Christmas post

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

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

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

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

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

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!!

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!

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!!

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 :(

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

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??)

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!