After my little burst of frustration last week, it seems the tide is turning. KWF, in all their wisdom, has decided to invite me for a second time for an interview. No guarantee for a Fellowship obviously, but a good sign nonetheless.; KWF told me that if they would find good candidates in their first round of interviews, I would probably not be invited a second time. So I was not expecting anything. In my excitement I mentioned this to my boss Matthew, who spontaneously offered to pay for my trip! Although it seems reasonable - the Fellowship will pay my salary for four years, so it saves him money - I thought that was very generous. So, here is the deal: I will be in the Netherlands from May 19 to May 27. I did not really expect to be back in Holland so quickly, but I am happy to take a week off and see some friends and family.

Other news is that I have seriously started working on a dataset of lung cancer patients; although I am basically doing the same as I did in Rotterdam, it is still very interesting to work on a different dataset and without the tools I had over there. Slowly but steadily I am picking up the pace at the Broad. Now all I need is some more sunshine in my life!

Heaven and hell. It is the only way to describe science, I sometimes think. There is little that compares with the feeling of submitting an article or better - having it published. Or having other researchers refer to your work, indicating that some people are actually interested in what you do, and have used or applied it. And yes, there is a lot of freedom. BUT. Science, according to many, is not a job, it is a life style. Many postdocs and phd-students work between 60 en 80 hours a week. Few people use all their holidays, nobody knows what over time means. Another fine example of life in science was presented to me by the KWF this week. I applied for a fellowship when I was in India, and moved to Boston when I came back. A logical consequence is the confusion that that created around my post address. Hence I received an invitation for an interview on Monday, to take place in Amsterdam in Thursday. They do not pay for travel, by the way. Three days to fly to Holland is actually quite short (the first flight I could book would arrive at 1pm on Thursday), so I asked if we could do it by telephone and webcam. Not an option, according to them. They will now consider to change the dates, which makes me completely dependent on the goodwill of the committee chairman. To summarize: they expect me to fly up and down to Amsterdam for an interview of 30 mnts, with no guarantee whatsoever of actually getting it, and are not overly helpful in finding a solution to the fact that they invited me far too late. After all, I want their money, right? Now that may be true, but it also points out the essence of working in science: nobody cares for you, funding agencies look down on scientists from their ivory tower of complacency and everybody expects you to give up your soul and life for your project. Is it all worth it? Ask me again in a few years.

Although I may sound a little frustrated over the KWF, life is actually getting better here: quite some social activities - parties, climbing - and the boxes with my stuff are getting closer to Boston every day. Therefore, here is picture of the number 1 beach in Asia, at the Andaman Islands. Check out my photo page for more India pics.

Skiing in April, how’s that? I can tell you - its awesome. I mentioned before that I have been lucky with regards to roommates. With roomies Ben, Sonia and some friends we went up

to Maine on Friday night, to spent Saturday and Sunday in the snow.I have skied one time before, last year in New Hampshire, these guys were all advanced Telemark skiers. I spent my first morning on the bunny and green slopes, but skied mostly blue after that.

My highlight came on Sunday afternoon when I skied down some black routes, without hurting myself very badly. The weather for skiing was incredible. After 11:00 the sun would

be so hot that I skied mostly in t-shirt. Several hip snowboarders skied down without t-shirt - a no-go with my risk on falling. My face and neck are very sunburnt, another lesson for a skiing-newbie. So, a satisfactory way to spend a weekend, as you could say. The weather in Boston” continues to be sunny which has a positive influence on my mood. I did also receive an invitation to appear for the KWF-fellowship committee. They expect me to be in Amsterdam on April 26. That’s right, this Thursday. Unfortunately they refuse to pay for a ticket, so I doubt that I will make it. I hope we can work something out, I think I would have some chance on getting it…

I hope this is normal when you have just completely changed your life, but at the moment my motivation for being in Boston is completely subzero. Just about anything seems to go not as I planned it - last night I even managed to fail a climbing test that would allow me to do leadclimbing at the climbing wall where we were. Living in a room with hardly any furniture is not great fun either, at work I have so far felt mostly pretty stupid compared to my new colleagues. Exactly why was it necessary to leave a great city behind, with great friends and family close by? I also received the result of an application for a Rubicon grant this week, which would financially support my stay. Needless to say I did not get it. Sigh. Well, lets hope that this weekend things change to a more positive state, some exciting things will happen on which I will write on Monday.

as we could see when she got on her knees for a German officer. I really enjoyed the movie (see last blog), and to my surprise there were subtitles (instead of voice dubbing). An American guy in our group of people asked afterwards in which language the movie was spoken; apparently he had missed the fact that there were actually two languages (German/Dutch).

Everything is bigger in America, and that must include the bugs. Today is the first day that I start to feel better again. It is also Patriots Day today, which is a day off in the US. And the day of the Boston marathon. As the weather is close to a storm outside, I pity those runners. And what a contrast with the Rotterdam marathon held yesterday, which was canceled due to the heat!

I had a dinner with Stefan and Sabine on Saturday night. Stefan is former colleague from Erasmus, who is now at MIT. However, he and his family are going back to Rotterdam tomorrow. I wonder whether I should be jealous or not…

My second day on sick leave, so plenty of time for blogging. I feel as crappy as yesterday, which in a strange way makes me feel better, as in less guilty for taking sick leave. Anyway, obviously not much news, accept that I watched a Thai western movie yesterday (’The tears of the black tiger’); it is screening in cinemas over here, and it is definitely worth checking out if it screens near you. Expect melodrama. On Sunday me and my roommates are planning to go to ‘Black book’, which is indeed the Paul Verhoeven movie! I was surprised to see that it actually gets quite some media coverage here.

Below is a picture of my house; as you can see the trees in front do not contain any signs of leaves yet, which pretty much indicates the weather conditions around here. The house itself is quite big, our floor measures about 120m2, spread over 5 rooms and big kitchen. Of course it also has a huge basement, so convenient to dump anything you want to get rid of.

Please continue to leave comments, I really appreciate them!

My first sick day in the US! Workers in the US get a certain number of sick days, which are paid days. Once you have used these days and you are still sick, it means you dont get paid anymore. Welcome to the US! Fortunately for me, I just have a cold and should be ok tomorrow.

I have more or less started working at the Broad Institute. Although officially, I work at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I dont have a desk, or computer yet, so I spend my days reading and talking to people. So far, I am quite impressed by my new group. They say research can be compared to top sports; if that is the case, the Broad can be compared to Chelsea.

Already before I came here, I had found a room close to the Broad. I share the second floor of a typical American house with three people; an Englishman, a Frenchman and a French woman. A nice international bunch and we all share a passion for outdoor sports, meaning we are already planning climbing trips.

In next blogs I will try to upload some pictures of my new city. Bye for now!

I have either the flu or a serious hey fever problem. Either way, it is killing me, so it is a good idea to start a blog today (instead of doing more serious things).

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