Hi, my name is Vincent van Unen and I am a cookie-addict.

I have a confession to make. When I first came to Sydney in November I was feeling a bit uncomfortable by not having a social life. After obtaining an accommodation, which as you know was a bit of a struggle to say the least, making new friends was set as a high priority target. So after I moved in, I found myself going to gay bars in order to make new friends. Knowing that I did not have any Facebook friend requests in storage, the expression in my eyes was seemingly interpreted as lonely with a slight touch of despair. Unfortunately, this particular look, in combination with the desperate I-need-friends vibe that was irradiating from my innocent appearance did not go unnoticed by the old, disgusting so-called gay predators. Obviously, as I was going out on my own at that time, I was firstly an easy target, and secondly, was having a rather hard job ignoring them upon confrontation. Even my credits of excusing myself to go to the toilet were running out. I needed a new escape! So, I found my distraction by the smokes vending machine. Every time when a nasty old guy would approach me, I’d excuse myself to go outside for a smoke. As a biomedical scientist, this was of course just a temporary solution until I would have made some friends to go out with and whom presence would be protective. Nevertheless, my unfortunate high levels of likability factor to these men started to coincide with high levels of nicotine intake in the weekends of November and December. I luckily made quite some friends after that period of time and had therefore not touched a cigarette ever since.

However, in January I started having these weird immense cravings for cookies. I am talking about Chocolate Chip cookies, Double Chocolate Chip cookies to be completely honest, Butterscotch cookies, Peanut butter cookies, and every type of Australian TimTam biscuits in store. And for the record, I am not talking about an innocent cookie over coffee. No, I was shamelessly indulging a full package of cookies every night. I would find myself dragging my cookie-deprived body in the supermarket desperately looking for Buy One Get Two special offers. This specific longing for high-sugar content food I was enduring was something totally unknown to me. I have never experienced this feeling in the past. And a disadvantage of being gay and having many female friends is that when I come to them seeking for advice and guidance through my self-destructive path of cookie addiction, they’d tell me: ‘’I know what you mean. I always have these cravings when I am having my period. Or maybe you just are being pregnant!?'' Very helpful, girls. I don’t even have to think about approaching my male friends on this matter. Coming from a gay man, I think it would be very gay stereotypical to ask them while tossing around a rugby ball: ‘’So guys, I am going through this weird phase in which I am eating a lot of cookies. What should I do!?’’ - By the way, not that I would ever play rugby but it made the context sound more masculine -

But before I knew it, this cookie addiction led to another. I have always been rather obsessed about the appearance of my body shape. I tend to be skinny with slight contours of a six pack pressing through my skin. A look I am very comfortable having with. However, over cookie time, these much appreciated contours were consequently being replaced by stretch marks of belly fat. This was totally unacceptable to me. Therefore, I said to myself: ‘’Ok, enjoy your cookies. I know it’s just a temporary phase. However, at least do some damage controls by working-out.’’ I started running 10 km every time the cookie was being stronger than me, which was practically every day. As a result, this made me aside from my need for cookies, also a complete endorphin junkie.

I sat on the porch last night being cranky because I did not go for a run that day, was actively suppressing my cravings for cookies, while wrongfully enjoying the smell of cigarette smoke my housemate was exhaling.

p.s. On the bright side, I haven't been drinking much lately!

the Power of Spinning

A few months ago, I was running in the park on an ordinary Sunday when I ran into DiCaprio movie set the Great Gatsby. I got inspired and started auditioning for films myself. Now I find myself at the release party of my own Short Film the Power of Spinning at AIT in Sydney. Crazy huh!? It was a casual party with cocktail dresses, snacks and drinks. I had not yet seen the movie myself, so I was really excited when it was finally displayed on the big screen. I brought my American housemate Cassie, and Swedish friend Nadja as my guests, and I could shine with my co-star Linda as well. I had so much fun watching the movie, as every particular scene brought back its unique memories of fun and obstacles during the shooting process. I sat on the front row next to Linda and we had laughed a lot. I have the DVD in my possession, so if you would like to see the film don't hesitate to approach me back in the Netherlands!

Saturday I went to Manly Beach, because there was an event going on called Australian Open Surfing. Nadja and I were very curious to see some professional surfer boys in action. Excitingly, this event ended with a concert of the Australian band the Living End, of whom I used to be a big fan of back in my teenager years. I was waiting for years for them to give a concert in the Netherlands. But they just did not come there! Therefore I even went all the way to London with my auntie, who got me addicted to that band, to see their concert live. Now, I was just on a free event at the beach in Sydney; surfers on my right and the Living End on my left. Life is good.

Great start of the day

Last night I went over to Jovanna’s, my kiwi gal, who moved to a new place for five weeks to look after a beautiful apartment at McMahons Point. I was absolutely blown away by the view of this loft on the 15^th floor facing the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Initially, she wanted to cook me a nice dinner but of course we ended up ordering very tasty pizza’s. We hadn’t seen each other for a while so it was nice to catch up while wining and dining. (Confident boys who are out there planning an attempt to tame this lioness, she’s the kind of girl that likes to be wined and dined, as she puts it). Drawn by the view, I accepted her kindly offer to stay over for the night, as she convinced me with her strong argument that it would be a shame for the view to go to waste. Indeed, this view deserves it to be watched. Believe me, I wasn’t just watching. I glanced at it while praying that the particular part of my brain harvesting this memory would gain resistance to future elderly dementia. Actually, it was more like I was trying to actively focus on strengthening my neural memory synapses plasticity, as Science has ruined my perspective of praying. But leaving spirituality aside, the important thing was that the scenery was amazing.

This morning I took the ferry back to Circular Quay to go to work. How crazy is that, taking a ferry to get to work. I was sitting on an open-deck while a soft, gentle morning breeze played with my hair, dampening the wines headache. The ferry wiggled up and down over the bright, blue waves while we were sailing under the Harbour Bridge to be greeted by the marvelous white Opera House. At the wharf, I suddenly realized that the ferry return ticket I purchased yesterday would be invalid today. I was feeling a bit frightened to approach the Ferry Staff on this matter, because in the Netherlands a student with an invalid travel ticket is like raw meat in a cage with lions on the brink of starvation. However, in Australia they abide by the lovely Ozzy life style mentality ‘’No worries, mate’’.

In order to get to the Garvan Institute in Darlinghurst from Circular Quay I had to walk through Central Business District (CBD). I remembered that my housemate Cassie works at a coffee joint on Pitt Street in CBD. So I wanted to surprise Cassie by grabbing a coffee there on my way, also because I was very curious to meet her Russian Boss famous from her stories. It was so funny to finally be able to picture the corresponding faces of her colleagues. I continued my journey with my Latte through Hyde Park. Suddenly, I just felt overwhelmed with happiness. I don’t know what Cassie had put in my coffee, or maybe I was just still a bit illusional from last night’s wine, but I felt great! I walked through Sydney smiling and it struck me again how amazing it really is to be living here. I caught myself saying My City. It was a feeling I recognized from when I was living in Stockholm and I had come back from a holiday in Lappland. I cheerfully passed all the grumpy morning faces of men in suits trying to spread my happiness by throwing smiles at them. At some point it even started to rain and I actually enjoyed it. The smell of wet grass and concrete added something special to my city perception. From a work perspective of view, I also have a lot of reasons to smile for. I successfully redid my 12 hours during experiment that I had failed two weeks ago, and this time it only took me 11 hours. Hence, I am making progress! I am now also at a stage where I am trying to validate the treatment in a new transplantation model by means of skin transplantation. The first results of this experiment are very promising! Well, back to work. Time to annoy my lab colleagues with my happiness.

Sydney Fashion Shoot

I noticed that I have not been producing many blogs lately. This is not because I am being too slack for a good writing session. But the blogging silence is actually explained by the fact that I did not have much to write about last couple of days. I finally feel acquainted in Sydney, and therefore I find myself in a daily rhythm without extreme impressions. Some remarkable things that had happened here include that last week, after I bought myself 100 dollar worth of groceries, I unfortunately slipped and fell down face-first on the concrete with my eight shopping bags. My yoghurt and eggs were among the casualties. More importantly, my face was luckily saved from scratches. You can imagine the inconvenience that this terrible incident occurred during a period of time in which the Short Film was being shot. Any visible damage to my face, including sun-burn and razor blade cuts would have been disastrous! A great deal of pressure for some-one as idiotic as me I'd say. Especially because I feel like I never really controlled the true fine delicate technique of facial shaving.

Another noteworthy update is that I have been working-out a lot lately. This excessive sporting started after I read an article entitled cellular workout, which scientifically stated that they claimed to have found a molecular explanation for the health benefits of exercise: mediated through autophagy, the cell’s recycling system. Now I am the kind of person that if I read exercising is good for your health, explained by cellular terms in a scientific journal, then I’ll take it to extremes and start running 10 km a day. That is exactly what I have been doing the last week.

Also, last Friday night I met up with a former class mate, Nadja, who I know from my days as an exchange student in Stockholm. She just recently moved to Sydney for an internship. We drank some beers in a pub and it was so nice to catch up! All these pleasant memories from Karolinska Institutet came back to me.

Finally, last Thursday I had my final Short Film shooting for the end credits. Once again we had so much fun and I felt really sad about this project's ending. I am so happy that I applied for that audition, because the whole process of the Short Film production was such a great experience. February the 17^th will be the release date of the Short Film which is actually a whole happening. I am expected to wear a casual/formal/smart outfit and I could place friends on a guest list. There will even be an AIT Oscar Award ceremony! I am so curious about the end product of this film. Linda, the actress, and I keep on speculating about this. Funny enough, Linda and I both felt really empty after the final Short Film shooting, as we were not being fabulously spotted in the city surrounded by cameras anymore. We simply missed the spotlights! Therefore, we had decided to take matters in own hands and we had spent the entire day doing a Sydney Fashion Shoot: