There it snows..

Did I tell you I love snow? I do! And being portuguese I have always been sorry not to have snow over winter. I am also a ski fanatic, and I love more or less everything related to snow. Besides my critics to Nottingham, and England, I must say that I am happy now that the snow arrived, and although it is quite unusual, there's loads of snow in Nottingham right now, and has being snowing beautifully!!! Two days ago I went to the movies and when returning home I was presented with very nice, fluffy big snow puffs falling from the skies, it was like a dream or a fairy tail!

I took some pictures with my phone, they are not brilliant and they dont really show the magic moment, but they certainly show my happiness like a little young girl :)) (and they show my awesome boyfriend too :))

Empty mind

I have been so busy recently that I forgot about the blog. It is not the first time.. from time to time I forget it.. sometimes I feel like writing and sometimes not. but I never feel the obligation to do it.. basically I have been quite moody and only focus on my work. Two weeks ago I finished my thesis plan, very detailed and now I only have to fill in the gaps.. meaning the text, the figures and everything essentially... I am feeling so much pressure that I can barely relax.. and though there are so many things running in my head at a time that I feel empty.. I feel mostly like a robot would feel.. if it would feel.. Just doing the tasks and ticking the boxes in a robotic concerted manner.. no distractions .. no fun.. just work work work... I don't feel human.. its sick. The worst is I know that some of the work I am doing is not necessary but I decided I want to do it, I decided that before and now I cant let it go.. I have to do it, no matter what.. There is something insane about me now. When I try to see ahead I know the time is too short for what I wish to do, but I try to avoid that fact  and just work more to get more done.. and then there are also so many things I end up repeating because they dont look like they should!! So insane.. I feel that if, by chance, I decide to do this kind of job in the future I will be very unhappy. Somehow it is very addicting, too addicting for me to do other things, to have a life basically! I want to have a life, I want to go home, and still have some energy for my family, or still be able to talk to a friend, to cook dinner and to watch a bit of TV eventually! This is no life.. And there is worse.. I just talked to a friend who just finished writing up a diploma thesis, and shared the experience of writing... so destructive! so I know that from today on it will be more and more destructive.. I want to stop this.. I hope I remember to read this, one day things are over and happy again, and I do not do the mistake of starting it over again! This is a reminder for myself and for you too!! Don't work too much, it makes life go so fast and although you may first denied it, with time, you will hate knowing that the time is gone and you forgot to live it!

Science and Humour, how can they work together?

I recently published a post about scientific comedy where I introduced you to the comedian Brian Malow and his scientific jokes. Later that week I discovered that there is a scientific journal named The Journal of Irreproducible Results (click on the link if you would like to visit the web site), and as the name suggests it publishes funny scientific articles. Unfortunately one cannot read it without paying and I haven't had access to any issue yet, but I think one finds things like this one figure shows you, and so on..

Nonetheless, the purpose of my post today is to strengthen the idea that there are a lot of funny things about science and  it can be accessible to everyone. However don't go and do a PhD just because you like science and feel fascinated by it, or at least not just because of that :p Do not underestimate. There's obviously a lot of effort behind the discovers of all times so it is never a cup of tea although most of the greatest discoveries were rather by chance when the scientist was focused on something else... 

However and probably because research demands so much time, patience and dedication, there are every time more scientists that feel they cannot take their science too seriously and they engage in humoristic events and  publications. I think it also feels very rewarding that the general public is getting more involved in scientific matters and that brings enthusiasm to researchers and, in turn increases the need to bring more information to the public. Information that is delivered in a non-academic way. 

Another example of humour in science are the Ig Nobel Prizes given every year to brilliant scientists with outstanding discoveries in improbable science! This is organized by another science and humour magazine, the Improbable Research and their motivation is "Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK". Basically it can teach people a lot of serious concepts, making them laugh rather then bore them, and by doing so people are learning real science. It is another great way of bringing academic discoveries to the public. 

I realized 3 or 4 years ago a new subject was being strongly introduced into the fields of research, the so-called " research communication". It is becoming almost mandatory that students are taught about communication and how to deliver their lab discoveries and their academic topics to the general public. The era of the guinea pig scientist locked up in his lab in a basement far from the world and the society is over. Now people demand to know  what is going on, and the scientists have found their own ways of passing on the knowledge and captivating the public.

Personally I think that generally I am a good speaker yet I am very unsure about my skills of communicating my research to the public. I often think about it. I wrote a lot complaining about my PhD my I have never described what I'm doing.. I am putting some effort to that, and I hope I will soon post something on that matter, I promise!

"Sliding doors" moment or the fate changing moments of life

Have you ever watched "Sliding doors" the movie? If you do, you know exactly what I am talking about, if not you also know what I am talking about.. :P

watch the little video below to see how tiny little things change our life's fate...

Now coming to the topic, the reason why I decided to write about it, it is because there are moments like this one in the movie that you do not control, do not choose and cannot decide .. however there other situations where you clearly make a decision, that you know it is affecting, no matter what, the main course of your life! I knew I made that kind of decision when I decided to come to Nottingham. I could draw a tree with three branches based on the numbers of options I had before I took this decision. Each branch would represent three different lifes. One is the one I am living that derived from the fact that I chose Nottingham to do my PhD. There would be another one if I had chosen Manchester and another one for London. There would be multiple other less obvious and less likely options, but I am just saying the three I had in mind before I chose. And life continues like that all the time... Choose this, choose that, in detriment of other options and carry on to the end. Best option? I don't think that there is such a thing.. all options are potentially good because it is unknown what they drive you into and although I am not religious the bible presents a nice metaphor for these kind of episode, where you have a pretty and easy road that leads to hell and a steep and rough road that leads to heaven. I dont actually believe that the hard pathways are necessarily the right ones or the ones that lead to success and joy, but that is anyway not what the bible means, and not the point either.
What I want to say is basically that I feel that I did the right choice. I did not always thought that but given the present situation and the potential future it seems that I may have done the best choice. But how do I know? I don't know, I just feel, and yet I may change my opinion with whatever comes next, I don't think so. Now obviously there are "sliding doors" moments every day, and sometimes they maybe more important than we can actually think.

In the end there is nothing we can do about fate whether you believe it is pre-destined or not we cant plan ahead everything that's going to happen to us, there are so many variables that make it incredibly complex, no to mention the butterfly effect alone that introduces a lot of entropy! Probably I believe it makes sense that its this way and it gives life some sense too, but I still like to believe I did the right choice and that it wasn't a huge coincidence that I found here, in Nottingham, the guy of my life, who shares the same dreams as me and has similar life objectives.. I couldn't have found him anywhere else... therefore it was the right choice!

Euromillions - is it totally random?

Mostly everybody that plays this kind of game would say yes it is completely random and, of course, there is no chance to predict what numbers are coming up next time. I may point out that this is only partially true.. In fact it is not totally random although (and unfortunately) it is still pretty impossible to predict the numbers.  However, it is possible to group numbers by sets of odds based in the history of the game.
But.. why is it not totally random?
well.. it appears that at least in gambling nothing can be totally random, according to Persi_Diaconis a great specialist the matter of statistics, shuffling and randomness with particular attention to gambling applications, these kind of games where you have a set of balls in a tumbling machine or cards in a deck, there is always a limit to the randomness of the thing. So lets think how this makes very much sense..
The balls that enter the tumbling machine during the Euromillions draw do not enter it all at the same time. The same applies to the exit. On top of that the first ball to come out influences the second and so on. Also, the balls do not all have the same distance from the exit, and that also influences the results! It is virtually impossible to make it totally random, we also talk about 50 balls. And probably in every draw there are differences of milliseconds from the time the balls go in and each ball comes out, and that too also influences the result...
So all these differences and perhaps a few more together restrain the randomness of the game and make it more predictable than one would probably think! that is confirmed by looking into the statistics and the history of Euromillions by visiting this web site for example http://www.lotterypowerpicks.com/em_hotcold.htm Then you will see what I mean.. There are numbers that have almost twice more chance of being drawn  than others!! So think twice before playing. Indeed we can't predict the numbers but by choosing among a smaller set of numbers, therefore the ones that have the higher odds, there is an increasing probability of wining the the game! And this same strategy applies to pretty much all these kind of games!

Now good luck and fingers crossed ;)

Cool Advertising

T-mobile advertising campaign. It is incredible how the human voices can sound like authentic instruments in a band. Very funny video. Its worth to watch!! 

Sailing trip - building the dream

Last time I talked to my best friends we discussed my sailing dream. I am every day more and more excited about it and about making it real. There are few but very important things I need, to realize this dream among finishing my PhD, raising money, buy the boat, learn to sail and go. While I can't do them all I spend some of my procrastinating time doing the small things, like for example, planing the route. I want a route that's doable in less than a year, and I did some research about it. The route I came out with should be done in about 9 to 10 months giving us time for some stops in main planned places. These are the places we aim to spend some time:

Departure: Cascais, Lisbon, Portugal

Second Stop: Azores archipelago.

Second Stop: Caribbean Islands

Leaving Lisbon we would head to Azores, 9 portuguese islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We would do our first stop there, visit the islands, and get ready for the next sailing chunk, the longest without pulling over - 3-4 weeks.









 




Coming from Azores we will arrive in the Caribbean basin (left). There we will visit some of the islands while heading towards the Panama canal.

 

Antigua

Barbados

Dominican Republic

Jamaica

Once we cross the Panama canal we will go to the Galapagos Islands. From the Galapagos we will head to French Polynesia, and cross the Pacific Ocean towards Australia. 

Panama Canal

Galapagos

We will yet stop at Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, New Caledonia cross the coral Sea and arrive at Queensland.

 

French Polynesia - Tahiti

French Polynesia- Bora Bora

By this time, we must have spent over 4 months of our time, crossed two entire oceans and visited some of the most stunning places on earth.

Australia - Queensland

From Australia we haven't yet decided whether we head north towards the Philippines and visit Macau later or we go to Timor-Leste and Indonesia. Either way we will end up in Thailand. Later we will go to Singapore and leave towards the Sri Lanka.

Bali-Indonesia

Philippines

Thailand

Singapore

Sri Lanka

From the Sri Lanka we will be going to Maldives, Seychelles and Mozambique where we plan to spend sometime looking around... 

Maldives

Seychelles

Mozambique

From Mozambique we go around Africa near South Africa coast, heading to the Brazillian Northwest - Recife, Natal, Fortaleza. We will leave brazil towards Fernando de Noronha Island and heading to Cape Verde. By then Our trip is nearly over and we must have spent about 9 months. We will need two or three weeks to arrive back in Portugal, still passing by Canaria archipelago.

Fernando Noronha

Brasil

Cape verde

The return to Lisbon will be the end of the circumnavigation and the achievement of our dream. For now it is only a dream that we are making real. But I am very confident that this dream will become true indeed. I will keep you posted ;)

Scientific comedy

Today I had a so so day. I took it a little easier. Experiments worked, so I felt cool throughout the day. Also I had a good night sleep and I guess that helped a lot. My mood was fine :) I did a little bit of procrastination and I found this comedian called Brian Malow, who is a stand up comedian that includes science related jokes in his performances.

After watching the video shown below I understood why I am doing a phd.. and I understood why I did this mistake too. Basically it all has to do with some confusion between loving science AND getting deep into a boring pointless scientific subject that has very little relevance to anything at all. I've always had a very strong interest in scientific matters and in the understanding of the universe, life and the human being, and that was always combined with being a good student and a confident person. I think these reasons together with (potentially bad) advice misguided me into this life, that has nothing to do with my passion and interest!! How frustrating...

Nonetheless I got the jokes and laughed and although I totally did not need to be doing any PhD to do so, I felt fairly happy about it.



This second video is a larger performance that includes some of the jokes told in the previous one and many others. Very interesting was that this was filmed during the WONDERFEST - The bay area festival of Science http://wonderfest.org/ , and this kind of thing, which I name as "science with public interest" motivates me and makes me sorry I cannot attend it this year. However, it gives me hope one day perhaps I will be doing something more human-world-relevant :)

Fire alarm, electrial tests and safety issues - a guide to the UK

One day had to be the day I was going to write about this topic.. It is not the first time I write posts about the British life and lifestyle (like this one and this one). I mostly criticize it and even joke but I can't help it.. some things are freaking weird!!

The exaggerated safety issues is something that worries me a lot and is critically disconcerting. One would think how can that be?? People may think that safety and safety concerns are something good, and they are, but just until a certain extent... From a certain point on it becomes obsessive and it is damaging!


Starting with the FIRE ALARM. There are smoke detectors everywhere!! I am obviously expecting hospitals and universities to have smoke sensors and fire alarms as well as office buildings and other institutions with many people that would be difficult to evacuate otherwise because it would be difficult for everybody to notice the fire and so on.. but c'ommon, I live in a maisonette, which is like a big studio with two floors but no walls and I have, not one, not two, but THREE smoke detectors inside!! And now you think, I live in a flat in a quite big building, that's true, but wait!! I used to live in a 5 room's house where again, there were....wait, ready???  8 fire sensors!!! And now comes the funny part, here in the building since I moved in there were uncountable fake fire alarms, guess what happens? The first one I walked outside, the second just checked through the window and talked to the neighbour next door who told me about the frequent occurrence of fake fire alarms and how annoying etc... the third time I just stayed alert but barely moved, the further ones I couldn't be bother anymore, and the bad thing is obvious.. if there is a REAL fire, nobody would probably check on me because they would rely on the power of the fire alarm to drag me out to the street.. I am currently more or less immune to the fire alarm and I can sleep through without  a problem (and my boyfriend put the earplugs on)... Conclusion: IT BECAME POINTLESS!

Ok, to be fair the fire alarm might be quite useful, yet it goes off far too many times without a reason and I think that makes people disregarding it. If it would work properly it would be just great!


There is one TINY but funny safety thing about electricity, that (probably) only happens in the university (perhaps in other big institutions too, I don't know) which is called the "electrical safety test". This is some kind of test (I know nothing about it), that all the equipment has to pass in order to be used.. Like I buy a kettle or something else which is technically ready to use but I can't use it before that it goes through that electrical test, whatever that is and for whatever that exists for... I wonder if that's just a way to employ more people! 

The last thing that I remember related to crazy obsessive safety issues has to do with a very bad experience I had a while ago and which I don't intend to detail specially because it is so sick that it would make you throw.. believe but never mind.. It has to do with radiation.. basically being in the biomedical research field some of my work involves working with the radioisotope P32. This is a very hazard reagent and obviously requires a lot of caution, which I perfectly understand. Radiation can cause serious damage to the human being including malformations and cancer when one is exposed for long periods to very high levels of radiation. End of story but no, in the university people go crazy about that. It is beyond understand.. they employ freak odd people to check on people who handle radioactivity and to use their personal frustrations to importunate the normal and simple life of scientists like me.. But in the end these same idiotic people throw extremely elevated levels of liquid radiation in a normal sinks, in the running water and say to my astonishing surprise that sometimes when they walk around the fields carrying a geiger counter (device to measure radiation - but who is the freak who randomly carries one anyway...), they can spot radioactivity!!!
I dont know but to me it really does not make sense... it's like so many concerns, so many rules, so many tests, but in the end who is worryed about who?

The point I want to raise is that in the end, to me, nobody cares about my safety or anything, they just want to make sure they are not charged in case anything goes wrong, basically they just want to wash their hands!!! Fire alarms?? yeah insurance requisites, they decrease the price of the insurance.. Electrical safety tests, fire lectures at the university, yes again insurance issues.. Radiation concerns?? yes avoid local trouble with the environmental agency but does not matter if a certain field across the university is fully radioactive as long as the inspectors cannot smell it inside, nothing else matters..

Therefore I question, am I really safe here? I don't feel so...

How to enjoy your research?

Or how to enjoy your academic research?
Does anybody know the answer to this question?


Personally I googled it, and unlike the usual google wasn't able to give me an answer!!! This never happened before! However, I am not totally surprised that there are no answers to this question. There are certainly many tips on how to enjoy your job and work and those can be used for academic research but they are common sense tips and motivators that do not simply respond to the question!


I know my today's post topic goes back to the recurrent topic of my life.. my research and my PhD. I feel particularly sad today. After a lot of effort and time spent to get some results, there are things that simply don't work..This is, as one can imagine, very frustrating, when you plan everything, spend hours putting a lot of effort, work after hours and over the weekends and in the end there is no result meaning that all that effort was in vain.. No one cares about negative results, that cannot be published and cannot figure in a PhD thesis, so upon failure one feels that has to catch up with the time "lost" which was the time spent working a lot but resulting in nothing, and the story repeats over and over again. I cannot enjoy this! How to enjoy this?


When I left the lab today I roamed through the corridors got to the lift then went back to the lab again to check on my cells (I am a bit worried with a cell line I bought yesterday, costed almost £600 and I am afraid to death they die before I freeze them). Then I left the lab again and again roamed towards the lifts and, as usual, stared a bit at the scientific posters on the walls.. Some of them aren't good or pretty or promising or interesting but regardless of that I always wonder how much time and effort (and money) was spent to do the research that's presented there..

The fact is I just can't see the light right now, or there's no shine in the dark for me now when it comes to research (or perhaps there should be). One day there is one thing that works just fine sooner followed by a set of frustrations... and that's the vicious cycle of research, I cannot see any amusement there!
Not to mention that (quite obviously actually) , there are people that, possibly under despair, fabricate data and publish fake results in order to move on, get funded and successful, and I don't know, but I guess sometimes it must be really complicated...


I guess I was just not born for this. I am a very hard worker and I usually enjoy working a lot, having results, achieving something, I like getting compliments for my effort and so on and so on.. With research I just feel that I am in a battle with myself everyday, testing how many hours I can work in a row without collapsing in order to compensate for the frustrations. I end up doing several additional less relevant experiments that I know they work fine mixed in between the tricky ones to cope with the disappointment  (its like giving myself a carrot, although I already know that..).. And if in the end I would at least offer something great to the world... but no, I know that my contribution to the universal knowledge is smaller than a sand grain. It is sad but it is just a purely academic dissertation about a very academic topic with inexistent applicability to the humanity..

However, if you know the answer for my question, please tell me, I can't hold it much longer...

"better to be fond of beautiful girls than gay" Silvio Berlusconi today

There were a few times today I wanted to post something, and I had something to post about, but as usual my day is so busy that I just kept postponing it until now I finally got home.

I sat in the sofa and checked the news (I hadn't had time for that before either).
It was with suprise that I discovered that the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was confronted today during an interview with a question about being allegedly involved with a 17 year old girl in a private party, and to which he replied saying, in a well humoured tone (I think): "better to be fond of beautiful girls than gay" or in Italian  ''Meglio appassionati delle belle ragazze che gay".
I couldn't help but laugh!! How bad is to be gay?? Apparently the gay community was quickly prompted with anger and replied "Better gay than pig!" LOL, And they could continued and see who is worse than who.. but lets see how can a prime minister say something like that? Its quite shocking treating homosexuality as disease.. I found it very irresponsible..


Being portuguese I listened to the original video and obviously I can't believe he really said that.. Check it out:

 

I have no problem with people who say what they think, but that was a little too much, and gay people do not hurt anybody!!

HTC desire .. FAULTS .. A great phone turning into a huge deception

Unfortunately I feel I have to write about this topic as to publish my experience with my HTC desire phone since many of you may consider buying one, or because it was released a few months ago and is probably already a too old model, you maybe facing the same or similar troubles as me, then I am sharing my disappointment..

I bought this phone in April, not even 6 months ago, it was a planned decision as I had thoroughly looked into several models before I decided to buy this one.

It was absolutely alright for the first 3 months, with the exception of the battery that would not last a whole day if I would be using the phone for a bit more than phone calls, like to play a game or surf the web. In those cases it was like taking the phone from the charger at 8.30am and then at 8.30 pm it would be switching off, death without any battery, but ok..

Then it comes the SERIOUS problems..
first the volume rocker wouldn't allow me to decrease the volume but only increase it.
This fault was followed by the "track ball" button not working at all as for opening an app for example.
Then on top of that the phone started to switch off by itself without a reason! From time to time, once or twice a week I would find out that my phone was off inside my bag although I didn't touch it or it run out of battery. I would restarted and it would work normally except for the faulty buttons..
Following these already very annoying faults, it came the worst one: the automatic rebooting!! Basically that consisted of every time I was starting the phone it would go into a loop of booting without stopping, unless I just press the track ball button during the booting process (something Pedro discovered). On top of that this would also happen spontaneously, as like my phone being on my desk and all of a sudden starting the rebooting loop non stop! Freakish right?

Confronted with so many faults and trouble I went to the Vodafone shop where I had bought it from and it was sent for repairing.
It took a month before it was ready and today I went to the shop to get it back, where I was told that it was a big fault and basically all the hardware had being replaced and I was getting a "new phone".
I came home, charged the device, then switched it on and it seemed to be alright.

track ball working - check OK
Volume rocker - check OK

didn't do any of the freakish stuff.. - OK

but when I was reinstalling my apps, probably just 30 minutes after switching it on the volume rocker stopped working as well as the track ball. I tried to restart the phone and all I got was a white screen with some sort of "code"!! and it was totally frozen! Now I can't reboot it, it just shows that white panel with code and nothing else, nothing works at all!!!
How frustrating and disenchanting is this? I am really pissed off with this phone and it is very unlikely I will ever buy another HTC in my life!

Besides, after this happening today I browsed the internet for similar problems with "HTC desire" and found an enormous number of people complaining about the same problems!!!

I question.. is it only about doing fancy phones... that last what, 3 months?? We are yet there, I believe...

Sailing for life

Hello everyone,
There is always a big gap between my posts and I really dont like it. When I started this blog was because I had the will to write and the pleasure of course. However, with time part of that pleasure vanished mostly due to my routine (crazy as very very busy, focus on my bloody PhD, which is killing me, I just want to see the end of it.. and although I see it, because I have to, as I am almost running out of funding, and I know I have to finish, bla bla bla, it almost seems impossible to do it.. its a truly nightmare, and perhaps I wish I would have never decided to do it.. but the thing is.. I still do not know what I want to do for living.. I really mean it, I dont know what I want to do to support my life financially, there is nothing appealing around me, and I get frequently bored of any task or job, as it seems that as soon as I handle it - what happens very fast - it loses interest - its like a bit of a challenge in the first day, then I learn, specialize, master it and then.. its boring.. and now I may have to finish this parentheses to come to the topic of today.. which is in line with what I just said though :P)

OK so given the situation I think I found a really nice and exciting challenge that will keep me busy and happy, and eventually I may be able to turn it to a profitable business and live from it:

A while ago my boyfriend Pedro came out with this idea of sailing.. mostly (I believe) because we are in England and having a boat just sounds perfect as the sweetest escape out of the country back to our dearest Portugal. I fantasised many times us waving goodbye from the boat in incredible excitement and happiness with our mission accomplished and with our diplomas from our PhDs towards a brand new awesome prosperous life back home (ideally).

However, and although this idea still sounds great to me, I thought that having a boat could give us a lot more, and after us being wondering and dreaming about many possible sailing trips there was A one trip that could JUST really fulfil my adrenaline addiction and challenge hunting dependence - the ultimate challenge that someone possessing a boat could think of: CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE WORLD obviously!

.. And that is the plan.. Step-by-step the plan is becoming true, and since me and Pedro just had idea a relatively short time ago, everything is still in the beginning. We have so much to do.. obviously we need to learn how to sail, and we are starting that in January, already got enrolled for the day-skipper course, next we have to take an open see cruiser course, and eventually a third one, we are looking for a decent affordable sailing boat, and we frequently read and search for information on the topic. Right now one of our major issues is the budget...

Very recently Pedro added some adverts to his blog http://towardsnothing.blogspot.com/
we know it is not going to buy us the boat but any little helps, so if you like the idea (or you're simply nice to us), you could just go there and click in one of the advertising links ;))

As for the record I feel that this challenge will change my life forever and hopefully will make it better, brighter and more exciting :)) So that is why I am going to sail for life.

PS: I am also currently looking for some kind of spounsership.. we have a few plans to generate money and attract investment but if by any chance you would like to embrace this dream - or you know of who would like to -  please help us, donations, suggestions and basically any recommendations are very welcome!  

The world cup 2010 songs and the ugly truth

On the other day I was in the car listen to the radio and I heard what I thought it was the official World cup 2010 song, I though it was great and I love the song:



Ooooooh Wooooooh, Ooooooh Wooooooh
Give me freedom, give me fire, give me reason, take me higher
See the champions, take the field now, you define us, make us feel proud
In the streets our heads are lifting, as we lose our inhibition,

Celebration, its around us, every nations, all around us
Singing forever young, singing songs underneath that sun
Lets rejoice in the beautiful game,
And together at the end of the day.

We all say

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag
When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag

So wave your flag, now wave your flag, now wave your flag
Oooohhh, Oooooooooh wooooohh, Oooooooooh wooooohh

Give you freedom, give you fire, give you reason, take you higher
See the champions, take the field now, you define us, make us feel proud
In the streets our heads are lifting, as we lose our inhibition,
Celebration, its around us, every nations, all around us
Singing forever young, singing songs underneath that sun
Lets rejoice in the beautiful game,
And together at the end of the day.

We all say

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag
When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag

So wave your flag, now wave your flag, now wave your flag
Now wave your flag (4x)

Oohhoooohh Woooh Ohohooooh Wooohoooh
We all say

When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag
When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom, just like a wavin’ flag

So wave your flag, now wave your flag, now wave your flag
Now wave your flag (4x)

Oooooh woowoo ooh Wooo ooohh ooohoh

And everybody will be singing it
Oooooh woowoo ooh Wooo ooohh ooohoh
And we all will be singing it

Later after some hard research on the internet my boyfriend told me that this song is the official COCA COLA song for the world cup and not the REALLY official one which is from Shakira and which is very nice as well





You're a good soldier
Choosing your battles
Pick yourself up
And dust yourself off
And back in the saddle

You're on the frontline
Everyone's watching
You know it's serious
We're getting closer
This isnt over

The pressure is on
You feel it
But you've got it all
Believe it

When you fall get up
Oh oh...
And if you fall get up
Oh oh...

Tsamina mina
Zangalewa
Cuz this is Africa

Tsamina mina eh eh
Waka Waka eh eh

Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa aa
This time for Africa

Listen to your god
This is our motto
Your time to shine
Dont wait in line
Y vamos por Todo

People are raising
Their Expectations
Go on and feed them
This is your moment
No hesitations

Today's your day
I feel it
You paved the way
Believe it

If you get down
Get up Oh oh...
When you get down
Get up eh eh...

Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa aa
This time for Africa

Tsamina mina eh eh
Waka Waka eh eh

Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa aa

Tsamina mina eh eh
Waka Waka eh eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa


In one of my attempts to download the first song from K'naan (waving flag), I came across another version of the song, which I confirmed that it is its original version. The funny thing is that this now popular song which everybody recognizes around the world as the world cup song was originally written as an African manifesto bringing up the big issues present in the continent and most importantly in my opinion (and what makes it more ironic), the fact that the "white" countries always manipulated the "black" ones specially with lies and fake promises. I am hoping this time the world cup in South Africa brings some prosperity to the continent though it has already been criticized that there is very little involvement of African people in the world cup so it smells like the continent is used and explored once again without African people getting any rewards, but I dont entirely belive it to the contrary I have the good feeling that things are changing for good and I cant wait to visit Africa soon (I hope it will be my next trip .. Sao tome e principe or mocambique? ) :))



Next is the original song and lyrics, now compare!!





When i get older, they'll call me freedom
Just like a Waving Flag.

[Chorus]
When I get older, I will be stronger,
They'll call me freedom, just like a Waving Flag,
And then it goes back, and then it goes back,
And then it goes back

Born to a throne, stronger than Rome
but Violent prone, poor people zone,
But it's my home, all I have known,
Where I got grown, streets we would roam.
But out of the darkness, I came the farthest,
Among the hardest survival.
Learn from these streets, it can be bleak,
Except no defeat, surrender retreat,

So we struggling, fighting to eat and
We wondering when we'll be free,
So we patiently wait, for that fateful day,
It's not far away, so for now we say

[Chorus]

So many wars, settling scores,
Bringing us promises, leaving us poor,
I heard them say, love is the way,
Love is the answer, that's what they say,
But look how they treat us, Make us believers,
We fight their battles, then they deceive us,
Try to control us, they couldn't hold us,
Cause we just move forward like Buffalo Soldiers.

But we struggling, fighting to eat,
And we wondering, when we'll be free
So we patiently wait, for that faithful day,
It's not far away, but for now we say,

[Chorus] 2x

(Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhhh Ohhhh)
And everybody will be singing it
(Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhhh Ohhhh)
And you and I will be singing it
(Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhhh Ohhhh)
And we all will be singing it
(Ohhh Ohh Ohh Ohh)

[Chorus] 2x

When I get older, when I get older
I will be stronger, just like a Waving Flag,
Just like a Waving Flag, just like a Waving flag
Flag, flag, Just like a Waving Flag

PhD Advice, possibly the best advice one can get before starting a PhD

I decided to write about this topic now that have some experience in the matter. I started this blog more or less a few months after started my PhD and now I am on my third year, so roughly 2 years are gone.

Over these two years many things happened, good and bad things, and obviously I have been realizing that I added a lot of knowledge not at the academic level alone but I am talking about living experience knowledge. This post will be all about life experience and almost nothing about the scientific content of my PhD, although it quite annoys me too...

Basically I wish I was aware of certain things I am now before I decided to start this PhD, and I hope that if you are reading this and considering doing PhD you will remember my advice :) or otherwise do not complain! ;)

First rule: Get to know your group first! This is so important, and I have been told about that, but for one reason or another I ended up forgetting to know more about the group I was going to be part of. It is really important that you like the group where you work, remember you will be there at least 3 years, the whole day, sometimes 7 days per week, you will possibly need to ask for help or one or two favours, you will be pleased to have colleagues that help you, that you identify yourself with, that you can hang out with, even if they are not or will never be your best friends, you will like to talk to them and enjoy the conversation. Remember that your supervisor must be a nice guy, in the end everything goes down to him, and he will be the responsible for you and your work, so your supervisor must be the guy that you will never feel angry with or have any problems.

So, to know the group is even more important than the subject of your PhD (actually the subject is not very important but I will come to that later). It is more important than the institution, it is more important than the place in the world. I believe that to feel happy at work with the people around it is already a very good help to get the work properly done, because you enjoy to be there, and best is when people work as a team and not like a bunch of selfish guys trying to see you is better like in a race where in the end things do not work and one feels very unhappy.

So do not forget, try to spend some time in a lab before you decide to stay there for you PhD, then you can make sure you are in the right place :))

Second rule: Supervisor success! I already said that the supervisor must be a nice guy, which is absolutely fundamental, you may not believe but that are really freaking supervisors around that can make your life a real nightmare, so be aware! Next important thing about your supervisor is he's rate of success at several levels but most importantly with publications. This is something very easy to track down, as in www.pubmed.com you can search for your potential supervisor's name and see which publications does he or she have. Be careful!! Sometimes there are people with the same name, so a quick look may make you overlook things, make sure the publications are all from the same person by for example checking the institution and the other people in the paper you will be able to track down who is working with etc... Obviously if your potential supervisor has been publishing like crazy in really good journals it is very likely that your project is going to be a success and you will probably enjoy it (but do not forget to check if the guy is nice.. it can be that he is a rubbish bastard scientist that slaves everyone in the lab to get all those papers out). By checking advisor's publications you will also be more aware of the work that is done in the lab, the techniques and methods in use, animal work and so on, so be sure that you don't chose a group that does something you are against or do not enjoy at all. Also very important is to know how many PhD students your supervisor had so far and if they all were ok, passed and published (in case there was a failure I would never go there, but that's just me)!

Third rule: Meeting with the boss! The meetings with your supervisor are very important moments of your PhD, so this advice is more for post-PhD beginning, but I decide to include it here because it is very very important. First, PhD students always think that the supervisor is watching them, or is thinking that they are not good enough maybe a bit stupid, basically in the beginning we all feel a bit overwhelmed by our supervisors, but everything we think is a myth and sooner or later we realize that... In fact our supervisors do not care that much about us.. and that's a problem because they do not remember what we discussed before, for example in the previous meeting, etc.. so meeting with your supervisor should be something very natural. please always feel or try to feel very confident when you talk to your boss, that will make you believable and you advisor will have a great (very temporary) impression of you, and probably will trust you sooner (meaning totally forget about you, which has the pro of at least you dont feel stupid anymore but the cons that you will have to run after your supervisor to have a meeting with him, otherwise he will never come to you). Most importantly, do not disregard these meetings as they are a confirmation of your success (hopefully), and usually your supervisor will guide you (if he is good) and give you ideas and tips that otherwise you would take a very long time to figure that out, and time is quite precious as it runs so fast..

Forth rule: Number of people around you! It sounds like what? but it is quite important that you are not isolated but also that you are not in a crowd all the time, so the amount of people you work with in a daily basis must be something balanced, so great enough for you to have choice, choice of friends, not to feel alone, it also helps to cope with the peer pressure, enough people to compare results with and to entertain the supervisor. On the other hand it is convenient that there are not too many people which could shadow you, or that your supervisor will be so busy taking care of them all that he will not have time for you.

Fifth rule: Institution/place in the world: Well this advice is very general, in fact the best place in the world is where you feel good, but you dont know before you stay there, so it is difficult to predict. Sometimes the most appellative place turns to be horrifying and vice versa, so here it will be very random and thats why the group is so important, because no matter where you are, if you are surrounded by the right people and nice people you will always be alright and feel good :) The institution matters a bit in terms of career for the future, so I would always look for the best ranked institutions first.

And there are some literature about it that you may want to read:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php gives you an idea of how painful can this life be

How to get a PhD : a handbook for students and their supervisors / Estelle M. Phillips and Derek S. - gives you an extensive list of tips and advice on this topic.

Good luck and remember to be sure before you start, because then you commit to a three year nightmare or spend time till you decide to give up and start again or change your life. Nonetheless I can promise you it is not going to be easy even if you take all the advice possible!

Scientific Conferences

After a very long break in my blog writing I decided to come back at least I wanted to post something about conferences. Since I started my PhD (back in March 2008) I have attended now two conferences:
one in October 2009, in Lisbon
another one just two weeks ago in Vienna.

The second reason why I chose this topic was not really to report that but to highlight some aspects about the conferences in general..

Basically there are two aspects about them that intrigue me:
1. the people that go to the meetings!
2. the reason why people go to these meetings!

So obviously among quite a few thousand scientists all over the world, not everyone go to conferences, therefore there seems to be a criteria behind the people that choose to go, and indeed there is:

1. first type: the most common people you find at conferences are the ones that love to socialize and know that at work it does not happen that often therefore they feel the need to meet the other ones that also need to socialize. Then they attend the conferences to meet up people, to drink, gather friends and collaborations (then they have more and more excuses for further travelling). They bullshit a lot (meaning talk about everything with maximum confidence even when they are not saying anything really). I feel that I fit here! Usually in these group you also include people from industry and medical doctors. Not so often there are some supervisors and head of the lab here too.

2. second type: The super shy people that go to conferences because they have been sent by supervisors or bosses or the ones that fight the shyness of leaving the lab just because they are extremely interested in a certain topic that is being discussed at the conference. These people never hang out during the conference, they simply sit apart all the time, avoid talking, and when someone seems to be approaching they quickly manage to move or pretend to be very concentrated reading something. Usually they are not even that noticed and no one cares. They never ask questions, simply take notes, go to bed, come back next day, avoid the socials and in the end go back home, where half of them forget the conference entirely and some will remember the one talk that they thought was supposedly going to safe their life but in the end the speaker changed it or discussed it differently... These are the general frustrated ones, most of them look extremely geek.

3. third type: The super geek ones that stand out. These are usually the bosses/supervisors that think they understand everything that is being discussed, therefore they always ask questions out loud to the audience in the end of the talks. Their clothes and outfits are usually appalling, and the hair is usually forgotten to be cut or combed. However they are quite social among themselves. Do not interact very well with the first type (and obviously not with the second and no one does) but they usually criticize them because of their coolness. These are also the talkers themselves, they think they are the elite as they move the things forward having the best achievements and the best publications (which is many times true). They command and rule the conference. Eventually they show up at the socials but just to talk about science and gather with people just the same. Other type of conversation beyond science will be usually avoided unless it is extremely necessary to start a new collaboration or get some funding to the lab.

And there is no forth type, this is everyone you get at the conference, obviously there will be some mild phenotypes of each type, but you can easily spot these major ones then you go for the one that suits you best ;)

More personally I like going to conferences and I do really encourage everyone to go because it is a very good way to take the things forward (being in type 1 or 3 of course).
We cannot forget that beyond the journal papers and the editors there are people to be pleased and having good relationships with them as well as with other people, having collaborations and everything will make the life a lot easier when trying to get funded or go through the peer review process (as it is likely that the reviewers will be your friends than it is certain that your paper will go through).

Basically do not stuck in your lab forever trying to make the things work out just because you work a lot. Get out there, be social and you will find half of the work done for you ;))

And most importantly you get to travel for free and if your are lucky enough you may find a conference in Hawai :)



Poster session (my poster is the red one), Vienna, Feb 2010