Mandatory cutesy baby pics

Here's some cute pics of our little sleepy bear:

How to spend five weeks

Well, well, well. I've been away for a few weeks. I've been busy stuff in the the non-virtual world, not the least preparing for becoming a dad in three weeks.

But well, what do you know - my son decided he couldn't wait, so early Monday morning (3.45 am), I became the proud and somewhat surprised father to a healthy boy! We'd heard that many give birth too late the first time, so we were really caught somewhat surprised. We've just come home from the hospital now - we're extremely happy - but still somewhat puzzled by the events that have pooled up over the last few days. We should probably start by finally selecting a name - he hasn't got one yet, as we thought we had plenty of time to think about that. We also have to buy the last few things, and assemble a lot of stuff. But hey; most importantly, both he and Lena are in fine shape.

I'll try to upload some pictures in the next post.

Now I have to go change a diaper...

How to spend five years

So I just handed in this tiny thing, called a dissertation.

I must admit - it's a nice sensation. It goes a long way towards bringing closure to the ... hmmm ... last ... five years of my life. Five years and bit, in fact. Dammit, that's a long time. I'm getting old.

What did I do(?!), you eagerly shout... without having read the bloody thing? Well, ok - right now my passing-on-the-stairway-version is the following:

I worked with a framework (bigraphs) for domain-specific programming languages (DSLs). I developed some fundamental theory and algorithms that enabled us to implement a prototype tool to play around with such languages. Oh yeah, and then I developed a DSL, the snappily named C calculus (C for cell), that biochemists can use to describe and experiment with cells and proteins in silico. Check out this poster, for some nice pictures:

Quirky?

Sometimes, I worry that my stint in academia has left me quirky and absent-minded. As usual, my beloved brother comes to my aid, by reminding me that these tendencies have nothing to do with my time in academia.

I recently received an email from him, saying (translated):

Subject: 3 things.

(1) I know what to get dad for Christmas.
(2) What do you know about OCR-scanning?
(3) I forgot the third thing.

Stephan

A crazy, crazy life

Where have I been, you ask?

I'm in my cellar. Writing my dissertation. It's not too bad. No really. I'm ok.

When I look out, I can sometimes see people walking past the window. I notice when the sun sets, because then I have to turn on another light. And sometimes I get up and walk a bit about, and play hockey with myself - bouncing a ball against the wall.

Today, something incredible happened. After lunch, I ate a clementine - and it had 26 seeds in it! How about that!

Stop, hey what's that sound?

I'm hiding in the bathroom. It's outside. The dizziness is still there.

I'm fully dressed - more than, actually. In particular, I'm wearing a sweater, my winter-coat and a hat. I've opened every window and door in the house. I'm writing this with my laptop on my lap. I'm waiting for it to go away.

[Approx. nine minutes before.]

*Pfhhhht. Pfhhhhhht... Pfhhhhhhht.*

Working in my cellar (in my new house - more on that another time). There's a sound somewhere in the cellar.

*Pfhhhhhhhhht. Pfhhhhhhhhht... Pfhhhhhhhhhhht.* *SLAM*

*[The sound of running]*

Lena and her friend, Stine, run past my cellar-room. Seconds later the smell hits me, choking me. They've been spray-painting something in the other room. They slammed the door shut to keep the smell inside. To no avail. The smell sieves through every crack and crevice in the old cellar, and permeates the room. In half a minute, I have to go upstairs. When I open the door to the main cellar, I can't breathe. It's not a smell. It's the sweet churning sensation of choking ... burning through the throat towards the stomach.

Lena and Stine smile somewhat perplexedly when I make it up the stairs. I slam the door shut to the cellar. "Eh... It's surprising how the smell drifts everywhere, right? Whoops..." "Yeah, well - you couldn't really know. It's ok. I'll just sit up here for a bit", I say. I storm down the stairs; disconnect my laptop and storm upstairs again.

Lena and Stine planned to go for a walk, so they do that. Just after they've left, I can feel the sensation. The cellar-door is by no means a tight-locking seal, and how is it with gas that is lighter than air? It tends to drift upwards... In a few minutes, it's a done deal. I have to open every window and door upstairs. I do it. Then I take a few deep breaths outside, leap downstairs, and open everything that can be opened downstairs, as well as setting the ventilation-system to ludicrous speed. I sprint upstairs again. It's freezing outside, so I have to put on extra clothes, my winter-coat and a hat. For a moment, I consider to also turn on the vacuum-cleaner, and put it in the door-way. After a moment, I decide not to. Having just moved to the place, this would prematurely condemn me to be viewed as a mad hatter amongst the neighbours.

Resignating, I take my laptop under the arm, and search for the room least permeated by the smell - the bathroom, it turns out - and try to seat myself comfortably on the loo. Before putting my fingers to the keyboard again, on a whim, I decide to set the little occupied-sign.

Talk on staying abroad

I gave a talk today on planning your stay abroad as a PhD student for an audience of mostly new PhD students at the ITU.

I basically tried to collect a set of questions and issues that I considered, or didn't consider before visiting Jean Krivine and Robin Milner at the École Polytechnique near Paris for seven months. Here are my slides, if you're interested.

Let me underline that I had a very nice stay abroad - not least thanks to Jean and Robin; but there were still a lot of practical things, that I wish I had thought of earlier on.

Some of you, my readers, have had experiences in living abroad as well. Do you have any good advice to PhD students that are going to plan their stay abroad?