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.