Saskia Baltrusch

260 Acknowledgements I had 4 years full of different feelings: happiness, stress, surprises, downs, ups, doubts, hopes, confidence, sadness, proudness and most of all gratefulness. Grateful for all the lovely people being around me that supported me during these 4 years in their own individual way. … at work First, Han , without you I wouldn’t be where I am now. You’re this kind of person who always sees the bright sight, even if there is none :D and I really appreciate that. When I felt lost in my data or my ideas you always believed that everything will find its way to success and that the bad things always turn out to be good in the end. No matter how. I learned so much from you and I am so happy to have had you as a supervisor. I learned to be more relaxed about everything, even though you were sometimes more stressed than I was. And still you always found the time to meet up and discuss. I know I wasn’t easy with my stubbornness and I would apologize If I wouldn’t know that it taught you a lot as well :D Thanks for the freedom I had in this project and to let me try out things that weren’t meant to be in the project. Thanks for your honesty and your openness. Thanks for your trust and a great supervision in the last 4 years. Jaap , I was always impressed with how much calmness and profundity you look at things. Sometimes I came into your office with a problem that felt so big that I thought I will never be able to fix this. And then within 15 mins you could take away these doubts by having a complete different approach to the problem. And I was always thinking How the hell is he doing that? But most importantly I always went out of our discussions with so much new input and inspiration that I thought Why did I even think that was a problem? I felt so lucky having you as a promoter. You handle so many things at the same time and still your door was always open if there were things to discuss. Your research and your way of thinking inspired me a lot and I am glad to had the honour to work with you. Thanks for your support, your input and the belief in me. Thanks for having made these 4 years easier.