Hypervision

The roads into my PhD..

2012-01-16T22:21:00.002Z

Like I said in my last post, I am currently looking for a job as I have recently submitted my PhD thesis (I still cannot believe it entirely...) Today, I spent pretty much the whole day looking into job advertisements, recruitment companies websites and thus spotting possible future employers. At the same time I wrote a list of skills and assets I gained, mostly from my PhD, such that I can fix and update my CV, also I spent quite some time surfing in Linkedin..

Linkedin became quite useful as it quickly helped me remembering and learning about a lot of possible employers. At the same time, however, it diverted my attention to the forums of questions and answers that are constantly going on as part of the groups that one can take part.. I am myself part of quite a few groups that I joined for one reason or another.. from time to time, and more often than I would wish, I receive, in my email box, these questions and these debates and frequently realize they are redundant. The same questions and issues are raised several times and go on forever.. I reckon that is because they are indeed prevalent within the population and important matters to be discussed of course.. In particular, there is this question about "Why did you do your PhD" or "shall I hide my PhD in my next job application" of course these questions are posed directly to people who have done PhD's but who are very much willing to leave academia for good...

Reading all this, I could not help it but rethink on my entire decision of first having thought of doing a PhD and secondly having done it, or most of it.. (not 100% finished but confident enough that I will pass my dissertation exam.. hopefully... mixed feelings here)..

At the same time I came across this blog article from a guy I know and I discovered today is doing a PhD himself.. (sorry I didnt know about that).. Besides the article being really well written I think it explains very well why most people, who have a scientific background, are dragged into this kind of life.. aka PhD/research servant forced to get accustomed to a tyrant supervisor who has no respect for the fact that his students is a human being with personal aspirations and instead simply sees a brain on a stick... as very well characterized by Jorge Cham (PhD comics says it all)...

But Ok.. I am diverting a little bit from the message I wanted to convey today which was basically to explain how I came to do a PhD... So basically and to cut a fairly long story, it was when I was in the final stages of my undergrad degree that the word PhD reached my vocabulary.. I was undertaking my final year research project and quite successfully, I not only set up an entire new lab, as I performed good research, later appreciated by my supervisors and pretty much all the scholars around. On top of that I still did some teaching and master students supervision.. all in all it was a great achievement and I got the best mark ever achieved for this discipline, 19 out of 20! During this time I was heavily persuaded into pursuing a PhD not only by the academics around me, including my professors, but as well by the job market.. Before I just wanted to finish my degree and get a job, that's it. A cousin of mine had done a PhD some time ago and struggled to get a job due to over qualification, so I knew that should be something to avoid.. but somehow I went straight to it... After applying for a few research technician jobs without success, it seemed right to do a PhD, specially because it was very easy to get it.. Also, the job positions that seemed right for me at that time, they all required a PhD or extensive research experience, thus again, the PhD appeared to be the right and only thing to do..

Yet, I thought ok.. I can do a PhD BUT I should be in a project that is, in some way, linked to industry or involving industry partners, because, in fact, I never thought or planed to becoming an academic. Thus, I looked into this possibility and luckily and happily found the ideal PhD project for me. Unfortunately, the good things end here. 6 months later and my PhD project had to cease because the company I was collaborating with, and which was subsidizing the research, was in serious struggle to keep things up as the economic crisis spreaded all over Europe (we were in 2008). Consequently, my funding was cut and I was left with two options: give up and look for another project in a different place, essentially start it over from the PhD hunting point, or continue in the same place but changing the topic and the domain a little bit and doing a purely academic PhD just like the majority of people do.

I must say that by then I was already quite disappointed with many things regarding the PhD, and perhaps I should have quitted and tried to find a normal job and forget the entire PhD thing altogether... but me being me, giving up was not something that could be accepted, I do not accept defeat, ever, therefore my decision was to continue. That is, I did the most academic PhD one can ever plan, have two journal publications, can perhaps have 2 or three more, yet the things went so badly that at present I don't know whether I can be bother... I know one thing though.. I am going to leave this "world" and use whatever skills I achieved to be starting it, even if from scratch, in a different world. That was what I always wanted, so not giving up the dream! Say, it just got a little bit delayed...

One day I am going to write a post about the do and donts and my personal experience during the PhD, but I am going to leave it to another time, as this post is far too long already.. Thus for now I keep searching for a suitable career for the "after PhD life".

In a different world

2012-01-09T15:44:00.001Z

Hello world!

That's me back to life... guess what? I submitted my thesis, and all of a sudden everything became bright and colourful again! Life is back in my veins and I feel alive again... And as for writing the blog I am back too :) not that it matters much, as I don't write that well nor I even write interesting stuff but for now I use it as entertainment! And for practising my writing as it turns out that it is not my strongest skill.. I realized that when I was writing up my thesis.. At times I realize that I could not really convey the message into readable and clear text.. I think that might have to due with the fact that I think much faster than I write, specially in a foreign language and therefore the text becomes confusing, and most times says nothing of what I had originally thought.. so I better dedicate my career to something where writing is not crucial to have success.. but as a perfectionist I am and because I realize it it quite important to write even if your life does not dependent on it.. I will put some effort in writing my blog and continuing using it to express myself, my thoughts and my experiences as I used to do when I started it.
Over the time during the last year I was rather absence. The Phd sucked all my free time, even my eating and sleeping time, so the blog became forgotten...
Now that it is almost over.. I am just waiting for the exam .. viva voce as it is known in the UK.. I have time to dedicate to writing some lines here, as often as I feel like.
As this post is only about coming back to blogging I am not going to speak about any other subject for now other than highlighting that I feel reborn!!
And that I am now dedicating my time to improving my life and finding a job.
At present I haven't yet got a clue of what I am going to do next or where I am going to be doing it.. as due to the job market it is difficult to tell where my job is going to be.. I will essentially apply everywhere to job positions I find somehow appellative and see what happens.. I am hopeful to get to some interviews at least.. At the same time I decided to learn another language, its either going to be Chinese, which I plan to start soon, but if I have to go to germany for a job, it will have to be german.. for obvious reasons... then another new year's resolutions, or new life's resolutions (shall be the correct way of saying it).. I also committed to learn how to program and do it religiously like a school course where I am going to dedicate some good time to it.. I find that nowadays one who cannot program is almost illiterate let alone the advantages it can bring with regard to finding a job or being involved in a particular task in the future.. so Chinese and programming are my focus for now while I will try to enjoy myself as much as I can, apply for jobs and perhaps even get a part time in a restaurant, bar or cafe to earn some money for the time being..

Lets see how it goes, I wish myself good luck and I must say I feel really good about it!

Sailing progress

2011-02-25T20:05:00.000Z

This is an overdue post that comes in sequence with "the dream" that refers to the so-wanted sailing around the world trip :) So from the title you can guess that I am making some progress towards that dream. I say it is overdue because there has been two weeks since I made such progress. Basically I have now completed the off-shore sailing course that allows me to navigate almost everywhere but only theoretically.. I learnt about tides, streams, wind, maps, navigation, weather, equipments, ropes, bla bla bla, so that I can sit down and plan a safe journey somewhere accouting for almost everything. It was a very useful course although a bit boring, as I cant help finding boring to be sat in a classroom listening to someone for hours. After three weekends of waking up at 7am Saturdays and Sundays and driving to Hull for the classes, then coming back in the evening, it was very exhaustive of course. And Hull is dull, it is really ugly. Overall and most importantly, theory is mastered and I am now waiting to do the practice. There will be courses running from May on, so very soon me and my boyfriend should be enrolled in one of those. Yet, we thought about trying Cornwall this time instead of Hull for the sake of some nice landscapes hehehe

There it snows..

2010-12-01T17:19:00.000Z

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

2010-11-29T18:26:00.001Z

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?

2010-11-22T13:26:00.019Z

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

2010-11-19T14:13:00.000Z

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?

2010-11-18T19:39:00.000Z

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

2010-11-17T11:00:00.000Z

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

2010-11-13T22:54:00.021Z

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

2010-11-10T00:10:00.004Z

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

2010-11-07T01:24:00.007Z

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?

2010-11-04T22:03:00.011Z

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

2010-11-02T22:31:00.000Z

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

2010-10-31T01:54:00.033+01:00

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

2010-10-30T23:23:00.002+01:00

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

2010-06-17T17:43:00.009+01:00

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

2010-03-23T13:18:00.012Z

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

2010-02-26T12:42:00.006Z

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

The break and vote for the song of the summer 2009

2009-07-13T19:14:00.006+01:00

This post has got the title "The break" because as you may have realized I made a break on my Blog writing up. Many of you might have thought that I gave it up, and somehow I did, but truth is that I just didnt feel like doing it, many things happened that couldn't have got my attention here but it just didnt feel like.. However, since last week I felt like sharing some other feelings and thoughts that came out to my mind, therefore I felt the will to write up here again and here I am :)
Basically last week I was away on holiday and spent a wonderful time with my boyfriend in Mallorca. The trip itself has several things to write about and I will soon detail it here, specially I have to post some criticism to the place and share some funny stuff but I dont want to rush it too much.

So I skip up the details of the break itself (if there's any) and go straight to the second part of my topic - the survey to vote for the song of the summer 2009.

This "survey", completely unofficial of course, comes from the fact that during the past week on my summer holiday I heard a lot of songs and might be good candidates for "the song of the summer 2009", so I am putting them here, I think this is a good way to start over again, a bit of an empty message, but if you´re bored just listen to them, relax and have fun ;)

1. Number One

2. Poker Face

3. Right Round

4. Takin' Back My Love

5. Boom Boom Pow

6. Any song from Michael Jackson, e.g.

Vote!

Where am I going this Friday?

2009-04-29T18:00:00.005+01:00

Yes I am going to fly.
Yes I am going out.
Yes I am going to be happy.
Yes I am going to be home.

A to B and B to C followed by :D and yeahh and wiiii and ohhhh (Pedro!!) but wii again ;)

25 !

2009-04-25T13:02:00.006+01:00

This post is a bit delayed because although its called 25 and today is actually the 25th this post belongs to the 23rd when I celebrated 25 years of existence (understood?!)..

Back on the 23rd, I felt very moody in the beginning but end up reasonably well. I woke up sick and tired feeling like staying in bed mourning the whole day. Physically sick, my stomach was terrible, my head dizzy and heavy, I was so depressed with being 25 that I was more in the mood of non celebration and avoid the confront with happy people saying happy birthday, like there was any reason to be happy about it...
Fortunately for the sake of me and everyone around me this mood was temporary (not as much as I would like too unfortunately though) but by the late afternoon (after two beers I may say) I stop being miserable and become happy :)

Pedro said something very true that I want to cite:
"the 25 is the best age because one is not to young so that is taking serious by everybody but also not too old to not have the excuse to misbehave a little bit ;)"

I do not only agree as I feel it and thats the real reason why I got so sad because I know, I can feel that I am currently living the best time of my life at least the most funniest one where I have got enough responsability to hold up an adult life but I still feel somehow protected by my parents as when I was younger or I feel I can still go out to every club and drink a lot and dance and party, nobody relies on me, life tastes too good, I feel that I am too passionate to my own life, therefore I just want to make sure that it is going to last forever (and I know it wont!!!) so thats my worries coming then... On the other hand all the wise elder people say that all the ages have their good points so I am hopeful that it is going to be all fun and one thing I am pretty sure is I will always try to get the most out of everything :)

Have fun, I do!

Snow trip part II

2009-04-24T15:51:00.012+01:00

The first successful 2 meters standing up skiing:

See how unsure I was about the position of the legs and what to do with the sticks...

Trying to have a little bit of style now that I could safely stand up..

It always looks easy from the bottom but when one gets to the top... it appears like a cliff... you can find Wally on this picture too

On top of the mountain, that means that the only way to go home is to come down the hill rather skiing or randomly rolling down...

Mission accomplished!!

Thank you Pedro, it was really good fun, I loved it, I am addicted now, and I have to wait almost a year now for another time like that :) Skiing rules!

Mathematical Modelling of Transcription Factors in Living Cells

2009-03-31T12:41:00.006+01:00

or
How the mathematicians and the engineers meet the biologists

The subject of today involves a bit of my PhD's ideas and the one bit I am trying to work in at the moment (Although not too focused because I am doing the other bits too). I think generally speaking the title of this post sounds already a bit complicated but we are talking about PhD topics and subjects so there is no way to overcome complexity, the simple things are out there for everyone, the complex things are ignored by the most of you and deeply interesting to some of us. That’s not entirely my case though! I mean, I am slightly interested on them, but sometimes I just want to move over this and get a more simple life (I think I read it somewhere some time ago.. by that time I didnt quite understand it but every day that passes it sounds more and more familiar, so I already feel it too... it is unavoidable..) It appears that unless one is mental depressed and compromised he cannot enjoy this sort of life forever at least without questioning it (and I guess that may be part of the geniality of all this).
Ok, but regardless of my feelings I came out with this topic because I think it is interesting the way we can apply maths to explain how life works and on top of that there is not much being done in the area, just 2, maximum 3 groups in the world do something similar to this. Thought this is not my whole PhD, I couldnt just do that, but I will present a nice model (hopefully) and I think it will look pretty nice in my thesis..

Well I said hopefully because (maybe obviously) I still didnt solve the model but just some parcels, which is ok, nevertheless I need to solve the model.

Thats where I regret that my mathematics and physics knowledge is not very extensive so therefore I regret once again I didnt undertake the engineering degree :(
Some are medical frustrated, I am an engineer frustrated I am afraid... lol
On the plus side my boyfriend is an engineer and he is giving me a hand with the model, so thats where the biologist meet the engineers.. and this meeting is more than a meeting I hope, and it is genial ;)

So now I think with this precious help I am on the way to finish it and before I forgot I take the change to already acknowledge Pedro for his help ;) and once I finish this I will, I think, also publish something about it in a very practical and straightforward manner very different than what is in the literature I have been reading where one has to go through very complicated equations and protocols in order to maybe use a few of them applied to this sort of cases, it is not very clear how to do that and so on, basically I think the disciplines used to be too apart and they need to converge into a point, people need to work together!

Just to finish with my topic of today I leave a song that apparently represents me in a way, could be my song, it is one of many.. :)

Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called

Fights and battles have begun
Revenge will surely come
Your hard times are ahead

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called

Fights and battles have begun
Revenge will surely come
Your hard times are ahead

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

Don’t let yourself down
And don’t let yourself go
Your last chance has arrived

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

Pips go auctions?!

2009-03-25T14:36:00.004Z

I have to share my experience of today's morning when me and Pedro decided to go to an auction here in Nottingham, but in the most dodgy area of Nottingham, by the way.. I havent been to an auction before, until today the closest thing to an auction I saw was the bids on ebay.. lolol so obviously I was not familiar with that at all, and thats why I probably went there, more in response to my curiosity than just to buy something. In fact I didnt spent a cent in there... but I am quite sure I could have done good business today, the offers are great, I should go back there with more time, like the whole day off!

Basically, after 10 minutes at Cripps health centre in the university, to take the stitches out of my forehead (consequence of my last trip to the snow), me and Pedro took a taxi to this place called John Pye Auctions in Radford. I got to know that through a friend that bought there a tv set some time ago but that place is apparently very popular, busy and known such that as soon as we got there it was full of people.

Before the auction starts people can look around the stocks. The reason why I went was to buy a tv, an LCD tv to put in our very nice living room. Basically we feel a bit poor with all the money we spent recently so any bargain is welcome! Nevertheless our budget was too low...

From the stocks we got interested in 7 or 8 LCDs. As soon as the auction started,
(late! I was really surprised!) we realized that we were surrounded by very strange people (actually I realized that as soon as we arrived but both of us just commented on that while sitting waiting for the bids to start). Mostly everyone was there purely for business reasons rather than buying for personal use, therefore everyone was very professional when bidding and we were like tw0 UFOs there..

And that was it, "our" LCDs were sold for about £200 and we didnt want to pay more than £100.. pity we still dont have the tv but I think we will just buy a new one sooner or later.

We keep the experience of being in an auction, real one, with that guy speaking out loud the prices and everyone seems to be hidden while bidding, I could actually hardly see who was bidding.. the gestures were too smooth.. like they were a bit embarrassed for being there! Like they felt they were committing a crime.. and there were those people on the phone, bidding for someone even more hidden... and there were those people that bought a lot of stuff, clearly they have a big business buying there to sell somewhere else..

Oh well, I should go back there one day, perhaps I could do a fortune out of it, but I am too afraid of high investment.. so back on my PhD life everything is calm and fine, I feel lazy today, I didnt want to come but ... thats life...
I feel I should get more fun :)

Snow trip part I

2009-03-23T17:03:00.008Z

Hi everyone,

first of all my apologies for disappearing for such a long time, but first was the troubles with the moving into my new place together with the last days before going on holiday, you know to go on holiday means to leave a lot of work done and things organized such that my absence will not be that much noticed.. and that didnt give me time to post here and say goodbye before leaving on holiday. I didnt even told most of the people I know that I was going on holiday.. Anyway holiday was the main cause of my absence for such a long time. One of the most important things about this holiday was that it was my birthday present, a bit early but very convenient, my awesome great boyfriend offer me this lovely amazing time and I am really deeply thankful!

Picture of us as a tribute (I love you :))

DETAILS: The holiday was spent in France, in the Pyrenees, most precisely in Saint Lary soulain and it was awesome, as you might already be thinking I went skiing and I found it genial!! I am so sorry that just with 24 I found my favourite sportive activity and I am even more sorry that it is very restrictive, since, for obvious reasons it cannot be done in a regular basis.. Never mind, that musT be the reason why I liked it so much, you know, or you must know that I am not a sportive person at all, therefore this is my sport! Thrilling as I like (I love emotions and adrenaline, I am sort of addicted to it), and I love mountains therefore this combination could not be more perfect! It is awesome!

Map of my location:

Map of the trails

Click to enlarge

I called this post the part I because I am still missing the photos and the videos so I will come back to this topic soon, nevertheless I wanted to say hello to the readers and up date to the latest news :)

As I said this was my first time skiing ever so it was the real adventure, since standing up in the skis to come down the hill without falling over or crushing with other people everything was challenging! This sport demands a lot of energy, to be fit helps a lot and whether you did some skating in the past it also helps! I didnt have much problems learning how to ski, but I found myself very exhausted and I have a lot of muscle aches coming for muscles that I didnt even know they existed! In the end it appeared that I am apparently skilled for skiing, I managed to evolved quite fast, but I think that was probably because I was forced to go into the blue slopes before I even tasted the greens! After all I feel I am quite brave!

Unfortunately almost in the end I had a little accident that gave me a little trouble, basically cut my forehead by crushing with a friend (the story is a little bit more complicated, but I will detail it later one day)... I am good now, just a few stitches but its fine ;)

Little tip for skiing: I found that if I was listening to music while coming down the hill my performance was 10 times improved because I was feeling much more confident!

And there you go my favourite. That made part of my skiing soundtrack! It was so much fun!!!

And at last I am settling down in Nottingham, so it means parties are coming!! Get ready, I will announce soon :)))

One year of PhD life and a funny song

2009-03-04T10:43:00.013Z

I did not have time to write this post yesterday but the 3rd of March deserves some attention and since my blog is somehow based on my PhD experience and life and could not forget this topic.

Indeed, yesterday I completed one year of PhD life. 365 days ago I moved from Portugal, most precisely from Almada to Nottingham to do a PhD in the University of Nottingham, School of Biomedical Sciences. Since then, a lot of things changed, I changed, but most of the things changed for better and I cannot deny I am very happy here and happy with my "job". Of course, as I am always complaining, this is not easy life but it has its rewards! I love science, I am passionate with discoveries and I like to work. Additionally, I have got a very nice life (dont get jealous ;)) ), now with my very nice new home, it is so comfortable and me and Pedro we are making it really nice and beautiful. I have holidays planned, I am going to skiing in two weeks, and I have got the perfect man, I am so happy :)))

Of course nothing is entirely perfect, I miss my parents and family and sometimes I feel really sad I cant hug them or my friends in Portugal, I miss our coffee times, our nights out, our funny moments or even the most serious ones..

But after all it seems that is being worth the effort!!

Not directly related to my sentimental-like post I leave this video below, just for fun and the sake of science showing that it can be funny too ;)

And thanks to Cati, that actually posted this video in the BCM communal blog: Sexy Hotte!

I am selling my bike, anyone interested?

2009-03-02T17:51:00.004Z

Hey everyone,
I am now selling my bike since I just moved into my new place :))) yeahhh it happened, and I am so happy but I will come back to that topic in a dedicated post. Now I have some urgency to sell my bike, I dont need it anymore, where I live now I cant park it and ride it to the university so I want to sell it.

As you can figure from the picture it is a girls bike, purple. It will fit someone not very tall, 160-175 cm. It looks good, has minor scratches, breaks are good and has a code lock included.

I am selling it for £40. If you are interested or know someone who could be interested please ring 07515284479.

I will miss it, but new home, new life :)))

Latest treatment for overstressed people

2009-02-26T12:20:00.002Z

Since my latest days have been really painful for the reasons stated in my last post (house hunting if you are not reading my blog), and since basically if I dont get a positive answer today or tomorrow I will be homeless soon (in two days), and since I am a PhD student, a scientist, and I enjoy developing new methods aka inventing stuff, creating, put my imagination to work, bla bla bla, I just recently developed an instantaneous formula to finish the stress of a working day by combining yoga, selfservice massage and high tech in light and power generation!

In my personal opinion the results were quite good and overcame the expectancies!! I personally recommend this treatment invented by myself ;))

To wait or not to wait (although the last option is not an option)

2009-02-24T12:59:00.005Z

How horrible is the act of waiting???
To wait is like something is already set up, everything is ready for it but it doesn't happen due to one or some certain circumstances that need the time to pass.. that's the WAITING TIME..
The WAITING time is very subjective of course but it is usually very painful either for good or for bad. It is an assumption that inevitably something is going to happen after a certain time subsequently it just enhances the expectancies of the person who waits..

Examples from the quotidian:
I feel hungry at 12:00 but the lunch break is set for 1pm. Have to wait for the lunch time. The stomach aches, the head is felling dizzy, sick, I am so hungry that I cant work anyway.. But I have to WAIT!
Queue for the tilt in the supermarket.. thats fair enough but if it is too long?
Wait for the exam.. driving exam, any exam.. its like an exam is going to be done after a certain time.. but most of the times would be just better to do it straight away instead of counting down the days and get more and more nervous and anxious.

there are so many things we have to wait for everyday.. wait for the bus! thats one of the worst for me specially because in the morning the bus is always late and there are periods, long periods, of waiting time, thats wasting time..

Prisoner is waiting for he's dead sentence.. that must be very hard waiting time, in this case I reckon he would rather wait forever but if that is going to happen anyway maybe it would be quicker the better.

But why all this speech?? Because I had to introduce the topic that is most present in my mind and life at the moment!

Basically in the end of January/beginning of February I started looking for a new place to move in, I wrote a post (here) about it as well. That means that since then I am WAITING to get a new home and move there and start my life there, get use to it, make it look nice and comfortable and like a really nice home.. That was almost one month ago when I chose the place to live, paid a massive amount of money just to reserve it and I am currently still waiting to get in there!! Can you believe this? Remember my post about the shoes and Amazon and the incompetency of certain human beings (check it out)... its just again the same thing I think. I think one again I am confronted with another bunch of incompetents crossing my way of being happy... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, that's so irritating! Its like, I am just renting a flat, ok? I am not buying anything. I am renting a little 1 bedroom apartment for a miserable amount of money (it is not cheap but I cant imagine if I would be renting a house with a few rooms or simply buying one...).. The agency advertises that this should take three day and eventually going up to one week.. But no, that's a lie!

And now you wonder that maybe I screwed up with my documents like I didnt get them all the information, or something like that. That's not true, everything is fine and right from my side since the beginning of the month, but still waiting! This waiting time is very very painful, like any waiting time of course, but this was something I wished so much, I want so much and is being delayed God knows why!
It is so annoying... but I have to be patient, thats what everyone would tell me and what comes to my mind just like a way to be civilized and not to go straight to the agency and start shouting and eventually biting them up... That's actually how I feel..

And thats it, I keep waiting with the hope in my hands that is is gonna be sorted soon and then I will show you my little beautiful Aquarium ;)))

Twilight

2009-02-22T19:57:00.004Z

I actually didn't post anything about valentine's day, what is actually a shame because it was awesome! I am not going into detail, of course, but thanks to my awesome boyfriend I got a very nice time, as always, but we did some special stuff for that day and I got some presents :)

One was an incredible massive bunch of flowers, beautiful, awesome, that still lasts beautifully in my room; another present was what gives title to this post, three books, the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer.

We had watched the movie some time ago during our holiday in Portugal, and I loved it and loved the story. I quite fancy vampire stories and the romance is very enchantingly beautiful. I became very curious about the books and the story that doesnt end in the movie giving space for a few more.

Therefore, Pedro took my wish for reading as an idea for a present and bought me the Twilight and other two, the new moon and the eclipse. The Twilight is now 10 cm from me, I am reading it and enjoying very much, reads very well, I'm reading english version, the story is great but not much added to what I saw in the screen. I want to finish this and go reading the others, they must be good.

Love story for an in love person, a hidden and shy romantic girl (blush).

The sad story of a pair of trainers and the incompetency of certain human beings

2009-02-16T19:45:00.003Z

Once upon the time…

…The story I am going to tell you is a true story. It is almost unbelievable how could a pair of shoes be so desired and then so difficult to get rid of...

And the story begins...

Filipa and Pedro were talking about Pedro buying some trainers since his "collection" was getting old. Suddenly they thought there were those trainers with rollers, called Heelys, very appreciated amongst the kids and all generations I think, with an exception for the very old ones, I hope, but everyone knows what I am talking about, trainers with rollers, really nice to slide on a mall's floor or here in my department they would just work perfectly!

Me and Pedro we got quite excited about getting some shoes like that, for both, but since they are expensive I decided to offer Pedro a pair as a present for him being so nice; and because I didn’t get him many Xmas presents ;)

So I told Pedro I was gonna buy the shoes, we did some internet checking for him to decide which ones look better, we went for some black ones (very expected, Pedro wears in darkish colours usually)..
So I knew what to do.

Next day I came to work and went to the Amazon’s web site to buy the shoes, they had them in a few sizes and I got the size 8 (Pedro's size), paid and ordered. And it is here where the shoes' story begins.... the funny part!

Ok, as usual, Amazon works quite well, so in 2 or 3 days the shoes arrived, free of charged, very nice though. I decided to get them from Amazon because any shop I know so far here wouldn't have adult Heelys therefore I could only get them from Amazon or eventually from the Heelys web site. Moreover, I did order some stuff from Amazon before, like Pedro did and we have good impression from them besides Pedro had to return things before and it worked out fine for him. Thus, I thought Amazon would be, and I still think it is, the most reliable source for these sort of things (read unusual things).
Resuming.. The shoes arrived and Pedro tried them up, but unfortunately they didn’t fit him. Apparently the size 8 on those shoes is shorter than usual, so they were too small. Ok, decision was immediately made, the shoes had to be returned..

I haven’t returned any item before, so I didn’t know how it would be, I had to go to Amazon's web site and read the returning policies, and that was what I did the next morning when I got to work..

Amazon works with DHL for retuning purposes, I did work with DHL before too and everything was fine so I thought that was good to have DHL to do that. However, it happened that DHL works differently for different costumers..
So, as an Amazon costumer I couldn’t ring them to arrange the date for collection, I had to do it online by filling out a form and giving them an address and a date. Because I work in a quite complicated building (it is a hospital) I thought that would be better to ask them to go to my home. Pedro told me once, they would come in the morning almost for sure so I thought that wouldn’t be a problem to stay at home during the morning and wait.

On the arranged date, I stayed at home waiting for them.. the day passed and nobody showed up so far. The DHL people didn’t come, I rang them, 2 or 3 times during the day but I have been told that there is no costumer service for Amazon returning services and I just had to wait and wait and wait. The last time I rang them up, that was after 5pm, so after the time they were expected to come to me, and just by that time, never before, someone told me that the DHL driver had come by 11am!! I can promise you that no one came and knocked the door at all!! From their side no one said I was wrong, what makes me think that it happens that sometimes they don’t come but say they do, and in the end I just had to arrange another date... Of course I got very pissed off with both Amazon and DHL they made me stay at home the whole day, even doing some work but still very unpleasant to be waiting for nothing..

At this stage I already knew this was gonna be a complicated story..

And the shoes were still sitting there, waiting for some attention.. something to happen...

No chance to stay another day at home waiting, I thought, so I had to make them come to my working place. I had people collecting items from my lab before, but that’s true they rang me before asking for instructions how to get here. I wrote an email to DHL asking them to pick up the trainers from my work and additionally I left them some clues how to get here and not to get lost. I came to work with the trainers, asked everyone in the lab to be attentive on someone from DHL looking for me and told them the story too... (embarrassing)

Another day passed and no one came again... This time I wasn’t so pissed off since I didnt even realize the time passing as usually when I am working but still, when the day was done and I realized the trainers were still there, sitting in one of my lab’s chairs, waiting for me to take them home again, or to do something about them, that made me cry, grrrrrrrrrrr!! that’s irritating, bloody hell!

Ok, I went home took the trainers back again, understood that no one would ever come to fetch them and I would have to look for an alternative way of getting rid of them. Pedro suggested calling Amazon on their costumer call centre asking for help.

That was then the most logic thing to do.. Next day, and notice that since the trainers arrived has now been more than 2 weeks, trying to arrange dates for collection and bla bla bla, and the trainers were still there..

Ok, so I rang Amazon on the next morning, fortunately their call centre works pretty well didn’t get on hold for a long waiting time, and the person who I talked to seemed very useful. I told them my story and the problems with getting DHL to collect the trainers and they said that would be ok to go to the post office and send them back to them just by telling the post office the story because according to that person I was talking to, the Amazon and the post office had an agreement and the post office knew what to do.

Following these hopeful instructions on the next morning before going to work I went to the post office which is fortunately just on the way from my home to the bus stop. I popped in the post office and talked to the people there. They told me that they couldn’t return the item like that, because I had the labels for DHL, that the Amazon call centre supporter said would be ok, but it turned up that the post office cannot take Amazon items with those labels and require a special one done for them...

Ok again (grrrrrrrr) I rang Amazon again, actually from the post office to disclose the truth about that and indeed the post office woman was right and this time the Amazon person said I couldn’t return it like that.. but well I then asked to be sent another proper label (that should have been sent before of course), and the women on the phone (from Amazon) said she would do so.. So I took the trainers back again, home..

Once I got to work I went to see my email expecting a new label but NOOOO... the labels I had got were AGAIN the DHL ones.... OH NOOOO, such a pain coming all over, no one deserves that, like could everyone be so incompetent???? like DHL people incompetent. Amazon people incompetent.. bloody hell, I just wanted to return the bloody trainers and another week was going to pass... Ok...

Breath in, breath out (just as like a friend of mine uses to say :) and call them again.. Explain my ridiculous story once again by the fourth??? time and this time a guy told me to take the bloody packet to the post office, pay myself to post it to Amazon and then ring Amazon to tell them the postage expenses that they would pay me that and he also told me not to use any labels and to send it back to another address different than what I had before.

Ok, it seemed promising then, since I was going to pay there was no reason why the posit office would refuse to take the item, and I saw the light in the end of the tunnel :))) finally I would get rid of the trainers and most important get my money back! That I could then use to buy another pair of trainers to Pedro and give him a present he could wear!

Ok, next morning, this was Friday, so maybe 4 weeks since I had got the shoes and I consequently started trying to get rid of them, I went to the post office, and sent the trainers to Amazon, paid something like 6pounds but I was happy to pay that and didnt even think about getting the money back from Amazon.. I was happy just by solving the whole story !!

And then was Friday and I got to work and the story could just end here, but no!!

On Saturday morning… me and Pedro had slept at my place, since we still haven’t moved out :( we end up staying at mine or his and that night we slept at mine. I woke up earlier than usual for a Saturday morning but it just happened that because we had spent the week looking for our new place I didn’t manage to get much work done so I decided to go work just like in a normal day, so I got to the lab by 10am.

At about 11.30am Pedro rang me (I left him asleep in my room, that he didn’t have to wake up so early), and he rings me with very surprising voice tone and his first saying was "The trainers are just outside your room"!!!!

WOW I was wondering, "which trainers???", I asked, and he said that the box containing THE TRAINERS... those trainers, yes the ones I had just paid 6 pounds to send back to Amazon, the ones that I had just got rid off, and the story had just been finished had just started over again!! Can you believe this.. it was like a curse, apparently I couldn’t get rid of those trainers!!!!
That would be just perfect if they would had fit Pedro at the first place, but instead they took me and even Pedro through a long journey of how to get rid of a pair of shoes and get your money back!!

Ok I couldn’t really believe the shoes were there, I laughed for a while but since I was at work I couldn’t do anything but wait until Monday to go back to the post office and ask why did they send me the trainers, basically why did they send the post to the sender???? How stupid is that??? (there was my address as the sender with a "FROM" before to mention that I was the sender not the destiny!!!, how could someone be so dumb??? like I go to the Beeston post office 1 yard next to my home to pay 6pounds to post something to myself???? it is incredible again the incompetence that I was talking about, so to add another incompetent person to those already officially incompetents from Amazon and specially from DHL!!!)

It was with some calm and relax that I popped in the post office on Monday morning to slightly complain about the mistake done by them. The cashier was a bit ashamed, apologized and took the pack without even asking for the receipt.

A few days later I got an email from Amazon acknowledging the trainers and promising the refunding soon.
In the meantime, I got the money in my account. I bought Pedro an ordinary pair of trainers, Adidas in sale, but of course that was not what I wanted to buy..
Before that I still bought another pair of trainers that were this time, too big for him, so then we went to the shop (but this time it was in a shop ... uffff), and he exchanged them.

I am still looking forward to buying some nice looking trainers eventually with some funny feature like wheels but certainly I am not getting anything like that from Amazon, not anything that it is likely that I am going to return.

And that is a very big story, but it is a story not a little post, is the story of a sad pair of Heelys trainers that were looking for a home but I could’t shelter them, and they insisted to stay and they became my nightmare, they made people arguing, but they made people know each other better, they reinforce the idea about how the world is full of incompetent workers and how that can affect single people's life’s and ultimately the world's economy, in a world wide perspective!

Friends

2009-02-15T22:23:00.015Z

I cant believe I left a horrible photo on top of my blog for such a long time.. I have been no time at all and not much inspiration too, but since I have got some photos from the time I was in Portugal with my friends (One of my friends just posted me a cd with very nice moments from my christmas holiday in Portugal, where me and my best friends and very much loved boyfriend went to a place called Vila Nova de Mil Fontes. I went there once before for a lunch with my family but didnt much realized how nice it is. And this holiday there, well, just three short days, with these people were so much fun!!! Cant wait to repeat something like that! And thank you for the photos, Margarida :)).

A tribute to my best friends :)

Ilha do Pessegueiro on the Background, Rui, Pedro, Boavida and Motinha.

Ilha do Pessegueiro and the shore

The girls, framed, Joana, Margarida, Raquel and Me.

Me and Pedro running down the dune to the sea

Me, Joana, Boavida, Raquel and Margarida, "The old friends"

Pedro, Boavida and Mota ("the very new friends.. or the boyfriends and the friend")

Two girls and a boy, a threesome and a friend reading the garfield apparently in french, this was waiting time

Me and you, with love:)

New year's

The chocolate eaters

A sight by the sea, cold winterful sea :)

What the Hell ??

2009-02-06T17:28:00.000Z

Wine menu in a restaurante in Nottingham... Scaring.. no one deserves that!!

The PhD, The Viva and the house hunting

2009-01-30T10:29:00.008Z

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

2009-01-26T16:44:00.004Z

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 :)

2009-01-25T17:40:00.006Z

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

2009-01-24T22:12:00.005Z

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

2009-01-23T12:52:00.003Z

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

2009-01-19T14:36:00.009Z

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

2009-01-14T13:18:00.006Z

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

2009-01-11T14:17:00.018Z

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)

2009-01-09T17:35:00.005Z

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

2009-01-09T14:06:00.002Z

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 :)

Christmas post

2008-12-24T18:58:00.002Z

I am very busy with Christmas here at home. Got safely to Portugal and followed up to a dream holiday and now it is family time, there was no chance for me to write here, I will up date soon. Now I couldnt miss posting my Xmas greetings to everyone:

I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year, dream and realize all your dreams, get as much love as you can and hope you have as much success as you deserve, personally and professionally, good health and happiness!

Flight mood

2008-12-16T18:42:00.005Z

Dear readers and friends, I am sorry I have been absence for a while but I promise I still didnt give up writing my blog. It happens that I just haven't been sitting in front of the computer enough time for it as before. Christmas is time for shopping but apparently also for academic meetings and symposiums.. Therefore there has been a lot more to do beyond writing :) and thats just cool because as you may have followed the last two months I spent sitting on my own writing that report.. Thats all done now and a new era has begun! Today is just the last 2008 night in Nottingham. I didnt count how many nights I have spent here, they were quite a lot, but certainly none was as special as the one coming. I am going home for Christmas and New year, and I am just so happy!! Also I have got quite nice holiday time to enjoy, nearly three weeks, which are promising to be really nice, a lot of nice plans though!
I am so much looking forward, and now these are the last minutes in the office, already said goodbye to my supervisor and to the members of the lab. And I want to bugger off here and go packing and try to sleep, I might no be able to as I am too excited!!
I will keep you posted with regard to my holiday and holiday thoughts, so no PhD stuff for the next couple of weeks, ok?? ;)

And just because is Christmas time everywhere one goes are those Xmas songs all over (very irritating sometimes, because they play the same songs all the time and all the places bought the same CD, so the same songs all the time everywhere, just drives you crazy!!).. You can listen to one of those (ridiculously irritating) songs below. The lyrics are nice and romantic but there is something in the song that pisses me off.. I also found some variants.. see whether you like some of them ;)

Mariah Carrey sings:

My chemical romance does a rock version:

Olivia Olson in Love Actually:

Lisa Lavie(I dont know this person.. unknown version)

Miley Cyrus

etc...

LOOOL, all pretty much the same ..

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There's just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is...
You

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There's just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I don't need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won't make me happy
With a toy on Christmas day
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you
You baby

I won't ask for much this Christmas
I don't even wish for snow
I'm just gonna keep on waiting
Underneath the mistletoe
I won't make a list and send it
To the North Pole for Saint Nick
I won't even stay awake to
Hear those magic reindeers click
'Cause I just want you here tonight
Holding on to me so tight
What more can I do
Baby all I want for Christmas is you
Ooh baby
All the lights are shining
So brightly everywhere
And the sound of children's
Laughter fills the air
And everyone is singing
I hear those sleigh bells ringing
Santa won't you bring me the one I really need
Won't you please bring my baby to me...

Oh I don't want a lot for Christmas
This is all I'm asking for
I just want to see my baby
Standing right outside my door
Oh I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
Baby all I want for Christmas is...
You

All I want for Christmas is you... baby (repeat and fade)

The end of the first road

2008-12-11T19:11:00.003Z

Tomorrow is the last day before the first road in my PhD life gets to an end. 9 months since I started are now gone. I thought this deserves a quick post to express my feelings. In January 2009 I will start a sort of a new era, not that I have passed the first check point named the first year viva, but I have now finally my ideas organized, the aims are defined so the way I look at science now is completely different: for good and for bad..
So, I feel more confident about me as a professional but a lot more realistic, therefore I know now that anything I do will never be a great contribution but just a tiny one.. :(
I feel that from now on it will get harder and more difficult since the demands are getting high - quality of the results and data, ideas, suggestions, publications, anything counts!
I feel I did a lot of mistakes until now but I know pretty much everyone gets to do that.. it just because when one starts the PhD feels that knows what to do and everything seems fine, motivation is on top and enthusiasm glitters all over.. after a while several questions arise and a lot of confusion too so it becomes messy and people question if its worth to continue since they are usually very lost. I do think I found myself now, (hopefully) it will alright :)

The report is done, didnt manage to bind the three copies I have to hand out, but I am taking them home with me that tomorrow morning I can do it before coming to the morning meeting about mathematical modelling and kinetics... the end of this first chapter, the begging of a long high way...

Before I forget: schedule of my Xmas holidays

2008-12-08T18:54:00.004Z

Dear friends, before I forget I must post the schedule of my Christmas holidays, so that if you will be in Portugal (like me) for Christmas you will know when I am available to see you. Since I became an "emigrant" my time in Portugal is very restricted therefore I will try to see everyone just please be available :) and remember to book in advance lolololol

-Arrival on the 17th!! YEAHHH I cant wait to land in Lisbon airport!! This day is reserved for my parents and family. Fully booked!
- 18th Dec: Morning and afternoon I will go to the hairdresser (more or less the first thing I do once I get to Portugal every time, I cant risk going to the hairdresser here, I am afraid of two things: price but more important, the final result.. if you know me well you might know how complicated is to do something with my hair, cannot dispense my personal hairdresser also my friend);
-18th Dec in the evening I have dinner with my very best friends and we will go for a couple of drinks.
-19th Dec I leave Lisbon in the morning towards (I am not going to tell you) for a very relaxing time
- 23rd Dec I should be back in Lisbon in the evening
- 24th whole day and evening.. Xmas is for family
- 25th the same but in the evening is Xmas night out (friends!!!)
- 30th going to Alentejo for New years celebration
- 2nd Jan 2009!! Back in Lisbon
- 7th Jan departure, the end of Xmas holidays.

So basically, I still have time left between the 26th and the 29th of Dec and in the beginning of January.

And now I have to "enjoy" the last week before holidays., still so much to do here, report with the last few corrections, Xmas presents to buy, xmas cards to buy and to post, etc etc.. my God... Have fun!

One day in my (scientific) life

2008-12-08T16:00:00.008Z

Because I havent got much time to write a post today but essentially because I dont have time to think about what to write, like a nice thing, I am passing you a little bit of my day today. Today my day was pretty much spent in meetings (remember my previous post?!).. its just continuing..
Ok my first meeting today was about kinetic modelling, so basically there were me and three other scientists, or three scientists and me since I am the only one who is not (yet?!) a doctor, and we were looking (like donkeys) at a new software we have got. Apparently it does really nice stuff such as solves differential equations and models hypothesised biological systems coupled with mathematical models.. you see, very nice indeed. Its just another software like Madonna, Matlab and octave that I used at the uni but unfortunately found it pretty boring and now I regret I didnt pay enough attention. In the end of the meeting we decide to have another meeting tomorrow... (LOL)
Following this meeting I had another meeting with my student about his project, which is also a tiny bit of my PhD- not too long.
Finally I met with my supervisor about my report, which is now finally finished. WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW :))))))
Since whatever I could write about my project sounds boring I thought that I could leave you with examples of figures we acquire here. My PhD project deeply relies on several microscopy techniques including a lot of cell live imaging and confocal microscopy that accounts on using fluorochromes to label specific molecules within the cell. I found these images beautiful and artistic despite we dont really intervene to create such picture, we just label the molecules what is even more amazing! DEspite they being meaningful for me I think that for a common person they are still worth to see, just like a painting or a poster. There you go.

Ok, and now I am sitting in my office doing the final corrections to my essay and still have a lot to do, to plan and to think of. Remember than to do a PhD is all about how you use the brain..
I dont know what time I am levaing here, but my day will then continue, I might have some shitty food for dinner in a local pub, I cant be bother to cook during the week and then a little bit of leisure, watching something to empty the brain. You know that when you are asked to used your brain every day in a very complex way, and do everything very complex, all this complex research with complex ideas and, seek complex answers... the things you enjoy the most are then the simple ones.. like simple moments, simple games, simple films, simple etc..

Addendum to Doctor of Philosophy

2008-12-04T14:01:00.015Z

Long time no post.. I am sorry. At first my current life has been incompatible with any leisure. If you cannot see the reason try to concentrate on writing a thesis, selling your bloody results as the best research ever done and see how ruined your life can become.. Despite all the sacrifice I am now nearly finished (as I hope), actually the first deadline is gone and the next and last one is on due next week, therefore is time to get this thingy done, revised and most important over!! On the course of writing up my first year report sort of little baby thesis, of course I wondered how is that gonna be for the big one but thats another story. Being just writing I moved my stuff home and spent here the most of my time going to the uni just for meetings.. such as lab meeeting, journal club, school seminars and after all meeting with the supervisor/advisor/boss or whatever you want to call the person to whom your services of researcher sort of slave are addressed to. My post for you today is then an Addendum to another post I wrote some time ago that you can read here Doctor of Philosophy, PhD or How to get a complex life (sometimes is nice!!).

Through meetings and meetings ...

Meeting with your group, but is more with your supervisor.

Something that happens in one's PhD life are the group meetings. One goes there, sits, handles a notebook with something to say (or not), and usually, at least for me these seminars aim to put everyone to know what is going on in the lab, including major findings or disasters.. In my group we also have a second kind of lab meeting where from time to time, members of the lab present results and discuss them to see the direction of research and get some feedback. I think meetings in my group are work fairly well, but apparently it doesnt work for everyone the same, have a look into the cartoons and see whether you identify yourself with them:

Meeting with your supervisor.

When it comes to meeting with the supervisor the things change a lot from student to student and supervisor to supervisor. In my case I am quite happy with it but of course I tell you this in comparison with what I know on this regards.. As a matter of fact I do still identify myself with the following cartoons and to be honest I dont know a single person who is happy with their project and with their supervisors. Sooner or later both tend to become problematic.. Let see first.. when is the ideal time to meet with your supervisor?

Secondly, the supervisors have a very, but very bad indeed memory for whatever gives respect to their students.. There are the pro and cons for that.. here you are the cons (the bad comes first):

And here you find the pros:

The reason is obvious.. For the students, the supervisors are the most important person in the world, the one who will ultimately decide on their careers since he has the power to award them with the so much sought PhD. Therefore the supervisor becomes some sort of a God, to whom one prays very day, unconditionally obeys and try not to disappoint him at all costs... On the other hand, for the supervisor, the student is as insignificant as another student and another student.. Is just one more student from a bunch of students, etc.. The supervisor has his own life and his own friends and never remembers the student, why would he do so??

Eventually he will remember the face and the name but never ever will recall what has so ever talked about in the last meeting with the student.

Conferences:
At a certain time in one's PhD life there is the chance to apply for a conference. Conferences are usually scheduled in nice places and it is very expensive to pay to go (And what is the point to pay go to THE conference?). Therefore the sacrificed and miserable PhD students apply for conference funding through the writing of a conference paper that will be further presented at the conference, usually a 5 minutes talk. No one guaranties that writing the paper you get to the conference.. there is to a nice 1 week free vacation at Hawaii for example.. There you go a suggestion of how not to spend unworthy time and that also gives you the chance to apply for different conferences (Hawaii, Skiing in Canada, beach resort in Barbados, sightseeing in China, etc, etc) :

Mind I said Hawaii..

Apparently here you can find a list of conferences in your area and where are they gonna be.. See how much you can get, there is whether your school pays you the expenses to go and the conference itself. Obviously avoid to mention the skiing forfeit or the diving course... I personally still didnt find the conference to go, besides I haven’t spent much time looking for. Next year I will do that ;)

Good luck with your PhD, if that is the case, or with everything else exciting you are doing. Have fun. I will as soon as I get released.. I may say I have been visiting the hell during the past month and I find it rather cold and dark and empty place..

Visitors from the 5 continents!!

2008-11-28T17:07:00.005Z

Dear readers, this post is dedicated to you as a reader, does not matter how much of my blog you read, if you came by chance or if you follow my blog. Obviously I care a little more about those who follow my blog but that is just natural I guess. Anyway I do thank you all for your visits and although I know my blog does not teach anything to anyone I try to give a record of a normal, sometimes boring, other times very exciting PhD student life. It goes also beyond my PhD as fortunately my life is not restricted to it but sometimes it does take a lot of time and life out of me indeed..

Today I looked carefully at the visitors map and realized I have got visitors from all over the world, actually from the 5 continents :) As expecting the majority of my reader are in the UK and in Portugal, where btw are my friends too. Nevertheless, my biggest surprise comes from the amount of visitors from Asia, very nice!

Overall, thank you very much! I am keeping you posted ;)

AHHHH I love you Google!

2008-11-27T11:37:00.004Z

AHHHH I think I found the solution for my problems, yeahh Google's the best tool ever who didn't know that?? Doing FRAP experiments? Got lost and stuck, not sure what to do with your data?

Go here http://www.embl.org/cmci/downloads/FRAPmanual.htm

and the here http://www.wavemetrics.com/support/demos.htm

and at last here http://www.embl.org/cmci/downloads/frap_analysis.html

get this K_FRAPcalcV9e.ipf

and go on.. I assume you are smart enough to solve the puzzle from now on ;)
yeahhh

Time minus Time equals zero Time and results in serious brain damage!!

2008-11-25T19:25:00.007Z

Today I just realized why I am so sick and feeling down.. Can you imagine I have got two opposite wishes!! Just noticed that today.. it is very contradictory and perhaps the source of all this sickness!

Ok, don’t get yourself confused, let me explain:

1. On one hand I wish I would have more time to finish my report, not that the time passed would not be enough but with my inspirational problems I have been stacking a lot and the words hardly and slowly come to my mind. I know what to write but many times don’t have the wisdom to do so. Therefore I am running out of time, need more time, don’t want the time to pass or to do it as slow as possible that I can concentrate and finish this bloody thing, I may say the most difficult report I have ever wrote and trust me, I wrote loads of stuff before!

2. On the other hand I am getting home sick and miss my family and friends very very much. I want the time to fly as quickly as possible the I can can go home for Christmas holidays! Cant wait for the day I put my feet on that plain that will take me back :) not forever, which is not a problem, I am happy here, but for a little while to see my loved ones :):):) I am counting down for that day and very much looking forward!!

So, now you see, I want the time to go slow but I also want it to pass quickly which is absurd and ultimately these two events mutually cancel themselves. It is the same as plus one (+1) minus one (-1) equals zero!

+ time (for the report) = + 1 time
- time (to go home) = -1 time

+1 time - 1time = 0 time

0 (zero) time is what I actually have in my head since I am putting both the same wishes at the same time together. And what becomes a wish is 0 (zero) time, which conversely means I have got no time to live (in my wishes), and that cannot be a wish! That’s very awkward; thereby it is like I do not exist anymore. Combining this idiot deduction with my physical state that actually makes sense. As a matter of fact I am feeling ill and very down, perhaps due to this conflict of inputs in my brain. It is similar to give two opposite orders which obviously cannot exist at the same time. I guess a computer would came out with an ERROR message, I feel I am coming out with an ERROR message too.. Don’t know how to solve this equation differently, dont know how to overcome my wishes because they are both very strong and I cant give up any of them..
I have got a problem.. and probably I have to live with it until both the wishes are fulfilled, basically until the time passes and when the time is gone I will be good again :)
Be patient is probably what I can recommend myself…

To finish I leave you with my soundtrack for today, a bit more of Placebo, quite like these guys! And of course I hope the very end of this story is like in a fairy tail, pink and full of love ;)

Pips' ill :(

2008-11-24T16:19:00.004Z

I have got ill :(
Managed to leave the bed, but I am feeling down. The weather in Nottingham since last Friday is killing me, it is so cold! It snowed yesterday and it was so cold on Saturday night.. my God, I can hardly believe that the girls here in Nottingham were still wearing, or actually not wearing any clothes despite the cold outside they were still smiling and shouting like crazy. I was wearing quite a lot and even though I am in bed or in a bed mood, sore throat, headache, body aches all over :S feeling bad indeed. Hope you are feeling better than I am and also that it will pass soon, I hate being like that. I am bored, haven’t got nothing interesting in my mind to post today so there you go I share my mood. Have Fun, I think I will have some fun next time in Portugal :) I am looking forward for Xmas and to see my family (miss them so much) and my friends (miss them all so much as well).. Kisses and hugs for you all, Love you xx

The Chinese Experience

2008-11-20T13:05:00.012Z

Yesterday evening after leaving work I was wondering where to go for food, I was far too tired to cook anything, and eventually to go to the supermarket to get food to cook, therefore had only the choice to get dinner from somewhere else.
Coming from the University heading home, for those who dont know I have a few choices although they are not that many, I have tried them all, some are good, others are ok and there are still the ones one can't taste (e.g. Popa Pizza.. the worst Pizza ever! I can hardly believe that such a pizza can be done and sold)..
Well carrying on my adventure yesterday I had the idea of going to the Really Chinese restaurant. There are two Chinese restaurants in Beeston, one is for everyone and the other is for the Chinese people (and other Chinese-like people). I noticed this restaurant a while ago when walking around the centre of Beeston (which is the capital of the world on Saturdays.. I wonder how can such a small place become so busy on Saturdays.. ok, fair enough, there's a lot of shops and some are quite ok, for food).. Back on the Chinese thing I noticed a panel placed on the middle of Beeston high road but all written in chinese with an arrow pointing inside a building, very dodgy at the first sight. One day I decided to take the risk and went there; At first everyone was asian inside but the waiter managed to find an english menu and I decided through a fairly occidental meal which as very good indeed! That restaurant stayed in my mind as a good one and went there another time, the second. That wasnt so good, but still alright. The third time I went there I risked a bit more and went for something I didn’t know and the disappointment arose. Anyway, any experience before wasnt as remarkably bad as the one from yesterday...What the hell came to mind I still dont know but as a matter of fact I went to that restaurant yesterday and because before I saw people having a sort of a fondue but with chinese stuff, I thought I could have that too! Who doesn’t love fondue? Meat fondue, cheese fondue, chocolate fondue, there are all so yummy!! But forget about Chinese fondue... I cannot really explain by words how bad it is. If you have some spare 13 pounds and want to try, go there but dont tell I didnt advise yoU!

The following photos were taken in the end (after trying up everything and getting very sick), but you can have an idea, lets comment on them:

FIRST: here you are the sauces.. well they would just make the things a lot worse. Tastes varied amongst a sandy flavour, one spicy kind of and a water where someone boiled some onions before...

Second: this shows the only occidental piece of thing present on that dinner.. A pint of coke served in a Stella Artois glass.

Third: Here you have a plan of the table. In the middle, there is sort of a soup which is the fondue pot. It contains water with some unflavoured vegetables.. Very disgusting and next to it you can find the sides.. some sort of noodles plus sea weed, other sort of horrible vegetables and a very strange meat that looks like very thinly sliced Parma ham but tastes like shit.

That was my face doing the effort to eat something. It was a bit of a shame to leave mostly everything uneaten. Couldn’t manage it, I lost my appetite just as soon as I started. All the taste and smells were horrifying..

OK, this is the mess! Basically you would drop everything inside this witch pot and fish it with a little basket.. look at the picture. How disgusting is that?

Finally a few more of the raw food ready to boil inside the witch pot.. arrrgghhh

This was "the plate", because you are meant to eat from the bowel, basically drop everything there mix and eat and no more questions please.. There is no place for discarding anything like the edge of the plate.. eat everything now!!

Hope I didnt ruin your apetite ;)

Christmas Presents (any ideas??)

2008-11-18T14:53:00.004Z

How complicated is to find the ideal Christmas present?
I enjoy Christmas and the presents but it is never easy to buy the perfect present to anyone and it is not even a question of money. I realize now even having bigger budgets it is still a problem to decide what to buy.
That is always that paradigm with the useful present versus the useless present: That’s always a question for me, how useful is what I am buying? How funny is it? How disappointing will be the moment one unwraps the present and finds what is inside?
Well, perhaps that’s not such a big deal but I like my friends to be happy with my presents

As a result, today I spent a good time looking for presents and present ideas, Mum, Dad, Granma, best friends, friends, not that special friends, someone.. there is a big list, I am afraid someone is going to stay outside ‘cause the budget is limited. In the meantime, I managed to buy nearly half of my presents, for the first time on my life I didn’t let it to the last minute.. I guess because I want to buy the presents in England therefore I have to hurry ! :)
I welcome any suggestions about presents, for instance for me is always difficult to buy presents for men, dad, boyfriend, male friend.. HELP!

McBeth, Blackout and SuperBOCK in Nottingham UK

2008-11-13T12:48:00.005Z

Yesterday evening I decided to make a brake on my report progress (not that it is progressing very fast) and went to enjoy a short time with some friends and get a bit of a relief from this painful life I have got.
We went to the theatre in Nottingham. It was the first time I have been to the theatre besides Nottingham has a massive cultural offer, there's always events going on. There is a big stage, called Nottingham arena where concerts take place, and all the famous international bands come here from time to time. There will be a Metallica concert here in February, for example and I just realize Prodigy is coming in April, I have to go! I went there to see Whitesnake, in July.

Nottingham has got two main theatres, a modern and an old one; Yesterday, I went to the modern one to watch McBeth by William Shakespeare. My expectations were quite high because I had the idea that I watch it before, as an adapted version for opera in Moscow. However, I soon understood I was completely wrong and it has nothing to do with that. The play was generally pretty boring; I did not fall asleep as I could but found myself thinking about my life several times instead of following the play, but did not miss the story or its content. Indeed it could have been done in 15 minutes instead of two hours.. actually it took a little bit more (ihihihi).. I dont want to spoil you the story, perhaps you want to go and see it but in the end I have got the impression that whatever genius present on that script was lost with time and nowadays there is nothing much interesting in couples of monologues about power, life and sorrow, stupid fake murders followed by psychological depressive monologues ending with a sword battle done by two apprentices on their first class which made me feel sorry for them.
So what could happen to make it really different? Add a bit of a special effect, put the actors interacting with the public or interrupt the play with a trembling voice encrypted by fear after a sudden blackout and tell everyone to evacuate the room as soon as possible! (Was a bit creepy, everyone thought there was a big deal) This is very unusual in England where people is a hundred toms more civilized than anywhere else, people left the building very quickly (but still orderly), someone had a panic attack and in the end that was just a blackout indeed! I was expecting something a lot more exciting, fire or bomb.. bah, we had to go back then to watch the 5 minutes of boringness remaining…

Just one more line comment about Mcbeth, I struggled a bit to understand the language (English I suppose).. some sort of archaic English and I bet you that most of the English people present didn’t understand much more than me I am afraid.. that made it even more boring..

The whole thing was not that bad but I will be sure I will not go again and next after comes my favourite part. We went to Nandos, which pretends to be a Portuguese chain restaurant, but at least they sell portuguese beer! We got there at 10:25 and hardly got served, you know here in England dinner its served from 5 pm to 7pm usually and I am afraid they only serve until later sometimes because of the foreigners here.. It’s ridiculous!! And so annoying!!
We could get the food and I have got my SuperBock! Very nice though :)

When one can't sleep because is too tired

2008-11-10T22:44:00.007Z

Today I am devastated, too tired but cant sleep because I am too tired. It sounds contradictory but it is true; Sometimes one gets so tired that it is hard to fall asleep. I havent been to bed since saturday night and I cant sleep.. How spooky is that? I am too cold, it is freezing, miss my extra duvet which went on a trip and left me, cant wait until it is back.. Bloody flying duvets.. Been spending too many nights no sleep enchanted by the world of STATs, my very best proteic friends which either agonize me or make me happy; These time they got me trapped, I see them everywhere, I am so sick already. Could it just become a bit lighter? For now I just want to sleep, have got too much coffee perhaps, the heart beat is weird, bit of and orchestra, brain is numb, feeling like I am going to pass out.. but no, it is just too much running out, gonna try again, good night :)

Enlightened by blindness

2008-11-08T18:11:00.009Z

Hope that all the blind actions done by means of love are devoted to happiness and goodness indeed, mesmerized by the greatest of the feelings, wisdom downs, senses may go blur, and for the best of my intentions what I am not allowed to see under this state of unconsciousness will ultimately build me or be part of me, and for that, there is usually only one way to be forgiven upon disregard of any other choices.

_____Pips _____

If I could tear you from the ceiling,
And guarantee a source divine,
Rid you off possessions fleeting,
Remain your funny valentine.

Don't go and leave me,
And please don't drive me blind,
Don't go and leave me,
And please don't drive me blind.

If I could tear you from the ceiling,
I know the best have tried,
I'd fill your every breath with meaning,
And find a place we both could hide.

Don't go and leave me,
And please don't drive me blind,
Don't go and leave me,
And please don't drive me blind.

You don't believe me, but you do this every time,
Please don't drive me blind.
Please don't drive me blind..

I know we're broken,
I know we're broken,
I know we're broken.

If I could tear you from the ceiling,
I'd freeze us both in time,
Find a brand new way of seeing..
Your eyes forever glued to mine.

Don't go and leave me,
And please don't drive me blind,
Don't go and leave me,
And please don't drive me blind.

Biochemists versus Geneticists

2008-11-07T00:31:00.004Z

"In general, assemblies of proteins have been analyzed using two complementary approaches: the biochemical and the genetic. In the well-known analogy to understanding how car runs, biochemists disassemble the engine, transmission and body, characterize all the pieces and attempt to rebuild a working vehicle. Geneticists, by contrast, break single components, turn the key and try to determine what effect the single missing part has on the car’s operation. This implies that genetic methods often require a specific phenotype before they can be carried out." (in Biol Proced Online. 1999 Oct 4;2:1-38).

Found this definition on my readings, quite nice one, I am both of them.

How to be the perfect girlfriend

2008-11-07T00:01:00.004Z

I couldn’t resist putting this video on my blog and thats dedicated to all my male friends! You guys are a bit of a pre-historical beings right? Look at the amount and sort of things that make men happy and self realised... Its unbelievable how can you use the brain sometimes..

PS: Women still love men.
PS1:Women will always love men.
PS2: Men cannot live without women.
PS3: there are perfect girlfriends but not perfect men!

The world's new face

2008-11-06T22:38:00.004Z

A quick post to congratulate Barack Obama couldn’t be omitted from my blog. The ones that know me properly also know that I am not a politics lover although I like to be generally informed. For instance I didnt give proper attention to the whole US presidentials, didnt follow it since the beginning and only started to pay attention to it 3 or 4 months ago becoming a Obama supporter, because for any citizen in the world it DOES matter whoever is the US president and that is not something that gives exclusive respect to the USA and its people; I am happy Obama is now the new USA president. I think yesterday was a very important day to the world's history and I hope this new president will make the difference in how the USA are playing the dice in the world context. I am happy young minds arose and gave place to what I believe will be a withdrawal of the US tyranny that was spread all over during the past 8 years. From now let’s watch it!
Get more info: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/default.stm

Geek but cool !

2008-11-05T06:18:00.003Z

Ok, this is not time to write a post in the blog and I tell you I am doing this; its 6.20am, wednesday the 5th, I am still in the office waiting for a bit of a bright dawn to get off here, I am bloody tired, did not yet sleep and have been working the whole night with no stops until right now. In the meantime I chatted with Boavida (a friend of mine with a funny name.. translating "Boavida" means "Good life") whether good or not today his life was better than mine but was nice to have his company for half the night whereas he was following the American elections (Obama is getting there), reporting me the results I was hardly working on my report, before he left he shout me "geeeeeeeeeeeeek", "PhD geeeeeeeeeek" that was at 3.30am, and additionally he added to his nick on MSN "Pips is the most geeeeekest PhD ever" !! Well, I am actually not even a proper geek, therefore not the most ever and whether eventually you want to consider me geek just because I do science, I work on my PhD until morning (see that I have the deadline coming) and I enjoy computer games (but I am now forbidden to play any thing, discipline imposed for the sake of my PhD), I am not and I am cool. Dont believe my friend, although nowadays to be geek is a way to be cool still dont get to be stereotyped with a remotely negative connotation. Ok, my brain is breaking down, I cant go much further with this post, I may just say Good Morning!

Wherever I May Roam

2008-11-04T16:29:00.004Z

Some time ago I wrote a post about the place to settle down, the place to live, to grow a family, the place to get old, a place called HOME and I wrote that I still haven’t found that place.
Nothing changed so far..

I do not feel myself home where I am currently living as I did not feel myself home where I used to live, with my parents, where I spent my whole life. I like moving, travelling, discovering new places, arriving and departing, roaming around the world would have been a dream for me.. and isn’t it anymore? Well, the thing is that although I am enjoying moving around, meeting new people, facing new cultures, challenging myself against the eventually most extreme situations I am indeed a social person and I cant travel alone or with the uncertainty of being alone a good part of my journey and that is my handicap for all these dreams of discovering the world!

I enjoyed so much the times where I left home with no plan where to go, got my car, a good CD playing and drove for hours.. only me and the road and the landscapes and the wind coming through the window, very lonely, on the mood to revise my life, my plans and my fantasies but it only made sense because I could quickly go back home. I am not sure whether I could do it for real, with no turning back for a long time... I couldn’t stay like that forever, I always had to go back to the "reality", to my friends and people, to my life, those moments became just like silent screams same effect whether you go on the top of a hill and scream; that makes one feel so free!
That sort of fantasy of going around the world, driving with no destiny, flying to an uncertain part of the earth; this will never happen. I cant do it alone and that is not something to do with someone. There’s a lot of contradiction, but that is a bit of me again and dreams not always have to be true!
There are dreams one rises in his head that are absolutely incompatible and they cant happen together, its an option of one or another and that’s the same here! Rather stay home than go roaming, or go roaming rather than stay home? Both would apparently make me happy but both have consequences and to me the first seems a lot more comfortable. Human tend to chose the easy ones, isn’t it? I am so human!
On the other hand I just think that my choice makes me mentally fairly healthy then I will not probably go roaming around the world, I will stay wondering how it could have been, that will make me happy because at the end of the day I am closed to the ones I do love and that’s is beautifull.

Unfortunately I end up coming a little further that I would like to be but I know it is close enough to be back for any special event or a simple hello.

And this is a post mainly for those who may be afraid of me going further in the future and not returning and to those who like to have me near by :)

However for the memory of those times where I would be roaming, one of my favourite songs:

And this is like the icing on the cake!

2008-11-03T19:23:00.006Z

And just because "there is not one without two and two without three" in a proverb inspired post I am posting my third post of today!
Proverb wise I just recalled that today I had to attend for a workshop in Designing research and statistics since my PhD course/school requires me to attend some sort of PhD courses and accomplish 20 credits in the end of my first year and because I did not yet complete that since I got lazy in the first months I am now in a rush to get the bloody credits.

This all story is to tell you that what I always thought that would be the expression "to put the cherry on top of the cake" is actually a WRONG english translation of a portuguese proverb being just a plain translation word by word whereas proverb wise is riscky and mostly of the times it doesnt work!
In fact, and during the workshop of today, the teacher used the RIGHT version of that expression in good english coming with, "and that is brilliant therefore is such as icing on the cake!" Suddenly some light came into my brain and then I remembered that last time I used the expression "the cherry on top of the cake", my house mate, Chris didn’t seem to quite understand me.. and now I know! Its a shame they dont teach us this at school.. grrrrr

Inspiration?!

2008-11-03T18:49:00.007Z

Now a proper post, or not, to be honest I have been lacking proper inspiration or what I think is inspiration to write in my blog.. This writing up (my first year PhD report) is basically killing me and I cant see the day I finish this up and go on holiday, rewarded though!
I remember when I was doing only lab work I wanted to have some time to write something, and actually I think that should be the right way to do a good research not only performing bench experiments but intercalating them with a good reading and writing. However I reckon very little amount of people have that disciple and mostly everyone sticks to either do experiments or writing/reading but basically while doing one of them I seek to do another one (very human though).
My lack of inspiration is then not only regarding my blog but the bloody thesis-like report where I drop a few lines per hour, sort of a slow motion writing with the uncertainty of the sense of whatever I am writing plus the certainty that I will regret not having had more time to write it when time meets the deadline.. I feel that I am very good working under pressure and only when something is on due I am able to brilliantly make it happen (although always with a significant amount of psychological and physical effort like skipping night sleep and so on..)

For now I just feel so numb, most of my feelings are asleep and just a few of them are awake but just in a certain form of awareness, well, I cant explain, feelings are hard to explain and suddenly I just found the perfect song for today.. (yet out of the classics I said I would collect here and I WILL with time .. )

Unable so lost
I can't find my way
Been searching, but I have never seen
A turning, a turning from deceit

Cos the child roses like
Try to reveal what I could feel

I can't understand myself anymore
But I m still feeling lonely
Feeling so unholy

Cos the child roses like
Try to reveal what I could feel
But this loneliness
It just won't leave me alone

I'm fooling somebody
A faithless path to roam
Deceiving to breath this secretly
This silence, a silence I can't bear

Cos the child roses like
Try to reveal what I could feel
And this loneliness
It just won't leave me alone
And this loneliness,
It just won't leave me alone, ohh no

A lady of war

A lady of war

Halloween for the record

2008-11-03T18:39:00.009Z

As I promised in the post about the Halloween I would leave one or two photos to let you know how I looked like on a death woman costume (I think I did not mention what exactly I was going to dress up) but now you know, there was place for everything, I saw all kind of costume but here you are me and my friends:

Not that scary right???

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T15:41:00.004Z

A quick post about the Halloween today, I am so happy I am going to celebrate it, I haven’t ever done so! Remember that in Portugal, as well and in Spain, France, Italy.. Germany (?), maybe a lot more places the Halloween does really exist and whatsoever is nowadays celebrated it has been imported from the US such as like a lot of other things.

But then it means that once a kid I didnt enjoy dressing up as a pumpkin and go knocking the doors scaring the neighbours and get a lot of sweets! Well, since I am 24 it just not applies to me anymore but at least I can go out at night dressed in a spooky, creepy manner and scaring (or not) whoever passes by.. (or there is also some girls who defend that the Halloween is suppose to be sexy! Then I would have to dress as a sexy dirty witch but then I think I would be even scarier! At least I am sure my friends would be a bit scared about whatever would be happening to me, not that I dont like to dress sexy but this sexy I am talking about is beyond what I find sexy and instead goes towards what is dirty almost pornographic.. you should come and see me in Nottingham and I will show you what I am talking about if you dont believe me... girls here are far too much...and too many!)

Alright, so I am going out tonight and celebrate the Halloween and I am happy about that! I wish you a very terrifying Halloween! Have fun! And I will put a photo of me later ;)

And because of the Halloween I found a very sadistic thing, quite funny though, remember these cruel bunnies?? Check them in the You Tube, there are several 30'' movies like the one I am posting, have a look whether you are bored!

Chronicles of the (re)discovery of the (GREAT) all times' classics

2008-10-30T14:14:00.014Z

Yesterday, and not only yesterday, it happens every time I am with someone who has got a really vast musical culture, I felt really dull. The reason is just because I actually think I lack quite a lot of musical knowledge. It is not that I dont know a lot of songs and artists, not that I dont like music, because I love it and all parts of my life have great soundtracks but it just seems that I dont memorize very well either the lyrics or the artists or bands' names or actually I perhaps didnt spend a fairly good time listening to them! Maybe I just listened to the radio some time or it was at a friends' place, in the car, in a party or in a random concert.. but not in my walkman, Discman, mp3 player or i-pod (I havent got one yet, please dont make fun of me)..
Maybe I did not used to carry any of these sort of device with me.. (thats quite true.. although I have got them all).. Nevertheless, dont take me wrong, I listen to music at least once a day, all days of my life, therefore I do know a lot of music but havent got much selectivity, if thats the word, or for instance I cant really tell you my all time favourite band, my favourite song, my current favourite band.. etc etc.. I could make a massive list of bands I like, but I cant promisse I would know a lot about them.. and the worst is that I like a lot of stuff that I dont know the name!

Yesterday, one of these persons who knows a LOT about music, in this case I would repeat, really a lot .. got me into a very nice "trip" (with the help of YOUTUBE - this so much nice tool, I cant believe the humanity survived 10 thousand years without it..) through what everyone knows as the classics, those songs that mostly everyone can sing at least the refrain, mostly everyone likes it, and it perfectly fits with some point in one's life!

Obviously or not, BUT in fact I knew over 95% of the songs besides I just realized that most of them I had no idea about the song's name and not even the singer! I just thought that was pretty shameful and embarrassing being 24 and neglecting all this information! OMG!
The funniest thing was that the beginning of the saga through the old time best classics ever did not start with a proper classic but with a song that is suddenly now playing in my head (Thanks!) and that I find appropriated to use as the great beginning for this chronics about the all times classics!

So expect me to publish that really romantic song from the 80s or that 90s dance floor hit but today, I am going to leave you with... this one:

So Gosto de ti, Porque?
Nao sei
Mas tou bem assim
e tu tambem ;)

Its not a brilliant song (At all!), but it gave place to a brilliant time! A very good time to share and burn a very nice CD (I hope I will do)!

Have fun! (I am writing up my first year PhD report, dont expect me to make much sense ;)

What day is it?

2008-10-27T18:26:00.001Z

Funny!

The Science of TODAY is NOT the Science of before

2008-10-23T18:28:00.006+01:00

I think everyone who is involved with science nowadays and I don’t even say as involved as I am, but anyone who actual likes science or read scientific news on a magazine, someone who is generally interested on what is going on about new discoveries in physics, mathematics, genetics.... new technologies or whatsoever brings up a breakthrough on what is known so far may have thought the same thing:

The Science of TODAY is very different from what it used to be 10 years ago!

(In the past, but past in science is a very short time due to the speed of how things evolve and change and grow and.. ufff is exhausting!)

The reasons:

The most striking one is obvious: There was a lot more done in the past ten years than possibly in the 50 years before! It is just crazy the amount of findings that came out during the last decade! And of course, every time a step goes forward a new question arises or a new need arises taking the topic a lot further and further and then it’s just like a snow ball that goes faster down the mountain as soon as it gets bigger and bigger!

Also obvious is that the topics researched 20 years ago were different than what is going on now and that's always changing very quickly according to what comes out and what becomes needed and required and on the fields of medical research, pharmaceutics and IT it goes particularly more more fast!

Another big reason to explain this entire boost is INVESTMENT! Despite of the big economic crisis that is now spreading all over the world and the small ones that affected the USA and Europe, the principal scientific investors, there was a lot of money invested in science in the past decade. I am not going to tell you numbers but the results talk by themselves and since a lot more has been done it means there was money for that and that also generated more money! For instance, I noticed the amount of charity funded research provided by institutions fighting against cancer and other malignancies.

The chart below explains how science, technology and society talk among each others and the arrows connecting them, thanks to the big development in the IT fields are getting shorter and shorter and everything just happening very very fast.

The issue:
My personal reason why I am writing about this topic is because of my concerns on how do people are actually actively involved in this very fast circuit and how do they feel about it!

With everything moving and evolving very fast it is hard to stay on the front line and for a scientist that is absolutely essential! There makes no sense to research something that has already been unveil and published by someone else! That takes one to read and read and keep himself very up-to-date but that is a lot of time and then where is the time to perform the experiments? That is also a lot of time either! Shall we scientists become human robots and be design to perform science at the same speed it goes and forget about what behind it makes us human beings and not heartless machines?

How can a scientist succeed in THIS kind of life, professionally, having at the same time a family, a kid and a spouse? Most of them will definitely suffer. I just think that to be fairly recognized in this world one needs to work at least 16 hours a day, half of them reading and the other half performing experiments and the remaining 8 hours will be to eat/sleep and of course there will not be days off or holidays!
Personally I don’t feel programmed for that and I can’t cope with this fast, exhausting, pointless style of life, can you?

But then, since I have chosen that science is what I want to do, as my profession not as my whole live, I might not be taking it serious or enough serious and that means I might not get a job and then I might not work at all and then I cant have my private life because I wont be able to support it.. bla bla bla bla.. That is over then!

So, what way to choose? How far is this gonna be? How people are going to face this and cope with it?

The Little Red Riding Hood written according to the Portuguese Ortographic agreement 2058 (ya tásse)‏ ..

2008-10-21T13:58:00.007+01:00

Once upon a time...

Tás a ver uma dama com um gorro vermelho? Yah, essa cena! A pita foi obrigada pela kota dela a ir à toca da velha levar umas cenas, pq a velhatava a bater mal, tázaver? E então disse-lhe:
- Ouve, nem te passes! Népia dessa cena de ires pelo refundido dasárvores, que salta-te um meco marado dos cornos para a frente e depois tenho a bófia à cola!
Pá, a pita enfia a carapuça e vai na descontra pela estrada, mas a toca davelha era bué longe, e a pita cagou na cena da kota dela e enfiou-se pelobosque. Népia de mitra, na boa e tal, curtindo o som do iPod...É então que, ouve lá, salta um baita dog marado, todo chinado e bué uglymêmo, que vira-se pa ela e grita:
*- Yoo, tá td? Dd tc?*
- Tásse... do gueto alí! E tu... tásse? - disse a pita- Yah! E atão, q se faz?- Seca, man! Vou levar o pacote à velha que mora ao fundo da track, que tákuma moka do camano!- Marado, marado!... Bute ripar uma até lá?- Epá, má onda, tázaver? A minha cota não curte dessas cenas e põe-me depildra se me cata...- Dasse, a cota não tá aqui, dama! Bute ripar até à casa da tua velha, até te dou avanço, só naquela da curtição. Sem guita ao barulho nem nada.- Yah prontes, na boa. Vais levar um baile katéte passas!!!E lá riparam.

Só que o dog enfiou-se por um short no meio do mato e chegou à toca da velha na maior, com bué avanço, tázaver? Manda um toque naporta, a velha 'quem é e o camano' e ele 'ah e tal, e não sei quê, que eusou a pita do gorro vermelho, e na na na...'.

A velha abre a porta e PIMBA, o dog papa-a toda... Mas mesmo, abre a bocarra e o camano e atéchuchou os dedos...O mano chega, vai ao móvel da velha, saca uma shirt assim mêmo à velha quea meca tinha lá, mete uns glasses na tromba e enfia-se no VL... o gajo tava bué abichanado mêmo, mas a larica era muita e a pita era à maneira,tásaver? A pita chega, e tal, e malha na porta da velha.- Basa aí cá pa dentro! - grita o dog.- Yo velhita, tásse?- Tásse e tal, cuma moca do camâno... mas na boa...- Toma esta cena, pa mamares-te toda aí...- Bacano, pa ver se trato esta cena.- Pá, mica uma cena: pa ké esses baita olhos, man?- Pá, pa micar melhor a cena, tázaver?- Yah, yah... E os abanos, bué da bigs, pa ke é?- Pá, pa poder controlar melhor a cena à volta, tázaver?- Yah, bacano... e essa cremalheira toda janada e bué big? Pa que é acena?- É PA CHINAR ESSE CORPO TODO!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!

E o dog manda-se à pita, naquela mêmo de a engolir, né? Só que a pitadá-lhe à brava na capoeira e saca um back-kick mesmo directo aos tomatesdo man e basa porta fora! Vai pela rua aos berros e tal, o dog vem atrás edá-lhe um ganda-baite, pimba, mêmo nas nalgas, e quando vai pa engolir agaja aparece um meco daqueles que corta as cenas cum serrote, saca demachado e afinfa-lhe mêmo nos cornos.

O dog kinou logo alí, o mano china abelly do dog e saca de lá a velha toda cheia da nhanha. Ina man, e a maltaa gregoriar-se toda!!!E prontes, já tá...

And that's it.. because it is about the portuguese ortographic agreement there makes no sense for me too translate this, but to those who can understand I quite think that there are not many differences between this old story written as it is here and an episode of Rebelde Way (SIC), therefore this ortographic agreement might eventually happen earlier than expected !!

Thought of the day (Two thoughts of the day actually)! (.....) The desert, the crisps and the monkey shows off!

2008-10-14T21:27:00.009+01:00

First thought of the day:
While working after 11 hours with no breaks at all, even lunch I had sitting in front of the lap top while analysig my FRAP data (FRAP stands for fluorescence recover after photobleaching.. a very boring technique by the way although quite useful and the results turned to be interesting but to sit in front of the computer acquiring the data is very painful and analysing the data is another pain.. therefore it suits the rhyme "FRAP is CRAP".. thats what always comes to my mind.. sorry!), but ok, today I just came here to complain, bahh,

The (first) thought of the day ..

I did know the PhD would be a lonely jouney but I didnt know I was going to do it in the desert!

Second thought of the day:
The english food (in my opinion! sorry by the second time) has serious problems and in general is hard to find something nice to eat - I dedicated a post, some time ago, to the english culture where I expanded my thoughts about english food but today I have got to know that for christmas, therefore a seasonal speciallità, one of the crisps companys here in the UK, will sell a new flavour dedicated to the Christmas season which seems to be a cocktail of christmas flavours in a pack of crips!! It is reasonable to say WOW! How far are crisps taking us? Crips are becoming like meal tablets nowadays! There are every flavour for crisps, everything you can imagine, almost every day I find a different flavour! You have salty, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar and these are what I consider the NORMAL flavours but then it starts to becoming really creative coming with prawn cocktail, followed by greek kebab, feta cheese, sweet chili, roasted turkey with bla bla bla, roasted beef, dark souce whatever, tomato ketchup... four cheese and red onion (which is apparently different than cheese and onion!), bacon on toast.. sausage bla bla bla, turkey and thyme, etc etc etc, its ridiculous! It never ends!

SO.. some time ago every one would think that one day there would come some sort of tablets with flavours to replace the food in a plate taking much less time to eat and less effort as well and also could be helpful in a diet BUT instead of light tablets full of nutrients and with food tastes we have got plenty of tasty crisps possible to make a four or five course meal with all the flavours on it, (and a lot of calories though!)

Thus, concerning this reality, the second thought of the day is:

Even the monkey loves them!

and in a Jose Cid style.. the monkey loves crisps as I love you - even though it didn't improve.. Oh poor Jose Cid, you've got no chance! And who is Jose Cid? It's a must see ! ... (google it!)

And just a brief third thought of the day:

I ate three packs of crips today and they were nice and they are more or less the best thing I can eat in the desert...

In the meantime I try to have fun and hope you also do!

Got the counter and got a map BUT not the place..

2008-10-12T21:59:00.004+01:00

Ok,
Dear readers,
finally got the visitors counter that I mentioned a few posts ago and even better!! Instead of a normal basic counter I have got a map counter that not only tell us how many visitors did come to this blog but also where they are from in the world! I hope I dont get too disappointed and the map will be getting red dots soon :) (At least my effort of writing in english for everyone should be worthwhile !)..

The point of today is.. ITS SUNDAY, I am sleepy, very tired though, going to bed after this, cant be bother working any further, I am death, has been such a busy time now and its just going worse and worse towards the first report and the Xmas holidays when before I must get a lot more work done than I have.. uff And just in sequence with my busy life of nowadays the following song reflects what I felt in a quite distant past (regarding that with my age one year is a long time and then I can also tell you that it takes me back to 2006)@ that time this song would be a great soundtrack, today it is one of my favourite Linkin Park's songs (therefore still makes part of life!): The place I belong I still dont know and I cant predict when I will know that, I have a special passion for moving and travelling although recently more than ever I have been feeling a need to go back at a certain point which was something I primarily discarded in the past affirming I would never go back to Portugal.. How and Why my mind is changing it is out of my conscious control under world influences (maybe astral ?!..) but you know time changes everything (and love as well!) so, from the uncertainty of my life for long terms I enjoy my PhD time and look forward to, sooner or later, travelling and or settle somewhere I belong ...

RE-DO MANGA

2008-10-08T21:05:00.004+01:00

Apparently someone (who is not a stranger but someone I do really care of course, otherwise I would not come back to the blog today for this up-dating, besides I have got "nothing" to do then a lot of time for another post.. lolol.. actually I have got a lot to do but no motivation at all, I can't even believe that I brought my work laptop with me - teorectically because I was gonna work hard tonight, but really, I cant do anything else today apart from resting my brain that is really tired..like steaming.. bahh) then, decided that my Manga version did not match with the actual Pippa (me).

There you go Pips Manga strikes back :)

Actually I look much better now, ihihihih, Thanks =)))

Its seems that went to one of those TV shows where they transform people like Before/After!

Pippa Manga

2008-10-08T19:46:00.004+01:00

Following suggestion from Miss Pipeta @http://caopatadeborracha.blogspot.com/ decided to check whether I could find me in a Manga world. Get a try, its funny when you have nothing to do or waiting the western blot to go home @http://www.faceyourmanga.com/ !!

Have fun, I do ;)

Crying Out Loud for Love

2008-10-08T19:16:00.005+01:00

My post for you today is a Ode to love and to lovers. There is not much to say about feelings unless you put it into a nice poem otherwise it just sounds silly. An extensive description in a formal text about feelings and love sounds boring and does not make sense anyway.. therefore I cannot extend my topic of today ;P (which is great because I dont feel like writing that much) but I wanted to say something and I listened to this song today and went through the poem which is brilliant and really romantic and feel so much like that.. wanted to share, I am happy :)

"
I would die for you
I would die for you
I’ve been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you’re mine

I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear

I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you

See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time I am talking
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored
I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
I’ll tear it apart
I will lie for you
I can steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You’re just like me

Violate all my love that I’m missing
Throw away all the pain that I’m living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored

I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I’d do time for you
I would wait for you
I’d make room for you
I’d sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be a part of you
’cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you

Freaky weather, shity food and facebook

2008-10-06T19:01:00.008+01:00

What makes England such an attractive place for students all over the world?
That question comes to my mind from time to time, because actually there are loads of students coming to England every year to stay for their degrees either undergraduate or post graduate degrees, also for Erasmus or other sort of exchange programs not yet to mention all those other people who emigrate here to work!

England or shall I say the United Kingdom although Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales seem not to be as attractive as England nonetheless they also get a fairly good amount of foreigners looking forward for a good education and a better work.. for such a phenomena that must be a good explanation of course!
From my experience and since I came to England anyway, my reasons rely on the very high standard research with state-of-art facilities open to everyone permitting top world research specially in my field where a lot of equipment is required to do a proper project with no restrictions, therefore there is a lot of investment in the universities and there is, indeed, a lot of Money!
Secondly, what makes England more attractive than other countries in Europe with as good research conditions as England? The language of course! Doing a PhD is already a lot of work; I personally could not be bother learning another language in the meantime, which would be crucial for my thesis and project. These are my personal reasons and I am pretty sure that whether I would come out with a survey about this everyone would pretty much go for the same reasons as the top ones.
There might be other good reasons to move here but honestly I can’t see any other strong reasons to bring me here for living, not that I wouldn’t come for visiting because the country is nice at some points, but that’s it! Please feel free to express yourself whether you feel you had other reasons to come here ;)

And now let’s face the culture... tcharan: Freaky weather, shity food and facebook are the key words when you are a foreigner. (I could make a song, a poem about this! maybe later)

There is not ever best subject for a conversation that British weather! Portuguese whether is boring, any other weathers... BORING, BUT, British weather is so crapy that there is always a wish to complain about it and because it varies a lot you can have twice or trice many conversations about the weather than in any other country like:
In the morning waiting for the bus: "Oh, its sunny today but its freezing!" and after one or two hours in the morning break for a shity coffee (that’s another issue by the way) "its becoming warmer isn’t it but the sun is gone, its completely overcastted and it seems that will be raining soon" and later on when going for lunch with the colleagues "its so humid, because has been raining for two or three hours and there's no chance we eat outside" in the end of the day when heading for the lift a lab neighbour "the weather today is pretty rubbish it has been changing all over the day", etc, etc.. At least, it is always possible to break the silence and just in a Monthy Python's style "always Look on the Bright Side of Life"!!

Second reason one cannot avoid coming to England is the food (and it also includes the Coffee!). The food it’s just horrible! Sometimes I have to starve because nothing seems eatable! Mostly everything they have is chips (former French fries) and crisps (former chips) and other rubbish like a lot of grease everywhere, a lot of processed food, the cheese is bad, the bread is very bad, the ham is ok but very stupidly expensive, then they are a island but they don’t eat fish (can you get this???), and the fish they eat its fried on batter so again a lot of grease, them they mush peas and eat it with a big half boiled half roasted potato that they call jacket potato, and usually its accompanied by they lovely beans.. baked beans which are, seriously, really bad! And because their food its always bad anyway they end up putting a lot of sauces (and what they call gravy) in everything to hide the real flavour and give it an even more artificial flavour.. then their sandwiches with its inexplicable awful mayos and mustard.. thats just too bad. So traditionally a good lunch here is composed of a packet of crisps with a coke and a triangular sandwich, that in Portugal you only find in the gas stations and that even though are better then these here... The coffee.. its another issue, I cant count how many time I ordered a coffee and had to trough it away immediately because I couldn’t drink it even with 3 or 4 packs of sugar on it.. where are they getting the coffee from???

And now the really tcharan thingy which completes the story here and represents up to 1/3 of the time spent by a normal worker on its normal working day: The Facebook! this is a real phenomena.. moving to England? First question would be: Did you set up your facebook account? Not that you have got accommodation and a job, you might not get a job if you are not on face book! This is a serious issue! What is meant to be a leisure thing becomes more and more an important part of people’s life and its own part of the society by how do they interact on facebook. FAcebook is the tool to know more people therefore to enlarge your network, to be invited to the events to be noticed and to be known! there is no other place in the world where a gadget like facebook has been gone so far, and here its just a fundamental tool!

And now the overview of what I have got in England (from the country):

- Nice university that being part of my CV can give me a very nice job in the future wherever I go.
- All the conditions for my research as far as I am concerned there’s nothing missing!
- The opportunity to improve the English language and to become almost a native speaker, a skill recognized all over the world and that makes me able to communicate with a lot of people.
- Shity depressing weather
- awful food
- a strange society, actually I forgot to mention the alcohol which is a big part of the issues in this country but I will talk about that in another post later.

Any questions why?

The sides of people's life (are their choices)

2008-10-03T12:29:00.010+01:00

It is incredible how social dependent we are, human beings and how important is for us to be loved by the others and have a good network of friends and people in general. And whether you think otherwise you must see a doctor. Healthy minds need other minds and alive hearts need other hearts, and just such like ants and bees, humans live happy in societies sharing experiences and thoughts towards a building up of what is meant to be a nice life there is a place on top of Maslows’ pyramid that I posted some days ago! That’s self satisfaction that makes us smile in a way that is possible for the others to see that we are confident of ourselves and that makes us recommendable people. People dont neither want nor like to co-live with people lacking self confidence, surrounded by problems and expressing sadness and pains unless they are their friends (and even though must be truly friends.). Nevertheless in the social routinely environment meeting people everyday one will always approach a positive looking person rather than a problematic obscure one hiding behind what seems to be a black curtain full of troubles within.

Overall, this in part useless conversation that is actually my post for you today is to state that my moody days are gone for now and that I feel good again. Not gonna go into details of what happened but Im simply summarizing the reasons for these changes as changes in perspectives and general overviews of my current life and life style. Such as like the moon, everything has a light and a dark side ("Star wars" additionally explains it pretty well: when you are in the light side you look good and people like you but if you turn to the dark side you will become ugly and everyone will avoid you). Basically after a fairly long reflection I concluded that whatever happened was because I couldnt, for a while, see the light side of my life despite all the good, positive points present everywhere! And thats why people one loves is so important here, because they are patient enough to listen to you when you are good and also where you are down and it just helps you so much changing sides, improving and recovering!
I am happy I have got the right people to talk to, and I am happy because I have got the right people to be with. I feel I am growing up really fast at the moment and my life becoming full of challenging situations where I have to manage to respond to them and keep going and for one spoiled girl like me, I may say, it was difficult to cope with it in the beginning but I do believe that things will be alright.

When it comes to time to decide and make decisions it is really striking whatever you choose because it might change your life forever either for good or for hell! I feel I went through that way a few months ago when I decided to completely change my life coming to Nottingham and leave a lot of people I love behind me and face a totally new world where I only knew a very few people. But nowadays I feel that my decisions are even more compromising. I grew up, evolved and belong now to an adult life where I don’t eventually find myself but indeed I have to, forced by the circumstances. I didn’t think it would be so quick and when I look 10 years back I was fourteen and had started thinking a lot more than before with questions raising everyday about life and stuff and now mostly all those questions seem very simple while a several more turn to be flashing around waiting answers that I will not probably ever have time to answer unless I live forever!!

Since I don’t believe I will live forever, except I get a special power such as one of those from Heroes (really enjoyed watching it), I am content with what I have now whereas being challenged and facing the demanding s of life from where I try to squeeze the best out of it! Therefore I am telling you: Have fun, I do!

Show off

2008-09-30T23:03:00.004+01:00

Today I had a terrible day, moody, busy, tiring, difficult, lonely, horrible, depressive.. ok ok , that is too much, a lot much worst than it is but who doesnt have a day like this sometimes? A day that you feel unable to solve your problems, a source of weakness seems to born from your mind and invades your body and dreams overwhelming your life on its whole. This is again the worst romantic view to look at what I feel, I am conscious, but for some reasons I just felt like that today. But notice, I write PAST because I also found out in the meantime that there are people able to give my strength back to me and put a smile on my lips :)

However, I am not yet ready to write as usual a nice funny post, as I always try to do, but just decided to leave a song that I heard today. Actually I spent a good part of my day listening to MUSE and this song fit with my feelings today, not literally, dont try to pick it up from the lyrics ´cause its not that related but there´s something in the song, maybe the melody. Listening to music is always helpful when I feel down and that was the way I found to start washing away my heavy mood ..

Have fun, I will (soon, very soon)!

Street wall revolting writting or hanging fish for drying, which is one is more impressive?

2008-09-29T13:04:00.005+01:00

Today I am posting photos very different then those I previously posted from my great holiday in Greece but they require a second of your attention.

The first is a wall where someone wrote something really revolting such as 'Antes ABORTO que vidas de merda (translating because this was in Lisbon, Portugal): "Better ABORTION than shity lifes".. I saw this while I was driving around Lisbon two months ago during my holiday in Portugal. There was some traffic as usual and it left me time to read the walls and it brought me a mix of a laugh with drama because of course whoever wrote that is definitely very revolted and disappointed..
I also inform the readers that Abortion was illegal in Portugal until march 2007 where before any woman could not legally decide to have a baby or not under penalty of being convicted of a crime (with all its consequences included.. like prison p.e.). Unlike mostly all the countries in Europe with exception of Malta, Portugal have kept this old law until the last year and the law was changed by a national referendum. It was the second time the government gave people the chance to decide and in the first one (2002??) people rejected to change the law (Meanwhile a lot of new/fresh mentalities arisen!)

The second photo I took when I was walking around Ericeira, also during the same holiday time. Me and my family went for a little trip around Lisbon to spend a very nice sunny Portuguese Sunday (It doesnt happen in England anyway dont try to remember one). Ericeira is a very nice place, situated near the coast with awesome views over the ocean. It is a small piscatorial village therefore there is a lot of very fresh and good fish and plenty of good places to eat. "Raia" is a very popular fish on that region but what I didnt know and quite surprised me, given rise to the reason of this photo and comment was that people dries "Raia" fishes such like clothes by hanging them out! There were several houses with these fishes hanging like t-shirts in cloth ropes placed on the windows! Strange, funny and smelly..

Translating 'Querer e Poder'

2008-09-26T13:02:00.005+01:00

Querer e Poder is a Portuguese saying I wrote in yesterday's post and I translated to english as 'wishing something is the way to get it'. However this translation is not completely right therefore the meaning is more: wanting something is the way to get it! (Don’t want to misteach my foreign readers :) and by the way, the person I mentioned a few days ago (See the post "Portugez in a Where's Waldo brand new version!!") who didn’t know about Portugal as a country and bla bla bla, today just greeted me with a 'Boa tarde' in good portuguese! But still it deserved the nice funny post!!

To finish I am gonna leave you with a song! The following song is from a Portuguese kind of hip-hop band. They are cool, very very popular among young generations. I think whether this would play in the UK they would get really loved! I am not a big fan but I listen to these guys since my 14s and they are from my hometown, Almada. I have been to several concerts and it is a good fun!

Sorry but not going to translate ;)

How to quit smoking and learn a foreign language in a short period of time and other stories..

2008-09-25T12:38:00.016+01:00

Some time ago I wrote about celebrations which were not actually that important, but today I am writing about a very important one: Tomorrow I am celebrating one month smoke free what literally means that I spent one month, 30 days no smoking at all! I am such a brave girl!!

But no, I am not that brave and now you wondering what the hell has quitting cigarettes to do with learning languages and bla bla bla..

Easy and simple:

MOTIVATION!

In fact this post is more about motivation and which kind of things makes a person undergo a certain effort to change her/his life! In my language we have a popular saying: QUERER E PODER, that means that wishing something is the way to get it!

And now the bridge to learn a foreign language... this makes sense here!

Amongst my group of friends we conclude some time ago that there are two major sources of motivation to learn a foreign language: either one learns it when a kid, in the cradle, or as an adult, in "bed". Of course, once a kid, the motivation is innate and comes from the need to understand the others and talk/express therefore communicate as a human being. From the adult perspective, that motivation is about LOVE! Ok, who says love, says something love-like and I just know so many people who are currently learning a language that they would never thought to learn as a way to impress their beloveds, or to make them happy, or to seduce them, or to date them, of simply to go to bed with them.. whatever the wills it entails motivation from the presence of a person who speaks a language one does not know.

So now I opened another bridge.. The bridge from MOTIVATION to FEELINGS!
The feelings are the other stories, that is so much about feelings and so many feelings in our human world and it is sometimes so difficult to control them: to understand them, to deal with them, to hide them, to show them!
But one thing one should bear in mind: feelings are a source of motivation! Motivation to learn a language, motivation to quit smoking, motivation to change life, motivation to travel, motivation to settle down, motivation to start again, to climb, to fight, to built, to stay or to go, to party and dance, to watch TV, to not watch TV, to change habits, to do sports, to smile and to cry and even to die for! And we can't deny our feelings, we can barely control them and they trap us sometimes taking us to situations that we think they could never happen! That’s so complex..

But not to make this post much longer because actually I just wanted to let you know I stopped smoking and I want as much people to know about this as possible people that I don’t want to let down and I think that will help me think twice before I lit up a next cigarette!
For those who read this and think about stop smoking or not and what would really change whether they would stop in terms of health benefits I leave you a list of What Happens to Your body if you stop smoking Right now?
by Wade Meredith on July 19th, 2006

This little timeline below is about some of the more immediate effects of quitting smoking and how that will affect your body RIGHT NOW (http://www.healthbolt.net/2006/07/19/what-happens-to-your-body-if-you-stop-smoking-right-now/)

In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.

In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.

In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.

In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.
In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.

In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.

In 1 year your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half.

In 5 years your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker.

In 10 years your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

In 15 years your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.
So, you have more immediate things to look forward to if you quit now besides just freaking out about not being able to smoke.

But above all, smoking is not popular anymore, its not fashion, it is not cool! It is very expensive, smelly and useless!
I quite enjoyed smoking and for me the most difficult part of it was because I wasn’t doing it for addiction but it was the pleasure of holding a cigarette and drinking a beer while talking to people, etc etc, I got rid of the nicotine addiction a long time ago, the real hard part of the quitting procedure are the social meetings. I don’t want to fail this time; tried a few times before with no success; but NOW I have got a lot of motivators! And I don’t even have to learn another language!! :)))

Doctor of Philosophy, PhD or How to get a complex life (sometimes is nice!!)

2008-09-21T17:07:00.014+01:00

I am not sure whether I mention what I actually do for a living but I decided to dedicate the post of today to my current type of entertainment.. Not sure I can call it that way or another; it is not really having LIFE!
Basically it is about this PhD thing. I wanted to do this, I always knew about how much trouble I could get, I was aware of the amount of work it would be and how many hours of my life I would have to spend doing this but still I went for it and I am now doing it.. THE PHD!So, please let me introduce you the PhD sort of (entertaining aka complex) life:

It doesnt matter which day it is, if it is raining, if you are ill, anything can happen BUT once entitled PhD student you are always ready to work.. NO way to overturned it! NO one accepts your excuses though.. (don not try to become creative!)

As a PhD student you have a lot to do, you have to plan experiments, you have to run them, you have to read a lot, you have to write everything you do, everything you intend to do and everything you didn’t do but you should have done.. And every result you might get (thats doesn’t usually takes much time because there are never much results anyway.. So you end up spending your time writing about the frustrations). One have to meet the supervisor, one have to go to seminars, have to review papers, have to be social and nice (even when everything is going crap) and of course attend for the very much popular journal clubs where a few groups meet weekly for a scientific conversation.. so boring (I missed the journal club today by the way.. )
From my personal experience I havent got my superboss, I mean supervisor, in the lab (thanks God!!!), but I know a lot of people who did have this experience and I can state their experience here: more or less it was always very painful and never actually resulted very well.. it usually brings a lot of trouble to the students since supervisors become old and out of date they cant perform experiments anymore and they don’t know how things work anymore.. New software, new devices, new machines, all electronic... Supervisors look simply good sitting on their desks, writing grants and other shit stuff and that’s all. No supervisors in the lab, please, they have to understand that things changed in the last 20 years! The PhD is already a lot difficult without the supervisor around, don’t make it worse please!

Another detail about being a PhD is that to do anything the procedure is always a hundred, up to one thousand times more complicated than for a professor.. Any thing since writing a letter, asking a permission, attending a course, applying for a desk or facility... whatever.. Why?? Because you write your name only without a title like Professor! When professor word is added as a prefix to your name your life goes so much easier and you suddenly get a lot of “slaves” and everyone think you are a sort of a king. You are then so respected that you don’t even have to spend time with formalities or politeness! No reason, you became a professor!
Same happens when you are an engineer in Portugal (ask my friends for more information ... http://towardsnothing.blogspot.com/ the person who writes this fairly interesting blog is an Portuguese engineer.. I hope he forgives me because of this advertising but he affirms that from personal experience).

The very last reason because one does a PhD is because that person wants to add a piece of knowledge to the subject/area where he or she belongs to and therefore results, RESULTS, are welcome and very expected..
Nonetheless, How much and how hard one has to work to get results is very subjective. Sometimes it just happens, one gets a shot of luck and results appear like magic. Other times, months away looking for a single result and althought it was just so much planned and seemed so interesting and logic and expected but it doesnt happen!
Supervisors always think that everything can be done quickly and easily (because they are not in the lab. they don’t know, they forgot a long time ago..) Its always hard to say that what we thought that was a brilliant idea did not bring out any results yet and yet..

Despite the bad things of being a PhD student which are just so many and it makes your life really shity sometimes, there are the good points:

- you are a student and as a student one has the student benefits, can behave like a student and that means that you are not an adult for real and can avoid a lot of adult stuff!

- And.. thats it! No more advantages, sorry! (But if you are a PhD student and you feel I am being unjust please I welcome your comments!!)

- 12 hours in the lab, work during the weekend, stay late, dream about the experiments, have a great idea during the dream, but it doesnt work in the reality, go back to the dream and it doesnt work anyway, go back to the lab and it does work at all.

- Read a lot of stuff, have piles of books sitting next to the computer but read the emails, facebook a lit bit and write your blog instead of updating your knowledge reading the latest published papers and so on and in the end of the day complain about it and about the loads of overdue work to do!

I am a 7 months PhD student and I have got more three years to go.. can you imagine?? I cant but just as like AA: One Day At A Time! And its not that bad any way.
If you feel like doing it: think twice!
If you are not sure: think 10 times
If you don’t want but your being persuaded: give up!

Celebrating 1 month and 18 days of existence

2008-09-18T18:55:00.005+01:00

That sounds just like I have nothing to write but that's not true! I just want to write a small and simple post to celebrate 1 month and 18 days of existence of my blog! I think this day deserves quite a big attention therefore I dedicate this post to this remarkable celebration!
Yesterday for instance I celebrated the day that I was meant to get tired of someone but I did not actually got tired of that person (useless celebration..) Anyway, everyday counts!

Now more seriously, I havent been posting that often, not every day as I thought I could, but I dont think I have to make such a big effort because I am enjoying writing this as I do. And the most important thing is that month and 18th days since I wrote the first time I still post.. (remember that before I wasnt able to write more than the first and second posts). On the other hand I have actually no idea of how many people read this blog (I am still waiting for the visitors' counter.. but no worries it will not track you personally therefore you can still visit me!)

Portugez in a Where's Waldo brand new version!!

2008-09-12T18:29:00.005+01:00

It is quite universal that Americans in general (I sincerely apologize for generalizing and of course it doesn’t mean that all Americans are ignorant but those who are not, I suppose I don’t need to apologize because they also know what I am referring to).. Anyway, as I was saying, Americans are generally bad in Geography, they may be very good in other fields but not in Geography.
Besides Americans (poor them), mostly everyone seems to be pretty good localizing countries in a map and from my experience everyone I know had no doubts where Portugal is located even all the Americans I met so far.
Now, despite all this prejudice about Americans it happened that they have got competitors!
Who?
British people? Of course not, British people know very well where Portugal is on the map, it is a very popular country amongst British people! Reasons:
Futebol (1st), holiday (2nd) and Magdelene MCainn (3rd). Wine, Beer, beaches, chicks, good weather, surf, bla bla bla .. For intellectuals they may eventual remember "The Pink Map" (Portuguese: Mapa cor-de-rosa) where Portugal disputed with Great Britain over the land between the colonies of Mozambique and Angola which led to the British Ultimatum or when the British navy came to help Portugal and Spain during the Napoleonic Wars... etc, etc.. So, lets say, very popular!
However, I found ONE, a single one BRITISH person who did not know where is Portugal! That person thought at first Portugal would be in Europe, which is not too bad.. but more than that was already too much.. First trial was to put Portugal somewhere in between France and Germany, followed by some other places in Eastern Europe ending with the probability of Portugal being an island very close to England! I suggested to have a look in Goggle maps and that person wrote "Portugez" when searching for Portugal... before the Google could correct it I did.. and under that person's surprise, Portugal is just there.. on the Western coast of Europe on the left of Spain!! "wow, how could that be? I knew every single country except Portugal.. I had no clue where this country was really, is there anything important related to Portugal?".. Quite offensive though but not going to tell you what I taught this person because you may know enough but one thing I am pretty sure is that this person is now as almost as proud of Portugal as I am of being Portuguese.. I was called Patriotic!! :))
If you still have questions I can promise you that Portugal is located on the that map on top where I tried to confused the readers in a Where's Waldo map fashion.. Have fun! By the way is Friday night and I am still in the bloody lab instead of having a good super special nice, awesome, splendid, great amazing time... I am off now!

A lot more of Greece!

2008-09-09T18:30:00.014+01:00

Santorini

Last time I published photos from my holiday trip I haven’t yet got the photos from Margarida's camera... I still find a little bit unbelievable how did they managed to survive a 6 meters dip in the Mediterranean sea.. Only Margarida could do so..

You know when you are on a boat? What would be the last thing to do? Imagine you have some special belongings, like your phone, your wallet, your purse full of credit cards or nice family/children photos or your almost brand new 300€ camera with all photos from your holiday.. Well, I am also pretty sure that you would be careful enough not to leave items like these place on the edges of a boat that as every one knows always rocks even when the sea looks flat and calm..

That’s exactly what one should do but Margarida does not agree or or she was too drunk to use her brain when she simply placed her camera just in the edge of the boat side surface.. more or less the most slippery place and of course within seconds it just dropped into the water where it (I imagine) slowly dived before it found the yellow sand in the bottom roughly 6 meters below.

Margarida cried for her sake and for mine before she was brave enough to call my name to tell what so silly thing she had just done. She started: "it happened the worst thing that could ever happen so far".. Concerning her voice I though about the worst things one can do but never ever thinking about the camera.. I couldn’t talk to her for one hour after she told me the story..

Nevertheless the camera return to our hands on the next morning thanks to the boat sailor who kindly dived to find the camera!

The camera I might say looked just like a portable aquarium full of water inside.. Just fishes were missing, was such a big laugh! The memory card survived the up to 12 hours underwater and the photos were intact!

Then thanks to this little big adventure I had something to say today and an excuse to post a few more photos of this trip all from that diver camera!

Check them out ;)

Me and Margarida on the boat just minutes before the incident...

So many places ideal for two..

There were always these specimens on the water

White beatiful villages kindly placed on cliffs turned to an awesome sunset and a still active vulcano.. Santorini

I quite agree but when a student things work a little bit diferently.. Greece is bloody expensive for drinks!

White churches everywhere in cycliades and but the vulcano only in Santorini

A little bit of Greece

2008-09-01T19:36:00.012+01:00

Just want to leave some photos from my last holiday to Greece where I had a very good time with my very best friend Margarida. I missed some other people (no offence to my friend), but there's more specials in my life :)

The trip started in Athens with around 40 degrees and it was so nice to feel the very warm weather at night specially considering I was coming from the rainy island with the most horrible weather ever (grrrrrrrrrr.. freezing).

Next morning we caught a boat to Santorini, very famouse island for couples, weddings and honeymoons, therefore very romantic, very beautifcul, magic, ideal for 2(in fact almost everywhere there were only tables for two.. fortunatly I was with one friend only... we were two then, but not a couple! No misunderstandings).

After three great days and nights in Santorini, we went straight to Mikonos the very popular Party island (aka Gay island.. but gay means happy right?? and Happy means fun and fun means party..etc, etc) Well..it confirmed! Happiness was all over and party as well! Gays were even more all over mostly represented by italian guys (gays).. not gay women, only men! This island was had up to 90% italian people!
Watch the video below to have a tiny idea..

I may say I had a good time there, not so much to see, but good for one or two days of fun and a good laugh taking the piss out of those funny people!

After three days and two night at the crazy place we went back to Athens to catch the plain back home and back to work where I am now (back to my blog though!).

It was an unforgettable and a remarkable time, very recomended, I regret I havent had more time to go to other islands but I recomend Milos from some photos I have seen! I should have gone there in the begging of August instead of Portugal... buAAAAAA.. Never mind!

Enjoy the Photos!!

Plagiarism or how the proteins are synthesized, shown by a bunch of freaks!

2008-09-01T19:01:00.010+01:00

Last time I visited my university ex class blog, that you can access here http://sexyhote.blogspot.com/ (written in Portuguese by the way), and where I took part in the past but never really wrote anything, I found the following video which I found so awesome that I couldn’t resist publishing it in my own blog.

It has so much to do with what I do although at the first sight it just looks like a bunch of freaks swinging and dancing around while an idiot freaky song plays. NO offence but really gets me an idea of a Hippie camping in the 70s where a group of hippies decided to do a colourful choreography!

BUT NO... that’s nothing like that!

It’s impressive but this video is SCIENCE and it is so good that I really believe that mostly everyone understands the protein synthesis after watching this! The video is long but worths the time to watch. Has a 3 minutes introduction where Paul Berg, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1980 explains what’s going on and then, ENJOY!
This amazing educational film was used in schools to teach biochemistry to the kids!

Description of the film:Directed in 1971 by Robert Alan Weiss for the Department of Chemistry of Stanford University and imprinted with the "free love" aura of the period, this short film continues to be shown in biology class today. It has since spawn a series of similar funny attempts at vulgarizing protein synthesis. Narrated by Paul Berg, 1980 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Home waiting post

2008-08-31T20:56:00.004+01:00

This is a very quick post just because I cant accept that the last published post was not written by me but by someone who felt confortable writing here (with half my permission..) but anyway does not deserve to have the post here on top for such a long time just because I have been on holiday and away from my computer and stuff..

And even more, look I have thousands of things to write, loads of adventures to tell, heaps of everything like photos and videos (I just return from greece!) to publish!

And Why dont I just start now? Thats a very good question but I am just waiting a nudge to go out for dinner and I dont want to start any philosophical idea that I have then to interrupt or leave everyone waiting it..

Actually I am going now.!! HAve fun, I DO!