. I will choose my battles though. I don't care too much about losing at boardgames and I am certainly not sporty enough to ever win a medal in any kind of athletics. But when it come to battles of the mind, my darker side takes over.

I have always had this drive to be the best. Getting a good grade in school, even an excellent one, wasn't enough as long as somebody else had a better one. Of course that philosophy becomes harder and harder to maintain as you move up the academic ladder. The playing field gets tougher the further you go. By the time I got to university I had to acknowledge that there will always be somebody out there smarter than you. A valuable life lesson.

Our business plan competition draws to a close this coming week and it has seriously brought out my competitive streak again. I find myself wondering what the other teams are up to, trying to spot the favourites and the dark horses. Fortunately my sentiment is shared by the rest of the team and we are all working very hard to iron out the last flaws in our plan. It has even put us on a plane to the Netherlands this week to meet with the brains behind the patent. Now that is going the extra mile, 202 of 'em in fact! We did really well in the first round and I do believe we stand a fair chance of coming out on top but we can't get too cocky just yet. Arrogance breeds ignorance and that we can not afford.

There are rumours flying about surrounding the prizes to be won. I'm no holier than the next person and of course I would welcome a material reward but the main reason we are all keen on winnning is the prestige that comes with it. A resume that can boast winning a business plan competition carries some real weight around here and in the cut-throat world that is the London job market we can all use a competitive edge.

Echt HEMA

This week I'm off again for another short trip back home, this time on school related 'business' (more on that later). On the way back I won't be carrying a lot of souvenirs. I used to bring back stroopwafels every time but I've recently discovered that the snack shop at my local tube station also sells them! The other thing I tend to pick up is old Dutch cheese. That is something I haven't been able to find here anywhere. Occassionally I bring over some other small things. Like most people I am fairly brand loyal and I can't get my favourite toothpaste and shampoo over here. Other than that though there aren't many things that are so exclusively Dutch I couldn't buy them in London.

There is one thing, however, I really do miss: HEMA! My non-Dutch friends living in Holland have been singing the shop's praises for years and I never fully understood why they would think it so special. Now I do. You don't know what you've got till it's gone! HEMA is the ultimate "go-to'' shop. It doesn't matter what you are looking for; electrical extension cords, hold-up stockings (ask a girl, guys), curtain hooks... I don't know how they do it but they always seem to have just the thing you were looking for. If there is a shop anything like it around here, I for sure haven't been able to find it yet.

It turns out I'm not alone in my craving for HEMA. Research among Dutch expats has shown it's our biggest common denominator. Good news might be on the way for us. Last week HEMA was taken over by a UK based private equity firm that is planning to expand its international operations. "HEMA; Coming soon to a highstreet near you"? I can't wait!