Letters to a Persian Cat » Beach | Letters to a Persian Cat

That’s what we are needed for

admin — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:59:21 +0000

On its concert tour through Israel a German chanson singer introduced one of his songs (about the mutual dependence of men and woman) as following:

“A woman needs a man mainly for two things: First, to open the champaign bottles, and second, to explaine things.”
One of his fellow musicians, a violinist girl replied after a few seconds “Hold on, wasn’t there one more thing, I just can’t remember what it was”.
I guess you are referring to our duty to wait for her at the side of the pool, with the a fresh towel ?
Yes, you are almost right. It has something to do with waiting. But woman don’t need a man who waits for them, but they need a man they can wait for, like Penelope was waiting for Odysseus.

A more modern version, although from last century is the below graphic that Marina gave me last year for birthday. It shall symbolize me leaving in the morning for work, and returning home in the evening. I have to admit, the most realistic on this image is the happiness of the dog.

Why the Fukushima nuclear disaster is good for nature

admin — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 23:37:37 +0000

It is always worth to follow Monthy Pythons advise and ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE, even in case of an accident that univocally is considered a major disaster for the civilized world and in Japan the biggest catastrophy since their defeat in WW2. At least here in Germany, the most prominent critics of nuclear energy are the greens, in close alliance with WWF and Greenpeace. And as we all know how the german Angst works so well and so absolute predictable, it was no wonder the Green Party managed to kick-out the conservative christian-democrats from their stronghold in Baden-Wuertemberg, just by pointing to Fukushima and reminding every voter in their state that it were the cristian-democrats who always support nuclear energy.
This, on the first glance, looked very straight for the green party, a clear “full-house” so to say. But in fact, they might have even won twice: Fukushima not only gave them the prime-minister post of Baden-Wuertemberg on a silver plate, but there might be even more important benefits in the long-term and on the global scale. I”m talking here about the Whales and Dolphins, who over the last years were slaughtered by the thousands to satisfy the desire of the japanese cuisine. Not the UN, nor Greenpeace or WWF could achieve, what the Fukushima accident did: a natural protection for these big naval mammals for at least one generation of animals. Remember, caesium 137, the strong gamma-isotope that was released into the japanese sea and into the pacific, has a physical half-life time of 30 years, and its biological half life time is not much shorter. It preferentially accumulates in the muscle-tissue of mammals, including whales and dolphins. For them, it does not bear a real health risk, so nobody of us should worry, and if Greenpeace and WWF do so, we all know it is just their business to beat the drum. In fact, muscle tissue is one of the most radio-resistent, so whales and dolphins will live as good or as bad as without caesium-137 in the ocean. But for us humans, since we always worry and we made the german Angst one of our best export-goods, any knowledge that a few single atoms caesium-137 are in our steak or Sushi or Miso-Soup makes us sick right away. So the japanese whale-fishers and the violent Dolphin-Killers in Taiji will face some tough years to come. I guess the sale for whale and dolphin meat will drop by 99% soon. Unless some hard-liners such as Mr. “I-take-some-days-off”-Shimizu of Tepco, or Mr.”My-blue-jackets-is-a-fake-Levis”-Edano of the gouvernment or his imperial highness Mr.”I-love-you-all”-Akihito will demonstrate in front of the TV-cameras and on their web-sites how delicious whale-sushi and dolphin-soup still is, the popularity of this sea-food would go down to virtually zero.
We all know instinctively, that there always must be light, when there is shadow. Or as a good friend of mine who was cought by the idea of physical laws-of-conservation ones formulated it: For every person on earth who stops crying, another one has to break-out in tears. The sum of all the tears in the world is therefore a fixed number. Therefore, we should not feel to much mercy when we see the japanese nuclear managers spreading around their fake tears and mourning and begging for pardon. We must know: for the whales and dolphins now starts a great time, they will live for the next decades a life without fear. Like the Jews still celebrate Purim as the rescue from a masacre planned by the persian minister Haman in the 5th century BC, such will the whales and the dolphins always commemorate the year 2011, when a devine hand blow up the Fukushima reactors and spilled the caesium-137 broth into the ocean to mark all naval mammals as unedible and unhuntable.
Or would it even be possible that not God in his wise decision triggered the earth-quake and than the tsunami, that hit Fukushima so badly ? Could it be that all the whales and the dolphins of the world united and made a big, big wave like we do on a much smaller scale in the bathing-tube, that hit the coolant-pumps and auxilary generators and electricity supply in Fukushima ? Don”t forget, how intelligent whales and dolphins can be: If you ever saw the movie “Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe”, you remember how they could smell the coming disaster and with a smile on their face (which in fact they always have) they said “So long, and thanks for all the fish“.
Does not matter who really did it, intelligent creatures (like the whales or dolphins) or super-super-intelligent creature (like god or the WWF), finally we should understand that it was worth it. This little nervous break-down around a japanse nuclear facility rescued the future life of our most loved naval creatures.

Moon is back (now on Google Moon)

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:35:57 +0000

Hi Ghazal my Angel,

A month ago the same moon looked down to us, and for sure could not turn away its eyes from this spot on the Isar river banks, where we were sitting at the bone-fire the whole night through, whispering secrets, feeling the heat of the august sun that was stored in the pebbles on which we layed down. Since then, I call the Isar the Moon river, and every morning I pass the river on my way to the institute, I do a short stop there and slide a flat stone over its surface, as you have shown me to do.

Full Moon 24-09-2010

Now we are a month older, it is already autumn down here, but up on the moon there are no seasons. Unlike our 24 hours day, every spot on the moon has a day as long as 15 days down here, followed by 15 nights in a row. Could you imagine, this would mean exchanging some mails and early night dialoges only ones in month, and then 360 hours long darkness.
Maybe you recognized that I could finally revert to you real name. I had to hide it for two month to protect your privacy from the nosy Google-machine, which somehow disclosed your real name and linked it to the blog. Therefore I used another pseudonym in the blog, which had only slight resemblence to “Ghazal”. It sounded similar, but looked quite different, and Google still does not recognize similarities by sound. But I”m sure, there soon will be a Google-Sound search machine, and this one will find out that “Azal”, the pseudonyme that I used for two month, sounds very similar to your real name “Ghazal”.

Are you o.k. ? Are you still studying so late at night ? Don”t miss your dreams, some actors therein might desperately wait for the main character, the blue-eyed persian cat.

Sleep well, Take Care

Michael

——————————————————————————————————

hi michael,

I dont know if it was the picture of the moon you send in the evening, or my fear to meet some strange people in my dreams: either of the two did not let me sleep. but didn”t you once said that the full moon itself can also directly interfere with my emotions. maybe it is this what happend. finally, I went out for a walk over the fields behind the guesthouse, I think it was already 6.30 a.m. could see the moon, but not a house there . I did a photo of it, have a look. If you find a house on it, show it to me. Does it mean you”d like to send me to the moon to live there ?
Have a nice day (I may come a bit later to the lab today, hope thats alright).
Take Care, michael
/ghazal

PS: If you click on the photo, there is a nice song about the moon. I only know its by Pearl Jam, don”t know the title.

——————————————————————————————————

Hi Ghazal my Dear,

You came here on your angel journey half a year ago, arriving from somewhere far away. How could I ever send you back alone ? If, however you would suggest to take me with you somewhere in the universe, I would get my luggage ready today. A nice house on the moon could be a first step.
By the way, the moon is not only fascinating by its yet poorly understoud influence on females psyche but can make man equally crazy. Have a look at this alternative record of what the first astronauts said when they put their feets there.

Enjoy the day, recover from the sleepless night,
I”ll tell everybody you work on your thesis.

TaKe CaRe
Michael

Beach without you

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:10:07 +0000

Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

I hope you are doing well and feel o.k.
Is it quiet now in the Lab ? Usually this is the best time to concentrate on the project. I hope so much that you find some intellectual satisfaction with the project and not have to consider it as a hard burden and a duty to fulfill.
I prepared some text about the mapping, the markers, the mouse strains and linkage. It should somehow fit into the thesis structure (as much as I remember it was part 2 or so). Just break it apart into the several sub-headings.

And of course, if you find in the text something difficult to understand or wrong or strange, please write me back. I very much like the intellectual conversation with you and I learn a lot from your questions as well.

I will also send you something that explains the animal experiments (the older ones we did years ago and the JF1 x FVB crosses). Was Prof. T. already around ?

I think of you and your aristocratic character, that is so much different from the people here around which are very loud and miss any sense of ellegance. This is usually what one can expect at a beach,but the kids like this and therefore I have to decline.
I”m waiting to see you next week.

Take Care,my dear

Michael

……………………………………………………….

Hi Michael!!

T. has not been here yet. I think he chose this week on purpose. Both
you and M. are on vacation.
It is a bit quiet yes. I put aside the labwork yesterday and today to
sit and read and write. btw, the sequencing worked!! im happy. me and
claudia will maybe analyse the data later today.
it is not a burden to do this project. everything has been good so far.

I do not know how to thank you for writing so much for me. i have
written a bit about the mapping and microsatellite and QTL. but it was
not as much as yours. so thank you. you should not do this on your
vacation. just go and have fun. right now i am concentrating at the
first part with chernobyl and thyroid cancer.

take care and see you next week!

/ghazal

………………………………………………………
Ghazal my Dear,

Good to hear that you managed so well to continue with the project and the thesis during this week. Good luck with the sequence analysis,hope you and C. find some interesting variations between the two strains.
I attache a piece of text that describes the rational for using the JF1 and the FVB/N strain in this project. Please double-check if any of the chromosomal loci or gene names are consistent with what you wrote before. Also, in case you find any other discrepancies with the other text-pieces,please mark it in red and we will go through when I am back.

Ghazal, please don”t feel obliged to say “Thank you” for these small pieces of text. It is my very duty as a supervisor to help you with this. It is you who is doing the sophisticated and very decent experimental work day-by-day, without complaining that it is getting boring. Therefore,it is in fact me who must be extremely grateful. Don”t forget this, please.
And what is maybe even more relevant, that you always have this endless patience with me, if I come around and require that you spend the time after work with me. No MSc student has the commitment of going to the movies or to an exhibition or to the beach with its supervisor, or attend with him a concert or watch the meteor shower in the middle of the night. You could have in fact complaine with Prof. T. right from the beginning and ask for another project or another supervisor. I know I was always a bit violently when I asked you to meet me after work,and who knows how often I have disturbed your planing for the evening when you wanted to read or write something for the project. Therefore,it is the least I can do to help you to get everything together know for the thesis, it is a very small compensation for all the nice days and moments you have been with me and for having been always so patient and listened to my silly stories and telling me something from you. You could have easily send me to hell, you never did (I hope you dont wish you could have done this, but you did not wanted to risk your project).

Ghazal, you will see at the end (and everybody will agree) that a successful MSc project does not need this archetypical and hirarchical relation between student and supervisor, but it also can be done if there is a (sort of) frienship.
For me,to be honest, you are too much a mystery to call this a simple friendship.

I wish you a pleasant evening, a relaxing night, and nice dreams.

Michael

PS:How is your watch doing ? I hope that “No news are good news” and it runs precisely now, since you gave it a bit more freedom around your arm.

………………………………………………………
hi michael,

i think i found one mutation on the third exon.

yes u are right i could ask prof. t. for another project (and he would not give me another since i already tried in the beginning). but i enjoy it here i would not do it. u could also be a bad supervisor and not wanting to help. so i am grateful.

i send u a text with some questions. answer just if u have time. no hurry.

my watch is suprisingly doing great!its strange.

have a good day!!
/ghazal
……………………………………………………….
Ghazal my Dear,

Congratulations for finding a sequence variation in FGF10 in one of the mouse strains..
You could check (using Ensembl and search for FGF10 in mouse,and click on the left panel on the button for variations) if this sequence alteration was already described in any other mouse strain. You should also check if it might cause an amino-acid change, in case it is still part of the coding sequence (I remember large parts of exon 3 were already 3″ UTR. Maybe you find something.
Before I left, I already ordered primers to test the FGF10 transcript and expression. Could you,please write a mail to O. and ask if and where she has stored the JF1 and FVB/N RNA or cDNA from thyroid (she extracted it as part of her MSc for the expression array).

Thanks for writing that you feel o.k. with how the project developed and that you are o.k. with everything and don”t regret that you came to Munich. You gave me the nicest and most exciting summer of my life, Ghazal. I never felt so much inspiration, excitement and satisfaction to share with somebody a project and many hours after work as with you.

Take Care

Michael

PS:I go through your text today and send you comments tomorrow

What a great song

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:18:55 +0000

Dear Ghazal,

Sorry for bothering you once again. Its not nice, I know, I”m sure you want to spend the last evening with your family without beeing disturbed by this silly guy from the institute.
So you don” t have to read this, maybe just keep it for later.
I was listening to the radio-station that you have shown me recently when we were coming back from the lake (Radio2Day). I have to admit, it is really the station with the nicest program. I only can not imagine, how you got caught by it, since they play only music from 20 years ago or so. It would confirm my suggestion that one instinctively likes the music that was around when one was still in the embryonal state or just born.
One of the greatest song ever sung they were just playing now, Gloria Gaynors “I will survive”. It is such an amazing and strong song, I could imagine that you sing it once. I hope that you will always be as strong as Gloria Gaynor and that you will never give up.

B.t.w. the whole Radio2Days you can listen through web-stream.

Sorry for beeing so unpersonal, Ghazal, but I haven”t heard from you something since Sunday, so I can not reply really to something that you wrote. I just like balloon flying with the wind here and there, and picking up what is around.

I miss you, there is nobody taking care of me

Michael

An evening at the beach

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:45:58 +0000

Hi Ghazal,

Thanks for this wunderful summer .

Michael