On the nature of happiness

Millennium Bridge York

You wake up, realise you have woken up, and that's it: you won't sleep again. Which is not the same as getting up. Instead, a list of things you might do today goes through your mind. Certainly some cleaning up should be part of this day's activities, but there was also this little voice telling me that I have agreed to run in the Batavierenrace relay race with the Formal Methods and Tools group next year, so shouldn't I do something about that?

Habits are quickly formed, including habits of not following up on good intentions. Knowing this, when I did get up (7:30, no shame there) I changed into running gear and soon went to join the ranks of the Secret Society, who in fact were not yet to be seen in great numbers. It was grey and overcast, slightly drizzly, but warmer than a few days before: quite nice weather to be running in, actually.

Beware, beware!

I decided to take a different route than last time, meaning a somewhat longer run. This involved crossing the Ouse over the Millennium Bridge (they have one of those here, too!) and going through the fields that the Open Street Map showed me must be there. Nearing the fields I was a bit surprised at the amount of activity there: cars convening in numbers, and this at 8:00 in the morning. The reason soon became clear: what I had taken to be fields is actually the York Racecourse, Knavesmire, which has been in existence since... 1731! Wow! The large industrial-type building that I had seen from a distance actually turned out to be a truly enourmous, four-story grandstand.

Going on past the track and back again along the river, it occurred to me that this period might be one of those of which you later think: I was happy then. So let me record this here and now: I am happy doing what I am doing, being where I am. Of course this begs the question what this happiness is made up of: which of my current circumstances are important ingredients? On the negative side: of course I am somewhat lonely, but being a solitary person by nature this does not affect me as it might others. (That might change as time passes.) On the positive side: I have utter freedom, and so far I feel that the use I have made of that freedom is working out well. Add to this the absence of stress, and I think you have the right mixture. (Maybe the absence of stress would already do it all by itself.)

Back at the apartment, the inevitable could no longer be put off and I set to vacuuming, dish washing, bathroom scrubbing and laundering. The latter involved using the facilities on campus, employing the laundromat card I am borrowing from my "landlord". In turn this means three trips: one to bring the washing and put it into the washer, one to transfer it from washer to dryer, one to get it back. Not really a problem but it keeps you occupied for a couple of hours. It turns out I had made quite a conservative guess of the size of the machines, so I could have put in my bed cover to get rid of the synthetic smell (thank you Zeeman), but that will have to wait until next time.

Their flashing eyes, their floating hair!

Since this is turning into a long post, I will cut it into two parts. On the matter of the race track however, let me mention here that I went back later to take some more pictures, only then discovering that there was really a major event going on, with at least 5000 people in attendance: the Coral Sprint Tropy, which is a finale of sorts. (Not being English, I think I am allowed to be a complete ignoramus.) I even caught the first race in the act: it is totally straightforward to walk up directly next to the track, so that is what I did.

Beyond Monopoly!

Beyond Monopoly: so much to play!

Transforming an SDF model to an Uppaal model is a relatively straightfoward powerset construction. It will be interesting to see if and how that can be formulated as a rule in Epsilon though. If it can't, there is my first research question. If it can, then the same principle should be applicable to pretty much any operational semantics, so maybe we can make something out of that. Either way, progress!

This morning, still barefoot, I stepped into a puddle of rather cool water. This was the outcome of turning off the freezer. So, you will say, now you know why you shouldn't turn it off! Hah I say, you just mixed up cause and effect: the thing had been running continuously for so long that a good deal of ice had accrued - it was in bad need of defrosting.

Stepping barefoot into a puddle of rather cool water will wake you up like nothing else. So, very much awake and with no other agenda points until about 17:00 (see below) I got quite a bit further with my case study; the main insight of which (if it deserves that word) I summarised in the first paragraph above.

As usual, the day was interspersed with other activities, although a lot fewer of them than back at home. There has been a trial visitation of the Computer Science curriculum yesterday at which the Examination Board was grilled and apparently could have given a better show. Well, that will save us from becoming too complacent, but since we are actually running pretty smoothly I think we will have our act together when the time is there. Then there is the FASE 2014 paper deadline tonight for which 150 or so final manuscripts are being uploaded by 150 teams of authors polishing their work until the last possible moment: we have had to refuse about 10 deadline extensions and 1 page limit extension.

At lunch (pumpkin soup) I met some more PhD students, among others Yasmin Rafiq, a student of Radu's (with whom I had lunch yesterday). She seemed very quick and clever and helped me sharpen my understanding of what they are trying to achieve on a technical level, and where they are with that right now. Let's say that some people are better at explaining the dividing line between vision and fact than others.

During the soup Suzanne showed up with a home-baked cake that we absolutely had to finish. This was no punishment, and took care of the hunger pangs for a while - which in turn was a good thing, for at 17:00 my agenda showed a visit to "York's friendliest boardgame club", Beyond Monopoly! (slogan and exclamation mark theirs). It's pretty much opposite "York's shabbiest cinema" which I visited last Sunday - but this time of course I was by bike, which saves about 50% off the travel time during rush hour.

Gaming hours are from 17:00 to 21:00 (strict), which is early but apparently dictated by the venue, the Bar Convent. (Does that name sound like a contradiction in terms to you? The word "bar" here means something else than you might think, it's inspired by the gates in the medieval wall which are called bars.) They kindly allowed me to put my bike in a small courtyard inside, which was good since Blossom Street is wide and full of cars, with no place to put a bike.

The atmosphere was quite exactly what I'm used to, though the average age is a lot higher - surprisingly this is not at all a student club. I played Richelieu (a bit tame), Krakow 1325 AD (absolutely pointless, despite having been designed by a Dutchman) and Medici (simple and elegant, by far the best of the three), topped off by a quick game of 7 Wonders, which I won by Willem-Jan's strategy of grabbing every science card I could lay my hands on - which can only succeed if the other players aren't on to you, meaning only once.

At 21:00 the effects of Suzanne's cake had definitely evaporated, so it was off to Morrisons to walk those new food avenues, then back home to turn the freezer back on and try the microwave on Steak & Ale with Cheesy Mash. I have to admit that this did nothing at all for my conviction that instant food could form the backbone of my diet for the next three and a half months: though the package says "tastes of home" my primary associations were with airplanes and/or hospitals - you take your pick.

The end of the end of summer

It's real: York Festival of Angels, to be held 14-15 December

No doubt about it, the weather has changed! It's quite windy, definitely chilly, and rather wet at times, though with sunny moments to brighten up things. There was a beautiful rainbow this morning, unfortunately gone before I thought of trying to take a picture for my dear readers. Time to find a good rain radar app, and break out the rain gear as well.

Today I had a meeting with Louis to get ahead on the SDF3-to-Uppaal model transformation, but that was a bit premature because I don't yet know enough about the case. Then a lentil soup lunch with Radu Calinescu to learn what he is doing. There is plenty of mutual interest, in this case more with the work of +Marielle Stoelinga and +Joost-Pieter Katoen than my own. One thing that is already becoming clear though is that I will have to focus on just a few topics to make any real progress. Four months is not really that much time.

The afternoon was pretty much lost (again!) to LaTeX and makefile hacking for the Software Systems module back home. All in all, not a very productive day.

Another spinning session in the afternoon. My, the instructors here do manage to whip you along! It's interestingly different: rather than telling you what to do in technical terms (stand, turn up resistance, sprint) they put the exercise in the perspective of an actual bike tour (going uphill, flat stretches, gear changes). On the other hand, the Twente bikes are definitely better, with a more gradual tuning of resistance and a much smoother action.

Afterwards I had my "induction tour" through the Sport Village which you have to take in order to get hold of the magic Black Wristband. (Why "induction" rather than "introduction"? One of those expressions you only encounter when you actually live in a place, I think.) They had me fill in a form on which I had to admit that I have had high blood pressure from time to time, and deny that I am pregnant. Yes, Mr. Health and his sister Safety are held in high regard! The cardio equipment all has screens on which you can watch TV or browse the internet while working out. I'll try and see what happens if I bring a USB stick with a movie on it.

I think I burned enough calories to justify another pizza today. This emptied the freezer, allowing me to turn it off (using the button helpfully marked for this purpose) and save not only power but a lot of noise as well. One consequence is that I will have to explore new food avenues. Thinking back I realise that I have never truly lived the bachelor life: I moved from my parental home into a student apartment where cooking was taken pretty seriously, and from there I rented an apartment with Elise. Come to think of it, that's 25 years ago this November! Wow, we've been together for more than half my life!

Well, Morrisons has one avenue full of frozen foods and another full of instant meals. I will survive, and (as I wrote before) this may have the secondary benefit of slimming me down. Provided of course there will not be too many Indians along the way.

As to the puzzle I posed the day before yesterday: there was only one solution submitted, by Wim: "If you are able to negotiate the lock, you can obtain access through the gate". Close, but no cigar! Also, I think that even the English would not think it necessary to put up a sign for such a tautology ;-) Here is the solution, which however raises a follow-up question: can anyone think of an even remotely likely scenario in which this message could possibly be of any use? Maybe I should call the number and ask for the key, just to see what happens?

A piece of York on a Wednesday night

Family nan

For Ken's farewell dinner we went to Akbar's, an Indian restaurant - in fact a chain with branches through the UK. It was quite good, I nowadays manage to order something from an Indian that I actually like - either my selection skills have improved or my tastes have expanded. The company was enjoyable and quite international, ranging from Rumanian (Radu Calinescu, travelling back and forth from Oxford every week), Greek (Nikos Matragkas, who offered to take over my bike when I leave), Spanish (Adolfo Sánchez-Barbudo Herrera, have to find out which shortened version of his name it is allowable to use), and of course Canadian (Ken himself) and German (Susanne, his girlfriend). Representing the English were Andrew Schofield (who thought the food was not hot enough despite him having asked for extra inflammatory spices - no one else shared his objection) and Louis Rose, from whom I hope to learn everything regarding Epsilon. (I'm leaving out everyone sitting at the other end of the table. Well, there'll be other occasions.)

The nan bread was especially good, not just in flavour (lots of garlic, I should remember not to stand too close to anyone else today) but also in presentation: they hang them from a vertical stand, which not only looks nice but is quite practical too, as it hardly takes any space this way.

Emigrating to New Zealand is a very different deal, obviously. Right now they are waiting for the visa formalities to conclude, but of course that's just the start of it. Lots of luck and good times to Ken and Susanne!

Afterwards we paid a brief visit to a pub close by, which turned out to have been converted into a restaurant but still had a living room-type bar where I tried out several ales. They even served them in smaller sizes than a pint, for tasting purposes. I won't claim that I remember the names of all of them, but the left one (with a sweet, chocolatey taste) was called Bad Kitty :-$ Nevertheless, I think ale will never really be my type of drink.

Another bonus of the outing was that I found out about the York short film festival to take place early November. There's an extensive programme, I'll certainly check it out. Also, in December there is said to be a Christmas market and an ice scupture exhibition. So much to do!

It's official!

Yesterday at the end of the day I finally was made an official Associate of the university, with a proper pass. Today I even got the pass to open the necessary doors for me. Moreover, the pass opened the way to get a membership at the Sport Village, at Associate fee. Being a member of such a prestigious facility is, however, something to tbe taken very seriously, and only after an introductory tour tomorrow at which I will be explained the proper Health and Safety regulations will I be entitled to the Black Wristband which opens the doors over there.

I did have a taste of what is awaiting me by going to a spinning class at lunchtime. They have a fixed setup, none of your carting the bikes in and out, and though today there were only about 10 people attending I was told that you have to sign up for the classes in time. Fortunately my agenda is very empty so I don't have to worry about the starting times, which are indeed different every day (no kidding). Next time I will also try to remember that it is not such a brilliant idea to take a full bottle of water with me on the way there, unless it is absolutely tight :-/

Of course all of the above is actually irrelevant for my real purpose of getting acquainted with the research they do over here. Towards which I made a reasonable start today by going through some chapters of the Epsilon book and some of the online demos they have. Very nice work, I wonder who found the time to set all of that up!

Tonight I have been invited to a goodbye dinner of  Kenneth Johnson, a research associate who will be leaving for Auckland (New Zealand) a week from now. That's a different kettle of tea! (I understood "Oakland" when he said this first, a remark I then made about the States met with a puzzled stare.) In any case this will allow me to get to know the group members a bit better, and who knows also York. A report will follow, dear readers.

Working days are lengthening

Ouse flood of 2012

Another run this morning enabled me to find a slightly shorter route compared to Sunday, at the price of a wet shoe when I stepped into a surprisingly deep puddle hidden among the weeds. Despite it having been dry here for my entire stay so far (a situation that I have no illusions will continue much longer) it's still very wet down by the Ouse, the river that flows though York and is indeed famous for flooding regularly. The Kings Arms keeps a scale on the wall showing flood heights during the last decades.

The shortening days will soon make it difficult to run regularly, so I plan to resort to indoor sports facilities. Close to the university there is the so-called Sport Village, built for (and with money from) the 2012 Olympics though apparently never used for that occasion. (The story goes that it was intended as training grounds for the team of an African nation, which pulled out of the deal at the last minute. I yet have to get this confirmed though.) As University associate I am entitled to a reduced membership fee - which nevertheless still amounts to a staggering 36 GBP/month. I have no doubt that the facilities are above par, but so are those at the U Twente, which as a staff member I can use for exactly 0 Euro. We don't realise how good we have it!

The bike is indeed the ideal mode of transportation around here. No more waiting for and in buses! I do have to remind myself to drive on the wrong side of the road though. When you're underway it is no problem, but it's something you have to think of at the start of each trip.

Today I finally got some real work done, though it was essentially an action point left over from Twente (taking care of some of the teaching material of the second BSc module, Software Systems). Not the kind of thing I'm here for, but belofte maakt schuld (a promise made is a debt unpaid). I also met some more PhD students over lunch - sandwiches in the cafetaria - as well as a number of other staff members during the biweekly cake (home baked!): among others, Mike Dodds, for whom I acted as external PhD examiner and is now a research lecturer, and Colin Runciman, who was the internal examiner at that occasion.

I stupidly left my laptop charger in the apartment, and though this allowed me to observe that the laptop can run for about 5 hours on its battery (using an external screen), which is quite reasonable, still it was a short day. I decided to use the last few hours of daylight to take the "Orbital Route", a well-signposted cycling route around York - also because I was warned that this sunny & warm weather won't hold: cold is expected later this week.

I dined on mushroom soup, after which my "landlord" dropped by (by arrangement) to show how the laundry is to be used. It's handy and nearby, though not cheap I think at 3,50 GBP for 1 load of washing and drying. The apartment has an ironing machine. I now also know where to leave the garbage. All is clearing up.

For those of my readers who like a puzzle: what is the full message on the sign in the picture, which I encountered next to a kissing gate while running? Answer to follow in a next post!

Settling

The Bike Acquisition Project

Alas! The Bike Rescue Project, housed picturesquely under a bridge near the station, had very little to offer, certainly not in a price/quality range that convinced me that I would be better off this way than by getting a new bicycle after all. So after half an hour's bus ride to get there (a bike will be so much faster!) I caught the same bus (with the same driver) back, getting off a little early to do business at Halfords.

Much to my regret, it turns out that in England, Halfords is the Ikea of bicycles, meaning that you can take your bike home with you in a box and assemble it yourself. Fortunately they will do it for you at no extra cost, but at extra time. A bike bought in the morning will be ready for use in the evening. On the positive side, it has to be said that York evenings last pretty long, so I arranged to be back at 19:30.

Unfortunately this meant that I once more had to take the bus: a bike would be so much faster! Especially this time, when after 15 minutes waiting for the bus to arrive and deciding to sit upstairs for a change (what good is a doubledecker if no one uses the second deck?), below me I heard the driver starting to get very upset and shouting, first at his ticket dispenser and then at his phone, for not dispensing the right tickets respectively being picked up by a colleague who could tell him how to get the damn thing to dispense the right tickets. It took another 15 minutes before we got underway. Even walking would have been faster.

Finally, the university

All this took place in the morning of what should have been my first working day. When I finally arrived at the university it was lunch time; and who did I meet when walking up to the Hub (the building that I will be working in) but +Detlef Plump, a colleague from another group who helped me get the apartment I'm renting. He was at that moment going for lunch, and though it further delayed my arrival at the group that is actually hosting me I fell in with them.

At this occasion it became clear that what I had suspected is true: this is actually the first lecturing day of the term. I knew that the first semester starts late in Germany (in fact even later than this) but I was not aware that after we have already been going at it for five weeks and are halfway the first quarter in Twente, the York students are still waiting for the first drops of wisdom to be sprinkled upon them. (Poor them.)

When I arrived at the Hub after lunch, it lived up to its name, with students frantically looking for the lecture rooms where these drops were to be had; and +Louis Rose was on his way towards one of those selfsame rooms. Fortunately he had asked for a PhD student, James (I yet have to learn his last name), to help me with some essentials: a pass for the building and the office, and even more importantly, access to the internet. (Why does eduroam work everywhere in Europe, even in my apartment at Wentworth College, but not at the Computer Science department in York?)

Richard has a thing with rubber ducks

Well, when at long last I was installed in Richard's office, which he graciously allows me to use during his own sabbatical, I really felt it was time for a good afternoon nap.

Later in the afternoon Louis talked me through some of the projects running in the group - an impressive list really, as I knew it would be. Plenty of interesting stuff to get to know better, but I learn by doing not by (only) listening, so I'm setting myself the task I already mentioned in an earlier post, to use Epsilon on a small case provided by +Jaco van de Pol. Let's see what comes out of that.

The day ended as it began: with another episode in the Bike Acquisiton Project - in fact, the final act. Indeed a shiny bike is now chained to a sturdy pole in the bicycle shed, a few metres below me. It may be no Gazelle or Batavus, but it will serve for the four upcoming months. Who knows, afterwards the Rescue Project may still come in useful. I know where to find them!