The PhD, The Viva and the house hunting

Has been a while since I wrote my last post and thats a shame coz there has been a lot going on but so much to do then that it has been difficult to update my blog though. From the topic you wonder what is going on I think. Basically all starts and ends up around my PhD busy life that squeezes most of my time, so much to think about, so much to do and read and etc...

And regarding PhD life a week ago I officially finished the very first step of a PhD (in england), passing the first viva checkpoint, just like in a cell cycle one can only progress under proving of success and reliability to get into the next checkpoint. That just happened very fine, got an excellent viva (although I was very scared, because of all that mystery about it, like no one really talks about it and the criteria is not very clear, nothing is written or stated anywhere.. but in the end of the day everyone says that is just very easy, and indeed it is!).

So I am now an official PhD student, in england before the viva exam one is officially and MPhil candidate, and this degree is awarded after the first year with a successful performance, therefore I am now a Master of Philosophy!! The title is a bit funny but oh well... better than my sort of Bsc. (which is actually a bit more than that but not defined, therefore MPhil looks nicer)

So with all that thing with the viva and so my time to write here was shortened, but additionally to that comes the house hunting. That was a hassle and painful thing. Lacking time and patience and still having to look for the house was complicated. Its bloody hard like first looking in the internet for advertisements then calling and booking appointments, dealing with the others' convenient times or going to see the flat and no one shows up or get it cancelled and have to re-book, bla bla bla, go and see, shitty places, crap after crap, bureaucracy, asking things and things, details, bank, letter from the university, bla bla bla, its just crazy. Finally chose one flat, it is nice, I will detail it later because I am still waiting to know whether I can move in since there is those investigations to see whether one is corrupted or so, so I am waiting until that is done. Then will be the moving on, and I cant wait, I am so much anxious to get my own place!

Oh well and thats pretty much everything.

In the meantime there was snow in Nottingham, loads of it, it snowed for 2 or 3 days there were up to 10 cm snow, everything is still covered with snow, there are snowmen everywhere, most are pretty scaring though. I didnt managed to make one, again no time, but I guess there will be more occasions very soon :)

Also, I could have taken a few nice pictures but rather I decided to get a few rubish ones, there you go, a sample:

6 Months smoke free

My post today is really short and I am just writing because I think this deserves attention.

Today is meaningful since it has been 6 months since the last time I smoke a cigarette and I haven't even touched one afterwards. This is a message specially for those who would not believe I was able to quit and to encourage those you may be thinking of stopping being a human chimney :)

I dont think I will ever smoke again and I feel really good now, a lot better at different points, speacially my circulation improved a lot and I dont feel easily tired anymore.

Today is special, I am happy I achieved this goal!

Moving out, new home, new life :)

Its official,

I am now looking for a new home, another nest to live :) hopefully and certainly much better than the one I have.

When I came to Nottingham, the decision about coming and the time I had for moving and settling were very short, therefore I didnt have enough time to plan it and to spend some time looking for houses and/ flats. Everything had to be done quickly. I came here 15 days before I started the project and stayed for 3 short days to find a place to live, that once I would come to start everything would be entirely ready. By that time I wanted to live in town, in Nottingham city centre, but since many people from work suggested Beeston as the best place to live, I just looked for houses around Beeston. Being new here I accepted the suggestion since as you can see on the map I am posting below, the university is far from the centre and being in Beeston is easier to go to the university, but just by walk, because by bus the centre is 10 times better (but I didnt know that). On the minus side Beeston is far from the city and is a little tiny shopping area, with supermarket and other shops but nothing special.

Meanwhile, I end up choosing a 5 bedroom house in Beeston village centre which is where I still live, sharing a house with another 4 people. On that beginning I didnt think I would stay here longer than my original contract, there is 6 months. And that was why I was not very picky because the plan was to stay here temporarily until I would have some more time to look for something more decent.

But it just did not happen before, but now it is time! Finally I am on the way of changing homes, and hopefully close to get my own space, private and specially clean.
I do quite like the location of this house and that was why I did not think about moving straight after my contract was finished but the worst problems about this place are indeed not the place at all but the people inside.

As the only child I am, I am of course deeply spoiled in several ways and I am not used to share things. Also despite me being quite social (when I want to), I am not, when I am at home, I just dont have patience to socialize with the people from the house just because they live here. So I tend to stay inside my room, sometimes I dont even bother not eating not to face anyone and the dirtiness left behind them.. That is the very worst part of this story, people have different concepts of hygiene and cleaning and that is troublesome. I am fed up with most of the things around here and I am so so happy I am moving out soon :)

On the plus plus side, I am gonna have a much better house to welcome my friends visiting and on the plus plus plus plus plus top side, I am going to live with someone I love. Thats just genial! I can wait to see this dream coming true and in a way to start saying good bye to the house where I am still typing this post I leave a map showing where I live, where I want to live and where I work, dont get confused next time you visit me :)

Girly gangs and chavs

Today I went for a coffee with two girlfriends here from Nottingham, both doing PhD, but both foreigners like me, so of course we end up sharing a lot of feelings about the life here.. and one subject that got into debate today was exactly the question about the "girly gangs" in Nottingham and in general, but in Nottingham it is just more appreciated...

I think I slightly pointed out that in the past but basically for those who dont know the girls here in Nottingham, from Nottingham, or God knows where from, they tend to have very particular behaviours which I would say are far from one would think as normal. Lets be more specific... Girls here, like in most other countries go out in groups, there is nothing new about it. Those girls and each group tend to follow a style or a standard that means that all girls in the same group look more or less similar.. thats what I mean by gangs.. basically similar styles stick together and form a group...

Usually there is that group of fairly pretty girls, a group of girls that look like they read the bible before going asleep, group of girls that are a bit overweight, etc... there are a lot, BUT:

The awkward funny thing is that in Nottingham those "girly gangs" vary a lot more than our imagination could eventually think of, and thats the funny part!

Yesterday I went out and suddenly recalled how does Nottingham night life works... I have forgotten that since I spent a long time not going out here.. So basically I should first introduce you to a general concept of "chav". This is a slang british term according to the dictionary: Brit slang, derogatory a young working-class person who dresses in casual sports clothes, but actually it is a lot more than that..

watch the videos to get familiar!







Ok, so chavy girls go out in gangs, but unlike the other girls they are not simply fat, or simply pretty or simply ugly, or whatever because these girls have no simplicity at all!! They are a mix of dirty bitches with cheap chicks, look all very easy, very drunk and brainless no matter how old they are. Bear in mind that you find chavy gangs from all age ranges, from youngs to mums and grannys! Of course it is very hard to describe them better without any photographic material, but for example during the day the dress code is very sportive whereas by night their looks vary from when they organize to dress a specific costume, usually very very dirty or if not they will dress as less clothes as they can and there will always be a lot of make up and they usually look orange... its a must see! But they are not found in London for example, while here in Nottingham is like the chavy land.. apparently there are a lot around the midlands like birmingham and also in Liverpool (I saw)..

Conclusion, girls hang out together, thats fine, but when I see a group of chavs I know I am gonna be impressed, trust me, it is disgusting!

Anatomy of a chav girl

I know one day you see one you will remember my description or in case you already know what I am talking about you probably wonder why do this people have no taste? how can someone be like that?

I sometimes over criticize things and people but this time one has to agree with me, inst it weird?

Friday post

Thats a quick post to say...

Friday should be... the day before the weekend, right? and indeed it is. Friday is also the day before many people get two days off. But not if you are a PhD student.. Friday is just another day before a working day..


Thats me back, mourning again about PhD life.. And indeed (again) it is hard.. I could just be in Portugal at the moment and I am here, working my ass off , grrrrrrrrr, I had to write this, its just me crying out loud to someone not to eventually shout someone around me here at work.. The other thing is if I had a normal job I could not probably go to Portugal anyway, but the frustration is.. I can go, legitimately but I cannot because I have loads of things to do..
I am so so busy.. Ok, now calm down and relax, and lets listen to music :)



Song just more on the mood of an easy life, like university or so, but I like it, it makes me happy :))

And Hey Pedro I miss you a lot!!



Oh the wind whistles down
The cold dark street tonight
And the people they were dancing to the music vibe
And the boys chase the girls with the curls in their hair
While the shy tormented youth sit way over there
And the songs they get louder
Each one better than before

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

So your heading down the road in your taxi for four
And you're waiting outside Jimmy's front door
But nobody's in and nobody's home 'til four
So you're sitting there with nothing to do
Talking about Robert Riger and his motley crew
And where you're gonna go and where you're gonna sleep tonight

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life
And you wake up in the morning and your head feels twice the size
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

Where you gonna sleep tonight?

Monday Whatever post.. includes trip to Liverpool

Ok, I haven't been writing here for a while, I have been missing interesting topics to discuss, but I want to write something today so I can talk about the weekend and the time spent in Liverpool :) Yes, I went to Liverpool last Friday, after work, just for one night and a day, because some friends are getting married then they did an engagement party. That reason took me to Liverpool. Despite of lacking time to properly see the city I saw enough to do a little comparison between Liverpool and Nottingham.

Liverpool(not by me)

I like Nottingham a lot, and I think that might be one of the best places in England to be a student and to do a PhD when combining aspects such as the University, with the town, the life style and the prices it’s a fairly good combination. The city is tiny but that means that it's cheaper to live closer to the centre or in the centre, and still it has everything needed. And the rest is all positive, like the uni is well rated, the campus is awesome and the life style is very student friendly (since there are two universities and the University of Nottingham has over 20000 students/year everything is somehow done in function of the students). Liverpool was quite a surprise for me, as I thought it would look a lot more industrialized and "dark" but it shown up as a modern bright city. The very good point about it is the large presence of water, either the wide river or the sea nearby makes it nice. Nottingham has just one river, the Trent, which is almost inexistent, being just a tiny narrow course of water, there is almost no water around anywhere in Nottingham.
The second nice thing about Liverpool is the shopping area and the huge and nice buildings around, from the begging of the XX century showing that the city used to be exceptionally wealthy thanks to the money coming from wharfs and factories of the region. Another thing is that because Liverpool is more a city than Nottingham there are shops that one can’t find in Nottingham and that I miss a lot sometimes.

Liverpool(not by me)

In conclusion, Liverpool was worth visit. I enjoyed the party very much (got sick in the end.. but was ok, lololol .. ) and AH! And I can’t forget there was something worse in Liverpool than in Nottingham there is the coldness due to the wind coming from the ocean, ice cold blasts of wind made me freeze... brrrrrggg...

I would like to show here some photos of Liverpool but I still haven’t got them (they were not in my camera).

There are some last things to point out about Liverpool such as the people there. Mostly everyone was exceptionally nicer and more sympathetic than any where else in England! That is really strange that liverpudlians were talking to you without any problems they broke the silence on the train, they made jokes while one was waiting for food and even the taxi driver talked during the journey, that just reminded me about Portugal and made me mark Liverpool as a very nice place!
These same people seem to be all football fans, everyone seems to enjoy football and they are fanatic. One negative thing is the accents; a proper Liverpudlians will talk in an incomprehensive way.. Very bizarre accent though .. known as scouse... mostly everyone that talks like that also might think that Liverpool is not part of England but rather something apart, so they say that they are not English but Liverpudlians (from Liverpool) !!!

Liverpool(not by me)

And now I should get back to work on my Monday working mood, never very happy, of course, monday sucks (like Garfield says and I agree)..

Liverpool(not by me)

I am becoming a programmer.. This is enrichment of my geeky brain slots

Yesterday I started a new course called Programming for beginners. This is a workshop-course run by the uni for post graduates interested in learning the basics of programming. The uni offers a large variety of workshops in a wide range of areas from languages to computer science, academic and industry skills development and so on, but most of them are boring and useless. Its a really waste of time, but I have to do them, so no more whinging.

Back on PhD stuff conversations and posts, as part of my PhD program I have to attend for these workshops to get 20 credits for my first year. Therefore until the 3rd of March I have to get 20 credits. This course, has then a few plus and convenient sides, and hopefully will be a lot more interesting than the ones I went before, getting me 8 credits, helps me recalling the basics of programming (something I did for a little while in the past), and that is now a tool important for my own PhD project since I intend to start my mathematical modelling and I need to do some programming for that... On the other side (not too bad though), it makes me a bit more geeky with the PhD in biomedical science slash biochemistry comprising a lot of computational biophysics and mathematics and with some programming background makes me someone no ones wants to meet once reading my CV.. (I will make sure I attach a photo of me to show I look human)..

What Kind of geek are you?
(click to enlarge and find yourself)

Ok, I’m missing up the topic, back on the class yesterday, it was very nice to see how easy is still for me to pick up the programming basics, and I think I do understand it better now. Most of you don’t know but before I chose to get a biology degree I did a bit of computer science engineering, so got to know some programming.. Lets see how it goes from now on..

I am starting with Java, therefore I still dont have a proper geeky gang signs, but I am gonna finish with C++, so I am glad I will, LOLOLOL

Another new year's resolution was to start doing sports, bought the university gold card that gives me free pass to any sportive activity and I am now committed to go to the gymnasium at least 3x a week and I will try to do some swimming too. There is the need to finish up with my unhealthy life here, eating rubbish and not doing any sports, I am decided to move up and become healthy again :))) (not something I have ever been, but at least I used to eat less grease and exercise more)

PhD is back on track now, back to the lab experiments and to the results, I will have my first viva soon, not yet know the date, but soon, afterwards whether I pass it (hopefully will, my God cant even think of the contrary), I will be an MPhil (??? hell???).. but the good thing is closer to the PhD award!

And that the mid of the officially first week back in Notts, a lot is certainly coming, I am quite exciting and happy :) have fun!!

Christmas holidays , photo reporting

As you may have guessed from the previous post I went in a trip to Geres, Geres mountains, for a short (too short) time. Of course it was amazing, the weather was great, always sunny, with great sunshine (not even in summer here in england one can watch that), the place was awesome, the landscapes were magic, green but colourful at the same time. The accommodation was also perfect, a mountain house placed in a strategic high place with a wonderful view over a big dam, looks like a big lake, imagine me waking up in the morning and open the window and look into such a beautiful view (see the photos), was very very relaxing. The days were spent in the mountains, either driving or hiking, that was awesome, finding water falls and great views, the mountains were empty of tourists therefore it felt really comfortable, no noise apart from water, wind and animals, just nature, was really a remarkable experience :)
I show here some photos that might make your mind and take you there :) for the last day we went to a SPA to get really good treats, the holiday was perfect, perfect place, perfect time, and perfect company :))

View from the room

Pousada de Gerês / Caniçada - S.Bento
http://www.pousadas.pt/historicalhotels/EN/pousadas/Portugal/Norte/SBento/home/PousadaSaoBento_Home.htm

On top of the world :)

Water fall

Next to the water fall

River Springs

Hiking up the mountain with a quick stop

On top "scenario"

The roads

landscapes

Magic trees

the colourful green

Hiking paths

gorgeous views


PERFECT!!

Onde e que ha gajas boas?? (portuguese post for a portuguese joke)

Second post of the year is a joke dedicated to my portuguese readers, I couldn't miss this.. On my trip up to geres upon my arrival in Portugal for holidays, there was the 19th of December, driving up on the motorway I found the place where apparently there might be hot girls... That idea came from a sketch from "Gato fedorento" (they are a group of humorists, with quite genius jokes I think), in this sketch one guy ask another about the place where he could find really hot girls, but truly hot ones, and he ends up thinking that once he went to Ermesinde and he saw a very hot girl.. however she turns to be a man.. the movie is funny and it made me laugh when I found out the way to that place, I didn't go there and check out for hot girls but at least I can tell you how to go.. A1 towards Porto and then you turn right as in the traffic sign :) Good luck ;)

2009

Hey everyone,

My hyper late post for 2009 just arrived.. I have thousands of things to write here, but still my life is very busy (as usual) but now I have got a problem with my personal laptop therefore I have more restricted conditions to access here.. bahh, need a brand new laptop.. I will come back soon (perhaps still today) with some briefs about the latest holidays. 2009 has just begun, My blog has nearly 6 months and describes a little tiny bit of my life during that time. For the new year I expect to keep you posted about the exciting moments around my PhD life plus and hopefully something besides my PhD.

For now I wish you a great 2009 and hope all your wishes come true and make you very very happy :)