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.

Me, Myself and I

I've given a fair bunch of presentations in my life and I can honestly say that over the years I have learned to enjoy it. In school I hated getting up in front of the whole class for a "spreekbeurt", but once in uni I started to get used to it and realised I was in fact even quite good at it. In academics it just becomes part of the job; speaking in public about your work. The things about these workdiscussions is that your topic is pretty much set for you. You just talk people through your latest results or explain why you think a particular paper is interesting.

The presentation I am at the moment trying to put together for later this week is of a very different nature. I actually managed to get through to the final round of that job application I mentioned before. It's a whole day so-called "assessment centre", which means I am going to be quizzed, probed and put under the microscope for 7 hours! As part of the assessment they want me to give a 10 minute presentation on...me. I have 10 minutes to explain why I am the best thing since sliced bread for them.

I have talked about many things before but never a full presentation just on me! It feels absurd to do it. It makes me feel rather uncomfortable even. I mean, come on: that's just egotripping in public. I have to seriously go out there and sing my own praises; bragging about my naturally wonderful analytic abilities, my sharp intellect and my fabulous social skills...or something. How do you do that without sounding like an arrogant twat?

No magic touch

The quick brown fox jumpes over the lazy dog.

Anybody who doesn't recognise this sentence has probably never taken a typing course. The sentence's claim to fame lies in the fact that it is a pangram: every single letter of the roman alphabet is represented in it.

I have never had any typing lessons and it shows. Over the years I have developed my own, rather random, way of typing using more than two, but definitely fewer than 10, fingers. I can't say it's very effective. Truth be told, I am a really bad typist. When I was writing my thesis last year I probably spent more time hitting backspace than I did getting the right strokes.

At the moment I am living in limbo a little bit. I am waiting for my project to kick into gear (and for the proper motivation to help it get there!) but have not much else to do either. I have decided to try and do something useful with my newly found spare time. With an eye on the fact that I am about to start writing yet another thesis, I have begun to teach myself touch-typing using an internet tutorial. After all, I can play piano so how hard can it be? It's not like playing a Chopin nocturne trying to match up 21 notes on your right hand with 11 on your left, is it?

Well, you'ld be surprised. Even though, unlike on a piano, you don't usually have to hit several keys at once and they all follow a neatly defined linear sequence, I'm still having a lot of difficulties with it. Old habits die hard and if you've been improvising for so long, it's not easy to stick with a system all of a sudden. I am practising and slowly have managed to get my words-per-minute count upto around 40 from the 25 it was two days ago but I am nowhere near to being a professional secretary yet who can hit the keys at 65 wpm. As long as I can see some improvement though I'll keep practising, waiting for the RSI to kick in.

Academics Anonymous

Hi, my name is Thyra and I'm an academic. There, I've said it.

It all started out so innocently. Everybody else was doing it too, I did not think I was doing anything wrong. People were even encouraging me, telling me that it was okay to do a degree. But then I moved on to the heavier stuff: PhD. It was during this time that I started to realise that perhaps I had a problem. I promised myself that this was where I would draw the line. I was going to kick the habit and break free from academia's clutches. I had to do it carefully though and to minimise the withdrawal effects I tried to wane myself off gradually by going back to doing a masters degree rather than going cold turkey.

It's hopeless. I have realised by now that there is no escape for me. Once again I am sifting through the Web of Science, spending hours reading papers and processing data. I can not help myself. I have even committed to doing this for the next 9 months or so in return for a PhD type salary. A UK PhD salary that is... And worst if it all: I am excited about it. Once again I am hooked.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Princess and the Pea

"Oh!" said the Princess. "No. I scarcely slept at all. Heaven knows what's in that bed. I lay on something so hard that I'm black and blue all over. It was simply terrible."

They could see she was a real Princess and no question about it, now that she had felt one pea all the way through twenty mattresses and twenty more feather beds. Nobody but a Princess could be so delicate.
(H.C. Andersen, translation J. Hersholt)

My chances of becoming a real princess may have gone out the window with all the Dutch princes having found their matches and Wills&Kate back together here, but I am not sleeping any better for it. My mattress is the lumpiest and bumpiest in the world. I have tried flipping it over, turning it around, checking underneath for peas...it doesn't help. I have trouble falling asleep and wake up with an agonising backache.

In my own flat I would simply have gotten a new mattress but here I can't. It's part of the deal of renting a furnished place and I am not about to buy a new mattress for my landlords. Now that I know I will be in London for another while I should probably start looking for a new place to live. This one was okay until now but I wouldn't mind trying something different, hopefully with a more comfy bed. No more peas under the bed. Boiled, mushy or any other way.

Sodom and Gomorrah

Whenever people around here hear that I am from Holland, they will immediately begin talking to me about the time they went to Amsterdam. What little they can remember of it, that is.

I find it kind of depressing that most of these people have apparently not managed to see beyond the coffeeshops and the red light district. With some luck they might have made it to either the van Gogh museum (and picked up the famous blue triangular box) or the Anne Frank house but that is about it. It annoys me because I really love Amsterdam and want other people to enjoy this beautiful city too but not just for drugs and whores. I understand the fascination with coffeeshops and a stroll through the red light district can be entertaining but the city is so much more than that.

The worst group are British blokes on their stag parties. I was listening to Dutch radio this morning when I heard that some hostels are so fed up with them and their rowdy behaviour, that they are banning all groups of Brits! It must be pretty bad for dutch people to ban anything! A few weeks ago I was at the airport, checking in for my flight to Amsterdam, when I found myself standing in line behind such a group. They were all dressed up in superhero costumes; Batman & Robin, Superman, Spiderman and the groom to be as...Wonderwoman. I was fully expecting them to show up on my flight but they didn't. As it turns out the Brits are discovering Prague, Warsaw and other Eastern European destinations as their new favourite hangouts. I feel sorry for the Czechs and Poles already.

Soul searching

What would a soul go for these days?

The reason I ask is that I am contemplating selling mine. Well, not really but I am at least pretending to negotiate handing it over to Satan. Okay, maybe not Satan himself but at least a distant relative: I am applying for a job that would have me consulting for the pharmaceutical industry. I have just finished a second phone interview in the recruitment process and will hear soon whether or not I am through to the final assessment round.

Is it fair of me to liken the pharma industry to Satan? Probably not. Without the drugs this industry produces millions of people would live in misery or even die. I myself have given praise for the invention of paracetamol more than once. And it's only natural that these companies need to make money to pay for the very costly R&D process. I know all this and yet I am not comfortable with the idea of working for them. It does not sit right with me that the most profitable, preferably chronic, diseases get all the attention while millions of people are not getting the drugs they need simply because they don't have the money to pay for them. Nor do I agree with the agressive way some drugs are being pushed.

The problem of course is not just the pharmaceutical industry itself. It is our money-driven society where shareholder returns are deemed more important than caring for the needy. And yet, here I am interviewing for a company whose principal clients are these 'money grabbers'.

Before you all start to fret over the tragic loss of my mortal soul, let me reassure you. I have no intention of actually taking the job should they offer it to me. I am purely in this for the practice. I have never properly interviewed for a job before and I'd rather practise on a job I don't give a hoot about than on my dream job. Of course I am not telling this company that (and I sure hope they don't find this blog). I have already been forcing myself to say things like "I understand that the bottom-line is of utmost importance" and "yes, I am very excited about working for your company". Can you go to hell for lying to Satan?

Take a deep breath

Aaaaaah...so nice! As of today England enforces a full smoking ban in all public places like restaurants, pubs and clubs. This means that after a night out my clothes won't reek so bad anymore the next day. And it won't be necessary to immediately wash my hair to get rid of the ash tray smell. I am a big fan of the ban!

I have never really smoked in my life. I tried it once on a drunken evening many years ago with my flatmates. One of them had a pack of cigarettes (Belinda menthol, if my memory serves me right!) and well...why not? I didn't choke on it or anything but I couldn't see the appeal of it either. I'm glad I didn't. I have seen too many of my friends struggle with trying to quit the cancer sticks. Some had less difficulties but in general I can see it is not an easy habit to kick.

Not that I need it, but I have an added incentive to stay away from cigarettes. The WHO, as the prime advocate of the anti-tobacco movement, has a very strict no-smoking policy for its employees these days . You can not even apply for a job if you smoke, unless you are willing to quit instantly. It is hard enough to get into an organisation like that as it is so if there is an easy win to be had, I'll gladly take it.