the beginning

so there i was in my house in Faro at the 4th of April looking for a jobs or PhDs positions at biomech ( the geek site for biomechanics!...with one of those forums: "oh i disagre with you..the center of mass bla bla bla.." lets skip this!)

so yeah..there i was an suddently i found this PhD position at Griffith Uni in the Gold Coast. As I never had heard of such a place I did what i always do: www.google.com....search images: gold coast

chin drop..and i laughed a little bit...LIKE IT!

read the project description..interesting..applied!

well the project supervisor replied really quickly and i was of course surprised. i had applied for several PhDs and almost every single one of them ended after the supervisors checked my CV...

so after several emails and reference letters i was pre-accepted! what?? can't be possible! too good to be possible!

but even better when in one email the supervisor told me: "just pray about it and God will show you what to do". oh you gotta be kidding me!!

then it came the skype interview. it was my first interview on skype so i was kind of worried. if i am not mistaken it was my second interview ever and it was on skype..always different of course. it was scheduelled for 3pm ..australian time! thank you very much! ...5am GMT time zone! "never mind..you can do that..just remember: what are your strong points and weaker ones.." they always ask for that so you better think about that before! i put on my best shirt and pants..woke up at 4.30am and there i was in front of the camera!
because another prof from Uni of Western Australia was on the conference as well there was no video! so i could have just been in my bed lying down!

well they enjoyed my voice and told me to apply! i had already applied for another PhD at Loughborough Uni and got accepted so when i finally applied i had two weeks to confirm the offer at LU or to reject. They told me it would take about 6-8 weeks to decide on my application so I just got on my knees!
and suddently an email from Lboro came: you have until monday to confirm your acceptance. This was the previous monday! I had applied to GU 2 weeks before...i email my supervisor: " i prefer to go there..if you are going to accept me..it has to be this week!"
wednesday...supervisor: " i just came from europe now and i will contact the head of the school"
thursday... supervisor: you got accepted! we just need to discuss the scholarship
friday... supervisor: you have a scholarship! it will pay the international fee ( 24 000 AUSdollars..glup!) and the salary!

THANK YOU GOD!

monday...simao to Lboro Uni: sorry i am going to the land of sun and surf!

oh and funny stuff..here is the description my supervisor made to the head of the school:

1)      Mr Simao Luz is an international student from Portugal 
2)      He has undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Technical University Lisbon 
3)      He is completing a masters of science in Sports Biomechanics at Loughborough University, UK 
4)      Loughborough University is one of the world leading universities in Sports and Exercise Science 
5)      Prof Lloyd can create a full living allowance scholarship from promised ½ GHI and ½ from his current grants, NIH, NHMRC and ARC LP. 
6)      Prof Lloyd needs to recruit suitably trained PhD students into his computational biomechanics research program to establish this at Griffith University. He has only one at the moment. 
7)      For Prof Lloyd’s computational biomechanics research, it highly desirable for PhD students to be trained  in engineering and biological sciences. This is only achieved in an undergraduate and postgraduate (Masters level) training. Mr Simao Luz has this training. 
8)      There is a distinct shortage of such trained students from Australia. 
9)      Simao has just been offered a PhD position at Loughborough University with scholarship, although I believe he would prefer to study for his PhD under Prof Lloyd at Griffith University. 
10)   Griffith University has to act fast to secure a funded PhD position Mr Simao Luz. 


need to be humble!