With the busy life I have, I often forget to think abo
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| Picture by Anna van der Meijden |
ut what happened in the past year. So this time I thought it would be good to spend a bit of time reflecting. For me, the year was a year in which I spent many more days at home, like most people in the world, but also in my case this meant I spent a good deal of time dancing in my living room "dance studio". I must say that this dancing in my living room has been one of the pillars of my life that kept me happy and healthy when everything around my was uncertain and changing--a ballet class always has the same structure that never changes. More profoundly, in a way I am living the dream of my 11-year-old self, who wanted to become a ballerina. Evidently I am not a ballerina, but yet at the same time I am dancing almost every day, performing every now and then, I own a tutu and many pretty dresses, and I have the good fortune to know many dancers from across the world. Life's ways are mysterious...
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| Screenshot from the PhD defense of Oscar Portoles |
Apart from this continuous undercurrent of the year, some more specific highlights are:
- two of my PhD students--Christina Jin and Oscar Portoles--got their PhD! This was very exciting, both for me and for the students. It's been so great to see their hard work come to fruition! There is something magical about seeing people develop from being students to being independent academics who can confidently (even if very nervous) defend their work, and move on to new projects. And I have another PhD defense lined up for January!
- since I could not travel to India due to the pandemic, I had bi-weekly calls with my Tibetan monk collaborators. I was so excited the moment we got to the point where they started to do their own statistical analyses on the data we collected together. It's been quite amazing to see them grow this much!
- I did my first foreign travel again since the beginning of the pandemic. I made a trip to Iceland to teach at the summer school on Embodied Critical Thinking. Not only was Iceland an amazing place to discover, but it was also very gratifying to share my dance in an academic context.
- I subsequently made a few more work trips before Europe locked down again: to Paris, to Berlin, and to Lisbon, followed by Aix-en-Provence. There is something so profound in being together with colleagues (even if you have to wear masks), and to explore new places. This is certainly the part of pre-pandemic life I miss most!
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| Watching a volcano in Iceland (picture by Dorothe Bach) |
During the conference in Aix-en-Province, I had the chance to bring my dancing life and my professional life together once again by doing an improvisational ballet performance while a cellist (who was also a neuroscientist) was also improvising, and we were both wearing EEG headsets (which did not work...). It was an incredibly exciting performance!- I chaired the European Mind & Life Summer Research Institute, which was a wonderful event, despite the fact that it was held online. I also got elected to the Mind & Life Europe Board. Mind and Life Europe is a beautiful organization that connects all the different parts of me: academic, spiritually and artistically.
- I got to meet some of my colleagues in real life again and was back in the office for a bit, until the Netherlands locked down again in December.
- throughout all the lockdowns I kept dancing in my living room and going on weekly runs with my running buddy. I also connected with many amazing fellow dancers through the internet, which is one of the main gifts of this pandemic. Thanks so much for my wonderful support group! We also had an online ballet intensive in June, which was such a gift: being taught by international ballet teachers was so much fun (even though I could only partly participate because of my ankle injury...). And in the last few months I have been able to really gain some confidence and skill in pointe dancing due to some focused practice with the online ballet studio Broche Ballet.
- With the Young Academy of Groningen, I helped to give birth to a report on harassment and bullying at our university. A very sad report, but important stuff nevertheless. I hope it forms the basis for change towards a more socially safe university. The whole process in itself was very time-consuming but also taught me a lot about university politics.
- In my faculty, the Young Science and Engineering Network that I helped to found acquired a more established position, and is now being incorporated in the decision making processes, which I think is a wonderful thing!
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| Iceland! |
I lived through an ankle injury which took about 5 months to recover. I was quite challenging to not be able to dance properly, and not jump, run and do all those things I love. Yet, also this taught me a lot about how my body works (and the importance of rest, which will surely be an aspiration for the next year!). One of the things that kept me engaged during that time was the 21-day ZhemFit abs challenge. I highly recommend it for anyone, with an injury or without.
So, with this year under my belt, let me dedicate to the well-being of all sentient beings, in the spirit of Lojong slogan 41, which says "Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end." The idea is that we start the day by reviewing our intention and motivation. Of course this is an even better idea to do right now at the end of the year. You can focus on specific goals you would like to accomplish, but also on mental qualities you would like to cultivate, such as maintaining a more altruistic motivation. The advantage is that a motivation depends only on you, not on other circumstances, unlike many other kinds of goals. And then at the end of the day (or of the year in this case), you can review how it went,. what you accomplished and how you would like to improve. You can then take this with you in the next day, and in the next year. My aspiration is taking more time to review on a weekly basis in the coming year.
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| Example of a meeting with colleagues in real life, where we went for a walk together |
I am curious what the next year will bring. Thank you so much for being in my life, and happy new year!
