Tag Archives: postdocinleuven

Another summer vacation in Budapest

Since Budapest is still Clio’s favourite city-trip destination (and Kürtőskalács-serving location), and my parents would not be very happy without me going ‘home’ once in a while, we spent 10 days in Hungary back in August. (Of course I also like going there, especially as a tourist…) First we spent a long weekend showing the city around to Clio’s father, then after walking ~70 kilometres in three days, we took it a bit easier and spent some time with my family.

Being a tour-guide for the first days also meant that I got into places I have never been before, such as the Opera and the Café Gerbeaud, while being with my parents gave us not only free food and lodging (I still love you guys!), but they also drove us to the village of Szentendre, the castle of Visegrád, and to the city of Esztergom on two of the afternoons.

Since the nicest view to The Cathedral and Primatial Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed Into Heaven and St Adalbert (wow, that is a long name) is from the Slovakian side of the Danube, we also drove over to Štúrovo (Párkány) to take a few pictures of Hungary’s tallest building.

I also got to kick my brother’s ass multiple times in FIFA 14, but we made up for it by taking him to a nice, hip and trendy hot-dog place. And finally the weather was not too hot either :) Looking at the pictures above you can also tell that we saw the Parliament in its full glory after endless years and years of renovation works (with a bunch of birds circling above it in the floodlights on the evening), and that we went to a huge candy shop to buy more than half kilogram of jelly beans… We will be back for Christmas!

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My fifth “first-author” paper is accepted + FWO Postdoctoral Fellowship!

I am happy to report that my latest paper entitled KIC 10526294: a slowly rotating B star with rotationally split, quasi-equally spaced gravity modes is now in press for the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. It contains the results of the work I have done since last summer. If you are an astronomer, or simply have nothing better to do, you should definitely have a look at the non language-edited – but other than that final – version on arxiv.org.

But there are even better news connected to my carrier: I have been granted a 3-year Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO). In practice this means that I have job security until October 2017, so I can continue producing papers like the one above :) This is probably the greatest news of the summer, since it is not so easy to get such a fellowship; the acceptance rate is only ~25%. (I was the only one from our institute who got it this year.)

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The start of the year

And again, I have not written anything for more than a month. Sorry about that. It’s just that I am busy living my life, and even though sometimes I really feel like writing about stuff that happened with/around me, by the time I sit in front of the computer and open the admin interface of my blog, I am too lazy to really do it.

So, stuff that I wanted to talk about, but I have not done it: 1) I finished my first level of Dutch (A1-Breakthrough) in December. I had 120 hours of classes spread over three months (3 times 3.5 hours a week), and my results (coming from three exams) were the following: Grote onderscheiding (Kennis 17/20, Lezen 8/10, Luisteren 16/20, Schrijven 16/20, Spreken 24/30). Just to have an idea, this comes with a vocabulary of ~1000 words, and a lot of grammar. I had my first class of Level 2 (A2-Waystage) yesterday, but this time it is only 2 times 3.5 hours a week. By the end of this level, we will be finished with the Vanzelfsprekend book (368 pages!).

2) We mad a big decision, and bought the apartment we had been renting for already more than a year by then. (On my side, I need to thank my parents for the financial contribution.) It was a good test-ride, and since the owners wanted to sell it, we decided that this was the best thing to do. So we do not have to pay rent anymore, “just” the loan, but at least after 20 years, we will have something valuable which is 100% ours, instead of 20 years of rent-payment behind our backs. This of course means that I am very serious about staying in Belgium, so I should indeed be good at my Dutch classes… Among others. But I will come back to that later.

3) We have spent a nice long weekend in Grenoble, visiting Clio’s friends. We had a great time, even though they were completely overwhelmed by trying to move into their new-but-still-under-construction house with their baby :) Even with all the difficulties, they were great hosts, and we had a nice time over there. I hope we can visit during the summer too, then I can go cycling into the Alps. This time I did some running (a bit more than 20 km in three runs), which might be a surprise for even my oldest readers, since I used to hate running… It is indeed a relatively new thing (I would not call it a hobby, I am still not in love with running…), I started it last January, when it was way too snowy (yeas, still talking about Belgium, I am serious) for biking, and I was fed up with riding on the indoor trainer with my bike. Of course I only run with a Garmin Forerunner 210 on my wrist, I am not going anywhere without a GPS :)

4) Speaking of sports, January 2013 was my best January so far, with ~800 kilometres (~31 hours) of running and cycling, irrespective of the cold (ok, not so cold this year), wind, and darkness. That’s pretty good. “Unluckily” now I have lots of Belgian friends on Strava, who did twice this much… Just to put things into perspective :) But in any case, thanks to this, my weight is almost at the level where I like to have it during the summer months! All the Christmas kilos are gone :)

5) I applied for an FWO Postdoctoral fellowship. If I get this grant, that will mean that I can continue with my research for another 3 years at the KU Leuven after my current short term postdoctoral contract ends on the 31st of December. Based on the number of applicants/available money during the previous years, I have around 20-25% chance, so please, keep your fingers crossed. If I don’t get it, then I will have to start looking outside astronomy :(

6) I spent last (work)week in the Observatory of Geneva on a work visit, which was quite nice, especially because I always like solving problems for other people :) I also gave a 45 minute seminar about my PhD, which I finished with my time-lapse video about Mercator and by distributing some fine Belgian chocolate for the after-lunch coffee, so I am convinced everyone left the auditorium fully satisfied ;) But seriously, the talk was also fine… I also did some running on two afternoons (running uphills hurts big time) when it was not raining cats and dogs, and I got the opportunity to eat bison meat on one of the evenings. It was really great!

7) I got 29… On one hand, a few years ago this seemed to be so far, and now it is suddenly here, but on the other one, a few weekends ago I went cycling with someone who lives just around the corner, and I was really hurting while I tried to keep up with him, and he is 49, so clearly, for at least another 20 years, I don’t need to worry about getting too old for cycling :) I just need to keep Rule #5 in mind. I will write about my birthday present (besides the massive fruit tart I got from Clio) in the next post in a few days ;)

See you soon!

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Christmas time

As we are getting ready to leave 2013 behind, here are some memories (mostly photographic ones, since I am too lazy to write) about our Christmas. First, our tree (picture from last year), set and lit up by me, then covered with ornaments and szaloncukor by Clio, while I participated in an indoor cycling tournament on the evening after Sinterklaas :)

Then she made something for our terrace too (shown with the amazing – and this year not so rare – sunshine from December).

Back in Budapest, we went for lots of nice – but cold – walks, did some shopping, had great meals, and drank special Christmas coffee!

Waiting for Clio’s favourite winter holiday food, the kürtőskalács on one of the many Christmas markets of the city.

We had a nice dinner at MÁK bistro (14 points in Gault Millau).

We even had one day with clear skies and sunshine, so we walked up to the Gellért hill to enjoy the panorama.

Then we invited my brother and his girlfriend for lunch in ZONA (17 points in Gault Millau).

Here I tasted a very special dessert wine (Disznókő Szőlőbirtok Sárgaborház Natureszencia 2007), which came in a special glass… It was amazing, a real nectar from the heavens.

Then we walked up to the Castle district to visit Clio’s favourite spot, the Halászbástya, or as she calls it, the Disney Castle of Budapest.

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A long weekend in Maastricht

We just spent a long weekend in the capital city of the Dutch Limburg, and I also took a few pictures while walking around, shopping, and eating :) The weather was not too good (barely above zero degrees and dense fog on Saturday, instead of the foreseen sunshine…), but that did not stop us from having a really nice time. I think we both agree that the coolest thing in the city is a 13th century Dominican church which is now renovated and converted into a really pretty bookstore. Clio – as always – looked up the best places for breakfast, coffee, lunch, and dinner weeks (ok, maybe days) in advance, so all our meals and drinks were delicious and very satisfying. Just look at the last picture, who could say no to a Ciabatta like that?!? (I should really start running/cycling again, because working, sitting 10 hours a week on my Dutch evening course, playing on the PS3, or getting my ass kicked in Yahtzee does not burn enough calories.)

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