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New blog, new Life!

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francisco calderon
University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Submitted by francisco calderon on 11 November 2013

What are the chances to come to Europe (actually UK) to do a PhD in plasma physics and suddenly get enrolled in a blog?

Well, it seems that they are high. Although, this depends on the person, the field, and the blog.

The blog, because this is actually a blog to talk about plasma physics and fusion, great and rare.

The person. Well, I am Francisco from Chile, check the flag. Since I started my path to become a physicist I have had very powerful reasons. I decided to study physics when I was 17, yet this decision contradicted all my previous life events.

Honestly, I wasn't the kind of depicted geek student, neither was I a good student. But, I felt a kind and overwhelmingly power force the first time I met a Physicist. After that occasion everything went smooth for me; which means I enrolled myself in a degree, studied a lot, almost made myself a prototype-computerized-machine. It was a funny yet exhausting period; I saw equations, models, theories, programming, more Eq.'s, etc. Then one day, I feared the challenge of choosing a field. Around my fourth year (undergraduate) I was just leaving, breathing, and eating physics it became clear I was empty. There was no light for me at the end of the tunnel!

The field - how plasma physics appeared in my way?

It was a majestic, sub-real, and delightful revelation. I went into a Web surfing that lasted for three whole days. I collected around 300 site's from all around the world containing information about centres, institutes, research labs, among others; they were all related to plasma physics. The key word I used to search was "space physics" and several variations of the phrase, this directed me to a long narrowing process. I had stop classes and meetings, and actually, I left no time to do anything else but finishing that single cause. When it ended I felt tired, hungry, and immensely happy. I had just found my future!

I am here now, in my new life, doing a PhD in plasma physics. This is my third year and I have a plan to finish the PhD around the middle of 2015. So, I will be writing some stories about my life, sorrows, and achievements as I fight to get my degree here at the University of Warwick, UK.

See you soon!

Figure:  My dear friends in the picture are: standing; Luca Comisso, Alberto Mariani, me, Jennifer Vides Higueros and Federica Baffigi, sitting; Brian Taylor and Peter Catto. The place is Culham Centre for Fusion and Energy (CCFE) in Oxford, during the Culham summer school 2012. To visit the page click on the image below.