Catching up

Yes, I know, apologies are in order. I’m a terrible blogger! Not a single post for August or September! Shame on me. But! I do have my reasons: 1) not much has happened, and 2) work has almost completely swamped me! So let me give you a quick overview.

From August 19 until August 23 there was the Estate Fair at Marienwaerdt. I would say there is no better way to spend your birthday shopping with your folks and catching up. Family time is important!

 Adore the little drool marks on the floor!

Last week I caught up with an old friend from Oxford. Remember the other Dutch girl who left quite shortly after arrival because of the nasty attitudes of my colleagues? Well, we kept in touch and try to meet up whenever she decides to cross the pond (she works in Cambridge now). We met up in Eindhoven and spent the entire day eating, talking and laughing in the restaurant Zout en Zoet (Salt & Sweet). She loves her new job and finally (FINALLY) got her own apartment. Seriously, research is the only type of field/work where you see people still sharing flats well over 30... Unfortunately, her contract is ending soon, so she's on the look-out for either more funding or a new job. Another thing I did not fully realize when I started my research education: although researcher are one of the most highly educated people, job security is never a guarantee. If you are lucky you get a (semi) permanent position working for either a university of hospital, but in most cases you're hired on a project basis, meaning your position is only for 1 or 2 years. Not ideal when you're trying to pay off you student debt... or trying to have any kind of social life for that matter.

As for work: I'm making progress. We finally decided on the concentrations we want to use for our final experiments. Now all I need to do is test what plasma concentration to add to get a nice response with my drug. However, our supplier is ignoring us (for some reason) so yesterday we decided to get our own pooled plasma, by asking other PhD students for a small contribution: 10 ml to be exact. That's what I call giving blood, sweat and tears for science! If everything goes as planned, we hope to finish the first paper by the end of this year. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

With love,

Willemijn