Being singular...
"...you have to be singular, inflexible, unyielding in your own work so that even the struggle, that very struggle to achieve becomes its own reward"- Martin Scorsese
- My favorite movies: Thelma & Louise by Ridley Scott, Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese, The wind That Shakes The Barley by Ken Loach.
- My favorite book: L'étranger by Albert Camus
- My favorite song: Nothing Else Matters by Metallica
- My favorite painting: Der Kuss by Gustav Klimt
- My favorite piano performance: Experience by Ludovico Einaud
- My favorite place: Cuba
- Astonishing particularities that may be of interest or not:
- As I had been an advanced kid at school, I ended high School earlier than others. Therefore, I did study cinematographic and photographic arts for a while before starting the University. During that time, I have made 2 independent short films and 2 short documentaries currently stored and available at INRACI and deposit at SABAM. That seems totally unrelated to what I do now but actually not... somehow all I have studied in there about optics, photography and films has been highly valuable for anything related to imaging in science.
- I always have been a writer from my early time. I have written a couple of novels that I never submitted to any editor. While obviously scientific writing is very distinct, undoubtedly, the ease I have to write helped me tremendously for writing theses and manuscripts. Fo instance, I did my PhD thesis in about 2 months which I remembered as being a sort of lab's record.
- I ended high school in advanced with being awarded with the Chemistry prize. I was also second for the Physic prize and the only one from our class promotion to get any of those prizes as kids we were there had not really the right profile for them. That has been a little astonishing as I started my education, let's say, in very bad conditions. As a kid, I was unable to focus properly and had been at some times in deep troubles. If luckily, I could pass most of the time without studying, it could not be something that worked forever. But I had understood at one point how education is precious. When, still a kid and struggling with it, I was clearly far being a model student. Unexpectedly I could make it I through Mathematic Olympiad one year. But that was a lot of ups and downs. I often felt I had more important things to do than being studying. It is likely still very surprising that I went so far in the educational path. Despite my clear better strength in Chemistry and Physics, I got very passioned with Biology within the last two years of my school. I thus favored later that topic. I had preferred to not chose my comfort zone but rater what I like the most and could imagine to keep me going for the rest of my career. As an adult, I am very sensitive to eduction-related causes and initiatives. Especially those attempting to help kids or youth in difficulties. I had joined in 2008 the EU funded Schola-ULB to support others the way my younger self has been when struggling. Those type of initiatives to keep young people in difficulties in the system, offering hands and support are amazing and very important. As Nelson Mandela said it very well: Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
- English and languages have always been very tricky for me at school. I tend to dyslexia and the last years of school I could barely passed in English class. Yet, I decided to make it a challenge and now I fluently speak English and Dutch and even make my PhD in Molecular Biophysics entirely in a foreign language with getting graded with the max. note 1.0 (i.e., A in the German system). German is on its way (while more difficult for me for any reason) and I now also enjoyed to learn Spanish and Italian on my free time. One just need the right button being "on" .
- As an adult, I yet do not know my left and right. That was something sort of challenging when I had to pass a A-type driving licence at the age of 18. I am now wearing always a ring as reference for my left. That does not sound important at first but just one way to show that we all have unique weaknesses. The point is not to clear all of them but simply to find creative ways to adapt to them.
- I am half-blood. Thus, each time that I have to chose my type for ethnic groups on formal inquiries, I put others. It is kind an obsolete race classification but unfortunately it is yet asked many times as when I had to make my US J-1 Visa in 2011. Hopefully, this tends to disappear nowadays. Yet, here I go... This is also where I classify myself on many aspects: others. I personally think it is worth to be out of a box. So, my way to go is to be singular. If one is, there is no easy/good way to grade, rank or compare as it is singular. Is that bad? Not really. One either likes it or not. That is it. We should let more space to such singularities and put less importance in being normative.
