Doctor, doctor...

Como me apetece voltar a escrever! Hoje andei nas andanças pelos blogs que para aí há, e dei-me conta das saudades que tenho de mandar as minhas postas de pescada na internet. E assim decidi, talvez não muito sensatamente, voltar a escrever neste blog. E começo em português porque, meu deeeus, o meu português está enferrujado. Bem preciso de o treinar. Aceitam-se correcções... *corando*

Disse que a minha decisão não é muito sensata porque este ano, tcharaaaan, é o último ano do meu doutoramento. Isto é, é o último ano em que me pagam para fazer isto a que chamam ciência. Se isto é ciência não sei. Tenho as minhas dúvidas. Se é de facto o último ano do meu doutoramento, ainda mais dúvidas tenho. Mas lá que deixam de me pagar, deixam.

Mas comecemos pelo princípio… A ciência, em si, o saber mais sobre algumas coisas, ou descobrir o tamanho da nossa ignorância, isso ainda me fascina. O que não me fascina, é a luta diária contra a frustração, é o nosso trabalho valer tão pouco, o nosso tempo ser tão facilmente desperdiçado, às vezes por nossa culpa – decisões erradas que levam a becos sem saída -, às vezes por culpa dos nossos chefes – o que em última análise ainda é considerado nossa culpa porque fomos nós que não fomos espertos o suficiente para os contrariar na sua decisão – e às vezes por culpa do famigerado acaso. Tudo isto leva facilmente uma pessoa, já neurótica por natureza, a sentir-se tremendamente desmotivada, desvalorizada, e às tantas, desgraçada… Quando na realidade aqui não há desgraçados. Somos todos gente crescida, felizmente temos cabecinha para pensar e podemos fazer o que bem entendermos se para isso tivermos vontade. E senão também temos dois braços e duas pernas, toca a mexê-los! Mas por isso mesmo pergunto-me porque é que é tão fácil, como me dizia no outro dia um colega, «acreditar que não temos jeito para nada». Acho que não há aluno de doutoramento que não passe por esta fase.

No entanto, é fascinante a quantidade de coisas sobre as quais se fazem doutoramentos. Tenho um amigo que faz o seu em Filosofia Teórica. Até eu, que o faço em Biologia Teórica fiquei de cara à banda. Então mas há algo não-teórico em Filosofia?? Outros fazem doutoramentos em História, Economia (conheci recentemente um rapaz que faz a sua tese sobre fusões e aquisições de empresas – ele disse-me que os outros colegas de curso dele tinham escolhido fazer dinheiro).

Agora que penso nisso, os alunos de doutoramento parecem-me cumprir um papel fundamental na sociedade. São eles os que têm tempo, paciência, cabeça (big question mark there), e financiamento para se debruçarem sobre coisas que não lembram ao arco da velha mas que até podem ser bastante importantes, tais como… sei lá… A estrutura do DNA. Novas teorias económicas. Comparações de modelos de sociedade. Ética. Ecologia. Comportamento (humano e não-humano). Hoje em dia, em Biologia, embora não tenha aqui dados à mão para o provar, mas tenho a séria impressão de que 70% do trabalho realizado é feito por alunos de doutoramento e post-docs. Enfim, podem-nos parecer 4 anos deitados à rua, em que penámos como almas condenadas, em que sofremos stresses psicológicos estúpidos impostos por supervisores sádicos, e nos deparámos trinta mil vezes com a nossa própria idiotice e com o falhanço iminente, mas talvez isso sirva algum propósito, algum dia, a alguém. Muito provavelmente será a outro aluno de doutoramento, ao citar: Coisa et al. (unpublished work).

I advise...

Sometimes a book takes over your mind. It makes you dream about places and people, totally different than the ones you know. This happened to me with The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, a book that all my dutch friends had read already and advised me to read. I waited a bit, I am generally suspicious of things everyone tells me I should read.
But for The Kite Runner the compliments are fully deserved. It is indeed a book that grips you from the first page. It’s so well written, that it makes me want to write again. It inspires me. At some points it makes you laugh, at others cry, and it definitely stays with you. When you finish it, it leaves a void, like a friend you won’t see for a long time, or maybe ever again.
It tells about the story of two childhood friends in Kabul, Afghanistan, pre-Soviet invasion. It tells about children growing up, how they yearn for their parents’ love, and how they fight for it. And then it tells us about the grown-ups these children become. It tells about a country that western culture knows from CNN stories only, and generally associates with the words “fundamentalism” and “terrorist”. I have to say now I associate Afghanistan with “kabob” and “children”. But the book does not leave out fundamentalism or terror. On the contrary, it fully exposes these for what they are: products of insanity, greed and corruption.
So this post is dedicated to The Kite Runner, the book, and to all the kite runners in Kabul. I will for sure go and see the movie, despite my fear of being totally disappointed by the contrast between what I imagined and what I will see.

A rough start

Whoever thought of this expression, a rough start, never experienced a start of anything in life after being born (which does not really count as a start, since no one remembers it). Every new start I had so far was rough, to the point where one other expression, “fresh new start”, seems a little bit more “freezing new start”.
It’s the moving in itself, the adaptation, the language, the people, the habits, everything… And then there’s the work. Which, as usual, is not easy. And it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. For now I struggle with plans. I actually long for those days when I’ll be the lab from 6 am till 10 in the evening, because I hate making plans. So far my making of plans has involved talking to people and realizing they are not able/willing to help me, talking to my supervisor and realize he doesn’t really want to help (he’d much rather make me feel like an ignorant twat), emailing my other supervisors and realizing they are too far to help. In the meanwhile I keep reading articles, and more ideas pile up in my head, which is nice, but they seem to be going nowhere, which is not nice. But let’s keep hope alive, and have patience, perhaps one day I’ll finish this PhD without feeling that I did a lame job.
This rough start sets me again to think on what it is to be a scientist and if I really want it. I look around me and I see that it’s dog-eat-dog out there. People tell me to keep cool, have patience, work hard, just do my best. But I don’t feel at all certain that I want to invest so much energy into this job, and for what… Maybe to fail in 4 years, if I don’t get a decent post-doc? Maybe in 7 if I don’t get a tenure track somewhere (WHERE??). And all those years without a home... I want my own furniture, goddamn it!!! Ah, the dramas of the middle class.
Well, time will tell. For now, I will… keep cool, have patience, do my best.
And to show that not all is lost, I leave you with a picture of my spotted housemate and the view from our balcony.

On the road again

I write this in my new office, with a view over the Lac Lehman and the Swiss alps. It sounds impressive, I know…
I moved to Switzerland for 6 months to do some experiments for my PhD. Having arrived just last Monday I am still getting settled and finding my way around. I also have nothing to do, yet, or better, I don’t know where to start… And that’s why I am returning to this blog. It feels nice to write, as it always did. I had such a full life in Groningen in my last months there that I didn’t even feel the need to write a couple of words here. Now the free time is back, and with it the usual restlessness.
Lausanne, the city where I’m living, is very beautiful, and finally I am back to a real city. I had forgotten how tiring it is to move around in a real city. Groningen feels always like a small town, even though it can be very busy. Here, the buses run past you dangerously, cars honk impatiently, people walk with their heads down, like in Lisbon. And the smoke, the students, the hard-working people, the vagabonds, the aimless youth, it’s all the same. Even bureaucracy is the same, and for everything you have to pay some huge amount of money – transport card, key to the office, residence permit. Sign here, pay there. The Swiss are generally polite, a bit strange, though. Can’t really put my finger on it… But they’re “bizarre”. Perhaps more than the Dutch. At least with the dutchies what you see is what you get. Here people are less obvious, and therefore weirder.
I am living in a nice flat mid-way between the university and the city center. Perfect! My landlady is a woman one year older than me, but much more mature than I am, or probably will ever be. She seems, so far, extremely kind and caring. The third occupant of the house is a dog, a Dalmatian, which makes me very happy, of course. He’s really smart and communicative – he understands perfectly the words “joue”, “promener” and “manger” (to the latter he responds always very effusively)... Everyday he is happy to see me, how simple… I would love people to be like dogs. Easygoing, give me a biscuit and I’ll be content. Anyway, I had trouble finding a decent place, but I was very lucky because I think this is the best I have ever had in terms of rooms. Everything works like a charm, I have my personal space, internet (very important) and also a comfortable living room, fully equipped kitchen, and a TV!!!! Zapping was always my favorite sport.
I’ll keep in touch. In a near future, expect some nice pictures of the alps, the city, and of course, the dog! Oh, and of my ants, too! Both quite nice as pets, actually.

CocoRosie

It was brought to my attention that according to my weblog, I was still in Copenhagen... Well, Copenhagen is a beautiful city, but I've left it a long time ago! Since then I've been to some new places, like Uppsala, Sweden and Krakow, Poland. But then I returned to my "dear" old Groningen... And here I am!

But this little town is not that bad... Sometimes really interesting stuff happens here. And last week my peak was the concert of Cocorosie in the Oosterpoort. I was introduced to this band through a friend of mine, who took my musical education quite seriously. Cocorosie are two sisters, half-Cherokee, who (in my view) basically live in a world apart. Seriously. They cannot live on the same planet as I do. But I wish I lived on their planet... Cause it sounds fun. Free. Their concert was several things... Weird. Original. Beautiful. Fun. Mainly I felt like I was listening to something I had never heard before. Which is very true because I didn't know most of the songs... But also the music was... different from anything else.

Enjoy the video, I will try to post more if something interesting comes to my mind...Doesn't happen that often, though. :)

In the land of Vikings

Hi all,
This time I write from the most north I have ever been in the world. Denmark! Yep, Copenhagen. I was very curious about this city ever since Aniek stayed here for 6 months and totally fell in love with it! I am here for a PhD course on evolutionary biology of communication. The course itself did not yet start, but my introduction to Danish life, has. First a stroll around the city at 9 am after a very early flight departing from Amsterdam at 6h55, told me that:
a) on a Saturday morning you are more likely to find late birds coming out of pubs than early birds going out to work
b) no self-respecting place will be open before 11… and it will close at 15h00.
After this first encounter with the Danish way of life, and a few caffe lattes later, I was received by a PhD student here at Copenhagen University, guess where from… Amsterdam! So for a few moments, he thought he could speak Dutch to me, since I was coming from the Netherlands, then quickly understood he couldn’t and from there on greeted me with Dutch hospitality in English, and no, no sarcasm implied.
In the afternoon, I went for another stroll in the city center, and discovered that Copenhagen would be a dangerous city for me to live: far too many interesting shops, with far too high prices… I keep having the experience of giving huge notes and getting back very small coins. Don’t know why. But I also noted the extremely beautiful architecture, relaxing spaces and very fashionable people. Danish design? I guess so. Also, the ease with which you get around is quite amazing… Public transports are efficient, clean, and even not so expensive… But still, lots of people go by bike, which is also a nice way to go around, since the city is pretty much flat and biker friendly, with bike paths everywhere.
Then later I joined the same PhD that received me and another student of the course, an Italian, for dinner. It was actually a nice and cheap meal (note to self: ask where to go in Copenhagen…), in a very cute little place. And then, the true Dutch nature of our “guide” was revealed, as he took us… beer drinking. Turns out it’s also quite a Danish habit, and so I felt very much at home, specially when a german couple, also working here, joined us. Boy, it feels like Groningen. A stroke of destiny made it so that this very same night Sweden and Denmark had a football match here in Copenhagen. Everywhere, people with crosses painted in their faces, either red and white or yellow and blue, poured beer down their throats, to celebrate defeat or victory, according to nationality and/or alcoholic state.
A few beers later, I was back in my room, feeling sleepy and happy. Tak, København!

Konninginedag

Hello hello!
It was Queen's day and very appropriately I spent it in Amsterdam. Purely coincidental, actually. I was there on occasion of the visit of my friend Maya's mom, and also passing through on my way to Portugal! I read somewhere that spending Queen's day in Amsterdam is one of the must-do's of the purposeful tourist, and what can I say... It's something between utterly annoying and utterly fun! Annoying because you don't have one single moment of peace and quiet, and all the nice shops are closed. Fun because you get to see some strange and amazing things while trying to walk around in the bustling streets full of very tall and very drunk people. Traditionally, Queen's day belongs to the youth, I think. It's the day when kids come out to the streets and show their talents or just sell their parents' junk, since it's allowed to do so without any particular licence. Hell, even I could do it. Maybe next year, if you come to Groningen, you will see me singing fado to passers-by.
Some kids are indeed amazing, others are just ordinary, but always it's fun to watch what they do, if not only because they try so hard. And of course, the flea markets (or vrijmarkt) everywhere are always interesting to find cheap and entertaining stuff.
Negative points: the ongoing rave throughout the whole city. Can't get no sleep. Indeed. And way too much orange.

Me and Maya on Leidsestraat (notice the lack of orange in our personas)

A kid playing the guitar in Vondelpark. Rock on, dude!!

Some bigger kids, but still, no more than 17, playing amaaaaazingly some jazz music. Roy Hargrove, you've got competition coming!