Relief

Finally lifted some stress of my shoulders after quite some time of working hard and making deadlines, now a moment of peace. Last monday I delivered an almost final version of my thesis to my graduation committee, and decided that I wouldn't do anything about it anymore this week.

During the meeting today (or most likely beforehand) it was decided that my topic and report were good enough to actually graduate, though with a couple requirement such as more elaboration of applied methods and argumentation!! So, finally I am allowed to finish my college-years. During the meeting also a date was set for the colloqium, and at October 2nd it will happen once the Office of Education Affairs confirms my request.

Pondering about everything

The last few months have been quite a crazy runaway train about to go off its tracks, and this past weekend has been something that my mind was waiting for a long time now. Just heading of for a weekend of camping and travelling with a few friends, staying up late and sleeping under a large tarp in a bivybag. Should do that more often, and maybe go even for a longer time than just the weekend.

It may even be that the book "10 lessons from the road" by Alastair Humphreys has influenced me somewhat in my decisions and actions, just needing some encouragement and motivation back into my mind to get going again. Maybe even to chase the dream of cycling my way back from New Zealand to the Netherlands, instead of flying in March 2010. Guess that my boss wouldn't like it, and my family would also not like it, but something like that is lingering in my mind the last few weeks. How I got the idea of such an adventure? Well, that's quite easy, just by surfing a bit on the web following a link on a blog leading me to Bikeabout.co.uk. Haven't got a clue where I found the link somewhere, but it stayed in my mind and will stay there for quite a while.

Something reminded me of how short a life can be and how fast everything just goes past, just not wanting to be someone that can't be proud of what he's done. Don't want to be a workerdrone! I want to do things that motivate and drive me to do more. More or less this was also mentioned in a song by the Dutch rap-formation Lange Frans & Baas B, "Ik wacht al zo lang" (YouTube).

"Maar als de dood aanklopt en je wereld in mekaar stort,
moet dingen nu doe voor het te laat word.
En daardoor ben ik druk, alles moet vlug,
spacend op het leven op zoek naar het nut.
Je zoekt je rust en beproeft je geluk,
je bouwt iets op maar opeens is het stuk.
Misschien haal ik de 80 of het stopt bij 40,
maar alsjeblieft niet eerder want ik vind het hier nog heerlijk.
Er zijn zoveel dingen die ik nog zou willen,
ik moet het laten weten voor ik weg van in stilte."

This song passed by in my iTunes-playlist while I was writing this blogpost, and it did feel quite appropriate with what I was writing. It may strike you that this is a quite depressive blogpost, but don't worry, I'm not depressed. I guess that writing about it either in a song or in a blogpost helps to get this of my chest.

Some sort of summer holiday

Only about amonth ago I did change my travelplans for my trip to New Zealand, but today finally received the confirmation of KLM by the issue of an e-ticket for the flights vice-versa :). Together with keeping a strict schedule the past few weeks, and upcoming weeks, for writing my thesis, this has payed of by giving me some mental peace. As I will not be going on any long holidays this summer, I have decided that I really have to take a couple weekends of, just getting outdoors, away from my laptop and any work and/or school-related issues.

So to actually take some time off, this weekend I'll be paddling in the Biesbosch with a couple of friends. We'll be camping somewhere in/near the Biesbosch and be having a good time. Unfortunately the meteorologists predict quite a bit of rain this weekend, but I guess we'll manage. Lucky for us, the weather still has a couple of days to make up its mind.... fingers crossed.

Just to get in the spirit of things, the photo above was taken last year in the Biesbosch where our canoeing trip from Nijmegen to Drimmelen ended. I still have fond memories of that trip and the ones -back in 2005 and 2006- that preceded it in Sweden.

New developments

I know that the last time I promised to write something within a week, however it took somewhat longer to find a good appointment for discussing any possibilities for graduation, work and travel. It was only this last Monday that we had a clear discussion of possibilities and opportunities.

With a more constructive planning for my thesis at the moment, the estimation of time it takes to graduate is also a bit more solid. However, I do still depend on my graduation committee to grant me a green light for graduation, thus it isn't that fixed. Currently my aim is to get about a chapter of my thesis done by the beginning of each week (a couple of chapters require two weeks), and working my way through all 6 chapters in logical order. It would mean that by the end of August my thesis would be completed, and can be discussed for another round of "go/no go". In the meantime it is important to keep all people in my committee involved, and provide a founded discussion based on my results. Meeting with them every few weeks would be a good start, however I wonder how that pans out with the summer-holiday in between.

On the other hand I have been given another work-related project to lose myself in from September 1st, that has a hard deadline on December 1st. So, if my thesis-planning really works the first half of September is quite busy, but then I would have my Master's title and a great project for a couple of months.

No, this doesn't mean that I am cancelling my trip to New Zealand, I am postponing it until January. Yesterday evening I arranged my travelplans with a departure on January 4th, 2010 and a return flight on March 7th. This also included a change in flying route, now going from Schiphol to Auckland via Shanghai, instead of Kuala Lumpur. The return flight does take me via Kuala Lumpur, so I will not only visit New Zealand but also the Chinese Republic and Malaysia, however I guess that I won't see much more than the airport terminals.

Yeah, I know, initially my flight was planned for January 6th, 2009, that allowed me to meet up with the rest of the family who were in NZ at that moment... however, cycling in winter was maybe also not the best option. I guess that there are a bit more people on the different campgrounds during the summer, and that the roads are somewhat more accessible for a recumbent cyclist :p. As I am still somebody who does like some grand weather, such as storms, rain, and snow, I will be looking for that on the South Island's west coast and the Southern Alps :). Even thinking about going on a alpine crossing through the snowcapped Southern Alps... makes some nice pictures!

History repeating ...

This is a song by the Propellerheads with Shirley Bassey, but also the feeling that I have currently. Today heard for the third time that my thesis wasn't good enough, still hasn't got the level that is required for graduation. Apparently I am missing clarity in the structure and logics throughout my thesis, while I thought it was clear ...

So, my travelplans are once again in danger of changes ... what once was planned at the start of the year is now almost touching the start of next year (figuratively speaking). Will have to discuss this at work, I just don't want to cancel the entire trip. It would not only mean that I would lose quite a lot of money, but also a great opportunity to explore the world on a bicycle. Will update you guys sometime next week about this.

Tough bike

Yesterday was quite some fun, sometime in the afternoon I got a call from Mark Burgers (A.C.E. Ligfietsen) that my order for tyres had come in ... pretty quick! A friend of mine was in the shop at that moment, and offered to take the tyres back to Enschede for me. How great was that, it meant that I didn't have to go to Winterswijk to get them.

And of course, my bike is now equiped with two Schwalbe Marathon XRs (57-559). Unfortunately one of the fenders didn't actually fit anymore, not because of the width of the tyre but the increased height. The front fender couldn't fit between the tyre and the fork-crown without hitting the rubber. So it meant it had to go, and I will try to figure out another solution for riding in NZ. As this looked bad in comparison to the rearfender that miraculously did fit, I removed the rear SKS fender and replaced it with an old MTB fender that I had initially on the bike. The result can be seen in the image within this post. I think the bike looks now really tough!

However, now back to writing my thesis ... deadline on monday!

Mark Beaumont going on another epic adventure

Apart from working on my thesis, last weekend I also had some time to go over a number of blogposts that I had missed out on in the past time. Through one of those blogs I came across a reference to a guy -Mark Beaumont- who had cycled the world in a record-pace, it took him 194 days and 17 hours! Not something I will be attempting, at least not in that timespan ... a round-the-world trip is still somewhere in my mind, NZ is a nice step up.

On Marks site and his wiki I found out that he has made a TV-series together with the BBC about that trip, so I'll have to find it somewhere. And this week also his book, "The man who cycled the world" is introduced in the UK.

His site also said that he was going for another epic journey, riding from Alaska down to Patagonia. And again, a TV-series is made of this event ... starts to look like the "Long way down/round" series of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, except that Mark is travelling by bicycle and solo :)!

Mark will be updating his blog regularly from the road. I will be following Mark!

And yes, my own trip to New Zealand is again coming up quite fast, and as it is planned now I do not have that much time to prepare once I am graduated (current planning: June 19th). Therefore I am currently trying to find out what to take, and what I still need to get from the store. There is still quite a list of items for me to go through, deciding on taking it or not, meaning for some that it has to be purchased.

I would like to take a tripod with me for some good photos, however most tripods are either heavy and bulky or way too expensive (made of carbon). This weekend I found a nice tripod: the Trek-Tech T'Pod that packs quite small and can handle a DSLR. Most small tripods do not really go together with larger cameras, so a nice point. The disadvantage is that it is a table-tripod, thus not actually high and might call for some creativity. Though, this company also makes some nice monopods with tripod-legs, the Trek-Tech Trekpod series. One of these would also do the trick for me I guess, will have to try one of these sometime soon.

Another item I am considering is an imagebank, for backing up my CompactFlash cards once every while on the road. OK, CF-cards can handle quite a lot, but have lost holiday photos once already due to user-error (pressing the wrong button). And I would like to keep my photos. A candidate might be the Nexto Extreme ND2700, simple but fast and reliable; with a 160GB HDD it would have storage enough to backup the CF-capacity (approx. 22GB).

My bike is now almost fully prepared, as new handlebars were mounted a while ago and new tyres are on order (Schwalbe Marathon XR 57-559, foldable). I got the remark that my fenders most likely would no longer fit with these tyres, but as the fenders are already 60mm wide I think it'll be alright. A couple other points of action that need to be taken here are an oil-change for my Rohloff and shortening the Magura brakelines. Oh yeah, the Pioneer also needs to be cleaned thoroughly ... but as I will be riding it this will be done somewhere in the last days.