Babele & the Sphinx

Apart from having the ski slope as a tourist attraction, Busteni is also full of visitors wishing to see the unique geological phenomena which gave rise, on the Bucegi mountains plateau at a bit over 2000m altitude, through erosion and varying hardness of the rock layers, to some weird shaped rocks.

I should be a bit ashamed of myself as, even though I’ve been living in Romania almost all my life (minus 2 years), only 150km aways from Busteni, traveling in the area rather often, I have never seen this popular tourist attraction. So I took advantage of this short ski trip to go see them with my mom. We took the cable car and we started getting a bit worried: in the morning the weather has been amazing, with lots of sun and clear sky, but when we started heading for the plateau, the clouds gathered around. After some time the cable car started, we were completely surrounded by the cloud and we couldn’t really see much. I was desperately thinking that I will get there and won’t be able to see anything! But as we got closer to the top, we realized that the clouds were staying low and the mountain top was above them, giving as an amazing view! We got there and went for the short walking trip to reach the two most famous rocks: Babele and the Sphinx.

Babele (meaning The old women) are two rocks in the shape of mushrooms. Somehow the people who discovered them thought they resembled a couple of wold women and that’s how they got the name. Personally I see more mushroom than old woman shape. The Sphinx has, as the name suggests, an appearance that resembles the Egyptian mythical creature.

Babele

The Sphinx

The view from the top

Skiing

I first tried on a pair of skies when I was 9 years old. It seems that my parents took me and my brother to the mountains in Predeal, Prahova Valley and somehow we ended up taking ski lessons. We were there with some other friends, who’s daughter was my best friend at the time, Tinti. Since then, for a long time, we went skiing almost every year.

During high-school the ski trips became more seldom and the last one we had was in Austria. The funny thing is that my mom was the one who convinced me, my dad and my brother to go there and she is the only one in our family who doesn’t know how to ski. That was also the only time I had to take an exam during the reexaminations period – I skipped two of them for the trip. But we went there and enjoyed ourselves – it was really nice and the ski slopes were simply amazing!

My parents thought that this year was about time to go skiing again – it’s been three years since last. They wanted to go in Bulgaria – it seems they have nice slopes and good conditions – but it wasn’t possible to do that during holidays. So we went for a two days trip (one night) in one of the other resorts in Prahova Valley – Busteni. It’s been a too warm and snow-less winter, something that I am not used to, so most of the snow on the slope was artificial – but the warmth, with positive degrees Celsius during the day, made the snow melt and then freeze again during the night, which, as you can imagine, isn’t a recipe for success. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed, our ski resorts are not as good as the ones in Austria. But I still can’t complain. It was nice and I got a change to try on again my very old ski suit and my cool skies.

More Inspiration

One of the last things I did before leaving home for Christmas was to design another card for yet another defense.

Somehow at some point in the past, I become responsible of making the card and buying the presents whenever somebody at BiRC finished their PhD or Master. Luckily I dragged Andreas along so I cannot complain that I am in it alone. Though people say that we do look very funny when we go shopping together (check this).

The last defense I attended was last Friday. Previously, I had the Google idea to use, but now I really felt like I was doomed. But browsing on the net I decided upon two things: using HelloKitty and the PhD acronym explanation as Permanent Head Damage. As the card was for a guy, I sort of thought that the two go well together. Especially since he is a quite tough guy, he practices boxing and owns a motorcycle.

The Ritual

Every time I come home, there is a ritual I follow. It starts with somebody waiting for me at the airport. The person who did this varied for a while, but now it is fixed for my grandmother’s brother who lives in Bucharest. He picks me up and takes me back to my brother’s apartment, where I start by eating something, unpacking and making calls: to my family and my good friends. Generally I spend about an hour talking to everybody. I then see my brother and his girlfriend, as it gets late enough for them to come home from work. Later my good friend Ilinca visits me: I am too tired to go out. And we chat until late in the night. The next day it is mandatory that I get a haircut at my favorite and only hairdresser. The following days I visit the various friends and relatives I have in Bucharest.

I normally leave Bucharest on the first Sunday, when I go to my home town. However, this time I skipped the week-end and went home on Friday instead. The reason for it was that my parents organized an event for Saturday: cutting the pig. In Romania we eat pig products for Christmas (and we have a lot of sausages and other things that we specially make for Christmas) and therefore there is a whole tradition behind cutting the pig. The part where the pig is killed is not particularly pleasant so I hid myself in the house. But I do love what follows: we eat the skin (which is simply delicious) and also serve a special meal with this occasion.

Pig Skin

Making of Sausages

Tivoli at Christmas

It has been two years since Jesper and I took some time off just the two of us. We spent several holidays together, either in Romania with my family, or in Sweden with his. We celebrated last Christmas at my parents’ house and so it was time for him to stay with his own parents this year. Given the two, we decided to spend a few days together in Copenhagen to see Tivoli at Christmas.

We left Aarhus on Sunday. He went back Tuesday evening and I boarded my flight Wednesday morning. We didn’t really do much these few days, but we did fulfill the initial purpose of it: spend some quality time together. We visited the Round Tower but the view from the top wasn’t particularly interesting: too gray and too dark. But we used the whole Monday in Tivoli.

 I’ve first seen Tivoli last year at Halloween. Normally the park is open during summer, but they have special program and arrangements for Halloween and Christmas. Last year I tried out all the rides and as Jesper is not particularly into things like this, we decided to just pay for the entrance. We managed to stay the whole day there, we saw their saltwater aquarium (which was the longest one in Europe when it was built in 2005), had a nice Danish Christmas dinner and enjoyed the amazing Iluminatorium: o show combining music, light, fog, fire and water. I know the pictures won’t say much, but it was really cool!

Published Author

Oh yes, as of yesterday, I am a published author! I am very happy and very proud of it.

I knew last time I got the revision that it was almost as accepted, but there is still a big difference between knowing that your first article will be published and actually having it published! Oh course, this doesn’t come without hassle. And no, I’m not talking about all the things I’ve been complaining about… I am talking about some new ones.

After sending the revision, I received an email in late November with the subject Your manuscript is acceptable for publication in principle. Sounds kinda funny, doesn’t it? Well, what they were saying was that they would gladly accept the article, just that I had to do some small format changes. I updated my manuscript, sent it off and started waiting again. I then got an email informing me that everything is fine, but that I have to check the citation they prepared and the web figures, plus I had to pay the processing charge.

I guess for this I need a small detour. In some cases, if you want to publish, you have to pay. The traditional journals require a subscription from the readers, or for the online version, one can buy just one article. This is how they earn the money to pay their employees. There are some new journals though, like the BMC trust, that are open access: everybody everywhere can read them. But they still have to earn some money from somewhere and then they get them from the authors.

Oh well, the point is that I had to pay and my supervisor was trying to figure out where to get the money from. I tried to do the check they told me, but the link sent me to the paying webpage. So I assumed I first had to pay and then… do the checking. Last Friday I got another email telling me that I had to give some sort of life sign before the 8th of December. I went to the link again and now I got an error. I sent an email to the publisher to complain about it but haven’t got any answer. Meanwhile, I was stressing my supervisor to get the money from somewhere… and we paid yesterday. Yuhuu, job done, time to do the checking… just that they were too quick and right after the payment I received another email telling me that my BMC Bioinformatics article has been formally accepted and published in preliminary form. Wait, what?!? I didn’t do the checking. Luckily there will be a last round proof reading when they will have the final formatted form available, but still. What about the citation? I sent another email (to a different address). No answer. What to do? Should I contact the editor…? Am I using the wrong e-mail address? Either way, it’s no fun as on the web page they actually got my abstract wrong…

So… this is what I am stressing about now. And a lot of other stuff.

PS: The image is actually a link to the real thing.

1st of December

Today is Romania’s national day, also called the Great Union Day. Too bad I am so far away from my home country.

Even though I don’t have a free day or can attend the parades and free concerts that are organized with this occasion, I still can celebrate this special day in my own way. I have to admit that almost everybody I got in contact with today asked what was the reason behind me painting my face. It was nice.

Now the boring part. Romania was formed as a country only about a century ago. For all our history we have been divided in 3 separate principalities: Transylvania, Moldova and Wallachia. In 1600 Michael the Brave, the Prince of Wallachia, united the three regions for the first time in history, by invading the other two. Unfortunately it lasted only half a year, until Michael was murdered at Habsburg’s orders. At the end of the 19th century, Moldova and Wallachia were united, by electing the same ruler in both regions and forcing Europe to acknowledge them as a single unified country. Finally, on the 1st of December 1918, Transylvania joined by vote and Romania was once again complete! Too bad that some years later we lost a part of Moldova to the Russians.

Unlike the big nations, such as England or France, we never invaded others: we fought to protect and unite ourselves, one of the big powers that subjugated us being the Ottoman Empire, and not to forget the Russians and the catastrophic consequences of communism. So I hope this short history lesson didn’t bore you too much, but I had to share it with you, as I am proud to be Romanian!

Danish B2

Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Lytning = Listening
Læsning = Reading
Skrivning = Writing
Mundtlig = Oral