The preparations for the public defense of my dissertation are well under way. Last week I shipped a lot of books to family and friends. Uncle Hans (a.k.a. Bobcat) did a good job designing the cover which attracts a lot of attention. It’s nice to receive so many positive reactions from everyone, thanks!
Once I sent the books I figured: almost there! Wrong! So many things that still have to be arranged. For example, last week I received several mails regarding the scientific calendar of the university (wetenschapsagenda). Apparently my research is considered interesting enough to warrant a publication in some magazines. So: write up another short story describing my research, reviewing the draft, submitting comments and so on. Takes up quite a bit of time. Oh, I also had to prepare my speech for during the defense. It’s in Dutch and the idea is that I’ll explain my research to family and friends. That’s hard! Perhaps it’s even harder than coming up with all these nice mathematical models!
Speaking of which, another paper got (conditionally) accepted for the INS journal (Elsevier). That’s good news as this journal has a pretty good reputation. Next week I’ll go to Nijmegen again to work on it some more. I’ll also go out with Stijn and Jeroen to try on our “penguin suits” 