Don't cry for me, Texas...

I think this will be my last entry in Houston, Texas. I predict hard times ahead, trying to write my report at the same time as collecting my last results. The first obstacle to surpass is this horrible laziness… After weeks in which my life was all about amoebas, I finally start to have some time for other things that I should use to write my report, but honestly… I feel more like going shopping. And this is bad, specially because I don’t have the money for that.
Well… It’s time to make a summary and draw conclusions from my experience here in Houston. As usual for me, what thrilled me more about this place, are the people that I’ve met. And now start the first goodbyes. I already said goodbye to Marco, and Italian friend, great company for tango and great photographer, and I said goodbye to Rodrigo, who in these past few weeks had won the title of Best Roommate in the World, for services ranging from wake up calls to free therapy. I can't even imagine saying goodbye to Clea, we've become very good friends very quickly, which for me is a weird thing, and now I wonder "do I really know her only for 6 months?" cause it seems like a life time. Clea, I will most likely see again, there are already plans of visiting Sicily (this is the best part of international frienships - free housing all over the world!!), but the rest are people I’ll probably never see again, and this really upsets me. That’s why one of the lessons I learned here is that I never want to leave the people I care about behind again. At least, let’s all stay on the same side of the Atlantic Ocean, how about that?!
The professional experience was also very… hmmm… fruitful. It taught me many things. First, that the Netherlands, and Groningen in particular, is an excellent place to do science. Second, that difficult people are not impossible to deal with. I learned I am good enough and strong enough to deal with whatever I set my mind to. It’s just a matter of how much I like to suffer… Eheheh. Not much, actually. I also learned in a very practical way how important it is to have a good relationship with your supervisor, and to trust this person. This, I also have in the Netherlands, where my supervisor is someone that I admire deeply and that understands me perfectly. Finally, I learned that some things will always look better in theory than in practice. Work with Dicty is one of them. It’s a bitch.
All in all, it may sound like these 6 months were a waste of time. But no… I really needed to see for myself, and now I know better what I want, and that’s extremely important. I also learned that sometimes, the glitter that you see just around the corner is only that… glitter. Nem tudo o que luz eh ouro… I’ve learned how to feel content with what I have back home. It’s AOK. I can’t tell you how happy I am with that.
Then, last but not least, I learned tango. Ah, you may think I’ll give up on that, but I’ve been checking out where I can do it in Groningen and guess what… there are tango nights at Huis de Beurs, one of my favorite little corners of Groningen! I may have to give up on the close embrace tango, because close embrace with 2,00 m tall dutch men is not quite the same thing… Let’s all keep our imagination to ourselves…
One last thing… I’ve been looking at my results and although they show something different than what I had expected (what a surprise…..) I think I see an interesting pattern there… So, who knows, maybe this WAS a fruitful experience after all!
More news perhaps soon, perhaps in 3 weeks, already from the other side of the ocean, and perhaps in Portuguese, as I still get complaints that English is such an impersonal language, yada, yada, yada… But then again, to keep updated with the people I met here, I’ll still have to write in English! Ah. Offfffffff… decisions, decisions.