Exciting times for me: my proposal for an ERC Consolidator Grant was accepted, and the project will start in May 2025. The full title is “Evaporator: The missing stellar physics component for atmospheric evaporation of exoplanets”. I’m currently hiring new postdocs and PhD students to join the group, and I’m massively looking forward to diving into this project for the next five years. I have to say, it was actually quite nerve-wrecking to do the interview; it was online only (I would have preferred in person), and it took place on October 3rd last year, i.e. on a national holiday here in Germany. So I was all alone at the institute to do my song and dance, with the cellphone number of AIP’s boss of IT saved on my phone in case anything would go wrong with the institute’s internet connection (it didn’t). Also, I did a prep run with the EU office of the Leibniz Community beforehand, and that was really useful. Especially their trial run of a panel interview with sample questions and so on really helped me. Anyway, all that jittery stuff is in the past, and now comes the science!