A Day At The Garden

Monday, May 2nd, Vienna, 30°C, my first day “at home”. As I wake up I find the fridge completely empty. Of course, I just arrived yesterday night. OK, I could have gone to the store but when I looked outside I found the weather to be bright so I decided to have breakfast in the garden. Not really in my private garden but the one in Schönbrunn, the former emperor’s summer residence, just 5 walking minutes from my flat so in a way almost my garden.


At the gate of "my garden"

I used to be there when I lived in Vienna before whenever the weather and my time budget allowed it. I was going there to read the Sunday newspapers or even to study when I was still at University (I remember sitting there with that heavy Stryer). I went there for walks winter and summer with my girlfriends and one relationship even ended there (on a park bench just next the Palmenhaus). Whenever I needed time to think or when I felt like jogging (that is some time ago) I went to Schönbrunn. After my diploma exam I went up the hill to look down from the Gloriette at the city and thought I maybe should go and try live somewhere else. It took me 5 more years before I really left and on my last day I went up there again and looked at “my” Vienna one last time.


Schönbrunn seen from behind the Neptune fountain

I do not really have a preferred spot in the gardens (like I had in the Retiro in Madrid). I mean, I had some preferred spots but they changed over the years. First I liked to sit in front of the roman ruin. That was when I met my long term girlfriend Renate. I remember sitting there with an awful hangover, staring at the ruin and trying hard to remember the name of the girl I have met the day before at one of these student parties. I did not succeed but luckily met her again at another party. For some time I had to sit in the botanical garden because Renate was studying for her botany exam (and I could here her swear from some bush away). Then our relationship ended and they started to renovate the roman ruin (a sort of omen maybe). So I moved to the Palemenhaus but I avoided that bench after my next relationship broke apart there. Then I sat next to a fountain but fighting for a bench on the Rondeau was not easy on good days. I discovered a hidden space in-between high trees which was protected from the wind and where nobody would find me (must have been my autistic period). And there were some other places I occasionally went but they never became my preferred spots. I am actually a bit confused what spot to re-conquer now.


hard to get a picture without a jogger from behind the gloriette (I was not running)

Anyway, this morning I went straight up to the Gloriette, not so much to greet “my” Vienna again but to have breakfast on the backside of it (the Gloriette now is a coffee place also inside). I was sitting there with a Prosecco (sorry to be so posh but I don’t like coffee) and a nice cake watching dozens of joggers passing by and worrying only a bit about my own shape. What should I tell you, the weather was hot and the Prosecco was little so I needed some refreshment. I just went a few steps down the Gloriette to the Schönbrunnerbad – a public outdoor swimming pool. Not just some, the swimming pool in Vienna, at least for me. It once was closed for 2 years and I remember these summers have been terrible (forcing me to switch to the Stadionbad in the Prater). But now it is re-opened and renovated (including a fitness club, beach volley fields and floodlight for “night swimming”) so I did not hesitate to buy a seasonal ticket which was not very cheap but some investments are indispensable. I was so clever and brought a swimming dress so there was nothing that kept me from my first splash in Vienna. The water was just a bit chilly but given the 30° outside that was OK.


a slash in the pool inside the Schönbrunnerbad

Around 6:30 I had to leave so I walked down the hill to the Neptune fountain and left through the main entrance. Right across the street I met with my friends to play beach volleyball. Thanks to some innovative spirit we have a field reserved there every Monday from April to October. And thanks to the floodlight we can play from 7 pm to until 9:30 (pm). And to our luck there is a buffet right there to have some Radler and beer afterwards. I did not play too much volleyball in Valencia so I was a bit afraid how I would perform. But it was OK for the first time, only that I was a bit slow in the sand. Seemed I had some handicap I did not feel before I left. I really have to get rid of those 10 extra kilos I have gained in Valencia.

Maybe tomorrow I should go jogging in Schönbrunn...

Only the good leave young

When I went to the internet cafe one day after my arrival here I found a nice message from one of my – I have to say now: former – colleagues. Marilo, short for Maria Dolores (and not Maria Lourdes as I have thought; sorry) sent me best wishes and asked me if I wished she kept my gym bag or if they should leave it at the gym (Marilo works out in the same gym I did). It would not be me if I hadn’t forgotten something and it is somehow ironic that it is Marilo who has do deal with it in this case. She is in fact a very organized person whereas I live in my “creative chaos”. Actually Marilo and I shared some fights over non washed gel plates and other items but despite that I really appreciated Marilo a lot. She has been an excellent colleague and - to my belief - is a very good scientist. She just got a very difficult project which may discourage you but she attacks it quite bravely.

In her email she wrote me another, more important novelty. Marisol, short for Maria Soledad, has decided to leave the lab and science in general. Now Marisol was an excellent colleague too and a good scientist as well. It somehow hurts to see the good ones leave. But I understand and I respect her choice. How many times have I thought to leave science and the lab for good? Maybe it is a nasty project that does not want to move on, maybe it is a nasty supervisor stressing you out or – on the other extreme – leaving you all alone without any guidance or help. And maybe it is that you realize that the science system (not science per se) is just not compatible with your personality and your expectations. In any case you feel unhappy but the decision what to do about it is all but easy.

When I think back, I had a very tricky project during my PhD thesis and I was considering some times to just throw my lab coat on the floor and walk out. I think sometimes it is wise to not get disencouraged by such difficulties (an example how you can deal with it is shown on http://kiko.triatletes.net/blog/en/biology/doing%20clown). As it happened to me, I got a good deal of support from my supervisor who understood my problems and then all of a sudden I got a technical tool in my hands that made the project move on and we managed to published it. But what if the problem is less your project but your boss? If he comes to the lab wearing a leather suit and holding a leash in his hand or if he gives you the feeling you and your project are completely unimportant to him? Well, you may consider changing the lab and the boss, before getting out of science at all.

But maybe it is really science that sucks, and then changing labs and projects will not help. Of course the life of a scientist is never an easy one which makes it hard to analyze what it is exactly the reason for your distress. I think most of us scientist have are familiar with that. When we decided to study science and become researchers we were all fascinated by the topic, and we still are. But we find ourselves trapped in a system that has little to do with our initial believe and enthusiasm. Lab work can be hard, boring and frustrating but I think this is the least problem and most of us deal with it. But the big problem is that you start science because you believe you can contribute something to our society: to achieve deeper understanding of nature or maybe a little piece of something that someday eventually may lead to the cure of – let’s say - cancer. But when you are inside the system you quickly learn that it is not always about finding the truth or novelty but often merely about publishing papers, irrespective of how accurate and how important the findings are.

I don’t know what was the reason in Marisol´s case but I found her step very courageous and I hope she finds a vocation she gets happy with. Me? What can I say, I just started my new job here in Vienna and although beginning never is easy I will see if I can manage to get at least a part of my ideas to work. If not, I will have to think about some changes just like Marisol did.

P.S.: if you are also considering changing your job or even your career, before you do so check out http://www.jobhuntersbible.com or http://change.monster.com/

On Economic Pessimism

When I finally arrived at my flat in Vienna after a 2.350 km drive from Valencia (spread over some days; post coming soon) I found the Harold’s Tribune waiting at my doorstep. I appreciate that service and although I had absolutely nothing in my fridge I could at least enjoy the newspaper the next morning. “In Europe, economic pessimism takes hold” read the title heading. Shit, thought I, I drove the wrong direction. Seriously, I have no clue about economics (therefore it is one thing I cannot be pessimistic about) but I learned that the overall growth rate in Germany is 1 %, 1,2 % in Italy and “only” 2,8 % in Britain. So that’s great, I thought: at least it’s growing. But I must be completely ignorant because those growth expectations were described as quite bad and that all is, as I also learned, because we sluggish consumers don’t consume enough. Shame on us!

Angelica Torres, an economic spokeswoman for the EU, was cited in the article encouraging people to “start buying a bit more than they have been doing”. Dear Angelica, I really try my best but unfortunately my account is quite blank. Now a French chief economist (whatever that is) has the solution for me: European banks should loosen borrowing rules “to help consumers buy more”, he suggested. Wonderful! And when we are completely indebted we get two or three jobs to be able to pay the money back. But then we cannot spend anything anymore and the growth rate will fall again, or do we lend more money from another bank in order to pay back and buy even more? Or are we then so indebted that we don’t see our way out anymore and when we loose one of our three jobs we just drive a bullet through our heads? Or don’t we ever pay the money back, just like they do? I am sorry; I really have no idea about economics.

OK, besides us nasty costumers, sitting on our oh so easily earned money, reluctant to throw it out the window in order to help the economy and unwilling to subscribe our entire lives to the banks in order to forever become slaves of the national growth rates, so besides us cockroaches, the article also cited high oil prices and low-cost manufacturers in Asia as part of the problem (the problem of the lousy 2,8 % growth expectation, just to remember you). Well, you could also call it the Iraq war and the neoliberal exploitation nicknamed globalization but I may be naïf again. And isn’t the European Union all about economics? Isn’t that what they always tell us? We need all that regulations and we need all the uncontrolled transportation all across Europe for the good of our economy. And now it grows a ridiculous 1 to 2,8 percent? Gosh!

While I drove through France, Italy and Austria I must have passed a thousand trucks. I was reflecting on how life has been before, when there were fewer trucks on the road. I mean I don’t know exactly because some 20 years ago I didn’t drive but I just suppose there were quite fewer trucks on the European highways. Then, when I stopped in Villach I went to the groceries and bought a box of strawberries from Huelva, Spain. I was surprised (probably because I did not expect it) that there were at least as sweet as the one’s I bought on the market of Valencia one week before. Then I thought, well, that would not have been possible 20 years ago and honestly, I really enjoyed the strawberries. But then, reflecting again as I took over another pile of trucks I wondered if we were less happy 20 ago just because we couldn’t buy Spanish strawberries (and Irish butter, and Belgian beer, and French Water, and so on). I don’t think so and I remember that I was eating apples instead of strawberries and it was just fine (as was the tap water). And then I thought, since we did not spend our money on strawberries from Huelva and Perrier from France, that means our economy must have had an awful growth rate back then. So, how did we actually make it until now?

Jess, I should definitely learn something about economics