In bed at the Radisson Edwardian Berkshire

Barely had I landed in London before the flu hit me. Having been queuing for security at Frankfurt Airport together with a flight from Mexico City some days ago I naturally felt a bit concerned. But after a night of high fever, I could feel that the worst was behind me.

Nonetheless, while my colleagues have been busy touring the Houses of Parliament, Transport for London and Deutsche Bank, I have been stranded in the same luxury hotel room, trying to read an old IHT and making plans for the fall now when my STINT application has been, big surprise, rejected. To be honest, my confidence in that organization is rapidly approaching zero, not because they have rejected the different applications that I have sent in over the last four years (that is simply part of the game), but because they seem to use a very strange ranking mechanism (the more I publish in international peer-review journals, the less scientific competent I become) in combination with insinuations of the kind that I do not really care if I get the scholarship or not.

Yet, I should not forget that somewhat banal motto “don’t be bitter, be better”. Over the course of my doctoral studies I have indeed been very fortunate with external funding; I have been able to visit both Rutgers and the University of Melbourne, participated in dozens of international conferences and met so many inspiring people. And the upside of this year’s STINT-round is that my friend Marcus will be able to spend the fall in New York, hopefully I will have the chance of visiting him there.