Happy New Year

Dear Ghazal,

I was very relieved to read that you did not caught cold (as the cryptic text may have suggested), but that you are well up. I go to the lab approximately every second day, usually it is pretty empty there, what is good to write some stuff.
The day after X-mas we went bowling, which still causes me muscle-fever. And after seeing the whole family scoring much higher than me, I decided not to go there any more.

I recently promised you to put a video of our dog playing Hockey in the snow with me. You can find it by clicking here. (Don”t be chocked by the weird music) Do you still recognise her ? I also wanted to show you that she is usually not as sleepy as she appeared on the Kucha-Pecha presentation about REM dreaming.

Ghazal, I know that the next year is very important for you, for your future both in private life and science career. I wish you all the luck that is possible, happiness for every single day and fun. Don”t get impatient, my Dear, there is no need for this. You are so strong and lovely, you will achieve everything to become 150% happy at the end.

There is a very nice song by the Rolling Stones (called “you can”t always get what you want“) . The message of the song is:

You can”t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

I hope so much that you will find out yourself what you need. I”m sure you will, and your parents and relatives will help you.

TAKE CARE
michael

PS: Please also say Happy New Year to Shava.

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Hi Michael,

What is this, happiness ? Do you have an answer ? Is happiness what we experienced the last summer in Munich ? It might have been one particulare type of happiness. Probably like the one that Erasmus of Rotterdam had in mind when he wrote:

The highest form of happiness is a life with a certain degree of crazyness.

your dog is very cute!
happy new year. wish u all the best.

Take Care, yours Ghazal

The genealogy of mice (part 2)

Hi michael,

While searching for a paper about UV-repair that Matts recommended me to read I found an article reporting an exciting new study about the migration of house-mice throughout europe during the last 10 000 years. I remember you once wrote me a story about the colonialization of europe by the two mouse species M.musculus musculus (eastern mouse) and M.musculus domesticus (western mouse). Interestingly, this new paper shows that the house-mouse travelled like a blind passenger together with the civilisations that managed to grow and store grains. And this started (you guess it) in Iran (and probably further east on the indian sub-continent).
mouse-colonialization

So you see, whithout the ancient agricultural developments in Iran, the progress in experimental genetics (including my MSc-project !!) which is so much based on M.musculus domesticus would not be possible. House-mice were known in Iran already 13 000 years ago. They arrived in Germany (including Neuherberg) only 3 000 years ago. Do you know, if the two strains that I studied in my MSc project (the albino FVB and the spotted JF1) belong to M.musculus domesticus ? Would be so nice for me to know, whether they are also descendents from the iranian mouse population.

Enjoy the winter time
TAKE CArE
/ghazal

PS: If you write about going-swimming these days, I assume you discovered a hot spring somewhere around Munich ?

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Hi Ghazal, I very much admire that you spend some of the holidays to learn for your PhD project and – what is even more unusual – that you still find something exciting related to your MSc project (like the mouse colonialization paper that you mention above). It is interesting, indeed, not just from a genetics point of view, but also considering the house-mouse as a companion to the civilized men, that populated the world together. Have you seen the dotted line on the map, that runs north to south across europe ? This line as I wrote before separates the western mouse (M.m.domesticus) from the eastern mouse (M.m.musculus) world. We believe, it coincides with the cold-war demarcation line between the “socialist” eastern-europe and the “free” western-europe. How this co-incidence happened, nobody knows. Obviously, the mice were there much earlier (during the iron-age, according to the paper above), whereas human did the east-west-separation just 60 years ago (and it lasted only for 40 years).

The separation line between M.m.domesticus and M.m.musculus runs also along the Isar-river here in Munich. So during your staying in Unterschleissheim, you have been surrounded by the house-mouse, which as you mentioned above originated from Persia. What is a pitty, I think, that in Stockholm you are clearly east of the separation line, i.e. you now live in the world of M.m.musculus, which originated from central Asia (I guess mongolia).
These mice are known to be much more wild in their behaviour, unlike the FVB or JF1 that you worked with in your MSc project. Therefore, if you meet one in your house in Sweden or in the field, be careful. They wont let you do tail-clipping, ear-marking or measuring incorporated Iodine-activity as you did in your MSc project. They tend to have a much stronger self-defence instinct than FVB or JF1. Both are, by the way not pure M.m.domesticus strains. FVB/N is a laboratory inbred strain derived from hybrids between M.m.domesticus and M.m.musculus and contains alleles from both. JF1 was bred in Japan by fancy breeders (just as a hobby) and goes back to the mixed line of M. molossinus, which developed my matings of M.m.muscullus and M.m.castaneous.

Hope you are fine, Ghazal

Take Care, Michael

PS: I have not discovered a hot spring here in Munich. Therefore, I go for swimming in the little river next to our house. But it has a constant temperature of 8 degrees celsius, which as compared to the outside -10 degrees appeares quite warm.

Orbituary: Blake Edwards

Hi Michael,

When I heard today that Blake Edwards, the congenial director of “Breakfast at Tiffanys” died, I got very sad. My hope for a continuation of this nice movie wont become true any more. Could you imagine how the beautiful, sad story of Hollie Golightly and Paul Varseck continues ? How would they proceed, after their final kiss on the rainy avenue in New York ?
Coming back to our discussion about Anna Karenina and my suggestion that she very badly represents a prototype loving woman, I always considered Holly the diametral opposite, like the antipode of Anna. Holly, at least during most of the movie (and even more during the entire novel) managed very well to suppress her love and went only for material wealth.
Both, Anna and Holly therefore might represent the two extreme characters, between which each woman changes or from which each of us picks more of the one or the other. Some are more driven by an unconditioned love (Shirley Bassey “The way a woman loves”), others by the search for material safety Shirley Bassey “Diamonds are forever”).

Therefore, if I would hope for a continuation of “Breakfast at Tiffanys”, it had to be with a Holly Golightly changing her attitude more into a loving relationship.
Like in “The wonderful Baker Boys”, where Michelle Pfeiffer also starts as a completely money-oriented and non-emotional woman, and step by step discovers that what she really needs is a loving partner, somebody to share joy and frustration with and somebody to trust.

Hope you have a nice time
Take Care

/ghazal

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Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

I never considered Holly Golightly as the antipode of Anna Karenina. In a sense, Anna Karenina was a much stronger, she made her decision once and then followed her own route to the end. Holy, I always saw her as very undecisive. She much more seemed to play a role, the society expected her to play. It was the role of the fashion victim, of the modern girl completely devoted to fancy stuff and luxory life-style. However, in the few moments when she got “the mean reds”, she seemed to show a desire for love and for a shoulder to lean on.
But you are probably right, that each real person changes between the two extremes.
But I could imagine, that one is aware one side of such a complex personality much more than the other. And maybe one even needs friends, to show you the other side of your personality. This might sound to you like a very stereotype pseudo-question of want-to-be psychologists. But could you image, that people next to you – your parents, relatives, or just friends – not necessarily know more about you, but that they know some aspects of your personality and your life, that are hidden to yourself ? Because they watch you from the outside, they see you different than you see yourself. They don”t see you better than you see youself, but they can see you in a different light, in different circumstances.

And so do I, always see you in a different light than you see yourself. I think that I can see aspects of your personality, that you try to hide from everybody, perhaps even from yourself. I don”t think that on a long run, hunting for material wealth and economic safety will satisfy you, Ghazal. I”m sure that deep inside you there is the desire for fantasy and for intellectual excitement, there is a great love for knowledge and maybe for what is called in an inflationary way “spirituality”.

And on the other side, I now know that you discovered something inside me that I was never aware of before. That I can become extremely careless, ready to give up all material safety and all social and professional position, only because beeing strucked by the sudden love to a girl that arrived here from nowhere”s land, that was just sitting there in her own flare, not moving, not laughing, not speaking, only having her deep-blue eyes moving around.

TAKE CARE, Ghazal.

Michael

Something for you to consider: The Shabby Chick

Ghazal my Dear,

I hope you don”t mind this form of address, but I can not imagine starting a letter to you other than this way. O.K. an exception would be “Dear Miss F…”, which would be in a funny contrast to the privacy we had here in Munich. 

#1 (If you want to read about the mail with the IKEA link, continue here, otherwise go to #2)
Ghazal, my Dear, if your last e-mail had one important message than it was this: if I want to challenge your quiesence, to wake you up, and to make you curious enough to ask something, I have to write something that – with or without intention – might appear a bid confusing (like this Web-Site from Ikea). The weblink to Ikea was indeed send of by a a sort of accident. I was just about to save it, when I got distracted by our dog who hit the keybord such a way that it was send to you. In fact, I did not want to send another mail right after, with explanations or excuse could have only made you think I”m mad.

#2 (if you want to learn about a Saturday at IKEA, continue here, otherwise proceed to #3)
Last Saturday I helped a friend to move flat (I think I told you about her: she was my class-mate at gymnasium, and after University married a boy from Algeria, only to got the permission to flee from East-Germany. She has divorced already many years ago, and since then has trouble to sort our her life). Anyhow, as part of her removal into a new flat, she wanted to go to IKEA to buy some furniture. So I drove her there with a small truck, and although the weather was a catastrophy, we arrived there straight (unlike in June when we drove there, and I was so much distracted by you sitting next to me that I missed the exit from the motorway and we ended 50 km further north). This time it was different, more business as usual. My friend is so delicate, that selecting the right kitchen furniture took her 3 hours. Therefore I decided to go to the cafe, since I had the nice memories when we were there and you argued with the service lady about the missing pizza.
Meanwhile, the cafe was rebuild, it is huge and like a lounge area. You can have coffee, tea and even hot chocolate for free, and I think you would like this a lot (the next time you come to Munich we have to go there together). While I was waiting for her to sort out the kitchen furniture, I drank at least 4 tea and 2 and half hot chocolate, and read the entire weekend newspaper. Than, I found a nice book that was on display there, and this book is called “Geliebtes Zuhause” or “ÄLSKADE HEM“, as I later found out. It is a funny book, cause it shows 9 swedish houses and their inhabitants. What was interesting for me: that you don”t see any of them living with IKEA furniture, instead they all have a very exotic and non-commercial style. Most of them live in old house, that are anything else than luxurious and comfortable. But all of them emanate an atmosphere of creativity and happiness. If you by chance go to IKEA, have a look at the book. What was really fascinating for me, that our old house here in the eastern part of Munich very much resembles one of the house in this IKEA book. So I got happy to learn that our house is not simply un-finished or primitive, but it can be considered stylish according to swedish taste (by the way, there is a special term for this: Shabby Chic or have a look at this Blog ).
The final essence of this day was: Even though IKEA worked hard to rebuild their coffee-shop, sitting there for 3 hours was a waste of time, if I compare it with the evening we were there together in June. Neither the free tea and hot chocolate nor the new, elegant lounge interior could compensate for the absence of an inspiring company as you were. The nice book, at least, drove my thoughts away a bid.

#3 (you have to continue here, even if you skipped #1 and #2)
… and for the next days, Ghazal my Dear, before I might receive another letter from you not earlier than Saturday, I just try to find out if possibly my mails are just too long and over-stress your patience. It always takes a long time before you answer, and sometimes I already thought that something got lost. But then, I got the feeling you don”t want to tell a lot. O.K., everybody keeps thing for itself, but I hope there was something more exciting and fascinating happening during the last days than a talk to MHR and SH. You must have your thoughts, your plans, your ideas every day, things you enjoy or you dream of. And other things that you hate and you condem, and at least those you could write about (Although I wish so much that there are more moments in your life to enjoy than things that you hate). I remember it was always nice to have long conversations with you, when we met somewhere, but the same seems to be more difficult in writing. You probably don”t like to put thoughts into words and put those into an e-mail. Or maybe you are simply too impatient to wait for e-mails.
I think I still live to a certain degree in a dream-world, and that I continue to write you e-mails is part of this.
I can never be sure, if there is still this young lady Ghazal, somewhere at the other end of the internet to read my mails and answering them. But I carry on, assuming if it is not her, than maybe an angel in another universe reads it, and sometimes I even believe that this extra-terrestial angel sends back long answers, that appeare on my blog and are signed as /ghazal. These dreams, whether or not they have any real base, keeps my mind in ballance. There is too much bullshit in the world that tries to enter our minds and destroy our souls. So what is bad about creating a little universe of dreams, made from old houses, castles, persian cats, frisky dogs and beautiful horses, and an inspiring, charming human beeing with tentalising hair and blue eyes and a dark voice, and to keep this all as barrier against the intruding stupidity from the modern society ?
(PS: Maybe you oppose this view, and I would be extremely glad to read your contradiction. But keep it fresh, send it right away. If you wait for too long, your sensation will fade away !!!)

Otherwise, Take Care my Dear,

Good Night , Enjoy your dreams

Michael

What lasts forever ?

Hi michael,

it is hard to tell what will last longer in life, material stuff or love ?
At least when Shirley Bassey sings it, it sounds very convincing to me, that “…diamonds will lustre on, when love”s gone.”

Diamonds are forever
Sparkling round my little finger
Unlike men, the diamonds linger
Men are mere mortals who are not worth going to your grave for

I don”t need love
For what good will love do me?
Diamonds never lie to me
For when love”s gone
They”ll lustre on

/ghazal

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Hi Ghazal, my Dear

There is no doubt, that the diamonds will lustre on, and they will last forever, even when the love is gone. But I think that their sparkling shine will lose its importance for us. Maybe it will even become painful, since it reminds us of better times.

Shirley Bassey also had songs with the complete opposite connotation, for instance in this one “the way a woman loves” it says “… a man would love discretely, a woman gives herself away completely.”

Anna Karenina

hi michael,

how are you ? Yesterday night I found my mom watching a movie on TV, but the first scenes showed a rather cold winter atmosphere and I already wanted to zap over to another program (cause we have enough snow and frost in reality here in Sweden). My mom, however, insisted to watch this movie so I also stayed. After a few minutes there was a scene on a railway-platform, and a young lady leaving a train through a cloud of steam. I remember that you recently send my the short youtube video, showing Greta Garbo as “Anna Karenina” in an 1934 movie. Now it appeared that we were watching a newer version of this movie, featuring Sophie Marceau as the main character. I think I probably would not have carried on watching it, unless my mom promissed that it is a great movie. She likes romances, and at the end of the film when Anna Karenina committed suicide, she started crying. But this was a sort of planned eruption of emotions, since for sure she knew before the sad finish of the scene. You know, woman can exploite emotions in a very useful way: breaking out in tears can relieve one of a lot of stress. It therefore should not be considered as a sole loss-of-control or as a sign of weakness. It can really help you to feel better later on. So in this sense, “Anna Karenina” is a very helpful movie for woman.
But except for this final scene, we had an argument with my mom, whether Anna did right leaving her husband and son for the count Vrosnki, to whom she had suddenly fallen in love with. My mom insisted that Anna did right, and that for such a deep love, everything else in the world should be secondary. In her opinion, a family relation that is based only on joint wealth, or material interest, or even on joint children, is a very weak foundation and is not worth to sacrifice a really strong love for.
I don”t have this idea of a unique value of an ideal love, and that it represents something so extraordinary to neglect material wealth and a social status. I could not understand how Anna Karenina left behind her easy and convenient life in the upper society, material safety provided by her rich husband and the aristocratic family. For me it was hard to understand that she gave it all up to follow Vronski into an unknown future, only for the sake of love. Therefore, I
consider Anna Karenina a males phantasy. And it is now surprise that Leo Tolstoj wrote it while he had lots of hussle with his wife. Sure he dreamed of woman following only the voice of love, and not the temptation of material safety when they choose a partner. But thats not how usual woman feel. In the first instance, we are looking for somebody who can provide us with a safe haven for a long time. Love is secondary. Therefore, the hype and the mystery around Anna Karenina became so long-lasting because what she did was against normal femal behaviour, whatever sociologists and femal-right activists want to tell us.

But there are exceptions, of course. And for me the best example is my mom. At least now, after her own experiences with husbands and lovers, she would clearly opt for an unconditioned love.

take care
/ghazal

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Hi Ghazal my Dear,

Thanks a lot for your long mail, which is a clear proof that you can write not only in SMS-format. I have never considered before that Anna Karenina might be a pure males phantasy, as you suggested. There is nothing I can really contribute to the debate between you and your mom.
For sure, what you wrote about the female quest for material safety is more in agreement with sociologists theories, but also what is known from animal behaviour. So traditionally and in a large scale in society, woman do perhaps always look for a partner that provides best guarantee for a secure life. But there are also many famous examples where woman following an unconditioned love became very happy. Or do you think that this hunt for the supreme love will never end ?
But so will the hunt for material wealth. I think the fairy-tale about the fisher and his wife is known not just in Germany, but in Sweden as well. Like therein, hunting the whole life for nothing more than wealth will leave you at the end unsatisfied.

I liked your observations about the benefical effect of crying, that it will relieve you of stress. I have not tried it on myself, but very well remember when our son was still very young, and sometimes he had stress at the evening, was somehow unhappy about something, and did not want to sleep. I than use to slap him very gentle, not to hurt him, just to make him cry. It appeared, that after crying some minutes, he became very calm and sleepy. A pediatrician later explained me that through the tears the body can get rid of stress hormones like adrenalin or cortison.
Thats probably what your mom knew instinctively, when she insisted to view the Anna Karenina movie. Ghazal, I hope so much that you don”t need tears to get rid of stress hormones. I remember that during your MSc project you have been very good of managing stress by other means.

Take Care, my Dear

Michael

Soldier of Love

Hi michael,

In case you want to listen to some great music, have a look at this collection of Sade”s greatest hits (you can click each of them and listen the full length title – if you don”t stop, it even plays the entire album).
And there is a video of her performing for her newest album. Its unbelievable, she is already 52 and makes such a powerful and young appearance. When you send me some of her music in July and asked me to guess her age, I was somehow sure that she is my age (just by listening to the music). But still now, seeing her performing in this video of her latest 2010 recordings, she is still so fresh and tempting.

Hope you are alright, my Dear, every day has at least one or two great moments and you feel amazing.

take care
/ghazal

The Velocity of Time (and how we experience it)

Hi michael,

okay, so 4 institutes will go together and become the department of radiation research? which institutes are these?
the movie that you mentioned i have never seen before. Gustafsson is a very common name.
 time pass to fast, unbelivable. just enjoying the free days that i have left. hope time goes slow!
 hope you had a good weekend.

/ghazal

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Hi Ghazal my Dear,

So nice reading your mail. I just came in, we went out for a long walk because it was a beautiful Sunday, icecold but sunny. Finally, winter started here as well. This year it was a perfect program:  We had almost later summer temperature till first half of November, and now, two weeks later, already winter climate. This intermediate autumn, with its wet and windy temperature lasted only two weeks.
I went swimming today in the little river next to our house (maybe you remember I wrote you in summer about it, it has several old stone bridges spanning over its cristal water). Swimming is still fine there, the water is warmer than the air (about 6 degrees I guess). After taking a bath for a minute, one gets very hot (think its like a counter-reaction of the body, like adaptive response).

The three institutes of the research-center that officially fused to form a Department are Radiation Biology, Radiation Protection, Cytogenetics and Medical Radiation Protection. I think the idea was more to save the institutes from beeing closed down, since there is actually not very much scientific exchange between the 4 institutes. Its merely political.

The center of Munich is very crowded nowadays. People start X-mas shopping, its crazy. I think people, although they are mostly catholics here, have forgotten that christmas has a non-comercial tradition. But I”m quite sure, you would also like it, to join millions of other people on their caravan through the department stores, don”t you ?  What I like about the winter time in the city center is a big scating course they do on the Karlsplatz/Stachus (you might remember, where in summer-time there was the big fountain). This is really fun, one can do ice-scating, or just watch the other people doing it, or eat some grilled saussages.

I talked last week to Mrs. Friderike E-S, who studied UV-repair her whole life through. I asked her about the problem, if cells of different origin differ in their UV-repair capacity (depending on whether or not they can be exposed to sun-light at their normal position of the body).  I told her that our hypothesis was that cells that origin from inside the body (lymphocytes, endothelial cells, neurons, muscle-cells and so on) might have a much lower UV-repair capacity than cells that are naturally sun-exposed (like skin fibroblasts or -melanocytes or epidermal  or retinal cells).
She explained the following:  There is no special DNA-repair system just for UV-induced damage. The nucleotide-excision and base-excision repair systems are essential to remove DNA damages induced by chemicals as well, like alkylating agents or free-radicals. And since these agents can cause DNA damage anywhere in the organism, most cells have the capacity to repair base-damages,   8-oxo-guanine, thymidine-dimers and all the other lesions, and therefore they are also prepared to repair these damages  if they are induced by UVA-exposure in the laboratory.
I wrote some ideas about this on my blog, in case you want to read. Ghazal, I hope you don”t mind that I wrote it like a scientific dialogue, and it reads as if this fictional person “Ghazal” explains this.  Hope you don”t hate that I put the words into the mouth of somebody else.

You wrote in your mail that you feel your time is passing very fast now, and you would like to slow it down a bit. I think it might depend from where you observe this. If you mean the present time, the moments you are just experience now:  they seem to be short and run fast, if you are busy, if you have something important to do. Like when you did your thesis during the last weeks of September/October, I guess you felt that the few hours of the day passed away like minutes. But if you look back to such a busy period of your life, it seems as if this expanded, because you filled it up with something important.  This for me is most obvious when travelling. If you finally arrive at your destinations in the evening, you just can not believe any more that 12 hours ago you still were at home. It seems as if this was many day ago.  Do you know this feeling, Ghazal ?   I guess so, because last year you also traveled a lot.
But this changes to the complete opposite, if one has nothing to do. Than the time one actually feels at the moment passes very slowly (for instance if you have to wait at the dentist or for a bus that does not arrive). It feels as if the minutes are hours. But later, if you look back, a period of your life where nothing important happened can appear very short.

I hope you are not fed up with all these long essays. You don”t have to answer them all, but I”m always very happy reading some words from you.

Take Care, Ghazal

PS:  Yes, I would have been surprised if you would know this movie with Greta Garbo. I also saw it just by chance in the TV, because Leo Tolstoy, who wrote the novel, died 100 years ago. But if you just click on the youtube-link that shows a short scene from it, don”t you think its amazing, how Greta Garbo appeared trough the steam of train ?

The Great Garbo

Hi Ghazal my Dear,

Thanks for your nocturnal e-mail, for every single word. We had a big meeting in the helmholtz-center yesterday night, it was on the occasion of fusing four institutes into a Department of Radiation Research. It was a big reception, but it was very political (what is not my favorite). I came home quite late, and the more I was happy reading your mail.

Recently I thought of you, when I watched an old hollywood-movie, “Anna Karenina” from 1935. It was re-filmed since then many times, but none of the newer versions (like the recent from 1997 featuring Sophie Marceau) came close the early one from 1935 with Greta Garbo (I think it is considered among the top 100 important movies of cinematography). I don”t know if you (after Breakfast at Tiffanys) are willing to watch another old movie, that is even 20 years older.
Greta Garbo (also nicknamed “the great Garbo” or the Divine”) reminded me of you, how she arrived in the movie the first time, through the steam of the train. She had the same extraordinary expression in her eyes and her face as you have, a sort of enigmatic aristocracy, as if she came from another world.
What is a funny coincidence: her real maiden name was Gustafsson, so maybe she was a relative to Lars Gustafsson. I think I have to ask him. Or do you think, that Gustafsson is a too common name in Sweden ? But Greta Garbo (former Gustafsson) did not looked typical swedish, for my feeling she looked more oriental or south european. And before going to Hollywood, she lived in Stockholm.

I hope you don”t mind that again I tell you things you have not asked me about. I hope you are well up, that you fill your days with pleasure and your nights with exciting dreams.

TAKE CARE

Michael

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dear michael,

I did not know that Greta Garbo was such an international star. I remember that, quite often when we went to the center of Stockholm with my family, we passed along a little memorial that show a very pale face, and this was commemorating Greta Garbo.

greta_garbo_memorial_2006-04-11

To be honest, I never watched a movie with her, but my parents told me that she was a famous swedish actress of last century. But it was a long time before I was born. And on the memorial plate she looks a bit sad and cold, so I was never tempted to see her acting in a film. But I like the short scene from “Anna Karenina” that you send from youtube, where she arrives by train and suddenly appeares through the steam.
Do you know that, when I arrived the first time in Unterschleissheim by train, and you met me there to help with my luggage, I was feeling the same ?
I had many doubts, I felt lonely and was afraid to be on my own for the next month without my parents. It was good that you came to meet me, not just to carry my suitcases.
Platforms and trains are always the same, does not matter whether in Russia 100 years ago or in Munich in 2010. They all give you this impression of arriving at an unknown, hostile place, but later you stand there again on the same platform and have to leave this place, just when you got comfortable with it.

Hope you have a nice day and night

Take Care

/ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,

That”s strange: when I watched the movie recently I somehow knew that it was not just Greta Garbos eyes and the expression on her face that reminded me of you. I could not tell where this strong feeling of a deja-vu came from. But now you gave me the solution, Ghazal. It was the very scene when Greta Garbo (aka Anna Karenina) arrives by train and she and Wronskij see each other for the first time, and both are like struck by a lightning.
Now I know it was very much like the day in May when you arrived here, and I was waiting for you on the train station. I probably was shivering, when I saw you leaving the train, while Wronsky in a typical soldiers manner looked more frozen to a stone statue.
When you said that you did not felt very confident about the project in Munich and how to live here on your own for 6 month, I tell you one could not recognise these doubts on your face. You looked very aristocratic, as usual, very calm and confident. But only later I understoud how experienced you are in hiding emotions.

Take Care, Ghazal

Michael

full moon and wild geese

hi michael,
I don”t know what was wrong with your sophisticated calculation, but I could not spot any meteor this time ! I went over to Shafa, since her windows faces southward, and it is always fun to be with her and have a chat. So we were sitting in front of her big window, with tea and some sweets, but all we could see was the hugh full moon shining through the clouds. But unlike in August, when we were in the Park in Unterschleissheim to watch the Perseides, this time the sky was almost 100% covered with clouds. So I don”t know, whether we were blinded by the moon, or the stjaernfallen were all obscured by the clouds, anyhow there was nothing that looked like the amazing meteor we saw together in summer.
Have you been more successful ?

Thanks anyhow for the calculation – I have never seen your handwriting before.

take care
/ghazal

PS: I have not jet found sufficient data from the journals to make a firm conclusion about different UVA-repair capacity in different cells of the human body. You asked, why people study UV-repair in lymphocytes, considering they are in their normal physiological situation never exposed to UV-light.
But you should consider, that what we call UV-repair is in fact a DNA-repair mechanism that can process a larger class of damages, not just UV-induced ones. Base damages, nucleotide damages, O6-methyl-guanine and the like are all repaired by the NER- or BER-system that we study after UVA-exposure. And because lymphocytes (as well as other cells of inner organs) can always be affected by those types of DNA-lesions (for instance after free-radicals or just by replication errors), they are probably able to repair UVA-damage es well. The cell, at the end, does not know where the damage comes from (UVA or free-radicals), it just feels the damage and responds to it.

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Hi Ghazal, my Dear,

Yes, you are probably right, I had not considered this before. But I guess at the moment UV-repair is not so important, I mean because there is just no sunshine. At least here in Munich.
Hope it is more pleasant over there in Sweden.

So nice you acknowledged the calculation, although the clouds were not considered therein :-(
But at least the moon was visible from here and from your place, have a look I did a photo of it. And by chance there was a flock of wild geese flying across. Might be they came from Skandinavia, on their way to the south. Maybe you also saw them a couple of days before, while they were just starting their journey in Sweden.
moon-and-goose
Yesterday I passed along the cafe, where we went in May (think it was the 19th, after you did the test for the german course at the Gasteig evening school). I remember that you had an iced chocolate then, and I had a tea. The waiter was asking you where you came from, and you had to explain him all the details of your odyssee from Stockholm via London to Munich.
Yesterday, there were only a few people sitting inside the place, and all of them looked like regular customers, who use to go there frequently. They all seemed to be very cool, I guess none of them had any reason for an emotional irritation as I had, when I was sitting there with you. When I saw the place again yesterday, it all came back to my mind in a second. I hope you keep the place in good remembrance. I think you should, Ghazal, because at this time in May you perhaps haven”t been very confident about your MSc project yet, and how you will manage it. Maybe you have been afraid that this whole formal genetics would all be too complicate, and it will cause you only lots of stress but no scientific satisfaction. I hope so much, that now, after this half year you can laugh about the doubts you had in May.

Hope everything is o.k. with you, and that you enjoy every day.

TAKE CARE

Michael

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