More than half the reactions to the I am Adam Lanza's mother piece I see are of the "Please help this woman get her child committed" variety.

It's fascinating how an article that I've seen shared by people claiming to advocate for better mental care and fighting the stigma against mental diseases actually ends up reinforcing the stereotype of mentally sick = violent = budding mass murderer / serial killer.

So, a few things.

(1) As far as I know, we have no idea what kind of mental troubles Adam Lanza had or didn't have.

(2) No, not every child that's prone to violent outbursts is going to become a mass murderer.

(3) Actually, most people with mental illness are more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator of violence. Tadaaa!

(4) I've never been violent myself, but boy am I glad that none of my parents thought it a good idea, back when I was thirteen, to write for the world to see about how horrible it was to deal with me and how I was going to become a violent killer.

(5) What does the kid think of all that? Who knows? Who cares? From this article, not his mother.

(6) P.S. Adam Lanza had a father.

A long, if very incomplete, list of things that happened to me in the past two weeks. Suggested soundtrack: Surf Rock.

Boing, boing, boing, boing, boing!

November is almost over, and once I've survived the next 60 hours^[1], I'll be in a plane to London, shortly followed by a plane to Los Angeles.

There will be sun, the ocean, great friends, and my favorite lady in all of America; then my favorite conference, set in a location I'm not sure I trust but as long as it features a beautiful lake and a hotel sauna and swimming pool, I'm pretty sure we'll be alright; and more sun, ocean, and my favorite physicists as a finale before flying back to Germanlandia. And yes, there's a reason "favorite" was featured three times in the same sentence.

Plock-plock, my dears, and fare thee well!

Last week it snowed. The city turned cold, wet, slippery and gloomy. With wind blowing packs of snow in our legs and faces, crossing the bridge, once a highlight of the way to the old town, became an ordeal. Not twenty-four hours later Daylight Saving Time kicked in, and the sun, or whatever was left of it, started to set in the middle of the afternoon. The temperature rose a little, and the sun started shining again a few hours a day; but thus so royally announced, November started.

I don't know if it's the family tradition, my Mediterranean, sun-thirsty roots, or a more generic light sensitivity seasonal autumn blues funk, but my brain is definitely not impressed. Darkness has descended upon us? Let's get in a dark mood then.

Every day that I don't cry is a victory. Every few hours that I don't feel like crying are a victory. They don't come easy. Most of the time, I feel lonely, abandoned, not good enough, hopeless, and fighting off those emotions is a constant, harrowing battle. I write todo lists and check off items with rage-fueled strikes. I force myself to go out for walks when the sun is out, to go swimming every few days, to play my viola, to fight the urge to hide under the covers and be social instead. I've even joined #digiwrimo, to help kicking my writing muscles into gear. But it seems that as soon as I let my guard down, the negative feelings creep back.

I accept every opportunity to go out, from concerts to talks and glasses of wine to dinners. In the course of a few days, I've order Lebanese food to go after work and huddled up with a friend in her small kitchen, where we downed it with liters of hot tea while talking about the future and its uncertainties; I've shared one of the best pizzas in town with a concerned American right after Sandy stormed through the East Coast—and a mere days away from the presidential election; I've participated in a Scandinavian quest to find good German red wine; I've been to the pool twice, and of course to one orchestra rehearsal. Still I've had two meltdowns, have snapped at a colleague I never snap at, and have spent quite an inordinate amount of time solely focusing on quieting down the little inner voice which insists that I am worthless.

Yesterday, I saw Berlin Telegram. It tells the story of a woman's fight to reconstruct her life after a heartbreak, and it is beautiful. A few minutes in I had forgotten that I ended up alone at the theater, and how hard it was not to let my heart sink when friend after friend apologized for not coming—a downside of last minute plans. I joined a few people for drinks afterwards. We raised our glasses to winter. "It will be long and cold," said our impromptu toast master. "And dark," I added. We clinked glasses on that. He and I drank and danced late in the night, talking about the grace of Greece's light, the bitterness of love, the protective barriers we erect, his now ablated cancerous tumor. So misery loves company, but it was oddly beautiful, this conversation half drowned in music, through his half-hearted smiles and my bitten back tears.

I am well surrounded, in fact, and even if it's not easy, I have the tools to fight. So hear that, November? You won't get me. And on your last day I'll be off to California, and I won't even care if six of the days I'll spend there will be in a skiing (and casinos...) resort.

I am sitting at dinner with researchers. To my right, a professor who collaborates with all of us to some extent. To his right, a guy from Northern Germany. Across from us, three Japanese men. Our host is from Eastern Europe. "I quite enjoy working with Japanese people," says the professor. 'In the future, I'm envisioning collaborating only with Japanese and Bavarian scientists."

I am having coffee with colleagues. "I always look at people's A levels before I hire them. I don't trust people with poor A levels to become researchers," says one of them. I slowly sip up my coffee, wondering whether I should remind him that my A levels were piss poor (but better than those of at least one of his students).

I am drinking beer with people from the department. "It's a pity most of the new female PhD students are so ugly," says one of them. "Although pretty girls have it so easy, everything falling in their open arms... until they turn 30," he adds while I choke on my Beck's. "Do you mean I'm ugly or do you mean I don't deserve being where I am?" I ask. He laughs it away. (But of course, this is an isolated incident and us women and feminists are getting our collective panties in a hysterical bunch over absolutely nothing instead of worrying about serious things such as war rape and world hunger.)

This thing you do, with your brain, that supposedly got you to where you are right now, a respected member of the scientific community, with a truckload of prestigious degrees and insightful publications to back you up? Would you really mind applying it to everyday conversation as well? Or is empathy so completely out of your range of skills that there's no hope you'll ever realize you're being offensive?

I am back.

I am back in a place where the nights are chilly, the sky not really blue and sunscreen unnecessary.

Here no road smells like fig leaves, no cicadas nor crickets chirp so loudly that conversation is useless, no fields of olive trees adorn the flanks of otherwise bare mountains, no tree bends under the weight of lemons or oranges, no one uses donkeys to carry heavy loads.

No one has lunch at 2pm, no one sells watermelons from the back of an old truck, the fish does not come to the market still alive in large buckets of water, peaches are imported, pastry shops don't smell like honey and almonds and cinnamon and don't remind me of my great-grand-mother saying mange, c'est bon pour le mariage, ma fille.

There are neighborhood parties, where no one comes to with their own musical instrument, where nobody grills meat, where no one drinks coffee, and where the longest food line is always at the tried-and-tested wurst place.

Old men aren't playing cards or backgammon in the streets; old women don't gather on the benches in front of churches or mosques; men don't wear silver bracelets.

Cars are well maintained, the streets are clean and there are rules and schedules to follow, failing which someone will get red in the face and complain loudly.

Cats and dogs don't go far from their home and owners and none of them are strays. Nobody pets an animal that's not theirs before asking for permission first. The permission is not always granted.

Music never departs from the minor and major scales.

There are no impossibly blue waters, no palm trees, no bougainvillea, no pomegranates, no oleander, no pine trees. Little here reminds me of my hometown, of the Riviera backcountry, of the streets of Tel-Aviv or Casablanca, of the mountains of Andalusia, of the bazaars in Istanbul, of the sea shore in Tangier.

I am back from Greece, where I felt, through a concentrated exposure to a startling number of elements of what I consider my culture, more at home than in my hometown itself, and I weep.

P.S. I'm actually much better today than I was a few days ago, when I was alternatively crying and positively fuming at being back in Germanland. I have, however, confirmed that one of the best answer I can give to the "Where are you from" question is "the Mediterranean".

I went to get my hair cut and the stylist who welcomed me in had me sit at a table with nothing else to entertain myself than my reflection in the mirror, the radio blasting I Won't Give Up (and who's singing I don't wanna to be someone who walks away so easily I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can maaaaaake at the top of her voice now ?), and the April issue of Maxi.

So I started browsing through Maxi, my first German women's mag ever I think. By the time she was ready to butcher my hair, I had actually read most of that thing. So here's some of what I encountered today:

Many people, knowing me well (or having had a glimpse at my schedule the previous year), wished me "many travels" for 2012.

The year started a bit slow, with eight or so weeks in a row spent here in Germanland, fighting the cold and darkness with music, hot chocolate, and budding friendships. I enjoyed the homeliness of it, enjoyed anchoring myself in this place, making it mine as I had never taken the time to do it before.

Still, as early as mid-January, I was already starting to plan a few trips, and by the time the end of February came, with its few days in Paris and holiday in Rome, I was feeling antsy and more than ready to travel again.

Then somehow things precipitated.

At the end of March I was in London, via Paris once more. Two weeks later I was back in Paris, on a stopover to spending Easter with family in the South of France. Less than a week after I was back, I was out of the door again, heading this time to Munich, where I have spent the last three weeks (minus a weekend back here in the place I do laundry, cook dinner with and for friends, and can cast a vote in the French elections) visiting colleagues.

Munich was good, work-wise and after work. We had a few days of excellent weather that made the parks so much better; I got to see a friend who is living there for a year (and hang out with Brazilian law students at the same time), visit the zoo, see some modern art, walk around a city big enough to do so for hours without getting bored. I can't say I really love it, though, in spite of what the raging comments from my German lab mates, most of whom either grew up or studied there, could have let me expect. In spite of its long tradition of SPD mayors and high rate of inhabitants non affiliated with any religion, the capital of beer is also that of Bavaria, with its deeply ingrained conservatism, catholicism, and Bayrisch-speaking, Lederhose- or Dirndl-wearing patriotism; as a result it feels too clean, and the life that a hundred thousand students (walking in the path, for instance, of the White Rose movement) could give it just isn't... there.

I am back just long enough for a few loads of laundry, careful repacking, and a final say in the presidential run before boarding the plane that will take me back to America. This is a long awaited trip, one that I have imagined almost since the minute I left Los Angeles eighteen months ago, one that I have planned for months, and that I am so excited to take that I sometimes have a hard time falling asleep at night.

I will stay there three weeks, visiting first good old Southern California, then Boston, the Chicago area, D.C., and New York. (The traveling does not look optimal, especially the part where I head back West a thousand miles or so just a few days after flying from the West Coast to New England, but it had strong constraints. I don't think you could find a better solution.) I will see dear friends, good people, and places I have missed so much despite the unshakable confidence I have that they are not what I want for myself, long-term. I will do science, talk science, breathe science in great settings where to do so. I will mix the old and the new, as I discuss new projects, visit my current boss in the institute that is welcoming him for a few months, hang out with people I met in Germany, meet with collaborators I have gained since leaving the U.S. I will go to the beach, have a barbecue or three, go out dancing. I will walk the path down memory lane and make more memories as I so do, and I will love every single minute of it.

Then I'll be back, at the end of May, most likely with an aching smile on my face. And instead of cooling my heels off and incurring the risk of wallowing in the pain of leaving, once more, some amazing people thousands of miles behind me, I'll fly out to Barcelona for a week of friends, sun, and music at Primavera Sound.

I don't think it too daringly ambitious to claim that this is going to rock my socks.

I had Ethiopian food for the first time. In the train back to Germanland, I realized I do recognize some of the people who seem to commute between cities on either side of the border. I wrote and debugged a whole lotta code, and had a board marker fight with my officemate. I painted my nails yellow and orange. Colleagues outlined a new lead to explore for a project that was in stand-by. I listened to my recording of La Traviata, with Maria Callas in the leading role, a total of six times. A friend invited me to go see Barbara. We discovered with surprise that movie theaters can be full in our lovely city, and settled for drinks, a long, long walk along the rivers, and a conversation about religion and politics instead. I rediscovered Harper's magazine's Weekly Review^[1] and started vaguely emulating its style in everything I wrote, including my radio chronicle for Je m'ennuie bien^[2].

Hugged my grandma.

Met with a guy I hadn't seen in eight years. It was fun. We share a similar "and then I decided to try research, and then I loved it, and then I got my PhD, and six months later I started a postdoc, and I love it, but I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up" story, as well as a love of the Magnetic Fields. Many people share that story (probably more than people who even know of the Magnetic Fields).

Hugged my mom.

Flew to Rome.

Walked arm in arm with my mom. Ate cassatta ice cream. Watched a left-wing protest, with friendly people who smiled a lot and tried to explain to me what this was all about, and a right-wing demonstration for some obscure reason, with very organized, closed-off people. Laughed gently at a museum guard who tried to flirt with me. Got very, very excited at unexpected modern art^[1] and at Etruscan antiques^[2]. Got my mind blown by La Traviata, played in a church^[3], by musicians of the Rome Opera. Bought incredibly pink shoes. Drank cappuccino in the sun.

Flew to Paris.