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