Back in Barcelona...

anonymous log entry...Barcelona June 2007

As the sun goes down behind the last line of waves in the Mediterranean, I am only waking up. The first blow of the late evening breeze hits me directly as I stand on the terrace of the lab, dizzy and tired after a day of incredibly stupid ideas, sloppy programming and unavoidably dissapointing results. The night falls, the horizon dresses in orange and purple and my mood throws down its blue gown. The 24 hour day is still young. I ride my bike by the sea shore, Arcade Fire pounding on my mp3 player, thoughts become clearer, scientific issues seem to resolve themselves miraculously and the heavy veil of dizziness is suddenly lifted. "How come I havent thought about it before?" This idea deserves a beer! As I skillfully avoid crashing against a bus and hitting an old lady crossing Passeig Joan de Borbo I have already set the date through a network of expanding sms. I arrive at the Rambla de Raval sweaty and starving, half of the people are already here and the feast of spicy, indian masala, catalan beer and conversations in five different languages begins. As the Greeks and the French realize that we share 90% of the jokes, the Spanish and the Germans that they are more alike than their complexions might have implied, the Portuguese make fun of the way the Brazilians speak and vice versa, we find ourselves lost in the small streets of Raval and then on the other side of la Rambla in the Gotico. We bearly escape a storm of water falling from the sky only to understand the residents are aiming at our precious heads, so full of worl-changing ideas, yet equipped with overwhelmingly loud vocal chords. We decide to keep it down as we enter "13" bar and the noise resumes as soon as the first round of mojitos arrives. It must be past midnight but who cares? Scientists never stop working, so no guilt about connecting simulation models to football strategies, or calculating the conditional probability of picking up the girls at the other side of the bar. As the probability increases asymptotically with the number of mojitos, we only realize the night is getting old. The dawn finds us on Passeig Maritim, the sun is going up behind the distant buildings in Forum and we are already on our way to the lab. The day is only beginning in Barcelona. Someone else may tell you how it is going to be, but my guess would be at least interesting.

...

Oh what did you see my darling young one?

So it is official! After a month and a half on the other side of the Atlantic, this different, fascinating world, full of marvels and contradictions, I am back in good old Europe.

These last six weeks have been intense to say the least, providing food for thought on many levels apart from real, good-friend, traditional fun, especially during the last days. But on these last days, spent in Yellowstone Park, I'll try to come back soon. For now I can only bid farewell to the USA and since six weeks is too much time to allow me to go into detail, I will just try to put everything plainly but at the same time lyrically in the style of the great Bob Dylan, trying to condensate images, sounds and thoughts in a handful of verses.

So let's go...

...[
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've ridden a steel bird all over the ocean
I've stood on the shore of the opposite side
I've strolled all along in the yards of old legends
I've walked all the way to get out of their shadow
I've drifted away where the time is forgotten
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw an old man forced down by his name
I saw a blind mob hurraying in the vacuum
I saw the big city lights, they were glowing for no one
I saw people running, with nowhere to go to
I saw people standing, wishing they could fly away
I saw the great wide open, it looked like it was narrowing
I saw the steep canyons and they looked to be widening
I saw ten million travelers and they were all taking photographs
I saw ten million photographs and they all looked the same
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard "hello" and "goodbye" and they both had not meaning
I heard "Godspeed" and "farewell" and they both sound real
I heard the "welcome" at last and it made me wonder
I heard the clapping of hands echoing nothingness
I heard ten thousand cars all honking their horns
I heard ten thousand horns instead of ten thousand screams
I heard the radio shouting and the TV mumbling
I heard the people's silence, so sad and so lonely
I heard the sound of the thunder again and again
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a living legend and he let me down
I met ordinary people and they lifted me up
I met an elderly woman, she was crying at the bus stop
I met an old guy worrying and people thought he was crazy
I met a young, crazy girl and she was worried about nothing
I met a working-class girl, looking outside the window
I met Asians and Arabs and Greeks and Americans
And they were all going around as if nothing was happening
But it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out before the rain starts a-fallin',
I 'll walk through the streets of an old, forgotten continent
I 'll swim across all the seas of my ancient country
Where the people each talk their own different language
Where the sick and the healthy are still liking each other
Where the blacks and the whites still work next to each other
Where the sun may still shine while the clouds are a-gathering
Where they all are somebody but they want to be nobody
Where they all want to be someone they are not
Where the world rules the money but it's starting to change
And I'll see it and think it and speak it and laugh at it
And I'll watch over the shore as the ships will be leaving
Like the old times when people still had a dream and a hope
And I 'll stay there until the ships start a-coming
And the people with dreams come back with their hopes
And the people with hope come back with the dreams
'Cause we need them and their dreams and their hopes and their coming

'Cause it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
]...

get the original song's lyrics here

BostonBios - is this not America?

Paraphrasing David Bowie the day begins as the working week is ending. I start walking on Brighton Avenue with Beth Orton singing "Comfort of strangers", as I am still as much of a stranger as I feel strange after a whole month in the US. The streetcar slowly slides on Commonwealth on our way to Boston University, the sun is making its shy appearance behind New England's thin but almost permanent cloud layer. Boston University Central, I am starting to think about work and no comfort is to be found in any song. Over the past few days I have gone from worrying that work is not going well, through doubting about my aptness in it, to finally realizing that something is going wrong. Still hanging on through one of the, seldom, self-esteem panic attacks that took me over two days ago, I pump up the volume of the Rolling Stones as the streetcar approaches Blanford Station. "All down the line", this is where I get off.

As I sit myself at the desk, getting my laptop out of my backpack, I am still thinking. Is this what I was hoping for in the US? Tough call. A great city, some of the finest minds of science strolling on the same sidewalks, ambitious students trying to cope with inspiring professors, all seems to be here but something is still missing. Is it me that is not fit for this or am I still having trouble to conciliate with the nature of research? Is something really going wrong or have I just lost my calm, placid, philosophical approach to scientific work? And if it is so, what is wrong with me? Have I lost it?

I see all these people constantly talking about science, perpetually overwhelmed by their ideas or struck by the lack of them, astounded or frustrated by their results. Distraught in their small, isolated worlds, where a protein may be more important than summer coming, or a plot more meaningful that the full moon. It suddenly hits me. Where has the fun gone? I check my e-mails and amazingly feel homesick for a place, where I have only lived and worked for less than a year and a half. I watch the video of my colleagues back in Barcelona, celebrating the first anniversary of the new institute building and there I realize that fun somehow is an endemic species of the Mediterranean.

The day goes on, void of serious thoughts, with unimportant results filling the vacuum. Around five I am the only one left in the lab, alone in front of the screen with John Coltrane's sax and Eric Dolphy' s flute, keeping me the kind of company you can only appreciate when lonely. I am still having trouble believing how everybody is gone so early. I always had the idea that people in the US work crazy hours. But on second thought and given that I haven't heard a single joke (let alone a laughter) in the lab over these three weeks, I can understand why everyone is so eager to leave early. This is a strictly working place. We take positions early in the morning, make it through our shift with our headphones on and head on home with relief as soon as possible.

Gandhi once said that "what we do is not important, but it is important that we do it". I just hoped one of the things for which Gandhi died would be that some of us - maybe still a few but hopefully soon to be more - would also be able to enjoy part of what we are doing. If not, at least try to make it this way, mixing everyday work with the real life, the laughters, the irony, the feeling that you are sharing the desk with other people and not just "scientists", with whom you can also talk about football, rugby, women (or maybe men), music instead of just "false positive rates". Coming from a country that does not deserve any merit in science and research for the last two millenia, I find it hard to believe that I ended up even reminiscing my lab days in Greece, where we had no subscriptions to journals, fast internet or air-condition that actually worked. At least there, you would walk down the hall and people would say. There you would take your breaks talking about sports or politics to the people next door.

I shut down my computer, lock the door and make for the elevator. On my way I say "goodbye" to the cleaning-guy who looks surprised. He has still not been used to me being the only person on the floor talking to him. But then again, I still find it hard to see people looking the other way when I say "hi" upon meeting them on the corridor.

This is not me complaining. It's just me realizing.
Realizing that I have a great job and realizing that it is great not because of its nature but because me and my colleagues have fortunately decided it should be made in one specific way. That is the Mediterranean way, the fun way.

BostonBios - Fog Warning

It is not only lately that my mood is highly correlated with the weather. But these last days have been something else. We somehow passed from warm, humid (in the absolutely literal sense)Saturday night to wake up on a chilly Sunday morning to go through a melancholic Sunday afternoon pouring with rain. And today I woke up in a hurry to get to the lab meeting to find myself lost inside the fog in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue. The air was so stuffy and humid, that although it was not raining I was actually walking through droplet of water and there appeared to be rain falling horizontally, if not floating in the air.

I just decide it was one of these Monday mornings, that they can also happen on this side of the Atlantic and that this foul, morning mood, combined with the bad weather and the beginning of a working week, signified a rite of passage for me eventually realizing that after some weeks even being 3000 miles away from the office can still mean working routine.

Apart from all that maybe it is better that this weather continues. The summer is only starting and all I can think of is sunny days, the sound of waves and the taste of salt mixed with white wine on my lips. And it is funny how sometimes we realize that we need unpleasant atmosphere to bring us back on the ground. The New England fog and the horizontal rain saved the day, putting my butt on the desk.

Apart from all that, life in Boston is evolving somehow in parallel with reality. Ever since I got here I have left behind a number of everyday activities such as reading the papers or following the news in general. My only connection with what is going on in this country has been watching the next to last Eastern Conference NBA semifinal at a bar in Allston last Thursday. In fact I have no idea of what is happening in the USA, or to put it better what are the issues that are concering the people here. This lack of information has not disturbed me yet although maybe just checking the weather forecast sometimes might save me the trouble of waking up surprised to a foggy day.