Bueno gente, se acabó el doctorado. Antes de entrar a la nueva etapa en Roma, les dejo lo más importante de la tésis: los agradecimientos.
Es cierto: hay un huevo de gente que no menciono. A algunos los he incluído dentro de grupos, a otros no les he querido agradecer, y hay algunos que simplemente se me olvidaron. Hay otros que deberían estar aquí, pero que aparecieron por mi vida después de escribir los agradecimientos, en Junio.... Si no leen su nombre aquí, seguramente los he incluído dentro de un grupo, ¡no se preocupen!
También hay gente que no está en las fotos. ¡Tómate fotos más chéveres, pes, chocherita! ¡O tómate fotos en grupo!
Anyway, muchas gracias a Martin Jung por permitirme robar sus fotos. Bueno, lo hice sin que lo supiera, pero vamos, 'tan chéveres y le hago propaganda, ¿qué más puede querer? ¡Y disculpen aquellos a los que les robé alguna foto del
Facebook!
Bueno, va, a practicar inglés. Última vez que les escribo con base en Valencia, cuidense un huevo, gente. Los voy a extrañar una barbaridad.
Joel
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With the whole PhD being a life experience, rather than just an academical one, the list of people who I must thank has become extremely large. Nevertheless, I dare not leave anyone out, for without them I would never have managed to survive this ordeal called "postgraduate studies.''
Let me start with the academics.
The person on the top of the list is, evidently, the Big Boss, my PhD advisor and friend,
Oscar Vives. Not only he accepted me as a student, he also managed to guide me through all of this with patience, having always his door open. His helpfulness was found not only during research, as he many times also helped me deal with bureaucracy and with lectures.
I of course would also like to thank those people who evaluated this thesis. First of all, the people attending the defense:
María José Herrero,
Paride Paradisi,
Werner Porod,
Graham Ross and
Arcadi Santamaría. I greatly appreciate it that you would come all the way from your workplaces over here, and to sit down and listen to me talk about this for an hour. I also need to thank
Ivo de Medeiros Varzielas, who along with Paride Paradisi and Werner Porod, corrected the preliminary version of this work.
This thesis was carried out not only in Valencia. During these four years, I participated in four different international collaborations. I must surely thank the people who agreed to collaborate with me in each stay:
Antonio Masiero in Padova, Werner Porod in Würzburg,
Alberto Gago in Lima, and
José Bernabeu at CERN. I'd also like to thank the institutions themselves, for the warm hospitality found in each one of them.
Still in the academic level, but starting to move also into the private level, I would like to acknowledge the help of some key postdocs in Valencia, who not only provided me with their knowledge and guidance, but also proved to be fabulous friends. Maybe the most important one of these is
Lorenzo Calibbi, with whom I have worked with almost since the beginning of the PhD and who, either in person or by email, provided guidance when solving my inner theoretical turmoils. In this category I must thank again Paride Paradisi, for guiding me in the world of flavour physics and not killing me during those two weeks living together,
Jae-hyeon Park, for teaching me about neutral mesons and for trying so hard to become Italian,
Takashi Shimomura, for listening to my agonizing attempts to make neutrinos misbehave and for those photographs he took every two hours,
Lotfi Boubekeur, for the discussions regarding Higgs mass bounds and for letting me finish my thesis in peace, and
Neil Hodgkinson, for the flavour model collaboration and for giving me hope that my Dad is not the only cool Englishman around.
Now come the acknowledgements of a more non-academical nature. The first ones on this list are my family, naturally.
Mum,
Dad and
Julian, who were always there. They heard all of my issues, they understood me during tantrums, they supported most of my travels back to Perú during Christmas, and have been always open to my phone calls. They have crossed oceans so that we could all meet, have shared meals through a computer screen, and most importantly, have always encouraged me to keep on going, in spite of actually not enjoying having the family split apart.
After the family, come the friends. And thanking all of them is going to be a difficult job, for although I treasure them all, not all of them have been always around. So let me start with my four
pillars, four people who have been around practically from the very beginning, and who have been essential for me to remain sane (although they have also tried many times to get me crazy). I'd like to begin with
Catalina Espinoza, and I know there are simply no words that can describe how meaningful her presence was during the whole of the PhD, so I will simply not try. Then comes
Paula Tuzón, most wonderful friend who opened her arms and let me into her world in Valencia. We have shared working interests, life experiences and a wonderful co-organization of Pedestrian Seminars. On equal terms also lie
Esther Estevez and
Paola Ferrario, although their individual contribution to my well-being went in completely opposite directions. While the former's ever-increasing insanity taught me that being happy can be achieved through simple means, the latter's "sweet affection'' (her words, not mine) never failed to bring me peace.
Now it gets even more complicated to set out an order, so I'll do it chronologically.
Shortly after my arrival at Valencia, I met this wonderful group of people. Almost all of us were forced to follow a dreaded Master's degree (I hear it's better nowadays), and the sharing of the fear and stress made our ties be the strongest. I really would like to thank
Pere Moreno,
Selim Gomez,
Regina Moles,
Pablo Arnalte,
Vicente Lacuesta,
Zahara Gironés,
Carles Milian,
Carlos Mayoral,
Avelino Vicente and
Montse Carles for that year, especially those Thursday nights when you would never let me go home before 1:00 am, regardless of there being work on the next day. I am also happy to have met Paula's friends, in particular
Inma Miquel,
Guillermo García and
Lucía Rodríguez.
The following year I was mostly away. I spent three months in Padova, where I again met very interesting people. The whole Padova experience would never be the same without
Alfredo Franco (the
Weekend-Weather-Controller)and
Alicia Calderón (the
Vampire Killer, a.k.a the
Potato Peeler), who besides my four
pillars are two of the most important people I've met in these four years. I don't expect to ever again find such a source of innocent insanity. The people at the Galileo Galilei residence were also very dear to me, although mentioning them all would be crazy, even for me.
The three months in Padova were shortly followed by four months in Würzburg. The PhD students there have been the friendliest ones I have ever met. I'd really like to thank
Nadine Schütz,
Dolores Eiras,
Thomas Schutzmeier,
Karo Köpp,
Alex Schenkel,
Alex Knochel,
Lisa Edelhäuser,
Flora Sapio,
Christian Speckner,
Laslo Reichert and
Matthias Bräuninger for four fabulous months of German culture. Of course, I am leaving a lot of people out again.
The following long-term period in Valencia was different from the first, as routines had changed during my absence. First of all, I need to thank
Dalia Cervantes,
Yoko Nakano and
Fernando Izaurieta for being there at a particular stage of this period, characterized by the migration of most of the people I knew to the IFIC.
Martin Jung,
Isabella Bierenbaum,
Aurore Courtoy,
Fabio Bernardoni,
Alberto Filipuzzi,
Laura Monfregola,
Vicent Botella and
Javi Rasero have also given me dear memories, or at least make me laugh for one reason or another. I would also like to thank Paola's group of friends for letting me join their activities every now and then, in particular to
Michele Baggi and
Diana Baigts.
Before this long-term period ended, a couple of new people entered again into my life. One of the most important of these is
Nuria Carrasco, whose personality was like a breath of fresh air. Of course, I cannot leave out
Felip A. Nadal, who taught me that it is possible to combine together addictions related to programming, Valencian music, conformal field theory and semi-naked ladies. Other new people who I would have liked to have spent more time with are
Simon Kiesewetter,
Eduardo Peinado,
Redamy Pérez and
Pietro Galli.
And no, I am not leaving my housemates out. First of all, my dear friend
Mary Mancuso, to whom I wish the best of luck in her new life. And of course, the friends for life,
Domenik Gschwendtberger, (a.k.a.
Herr Deutschland, a.k.a.
Schweineburger) and
Aude Barroso (she's simply
ODD). I also hope that
Franzi Niemann, who was our housemate for a weekend, shall maintain this status of lifelong friend too.
Finally, during the final phase of the PhD, I stayed for three months in Genève, where again I was gifted by the presence of unforgettable people. My Spanish experimentalists at CERN (a.k.a. La Peña), Neus López, Luis March, Javi Llorente, Héctor De La Torre and Daniel Esperante, along with Regina Moles and Vicente Lacuesta, taught me that you do not have to be in Spain to discuss politics and/or football with so much passion. Joana Ferrer, Antonino Barbera, Nurit Benaya and Lucy Thompson managed to get me out of the circle of physicists, and I really hope I do not lose contact with them, even though we have known each other for less than two months. I shall also remember with fondness all of those at the St. Justin Foyer. And yes, I am leaving out lots of people, we've gone through this before, right?
There are also the friends who have been there with me at the distance, one way or another. I cannot avoid thanking
Jessica O'Hara for the first two years of the PhD, which although hard, were unique.
Nicole van der Laak and
Catherina Valarezo shared many similar experiences, and our email and Skype conversations were most invaluable.
Luciano Stucchi,
Katty Zegarra and
Francisco Rodriguez were also there, each one in their own way. I need to thanks also the
Putanclan and
Fuga groups (you know who you are), for invigorating me with energy every time I returned to Perú, and making me feel as if I had never left.
Juan Diego Dupuy,
Gonzalo Gallo and
Walter Torres were also crucial in this invigoration process. The people at the PUCP Physics Department have also been quite supportive all of these years.
Mauricio Bustamante is a relatively new friend within this big group of people, and I hope to see him in Valencia sometime soon.
There are some other people who have played some role within these four years. I'd like to thank
Josep Pico for convincing me to apply to the PhD in Valencia. There is also
Fernando Chávez, who helped my parents with the paperwork that needed to be done in Perú while I was away in Valencia.
Going back to Valencia, I should thank the Theoretical Physics Department, for supporting the Pedestrian Seminar project. This also includes the secretaries, who always made an effort to make my life easier... well, at least most of the time.
Now, there's the money. Of course, I need to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education, or whatever it is called nowadays, for trusting me with the FPI scholarship. I would also like to thank the Spanish agreement with the Italian INFN for providing me with funds for travelling to Italy, and the HELEN grant for financing my working trip to Perú.
You can tell I am reaching the end, as now the
bold letters are fading away. I have to thank the organizers of those conferences who allowed me to give talks or present posters. These conferences are DISCRETE'08 (Valencia), the 2009 SILAFAE (Bariloche), PLANCK 2009 (Padova), the EPS HEP 2009 meeting (Krakow) and SUSY 2010 (Bonn). I would also like to thank the GGI Workshop (Firenze) for letting me attend their event in 2010, as well as those at PLANCK 2010 (CERN) and PASCOS 2010 (Valencia).
Finally, I would like to thank this thing we like to call God for staying in touch with me, one way or another, through all of these years.
These four years have been a blast, people. I shall treasure them forever. May the greatest happiness ever experienced invade every corner of your existence.
I love you all.
And now, let the show begin...
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