November

Isn't it curious?
Last year the month with more posts was November... and this year it looks like this pattern persists!
Is this a more stressful month? The time where the most important decisions are made? Is the moon in a special position guiding my body fluids by some strange gravitational forces?

Hum... can I write a paper about this and expand my theory to the universe and hence make it to the Nature? (ROTFL! rolling on the floor laughing...ah ah ah)

Blindness

Can it be... that sometimes you're so close to something great that you're completely blown away by its brightness?

Am I blind or just... stupid? A genius or an idiot? Independent or a follower?

Work hard, aim high...

Be ridiculous! Be imaginative! Be free, feel free, breath freely...

Where is the light?

I feel like I don't feel anything... just walking around trying to do my "job"... Job? what a joke... Do you ever get the feeling that people think just because you're doing a PhD you must be very intelligent, but deep inside you know you're not worth shit? yeah... so many hopes, so many dreams... where did they go? I'm not bright, I'm not even average...
Coming up with new ideas isn't easy... trying to explain what we can observe may seem easier than it actually is... seeing the big picture it's almost impossible... What's the point? To where are we heading? Do we have time to turn around? Time... that's a hell of a variable!! Damn it...
Let it go... let it go... Smile and keep walking! yeah right... I need to be anesthetized first to be able to just let go... to "simply" do my best... it's just not enough, maybe because I know I haven't been doing as much as required... or maybe there's just too much to be done and very little to conclude...

Surreal

Ok, the most stupid thing happened to me today... but I have to share it with the world out there! lol Although, I really hope my "daily" friends don't read this lol
Anyway, as usual I got out of the office, I went to the changing room in Munrrow's sport centre and I went to the ladies' toilet to do you know what... equipped with my mp3 player and a towel.
What happened next...was that... I flushed the water at the same time I was picking up my mp3 player... and it got flushed away!!! LOL
I just lost my mp3 player in the toilet...along with the water and my own pee!! LOLOL

So.. I left the "cubicle" and I went to the gym with only my headphones on...! lol
What a stupid ending for an exhausting day...
Pretty funny though!! lol ;)

Good Vibes

Nothing like a good night of sleep and a productive meeting to put you back on track again! :)

Today I've learned there's nothing wrong in recognizing our weaknesses. We should talk more often about them. The moment is now :)

I wish I could put into words (English words!!) all the thoughts that cross my mind in each moment... but I don't seem to be able to do it... yet!
Meanwhile... I'll listen to radio, watch TV, read comics (any particular advise?) and I'll make the effort to write more often in the blog :)

Speaking of good vibes... Northern Ireland coast! What beautiful views! Forget the cities, they're only good to eat and sleep! But the country side is amazing... peaceful, serene, fresh, breathtaking...
And I got the chance to drive on the right side!! hihi and some guys were quite scared... lol Anyway, it's not that difficult and I surely miss having a car and hit the road without having a destination! Any bargain that you're aware of ? :D

For now I would be happy to have a bike.. which I intend to buy sometime soon... :)

And that's it for today...! :)
Relax and enjoy your life trip... close your eyes and breath in... breath out... beautiful!

Untitled

Do we ever get to be completely happy? "you only get to have moments of happiness" bah!

Everything is so fake, so much pretending everything is so cool and so good, it isn't!
I know I probably have everything to be happy! I'm doing a PhD in the area I chose, I have friends who care about me, I can travel anywhere I want to, I have a great loving relationship, I have a family who loves me very much and that will always welcome me home, I have nice cloths and I feel good about myself... so then what's wrong?
The country is wrong... the damn weather, the damn food, the damn people, the damn Island!!! The lack of identity...

Estou farta desta língua inglesa, pobre, simplificada ao ponto de ser ridícula e ainda assim não a domino...

Eu sei que fui eu que escolhi, não tenho problemas em assumir as minhas escolhas.. mas tenho dificuldade em lidar com elas devido às oscilações diárias no meu humor...
Só queria que estivesses aqui comigo... :) A diferença que uma pessoa pode fazer nas nossas vidas é imensurável, assustadora e desesperante...
Considero-me bastante independente e sei que amanhã quando acordar não restará nem uma gota desta nostalgia.
Estou aqui para me pôr à prova mais uma vez, porque todas as outras vezes não foram suficientes para satisfazer o meu ego. Porque quero sentir, sofrer, viver, recordar, chorar...
Acredito que é uma necessidade absolutamente humana sentir dor. A dor é fonte de vida, é a fonte da realidade física que nos mantém na corda bamba...
Quero ser menos responsável, menos organizada, menos preocupada... Quero ser egoísta! Talvez já o seja até... este falso egoísmo de querer agradar os outros nas acções, nos prazos, nos resultados...

inté!

Rainy Day

Another rainy Monday...
I don't have much to complain about... except I wish you were here with me... :)

Many things happened since the Herpes incident :D
I'll try to summarize my feelings during the last month... I don't think reporting facts is that interesting... though we need them to put our life in a comprehensible context... :)

The 4 days at the SGM meeting in Harrogate made me realize how independent thinking and self-confidence is important to convince others about your ideas...
I experienced opposite emotions... I was persuaded to believe there's no hope left to fight bacteria, eventually they'll win this battle. They can count with the negligent behavior of pharmaceutical companies who intentionally deliver antibiotics 1000x times more concentrated into rivers and fields as if there was no tomorrow! (as it soon won't be...). It makes me sick, ashamed of my profession...
Having the courage to step forward and talk with key speakers in my area was one of the my major breakthroughs, and the fact they've actually listened to what I had to say and even reply reassured me that I'm not yet crazy... :D
Overall it was a very good experience that I'm looking forward to repeat! :)

10 days in Portugal, everyday raining, but to tell you the truth I didn't even notice that, since everything else was so MUCH BETTER than in the Island...! :) The more I get to know UK, the more I fall in Love with Portugal... Sweet hummm:)

Is it the place or the people that make up your happiness? you'd say both? I don't know...

I need the Sun shinning on my window, the heat boiling my skin, the sweat sliding throughout my body, the salty water refreshing my mind and body... I need to laugh about simple things... not to constantly feel guilty about all the misfortune around the world...
Still, what's life if you don't have anyone to share it with?
That's why I thank you destiny for putting all of you on my path and specially those living in Birmingham for making my time here so enjoyable :)

Eye Herpes...

This could start as... the horror, the pain, the cruel reality...

It actually started with this acute pain on my left eye on Saturday morning and some light sensitivity that got worse during the next day... The weird thing is that there was nothing of unusual with the eye: it looked exactly the same as the right one! But... my vision became blurred and then it wasn't fun anymore (as if it was until now...)

I could describe how painful a cornea infection by the Herpes Virus Simplex can be, but let's imagine you're sleeping and suddenly someone hits you with a fine but rough needle right in the middle of your eye and then starts to push it back and forward... now imagine, you're screaming in front of a mirror trying to figure out what the hell got into your eye and you see nothing, you just feel the pain... you can't stand the light anymore (photofobia), you start to think you became a vampire! On the next day I started to see some redness on the conjunctive tissue around the iris... Do not confound these symptoms with the one's of a conjunctivitis, if you notice loss of vision you have to see your ophthalmologist immediately !!
The treatment can last between 10 days or 1 month. It consists of eye drops to diminish the inflammatory response and eye ointment (acyclovir) to be applied between 3 to 5 times a day.

So, on your behalf, whenever you have labial never touch your eyes. If you think scratching your hands on a towel or tissue is enough to get rid of the virus, you're wrong. HVS can survive up to 3 days in dry surfaces, but it will enter its lytic cycle in moist surfaces like our mucosa.
Be careful, I also thought it wouldn't happen to me...

Loose thoughts

2009 is the year of Darwin

200 years since his birth
150 years since the publication of the "On the Origin of the Species"

Until recently I was quite reticent regarding the impact of evolution on current research. Training in biochemistry seeks immediate understanding of direct relations between genotype and phenotype, gene and protein, between structure and function... specially in crystallography where everything is static, though quite beautiful... I still remember my first protein crystal, lysozyme :)

The most important thing I've learn during the past year was the crucial role of time, that sweet independent variable which allows the Human brain to perceive the dynamics underlying biological systems.
Macroscopic but rather subtle differences between mammals, birds, plants, fishes... that's what Darwin could observe back in his time and what an extraordinary observation and impartial description he made! Guided by his insatiable curiosity, persistence and sense of opportunity, he began the most important conceptual revolution in Humanity since Christianity.

"Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution" (Theodosius Dobzhansky)

Though... I wonder... how could natural selection allow the survival of such a self destructive specie as we, humans, are?
Against all the odds we proliferate... we beat natural selection, we overcame the limiting step: cheating mother nature.
And here we are better than ever, the more advanced society Earth has ever seen, addicted to material satisfaction ("I can get NO satisfaction..." is now out of date)...
Everything has a cost:
so that some can be well fed others must experience daily starvation,
so that some can smile others must cry,
so that some can control others must obey,
so that some can yell others must be kept quiet,
so that some can live others must die...

Drift ?
No... organized and powered drift...

First conference on my own

Second week of the new year and here I go to London, first time in the city apart from the airports, sponsored by Virgin trains! Quite fast I must say, 1h30!
Time to rencounter Rodrigo, meet Sílvia and on the next day rencounter an old friend that I haven't seen for a couple of years... Great dinner (Wagamama sponsor) great people... what can I say more? It was really nice :) Thank you*

But I was there in "work", to spy on Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance! hehe
Can you guess who I encountered there? People from Gulbenkian! And another guy doing his PhD in Edimbra, from the Gabba program. The world is really a small place! :)

On my last day I decided to spend a couple of hours at the National History Museum. There I was looking at the fossils when suddenly I hear "Please find your nearest exit. This is an emergency evacuation" ... everyone starts to look for the exit and when we finaly got there, the security guys were letting people entering the building !?!?! "There's an emergency call? Ok, Stop right there! Do not try to come in!" Whatever!
Let's keep moving and come back to the peaceful Birmingham :)
See you next time London! ;)

Work after holidays

Why do we always have the feeling that holidays are short?

After two weeks of pure entertainment and pleasure (you dirty minds!!) I had to come back to Birmingham, sponsored by Ryanair as usual. The "self-contained flat" where I live was freezing and on the next day I woke up with a beautiful snowfall :) This scenario kept repeating for a few days giving me enough time to develop a nice strategy to not fall in the side walk: walking on the grass is much less dangerous! ;)
I had this thing (they call it compulsory exam) on Wednesday, something about statistics for post-graduates and I had only 3 (long) days to study for what turn out to be an exam impossible to fail: we could consult the handouts, which actually helped me to answer a whole group of theoretical questions by looking (for the first time) into the corresponding slides; many of the exercises had an working example counterpart in the notes; 55 questions for 1h45m and of course the pass mark was (I wonder if this is the only place in the world where this is so...!) of 40% !!!
Ok, no, I didn't scored 100% (not even after passing the tight evaluation of Professor Dinis Pestana, that great Statistician!), I couldn't do better than 74% :(
(what you're looking at? I'm in the "First" range! ahah lol...)

In this same week I had to finish my 3 month report... where I learned how to do a gantt chart and realize how empty and meaningless it can be...Nevertheless, is was worth to see the long time and work I still have to... to do what? let's make a list:
- travel to exotic places
- meet extravagant people
- discuss the state of the world with creative/optimistic minds
- visit all my friends around the world (I know I owe you that ;) )
- spend time doing nothing
- learn how to not stress
- laugh every day
- develop the multiscale model, write the thesis and go to somewhere sunny! :))

Totally doable :D

Happy New Year