Looking back

Dear friends,

On november 1st, our much loved dog Flo passed away. It was really hard on me, and also on Victor, my sister, mom and kids who loved her dearly.

We will miss her so much!

A week later my sister showed me an article in the New York times about the untimely passing of my mentor: Stanford professor Cliff Nass. I had just had the good fortune to see him in September in Paris. We had talked in the bus  on the way back from the special Seine cruise. It was so good to see him again after 20 years (I graduated from Stanford in 1993). He was a test driver for the automated Google car and could talk very passionately about his students and his research on multitasking, the human brain, communication and driving automatic cars.

A week later I heard one of my colleagues at Unisys had passed away as well. Hans was a very jovial and kind person, always ready to help. He was an avid actor and Shakespearian, which really impressed me. I had worked with him a few times, we’d had a chance to talk during those days and he will be much missed by his family and colleagues.

In November I connected with dr. van Weert (whom I had met at the patient conference on Oct 12th). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Amsterdam and is willing to help me with starting a Ph.D. She invited me to a research meeting about patient-doctor communication at the AMC hospital, hosted by the research group in Medical Psychology. It was a very interesting meeting, and afterwards I briefly met some other Ph.D. students. I plan to start my research in January and I want to focus on communication about metastatic cancer. I plan to start analyzing  the media effects of charity campaigns (think of Pink Ribbon type campaigns) on self-efficacy and fears of metastatic breast cancer patients (in online discussion forums).

End of November, I went to our local farmers market in Eemnes with a good friend and I bumped into friends from Huizen. The farmers market is organized by Ria who used to be our next door neighbor but now lives on the Meentweg in Eemnes (see the Blommenhoeve for more information).

In early December I was able to complete my work and deliver the new Architecture for Digikoppeling. I’ve been asked to continue on the project and was asked for another project as well. We had a really fun dinner and game with the whole team and I really enjoyed it!

On December 4th, I had another checkup at the hospital. My friend G joined me and waited patiently as I went to get my blood test done and waited for the doctor. Fortunately all was well. The liver showed slightly higher levels but that could be due to the medication (Letrozol) that I’m on. My next appointment is in the middle of January.

On December 7th, I left Holland and arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the 8th. I met Nancy at the airport and together we took the KLIA Express into KL. The next day we went to Ipoh and my dad picked us up at the train station. It’s been really good to see him. He lives in a nice house in Ipoh, near hot springs and a water park. It’s the rainy season here so it rains hard for a few hours each day. This weekend we’ll visit Penang, and we hope to meet up with our friend Bommy.

Next time I’ll upload some pictures. Take care!