Too much to write about. So my parents were visiting Boston - their first time overseas! First, we spend a couple of days in Boston together, then a few days in New York. Both were awesome and I think they really enjoyed it. This week was planned for a trip around New England. Having just returned from four weeks ‘holiday’ it was a bit hard for me to take much time off, so they rented a SUV and took off.

If I am informed correctly, they are in Quebec right now. GO parents!
As for me, I enjoyed NY as always. The bus trip was fine (despite my hang over) and I spend my time working on a manuscript. Pretty exciting, the first manuscript from my postdoc. Of course there is always a lot of time pressure to finish stuff and we are ambitiously planning to submit before the end of next month. Normally I would consider that to be no problem as four weeks is plenty of time. But the fact that we are working on this paper with three institutes directly involved, plus an additional number of groups involved less directly, makes it pretty challenging. If we get this published it will be as much a great management effort as well as a great scientific effort. But that is too early to dream about right now!

I admittedly did not sleep too well last night. Too eager to see my visitors walking through the gate at Logan Airport today. The first time my parents are in Boston. So exciting! After the pick up, we spend the rest of today around my apartment, showing them around Central Square and a visit to the Broad.

I will have to work during the day all week, but do not despair: an agenda has been planned for every day. Tomorrow they will enjoy the parks in downtown Boston by following the Freedom Trail. Perhaps, if they feel like it, they will jump on a Duck Tour. Tomorrow night a bunch of friends join will us for dinner at one of the many bad-but-cheap-food local bars, presumably around Harvard Square. This is not me trying to being cheap on them: I spend a significant amount of my time there, and I’d like them to get to know this side of American cuisine as well.
Wednesday is going to be exciting, as Boston is one of the few places in the world where you can take a Whale Watching Tour. Thursday there will be more time to enjoy the cultural and scenic variety of Boston and Cambridge, and then Friday it is off to New York on the Amtrak, where we will pick up again on Saturday. So much fun and this is just the beginning! More to follow.

Until approximately Christmas this year, I had a strong desire to move back to the Netherlands. To be home again, with friends and family. Home sickness. It is hard to say exactly why I felt like that. Pretty much straight from the start I had a group of cool people to hang out with, for climbing and in the weekends - I have never been lonely. It got so serious that I interviewed with some Dutch companies at a job fair here in Cambridge.

But ever since I came back, and ever more so after my recent trip, I feel that I will not head home very soon. The feeling to live abroad is exciting and powerful. It makes me feel independent. Now the next thing to sort out is whether if that is something Boston-specific, or whether it will be preserved when moving somewhere else. I think I will be just as lost again, but that it will improve after a year or so. A valuable lesson learned from my first year here and something to keep in mind when deciding where my next step will be.
I will have another trip to Singapore second half of July. I am trying to plan a stop over in the Netherlands again and combine this trip with my annual Wacken leave. That is something that no other country will ever be able to replace

The weekend came. I was not sleeping too well, thinking a lot about weekend trips to Bali, a fling in Bangkok and projects to work on. That did not stop some friends and me to go out for dinner on Saturday night, and have some beers afterwards. The next morning, I got a call from colleague and friend Jordi (hi Jordi!).

Jordi is a tall Catalan guy with a passion for basketball. Jordi often has tickets for the Boston basketball team, the Celtics,who have been playing surprisingly well this season. The Celtics made it to the first round of the playoff games for the first time in a few years. The first game was two weeks ago and after last Friday, they were tied at 3 - 3 against the Atlanta Hawks. Although Jordi’s call on Sunday morning woke me up, it was still a call I would not have wanted to miss. If I wanted to join him to the last “all-or-nothing” game of the playoffs? At 1pm, we were at Banknorth garden. Around 3:30pm, the game ended in victory at 99-65, a unusually big win for the Celtics. A super cool experience and a real American one. I better start collecting these!

The last couple of weeks have been among the most exciting weeks in my life. Visiting all these cool places, seeing the family, getting back to Boston where my projects are full steam ahead towards publications. But then I got a job offer. Not just a job offer, but a job offer which is f*cking amazing. To set up a lab at the new cancer center in Singapore.

A few blogs down I wrote how I fell in love with the local girls, maybe this is a sign of things to come? When I was in Papua and watched my friend do his job as MD, being involved in local health care, it struck me: I have to go back to medical school. It would greatly help my type of research, access to patient samples would be lots easier, it would give me some context on the symptoms and treatments of cancer. The prospect of going back to school for a few years was also appealing, especially when combined with a part-time job as consultant or researcher somewhere. That all seems to be less relevant now this offer gets me almost right where I want to be. So, have I made up my mind yet? No, setting up a research lab in a new country is something that needs a lot of thought. It simply depends on more than good intentions and I will be in Boston at least until the end of this year. But after that? Somewhere in Asia, Europe or America I suppose…