Long time I didn't write... but being a teacher somehow got rid of my lazy postdoc freedom... Indeed this message will be short again, just as a memo of this day. Guess where I live...

rain on 10 July 2009

I didn't see the movie "300" but I read somewhere it is about a war involving 300 soldiers. Well, I had 410. Not soldiers, but students. 410 students fought against the examination I created for them, and I really thought it would be easy (for them). Not for me, alas, as I had to correct the whole bunch of papers. After some cries of protest, I managed to get 6 volunteers who enthusiastically corrected the bunch with me. Today I filled-in the 410 grades on the university grade center website. For university assistants professors who are reading this message and still wondering where to fill-in their grades: do not look in the folder "grade center" but in the folder "staff info". It cost me 2 telephone calls to discover that grades should be reported in "staff info" (stupid me who thought "staff info" would contain information for the staff).
Anyway, the results are poor. It is frightening to see the level of the 1st year students, seen that the examination was really easy. It is also frightening to experience how much rights the students have inside the actual education system in the Netherlands: students are allowed to come to an exam as many times they want (some of my students tried it for the 4th or 5th time!). No wonder there where 410 students inscribed whereas only 60 followed the course! There are 2 exams a year but if less than 40% of the students pass the exam, there should be an extra examination in that year... Together with my boss, we agreed that we didn't want any extra examination, so I had to find a way to get more than 40% success. As many (I should say all) failed exercise 2 (there were 3 exercices in total), I generously calculated that if a student had 2/3 of the answers correct he or she would get the highest mark (10/10). With this system, 46% of the students got a "sufficient" (or higher) for the examination...

But at least, now, I am free to do  bit of research for a change, yeah!

I was at a workshop some time ago, in the middle of Holland, with 20-30 people from all the same background. This gave rise to pleasant discussions, a nice atmosphere and relaxed exchanges between the participants. Out of context, it might be a bit hard to laugh about them, but we had a good time. Scientists are like big kids when they are together, ready to smile and laugh heartily for the tiniest thing. Probably because even for enthousiastic scientists, too many talks are hard to digest, and a good laugh helps to clear the spirits.

speaker (young, enthousiastic, glitter in his eyes):
[...] and we measured this effect. We are still not sure how to interpret it, so I hope to hear some ideas from you. Anyway, we are very exited to find this result! [he pauses, full of expectation. The room is silently attentive. Personally, I have no clue, and I feel I am not the only one.]

expert first row (arms crossed, a bit dry, but still good-humoured)
I would not be exited. I would be worried.

We all laugh, including the speaker. A bit later, another conversation:

speaker (professional, long experience, and always presenting interesting talks):
[...] I learnt from A., my russian student that I should not call this peak "sharp" but "pronounced" as the width of the peak is almost as large as its height. So we found a pronounced peak.

expert first row
Can you get it any sharper?

speaker
You mean more pronounced?

I assure you, this kind of teasing is quite funny, but also demonstrates how the environment is cruxial for the working of jokes. Like this, without knowing who said it and in which situation, I would hardly smile myself.

Delft, rainy

For weeks now I have been busy writting a proposal. Big proposal. Loads of money (well, at least, in my eyes, but I am half dutch so any amount impresses me :-)). I didn't thought it to be so borring and difficult (I never wrote proposals before).

At my first draft, my boss lifted an eyebrown and commented " too scientifical". Hu? I never felt insulted like this before. What does that mean, too scientifical? Of course, I am a scientist, so I write scientifical proposals, no? Didn't ruin 10 years of my life in studies not too be called scientist and having an impressive "Dr." in front of my name! ... "Dr." that I always forget to use actually, I always sign my emails by my first (sometimes with last) name...which results in pleasant replies like "Dear professor" when a correspondent is anxious to make a good impression... did I tell you that I correct 365 (!) exam papers last week? being bombarded by student emails ever since.... "Dear professor, could I please come and see my exam paper?". Damn. They should have been working instead of coming and crying to get a point more...

Anyway, back to my proposal: I changed my scientifical approach in a more "Discovery Channel" approach: "Mud is SO important in the world. We would not EXIST without mud. We would DIE without clay. I am going to save the WORLD thanks to mud, because I am the BEST."

I also had to delete some ferocious comments on other researchers like " arf arf, can you believe those incompetent people tried to analyse the electrophoretic mobility data with the Smoluchowski formula??" which became "some very estimated colleagues laid the first step of this study by producing a marvelous, alas not complete, set of experimental data on the electrokinetic behaviour of clays, which in turn is VITAL to understand the dynamic life of estuaries". Damn. At the beginning I was puzzled about how on Earth I would come close to the required maximum of 4000 words. Now I feel like a gardner in front of an overgrown tree: where should I cut while still keeping the shape of my tree? 

Version two of my draft. Comment of my boss (eyebrown went down this time, he looked a bit sombre...): " what is your long-term view? I don't see any outlooks? What will you do 10 years from now?". Ufff. But didn't I tell that I wanted to save the world thanks to mud?? I don't know what I will be doing in 10 years. Maybe I will be on a beach, drinking lemon juice. Maybe I will be rich and travel for leisure. Maybe I will be studying history of art. Who knows what I will be doing in 10 years. One thing is sure, though: I will have moved on from this project!!

Version three of my draft (still going on): "this project is part of a new line of study aiming to introduce micro-analysis in the study of large-scaled phenomena like such found in civil engineering". Impressive, no? That's what I am going to do in 10 years time... In scientifical words I would have said: "leave me alone with my computer in my well-heated office and send those other guys who for a mysterious reason like getting dirty in the mud do the experiments in the field".

According to the newspapers the orange lion bank is confident that the clients of the blue lion bank will have no reasons to change banks after the fusion is completed. Let's see.

- Do you still have questions?
- No, I don't. You?

Even though those two words never go together in my brain, I learnt since a week to appreciate the atmosphere surrounding this once-in-15-years event: Dutch can skate on "natural" ice again! My colleagues have twinklings in their eyes and are happy to share their interest with me. I therefore learnt a few cool facts: the ice should be 14 cm thick before the "11 cities contest" can be organized and this thickness generally requires 3 weeks of constant ice. It has to be so thick (you can skate on ice thinner than that) because of the amount of participants, the "11 cities contest" is THE ice-skating contest in The Netherlands. The minister of foreign affairs cancelled a meeting because "she had to go skatting" (actually so did my boss!) and the minister of defense broke his wrist while skatting during one of the many competions organized in the country. You better sharpen your skates yourself, the shops do it with machines that take off the rounding of the end. When you skate on canals in the city, you have to learn to fall on your belly so as to pass under the low little bridges, it is too boring to get off the ice and walk around the bridge...

this week-end at the Kinderdijk

The word for Finland in Finnish is "Suomi". Both "suo" and "fin" seem to be derived from the root "fen" (in Dutch still "veen") = wetland, which sounds quite appropriate for the country of the 1000 lakes...
This year my New Year's eve has been quite memorable (note that it was last year as well - we had good fun in Delft -). But this time I celebrate New Year one year in advance compared to France and Holland, standing outside by -15 degrees with a glass of fake Champagne in my glove, after having had a warm sauna and learnt to make "snowangels" [= going (naked!) from the sauna and fall on the snow, moving the arms to draw the angel's wings... and hurrying up to the sauna which suddenly does not seem so warm anymore...].
Even though we only stayed 4 days in Orivesi it felt like the best holidays can feel: your brain obliterate all the pitifull work-related data, you relax, enjoy the compagny, the atmosphere, the new experience, the food. Because despite what our former president might have said: Finnish food is GOOD. But it is good only under the right conditions: after having walked in the snow for hours by -10, felt the simple joy of getting frozen toes and getting them defrost in a sauna. I guess it does not look fancy on the silver plates of the presidential palace in Paris, and might look unappealing in hot summers but try a reindeer stew after all I have said, and you'll ask for more. And no day starts better than with a good bowl of hot porridge.

berry-porridge for breakfast

In England they had a war between a red and a white rose and they battled until one disapeared. In Holland, there is no war, there is the "polder" model which means consensus. This is how "my" lion became "the" lion. In other words: the Postbank merged with the ING bank. I liked the Postbank because their logo was a lion. A blue lion. I hated the ING bank because their logo is a lion. An orange lion. Yeah, yeah, I think you feel it now: my lion became orange... I seriously consider changing banks...

You want to get pissed-off and grumpy a whole day? Try www. sncf . fr, the french railway website.

In ALL other countries I know, when you type www. <compagny acronym> . <country code> you get what you want: the timetables and prices for the trains. In France you get a spam-looking webpage with some ads for discound cards ("to have a "zen and fluid" travel, arf arf!), a pep talk about how good the railroad compagny is, with all the figures you never wanted to know (with an exclusive powerpoint-slide show), a "camembert" telling that sncf carries more cargo than people, how to get a job at sncf. All that with a fairy-tale jingle (urgh) ... and at the bottom of the page a SMALL link to a NEW website where you'll suppose to get the miserable information you are seeking.
Because clearly, they didn't put as much effort in that website. No jingle. Lot of crap. Just next to "train" you can select "hotel", "plane" and "car". Probably as options for the very-likely event that your train is not departing from where you expect or not arriving where it is supposed to, I guess.

But wait, the worse is still to come: I tried to book a train from Paris to my parents place (60 km of railroad, after having booked Rotterdam-Paris (400  km) via the EXCELLENT dutch website in 5 min). When, after a lot of groanings, two "server error" (!!!), I managed to get to the LAST page for the booking, it turned out that I could not fill-in correctly my address... because all addresses where the tickets should be sent to should be FRENCH. Groaaorg.
Boiling like the Vesuvius in AD 79, I screened the whole website for a telephone number. Will you believe it? NO telephone numbers. On the "help train" page you get a FAIRY (yeah, a girl with a WAND!!!) who says (in french of course, haha, you miserable foreigners should not be looking at this webpage anyway) "Hi and Welcome. My name is Léa and I can help you if you seek an information [what else am I seeking on the "help train"-webpage???]]. Do not hesitate to ask me a question". I am not hesitating. But Léa is. She got stuck at the part "Do you want to see our guidebook "sending tickets home step by step?". Sure I will [so you have to TYPE (in letters!) "OUI" under Léa's feet, raaaah, took me another puzzling 2 min to understand, I was clicking like mad on Léa's wand, waiting for some magic...]!!!. But what do I get then? A webpage telling me sending tickets home is for free and that I should type my name is the box entitled "name" and adress in "adress" and... merde.

At long last, I also found the possibility to send an EMAIL. Before you have to tick which kind of question you want to ask, etc, etc... so was I surprised when I got an automatically generated email starting will "thanks for your interest in our services blabla in order to get tickets sent home you should blabla type your name in the box "name", ..."? No. I tried to send back an email with "but that's not what I asked for!!!" (because I TYPED an email in their STUPID box "message")... and yeah... I got the SAME automatic reply back... That's the time when I seriously considered to throw my computer out of the window, and the only reason I didn't do it is that for 3 weeks in a row now my computer is working fine.

... so now my mother (who will come to Holland next week) will bring me a ticket, bought at the railway station in France...

French trains do anything to be on time...

Delft, stopped snowing, mildly cold

I was shopping at Albert Heijn, coming back from work, when I heard in my back "Good day, Madam". It was one of my students. I was standing there, with my chicken filet and a pack of toilet paper. The student couldn't help gazing at my toilet paper. I nearly wanted to tell him "yeah, I use them too.", but I know how it feels to meet a teacher outside his natural environment: weird. So, I just smiled and asked what he thought about the lecture of today.
Overall the teaching is going well. Some students are completely lost (don't know what a vector is...) but most of those are the first-year party-guys, who undoubtedly I will see concentrated next year at the same lectures...