Two things dominate the news currently: 1) the wind of change called Obama and 2) the credit crisis. The first started off well. I cannot remember ever having seen an US inauguration live, but we watched it at the Broad with about 80% of the people working here. To my surprise, many people in Europe saw the ritual as well.

And Obama has started living up to expectations, with his promised closing of Guantanamo Bay.
With regards to the credit crunch, I cannot get away from the impression that this is largely driven by the masses chanting how bad economy currently is. If people would start to be realistic they would realize that it aint all that bad. I am also a little surprised by the seemingly endless amounts of money that governments suddenly seem to have. Somewhere, somebody is getting quite wealthy of that money.
The US seems to be more affected by changes in economy than Europe. However, for two reasons I believe that this will not be the end of the US domination. First, the enormous wealth in the US continues to surprise me, I think the country can take some financial beating. Second, the flexibility of the country and the people will outperform the rest of the world.
Personally I am not really affected by this. I have a year left on my fellowship and Obama is actually increasing the budgets for science. Actually, the decrease in house prices make me wonder if I should try to buy an apartment here…

Every once in a while, I post a blog with some reflection on how things are working out, ever since I came to the US. The first one was posted in Dec 2007, at which stage I was not very satisfied. The second one was not too long after that, and my mood had increased subtantially. So how are things now? Looking back at last year, I can only say that it was a great year. I managed to get in touch with a large group of great people, from countries such as Spain, France, Switzerland and even exotic ones such as Iran.

Most of us are in the same situation, doing scientific research and arriving in Boston by ourselves. We all work hard and compensate that by having a maximum amount of fun outside work hours - partying, skiing, swimming, traveling. It feels a little bit like a second student life and considering that many of us - even though we are all around age 30 - live with roommates, that ain’t that far of the truth.
At work, things have really started to develop over the last year as well. I got more and more involved in the TCGA project and although this is a huge project (with over twenty people working in it within my institute alone) it really feels like “my” project. And although my recently submitted paper got rejected at the first journal, I am confident that we will be able to get a good publication out of it.
And in the fast-paced world that is science, I have to consider my next steps. Boston? New York? Europe? Do another postdoc? Apply for faculty? I have my thoughts, and my plans, and we will see how things develop over the next year. To conclude: 2008 has been pretty much a kickass year and I hope that 2009 will be no less. Read the blog to stay posted.