Fashion
Purchased a black dress shirt and a pair of black dress shoes to wear at a funeral our three upcoming orchestra concerts. Lost the will to live as I surveyed the racks of ill-cut, over-priced, or badly designed garments (quite often all at once), almost happy to notice that most of them didn't come in my size anyway. Subsequently cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed in said shoes to break them into submission.

Music
Listened to Soulsaver's It's Not How Far You Fall, It's the Way You Land on repeat, having rediscovered how beautiful the sound is on a stereo system as compared to compressed music played through cheap headphones or portable speakers.

Practiced my viola a couple times on top of the weekly orchestra rehearsal.

Social Life
Went for drinks with a guy on a Wednesday night. It was not a date as I had mentioned several times beforehand that I would bring a friend and invited other people to join. Other people failed to join and according to one of them and to the friend who did come, the guy is hitting on me.

Went to see The Artist on Saturday evening and for drinks afterwards. It was definitely not a date — and I would never have wondered about it if not for the earlier confusion. Loved the movie, which I found cleverly done and very well acted out and was remembered I stopped drinking sex-on-the-beaches because they're too sweet. Ugh.

Failed to attend a Sunday lunch I was looking forward to because of fever and general head-and-throat-soreness.

Miscellaneous
Found out thanks to a bus strike that it takes me fifty minutes to walk to work from home (under moderate rain).

Readings
Some Jeffrey Deaver book I have already forgotten.

A few chapters of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

The first few pages of Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace.

Quite a few papers on Gaussian processes.

Work
Cleaned up some code. Implemented a bunch of comparison partners. Tried to make sense out of some simulations. Put together a project for students, which took forever because (a) some things just don't work on Macs (b) the simplified version of the algorithm that I thought appropriate for the course just doesn't work on that data. Worked on some grant proposal and resisted pulling out my hair at some people's use of the English language. Made sense out of some stuff "my" MS student has been doing. Silently screamed insanities at how power can be more important than good science — I was not at the receiving end of that particular piece of bullshit, but still, gets my goat. Tried not to cry thinking of my soon-to-be windowless office. ("But it has a window! Sure, half a meter away from the gray wall of another building. Think of all the pictures of palm trees and all you're going to put up on the walls!", says the guy who is never going to have to sit in any of those new basement offices because he's moving to freaking Los Angeles instead. Ass.)

— So, isn't he a bit young?

— Who?

— Garrett^[1].

— Young for what?

— For you.

— Well, it's not like if I was planning to date him.

— But you do have a date with him.

— I don't. What are you talking about?

— Guy stops by, chats a minute, puts up a bored face so as not to look too eager, asks whether you want to go for a beer sometime, you say yes and decide on a day and time, and you tell me you don't have a date. How clueless do you think I am?

— Oh. Maybe less than me?

(It's not a date. I think.)

Before giving in to the urge of writing an incendiary comment about irresponsible fuckers who deserve to die when you read an article online about a young motorcyclist who, changing lanes at high speed in an intersection, stroke a car that had the right of way, and passed away from his injuries at the scene, do take a minute to think about the fact that this young motorcyclist may have had redeeming qualities in the eyes of the family, friends, and acquaintances who will read what you write.

Even if you don't give a flying fuck about the fact that he was kind, generous, stubborn about things that really mattered, witty and personable ; a brilliant student, devoted to all sorts of humanitarian causes, who spent a good chunk of his free time teaching English to immigrants, helping poor people getting health care, or volunteering at the AIDS foundation.

Tommy, you're already sorely missed. Don't listen to the assholes on the Internet.

In 2012 I resolve to...

• turn 27;
• remember that a pair of striped socks or a pretty hat can make my day better;
• keep doing things I enjoy (hot science, traveling, seeing friends, taking gazillions of pictures I don't have time to sort through, all of those at the same time, baking pumpkin pies, reading poorly-written detective stories, playing my viola, swimming once in a blue moon);
• not give a rat's ass about my weight, the amount of exercise I'm getting, whether I should cuss less (you bet I fucking shouldn't), sparing more money, nor any of the traditional bullshit;
• give the girl a break;
• be awesome.

So, yup, pretty much the same I've been doing for a while (save the "turn 27" thing). Optionally, figuring out what I want to do when I grow up would be a great thing as well.

Happy 2012, y'all. Rock on! And have some more of the beautiful Granada here.

Dear Padawan,

I know. It must have felt very lonely last week, with most of us gone. I know Chef and I have barely been answering your emails for the past two weeks, and that I was only able to meet up with you once in the previous week. I know it must have felt like neither of us was giving a shit about your project nor about the degree you are completing it for.

I am sorry it did. And in spite of the fact that I had warned you weeks before that this was going to happen (I have the email that proves it), let me explain you why.

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday; Thanksgiving is quite certainly the day of the year I miss California the most.

This year again, Thanksgiving came around and I didn't get to do any of the Thanksgiving things I used to do on Thanksgiving. I didn't go to the pub in the afternoon yesterday. I didn't sleep in this morning. I didn't have any eggnog. I didn't spend the day cooking, didn't move furniture around to set up a dining area, didn't made any pomegranate sangria, didn't ate too much delicious food, didn't play cards and didn't sing and didn't pretend to watch American football.

Nevertheless.

Today I did not celebrate Thanksgiving, but last Saturday I had two friends over at my place. The three of us pushed the furniture against the walls and put together a delicious Moroccan-inspired dinner, which we shared with nine other guests. There was laughter and music and quality conversation.

Today I did not celebrate Thanksgiving, but I wrote messages to my American friends. I thoroughly enjoyed my day at the office, from the quiet morning to the hours of fruitful meetings to the musical recommendations of my office mate to the 6pm chats in the hallway. And this evening I had to refuse an invitation to hang out and play poker so that I could attend my weekly orchestra rehearsal, laugh with the other violists, and make Haydn happen.

So, following the purest of Thanksgiving traditions, I put aside the long November nights, the hand-wringing reflections on the shortcomings of my character, and the heartbreak I gave myself once again while leaving Paris, and I raise my cup of orange blossom tea to my new European life; to my excellent friends on the other side of the ocean, to those across the Rhine river, and to the ones I am making here; to the lab I am so pleased to have joined; to the orchestra that made me realized how much I missed playing in one; and to the six or ten of you, dear readers, who are still haunting these pages.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

After my two-week summer vacation, unevenly split between Portugal and the South of France, a conference in Bavaria and a brief appearance in lab, I am just back for a 10 days stay in Paris, triggered by my best friend's decision back in January to ask his girlfriend to marry him despite my having made my opinion of both marriage and weddings very clear to him (I still cannot believe that those two have the cheek to do whatever pleases them with their own lives), and filled with much more debugging than I ever care to do (I was working this week).

Alternative title: The "Women Who Are Never, Ever Again Going to Cry Over the Way They Look Because FUCK. THAT. SHIT." Kickass Club.

Alternative alternative title: Hey, Stranger, Wanna Hear Some Very Personal Shit About Me? I'm Told That's What the Internets Are For!

It all started again on a cold morning in March. My pair of dark gray jeans stopped fitting. I remembered the compliments I had gotten only four or five months before for losing the pounds I had packed on while writing my thesis. I started crying. I stood there, facing the mirror in my panties, mentally abusing myself for the convex curve of my belly, the cellulite on my thighs and the size of my ass. For the next two months or so, I hated myself. I thought myself worthless for being fat. I dragged myself around, felt utterly unhappy, and got entirely absorbed with myself and how fat I was.

Snapshot #1 — Monday afternoon. I am in Berlin and sit in a bus and chat for half an hour, in German, with a Russian philosopher (a Kant scholar, unfortunately).

Snapshot #2 — Monday afternoon. A glass of sparkling water in hand, I catch up with a Chinese anthropologist, in English.

Snapshot #3 — Monday evening. I am in Berlin, drinking wine with two Australians, one Canadian, one American and one extremely funny British lady, all scientists in various domains, laughing in the warm evening.

Snapshot #4 — Tuesday morning, too early. I sit in a bus and talk with a linguist from Malta, first in German then in French. We discuss manuscript dating, French texts from the Middle Age written in Hebrew, classical music from the nineteenth century, and European politics.

Snapshot #5 — Tuesday morning. I am in Berlin on a hot, sunny day. A glass of sparkling water in hand, I discuss scientific careers in French with a young Canadian physicist and a French professor who has been teaching microbiology in Germany for twenty years.

Snapshot #6 — Tuesday lunch. I sit with two Australians (a chemist and a geneticist) and a German linguist onboard a boat that cruises the Spree. We chat away in English, with a little bit of German here and there.

Snapshot #7 — Tuesday afternoon. I lay down in the grass by the Spree, beer in hand, with the two aforementioned Australians. We talk about science, feminism, and a lot of other topics. Later, we move to a "beach bar".

Snapshot #8 — Wednesday afternoon. I am on the phone, complaining about the suddenly cold weather and having spent hours and hours in a train making stupid slides about projects I do not know anything about^[1]. "Wait," I am cut off, "you spent the best of 12 hours yesterday chattering away on your favorite issues^[2] with two Australian guys in bloody Berlin." This is a valid point.

Snapshot #9 — Thursday, early afternoon. I am in the middle of nowhere, Swabian Alps, and check into my hotel room with my Georgian^[3] roommate. We speak German with the woman at the front desk and a mix of English and French together.

Snapshot #10 — Thursday evening. I am outside in the cold Swabian night, sitting crossed-legs between two German scientists. The one at my right speaks with a heavy Californian accent, the one at my left has an almost perfect British intonation. A dozen of other scientists, coming from China, Argentina, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Northern America, Australia, and, for a minority, Germany, complete the circle. We talk about science and academic careers and America.

Snapshot #11 — Friday afternoon. I am sitting in a bus, talking about French literature with the Georgian roommate, again in a mixture of English and French. Behind us, a colleague says a few words in Greek in his cellphone before leaning towards us and asking in German who it is we are talking about^[4].

Snapshot #12 — Monday morning. I am in Paris, boarding a train back to Germany, pestering against rude people made ruder by the abandoned-luggage alert that delayed us. My chest is tight as I remember the lovely weekend spent, somewhat oddly, speaking French with French people in France (well, mostly). If there's anywhere I belong, this could well be it; but I might have attained a state of permanent déracinement^[5].

Nevertheless, the above is about 29.7% of why I love my job.

I thought the pain would ease at time would go by.

If the tears rolling on my cheeks are any indication, either eight months is too little time or I was wrong.