The second week started out a little hairily, with me using up the last of my milk but only having about 10 Euros in my wallet, not really enough to go shopping with. I splurged on the "essentials" of milk and juice on Tuesday, and fortunately got (the sad remains of) my stipend on Wednesday, a total of 357.57 Euros, enough for groceries for a while, at least.
Monday was my first day of real work, which was very exciting. I was officially introduced to the kneader and began making samples - and quickly discovered what a slow and tedious process it is. The kneader is basically a very hot, very scientific mixing bowl where the different components of my samples (polymer, MAPP, and fiber) were melted down and mixed together to make a more-or-less homogeneous mixture. The frustrating part was cleaning the machine between samples, as it was still very hot and the cooled plastic was often very sticky and difficult to remove. Before any of this, however, I had to figure out how much of each component to add to the mixture, which rather complicated calculation I performed on a Google doc spreadsheet. This summer I really came to appreciate the usefulness of Google docs, as it avoided having to keep my data on a flash drive whereby I could move it between computers. I could get access to the Google doc from any computer with an internet connection, which meant that I could work just as well on my laptop as on the computers in the interns' lab. (This turned out to be especially useful since I forgot my password for the lab computers and it was a couple of weeks before we got that all straightened out and I could log on there.)
Because of these several complications, I only finished two out of my 52 total samples on Monday, but I had use of the kneader for the entire week, so I could only hope that my rate would improve with practice. Monday I got the treat of Wiener Schnitzel and potato salad for summer, a very German meal. At the supermarket you could buy frozen wiener schnitzel cutlets just like you can buy chicken nuggets here in the States, so I often had these for supper since they were both my favorite German food (although they technically originate from Vienna, Austria) and quite easy to make in a frying pan. Monday night was also my first time attending square dance, which I've already told you about. I was quite excited about this opportunity and only regretted that I had left my cowboy boots at home, which would have been the perfect addition to my square dancing outfit (and indeed, many people wore cowboy boots to practice every week, as well as western-themed button-down shirts and belts with large metal buckles). Since dance practice didn't get over until 10, it was quite late (for me) when I finally got to bed, but staying up was well worth it.
Tuesday I was back at the kneader and trying very hard to make the process more efficient, but I still only got through 5 samples before lunch. I then had to spend the afternoon cutting up flax fibers into workable lengths, and using the rubber-handled scissors in the hot, sweaty room wore patches of skin off of my fingers by the time I had finished cutting up the entire 900g of flax. At 5:00 I attended the Praise and Move small group upon Renate's request, although I hadn't quite understood what the group was about when she invited me to it on Sunday. This first week we didn't waste any time but were preparing an African chorus called "No one like Jesus" which we sang in English, German, and French - and Renate informed me that we would perform the song in church the following Sunday, which made me a little nervous, but excited at the same time, because I love to sing. After the small group it was time for youth group, so I stayed for that and met some of the church members who are closer to my age. I understood the pastor's message for the most part and really enjoyed myself there, and was only sad to discover that this would be the group's last regular meeting before summer vacation, so I wouldn't get the chance to attend in later weeks (in Germany, the academic year runs from October to July for college students). This activity kept me up later than usual as well, although not as late as Monday night, and for awhile I almost thought that I would get back into a normal sleep schedule.
Wednesday was my first full, uninterrupted day at the kneader, and as I hoped, I was getting faster. I got 14 samples in between 8:15 and 4:30, finishing one polymer system and moving on to the second which was (thankfully) much easier to chip off of the kneader. After work, at which I received my stipend, I took a much-needed shopping trip and re-stocked my fridge with necessary foodstuffs like hamburgers, bread, and fruit, but also a couple of treats like ice cream. One thing which I was very pleased to find this summer was that Germans have excellent ice cream, better than in the States, and I frequently took advantage of this specialty. I also purchased cleaning supplies for my room and swept my floor, which had become amazingly dirty in only 10 days. I tried harder after that to take my shoes off at the door of my room, but the unprecedented amounts of hair I was shedding, from stress or malnutrition or whatever other reason, meant that I always swept up a substantial dirt pile on my weekly cleaning sprees.
Thursday was much like Wednesday, with me finally finding my "groove" for the kneader and producing 15 samples between 8 and 4:30. After work I took care of some administrative things, such as calling my parents for the second time from Clausthal (I also discovered a way where I could use my computer to call American land lines/cell phone numbers at no cost, which made contacting my parents easier as we could avoid dealing with their uncooperative Skype) and starting to make plans with a German friend of mine from Princeton whom I very much wanted to visit while in his country. Exhausted from my several later nights, I fell into bed at 8 and immediately fell asleep.
Friday I hit a snag as the new polymer system I was working on proved to be much harder to clean than the others and required a higher processing temperature, making the entire room hot and sweaty to work in. I also found that I hadn't quite prepared enough flax to make all of my samples, and these setbacks caused me to give up for the week, frustrated, when I came to a good stopping place a little after 2:30. Leif always left around lunchtime on Fridays, and once he was gone I lost much of my motivation to keep working late into the afternoon, not to mention I was wont to come in earlier than most of the interns anyway. On this particular Friday I had a good reason for stopping early, however, as Renate had invited me to a Women's Retreat with the church that weekend and was picking me up at 3:45.
When Renate picked me up, we drove about fifteen minutes outside the town to a small retreat center down a dirt road. It took us a while to find everyone else, but eventually we spotted them on the porch of one of the cabins. There were only about five other ladies there, and at first I thought that this was because we were early or something, but ti turned out that the church is so small that only about seven women came to the retreat at all. We spent the first couple of hours chatting as we waited for the last partaker to arrive. Other than introducing myself, which by this time was old hat to me, I chose to sit and listen to conversations rather than try to participate in them, because these women already knew each other so I would have relatively little to contribute anyway. Apparently they took my voluntary silence as an inability to communicate, because one or two of them would occasionally ask whether I could understand them, to which I truthfully replied that I was getting about 90%. Overall, they, like the others I had encountered, were shocked that an American with no family ties to Germany could speak so well (I think I did my country proud this summer, and certainly tried my hardest to dispel the stereotype of the stupid, arrogant, monolingual American), and I would respond as politely and completely as I could when questions were directed at me. Eventually we tired of waiting for this other lady and decided to go for a walk. The countryside around the retreat center was gorgeous, as is the case around Clausthal in general. We walked on rough roads and trails through the woods and along a couple of Teichs (a small lake with a dam and a water wheel at one end for generating power), and I took some pictures of the beauty. The youngest woman there, who was still around ten years my senior (the rest were all my mother's age or older), started a conversation with me in which she inquired about my life, my studies, and my boyfriend. I often found the limits of my German vocabulary in that particular conversation, especially when attempting to describe my boyfriend - I kept coming back to "He's really super nice" because I didn't know the words for "thoughtful", "wonderful", "kind", "amazing" and so forth. After our little walk, the last participant finally arrived in time for us to enjoy a cookout of sorts. It was "bring your own food", but Renate thankfully had brought some Wurst that I could share, so I didn't have to go hungry. By the time we finished eating, the sun had begun to set, so their plans for having a teaching session and introductory activities were cut short. Renate spoke briefly on relationships, then we broke for the night. I realized during Renate's teaching that I was only understanding about 75% of what she was saying, and decided that I would really be better off staying home the next day instead of returning for the rest of the retreat. I also didn't want to get in the way of the ladies' understanding and being blessed by the teaching and discussions in which I would be more of a burden than anything as I required extra explanations and repetition. However, I enjoyed a good conversation with Renate on the way back from the retreat center (she would also spend the night at home and return in the morning) about the things she had mentioned and some relationship issues I had been dealing with in my own personal devotions and thought life. I am very glad I went to the retreat, and I did learn a few things.
Saturday, now freed up by not returning to the retreat, ended up not getting much done. After the busy weekends of Princeton in Munich, it was nice to have some days with no expectations when I could just relax, even if it made me feel guilty for being so unproductive. I worked a bit on some of my summerlong projects (though probably not as much as I should have). My one treasure of the weekend was discovering the "Amazon Kindle for Mac" app in the App Store and the wealth of free classic books available on Amazon - I must have downloaded 40 novels, quite ambitiously (in my defense, I read at least 7 of them during the course of my internship). This, understandably, also ate up a big chunk of my Saturday, but at least it made the prospects of the rest of my summer much more appealing.
Sunday the weather was beautiful and we performed "No One like Jesus" in front of the entire congregation - it came off surprisingly well and we were quite proud of ourselves. I was also officially "welcomed" into the congregation on this Sunday (since everything was so hectic with the baptism the week previous) with a bag of candy and a brochure introducing the church, which I saved to read later and never did :P After the service I called Leif and got quite lost trying to find his house (I knew I was going the wrong way when I almost wandered into someone's backyard where they were having a cookout O.o), where he had a bicycle waiting for me, a hybrid street and mountain bike that had stood in his garage unused for three years. When I had inquired about obtaining a bicycle for the summer, which I very much wanted to do as it increased my mobility at least tenfold, he graciously offered to lend me this one and I was ecstatic about not having to spend any money on a such a temporary convenience. It was interesting, to say the least, riding the bike back in my Sunday sundress, but I made it without mishap. The frame of the bike was really too big for me and the tires too thin to do the kind of riding I know I would tend to, and the rear gear shifter didn't work (I later discovered that it suffered from a loosened spring that I couldn't fix), bringing the bike from a 21-speed down to a 3-speed, but it was a bike and I was content. All the problems with the bike didn't stop me from having adventures with it, as you will read hereafter. The other big activity of Sunday was making a week's supply of shepherd's pie (or a normal amount for a five-person family, which is always what I had made), which is about the most complicated meal I made in the summer (and yet lived as frugally as possible and didn't tire of my variety - I might just make it this year, being independent!). And so ended my second adventure-filled week in Clausthal.
Well, I can't promise that I'll ever finish this blog, especially since I head back down to Princeton the day after tomorrow. But I'll keep trying, and you may eventually hear about all of my shenanigans - if you're lucky.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Week 1
**Note: Sorry about the wonky formatting on this post. I originally wrote some of it in TextEditor at the airport and apparently that messed with the specs - I've tried several times to unify it but eventually just gave up (it looks all the same in my edit window but not on the published page). I will try to remember only to write in Blogger from now on :P.**
So, now that I've given you a run-down of the different aspects of my life as it was here in Clausthal, I shall proceed with a short summary of each week, filling in any anecdotes or lessons that I learned from week to week, including my occasional weekend travel.
So, now that I've given you a run-down of the different aspects of my life as it was here in Clausthal, I shall proceed with a short summary of each week, filling in any anecdotes or lessons that I learned from week to week, including my occasional weekend travel.
You've already gotten a pretty good, though scattered, picture of my first 24 hours or so in Clausthal; Leif picked me up from the bus station, drove me to the Wohnheim (I was just glad not to have to carry my absurdly heavy bags anymore), then showed me quickly how to get to the Institute before leaving me on my own to settle in. I unpacked and organized my room to my satisfaction, and cooked a supper of frozen veggie stew thickened with instant mashed potatoes before turning in for the night, early as was my wont. Monday morning I slept in til 7, exhausted from my traveling of the day before (and not having slept very well on the worn-out goosefeather pillow). Not having done any shopping yet, my breakfast was a PB&J sandwich and some tea (I actually ate an astounding number of peanut butter and jelly or nutella sandwiches for not being in America - it was my typical lunch) before I headed down to the institute at 8:15, armed with my questions. After surprising me with his helpful answers to all of my inquiries, Leif made the rounds with me and introduced me to all of the coworkers with the same spiel, which I had memorized by the time we got through: "This is Erin, she is a RISE student from the USA, here for 8 weeks to work on a research project with natural fibers." Then we sat down in Leif's office, he looked at me and said, "So, what do you want to do your project on?" Now THIS was a question that I was definitely not prepared for. I thought that Leif was going to put me on a project of his to help him out with grunt work, and he would do all the concluding and heavy thinking (what can I say? this is my first internship). So I uncertainly answered, "Whatever you want me to do?" but that wasn't good enough for Leif. He gave me a very quick, very basic introduction to natural fibers and FRC, and then told me that I would have to do background research to figure out what was already known and what needed to be explored so that I could come up with a decent project to occupy myself for the next eight weeks. Having shaken me with this revelation, he deigned to let me go for the rest of the day to take care of various administrative duties, such as posting a Facebook status that I had arrived safely (which my boyfriend suggested I do. This is a new concept to me, as my parents never insisted upon such confirmation when I was growing up, mostly because we never had any way of making such confirmation in the days before cell phones and Facebook), registering and receiving a student card at the international center, setting up an account for the university wi-fi (though this only exists in the academic buildings, so the vast majority of the time I relied on an Ethernet cable for my laptop, and setting up this account was also of first priority on that day), finding the Deutche Bank ATM in town to withdraw money (another 500 Euros, which smarted quite a bit), then proceeding to the Student Help Center to pay my 300-Euro down payment on my apartment, as well as my first installment of rent. Although I did not arrive in Clausthal until the 26th, my room was rented to me from the 20th of June to the 31st of August, meaning that I had to pay almost three week's extra rent. At 255 Euro/month, that's no small thing! With my wallet significantly lightened, I proceeded to the grocery stores to do some serious research. I walked up and down every aisle of Aldi and Marktkauf, examining the wares. When I saw something that I might be likely to buy, I noted the price, so that when I was finished I could make a thorough price comparison and know for sure that I was always getting the best deal on my groceries (as far as choosing between the two most convenient grocery stores could guarantee me). This was mostly motivated by my tight money situation, but knowing myself and the stellar example of my frugal coupon-clipping, bargain-hunting mother, I think I might have done it regardless.
After taking care of all of my administrative "chores", it was suppertime, so I returned to my room to continue using up the random collection of food that I had acquired in Munich. This meant that my supper was very typically German as I prepared wurst (Germans love wurst. I don't see what the big deal is - they're basically hot dogs) and potato salad. The weather on this first day was hot and sunny, which I liked, but I was warned by my fellow Princetonian that this is anything but typical for Clausthal, and I was soon to find that she was correct :P I also continued my "early to bed, early to rise" habit for most of the summer, easy since I never really involved myself in any social activities with the other interns.
Tuesday was a research day - I read no less than fifteen articles that I had found on the topic of natural-fiber-reinforced plastics, their possibilities and tried combinations. This took all day, of course, and at the end of the day I checked in with Leif and asked for more clarification on one of the questions that I had had - horses. As you've already read, it wasn't long after that that I was accompanying Mirjam to the stables and enjoying German hospitality. Unfortunately that ended up being my only trip to visit the horses, due to the horrible weather for the entire month of August and the latter half of July, one week of me being sick, multiple weeks which were shortened by weekend travel, and scheduling conflicts at the end when Mirjam and I weren't available on the same day. But it was fun that one time, and helped fend off the chronic loneliness and longing for contact with horses which inevitably besets me during summers when I can't get up to Living Waters camp where I served in the barn for six summers.
Tuesday was a research day - I read no less than fifteen articles that I had found on the topic of natural-fiber-reinforced plastics, their possibilities and tried combinations. This took all day, of course, and at the end of the day I checked in with Leif and asked for more clarification on one of the questions that I had had - horses. As you've already read, it wasn't long after that that I was accompanying Mirjam to the stables and enjoying German hospitality. Unfortunately that ended up being my only trip to visit the horses, due to the horrible weather for the entire month of August and the latter half of July, one week of me being sick, multiple weeks which were shortened by weekend travel, and scheduling conflicts at the end when Mirjam and I weren't available on the same day. But it was fun that one time, and helped fend off the chronic loneliness and longing for contact with horses which inevitably besets me during summers when I can't get up to Living Waters camp where I served in the barn for six summers.
Wednesday morning I checked back in with Leif and we discussed what I had found in my research and what else I needed to search for in order to refine my topic. Then he sent me off with another of the American RISE interns to be introduced to a process called Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion, or VARI for short, which is one of the methods for making composite samples. It wasn't a method that I used in my project, except for one week when I had nothing to do and Leif was trying to keep me occupied, but it was interesting to learn about. This took the entire morning, and in the afternoon Leif shipped me off to sit in on a German-taught class on creep behavior. I was surprised at how much I understood, until I realized that I already knew the material and was only connecting my previous knowledge to the sporadic words and phrases which I recognized. This once again made me unsure about taking classes on new material taught in German. The class also involved running an experiment and analyzing the data on computers using MATLAB, which made me glad that I was already familiar with the program as it counterbalanced the disadvantage of working in my second language. This successfully took up the rest of my time at the institute for that day, however, and I was then free to return home for a supper of chicken and vegetables in gravy (kind of like chicken pot pie without the pot pie) before another early bedtime.
Thursday brought more research and a break in the up-to-then beautiful weather. Leif was gone at a conference, so I didn't have to go in to the institute, which I didn't except for an introduction by Audrey, the other intern from Princeton, to the kneader, a machine that I would actually be using quite a bit in my project. I was glad to finally get an introduction to something useful and paid careful attention, though it turned out afterwards that I still needed a run-down by one of the coworkers before I was officially allowed to use the machine. I also went shopping for some more things I had discovered would be quite useful, including a dish towel and a throw pillow to supplement my sad goose-down monstrosity. This summer taught me a lot about which household goods are really necessary and convenient and which are really redundant: a dish towel being one of the former, and paper towels belonging to the latter category. Supper this night was about as German as it gets with fried Wiener Schnitzel and potato salad - have I mentioned how much I like German food?
Friday finally brought some tangible progress as Leif helped me form a definitive project with goals, process, and hypothesis. I was ecstatic when I finally got to start doing some useful, productive work as well by washing the flax fibers I would be using in my composites. I set them in the oven to dry over the weekend and returned to my room after my first complete week of work (which really didn't seem like I worked at all, but it was to get a little better in coming weeks). I was also exposed to more of Leif's incredible helpfulness as he lent me an old microwave for the summer, one that he apparently just had hanging around in his basement. Although the machine was obviously from the early 90s, it still worked well and made dinners immensely easier on many a night (leftovers + microwave = 2-minute prep time). Supper this night was spaghetti, in which I added the last of the wurst (it was better this way than eaten straight, although less German). I also found and watched "Inglourious Basterds," a movie that I had been wanting to see for a while. It was an excellent movie, if a little bloody, and I only wish that I had had someone else to watch it with.
The weekend was incredibly uneventful, as the cold and rainy weather eliminated any possibility of going outside to explore the area. I spent the two days in working on various computer projects and getting in contact with friends and family. This was also the Sunday when I first attended the church which would become my spiritual home for the summer, which I've also written about previously. While I came to the weekend with not much to show for it, it was also nice to have a couple of days to relax and adjust to my new routine in contrast to the activity-packed weekends of the Princeton in Munich program.
Okay, my biggest challenge with these "weekly summaries" is going to be avoiding tedium, I see. I can only hope that I will realize that it is in both my and your best interest not to record the minutia of daily life, because it means less for me to write and for you to read. Let's see how well I do with the next seven weeks!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Family of God, All Over the World
Anybody who knows me knows that religion is a big part of my life. God isn't just someone who I go visit on Sundays and try to keep happy by throwing Him some money every once in a while; He's my closest friend, wisest counsellor, faithful provider, eternal savior, traveling companion, and the lover of my soul. I love Him, and by His grace, I love His people. So it was only natural that I should try to find a church to attend while I was here in Clausthal. I hadn't had the time to go to church in Munich because we were doing something every Sunday morning (although I did go when we were in Berlin), but I expected that my weekends would be much quieter here in Clausthal, especially since I didn't have very much money to go around traveling. I prayed about finding a good church similar to Calvary Chapel and Westerly Road, where the people read the Bible and loved God and I would find good fellowship. My prayers were answered with surprising swiftness when I was going shopping on my first day here and noticed a building next to Marktkauf which had a dove on the sign. Upon closer investigation I discovered that it was, indeed, a church, and looked to be one of the modern, casual, back-to-the-Bible variety with which I was so familiar. I decided to attend the next Sunday and find out whether this would be my church home for the summer.
Now, when packing for the summer, I was definitely thinking more about Munich, and the fact that it is summertime, than about the fact that I would be working in a lab. Therefore I only packed two pairs of jeans, which was definitely a mistake. I (of course) have to wear long pants in the lab, but neither do I want to be doing laundry every week, since I have to pay for it here. So anytime when I don't have to be wearing jeans, I don't, even if the weather should convince me otherwise. All this is to say that when that first Sunday came around, I happily dressed up in one of the several dresses I had brought to Germany (way too many, in hindsight) and trotted off to church in my dress shoes, even though it was sprinkling and chilly. The service started at 10, so I planned to get there around 9:40. When I arrived I was one of the first ones there, which I didn't count TOO strange as the people in my church NEVER arrive on time for service. However, as the time drew nearer and more people showed up, no one seemed to be heading into the sanctuary, and I became more and more confused. I was too shy to ask anyone, however, nor confident that my German would suffice to explain my confusion. I kept waiting for someone to notice that I was new there and introduce themselves to me, but though I got some puzzled looks, no one offered anything more than a "Hallo". Finally, a middle-aged woman came in, shook my hand in greeting, and asked me if it was my first time. Grateful to have someone pay attention to me at last, I responded that it was, that I had come here alone after seeing the building on my shopping trip, and wasn't sure what was going on. She smiled and explained that this day they were having a "Taufe", which is why no one seemed to be getting ready for service. I didn't remember what a "Taufe" was except that it sounded an awful lot like "Täufel", which is the word for Devil. The very nice lady told me to stick with her and she would take me where I needed to go, so I didn't ask any more questions, but put my jacket back on and followed her out to her car in the rain. During the drive she and her husband asked me if I went to church in the States, and what it was like. I tried to describe Calvary Chapel, but that's hard enough to do in English and requires quite a bit of specific "Christian" vocabulary, and I didn't know this in German. For instance, I was asked if my church was "evangelisch", which I translated as Evangelical. Yes, I responded, but then they asked if I everyone had to dress up for services and other questions that made it sound like "evangelisch" was more like orthodox, which Calvary Chapel certainly is not. When we arrived at our destination I suddenly remembered what a "Taufe" was, as I saw the people gathered on the edge of a lake. We were here for a baptism! Everything suddenly made sense to me, and my guide explained that they had planned to have service outside at the lake as well, but since it was raining they would relocate back to the sanctuary after the baptisms. The baptism ceremony was very similar to how we do it at Calvary Chapel (except that we baptize in the ocean in the summer and in a giant cow trough in the winter :]), with the pastor asking for a confession of faith from the people being baptized, and then gently dunking them under the water "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". We sang a song or two, including "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" (in German), then headed back to the church. We had had to walk through some grass and a dirt path and my legs had gotten mud-spattered, so Renate, as I later learned her name, brought me to the kitchen in the back of the church to help me clean up a bit before the service. Then we all gathered in the sanctuary, sang a few songs (one of which I recognized as being translated from an English song we sing at Calvary Chapel), and heard a message. Everything was in German, except for one of the songs which we sang in English, so I didn't understand the sermon completely, but I got the basic meaning. After the sermon there was a full-out meal for the congregation, complete with potato salads, meats, drinks, and desserts. Renate sought me out again and talked to me more, and I gave her the by now well-practiced spiel about where I came from and what I was doing in Clausthal. She was very friendly and happy that I had found the church, and promptly invited me to a small-group meeting on Tuesday. Since I didn't really have anything else to do, I agreed to come, even though I wasn't quite sure what it was all about (I just heard something about singing). I left the church at around 1pm, head spinning, but very happy to have found a place to call my spiritual home for the summer.
As I later found out, the church is a small, independent, pentecostal church. I have always been wary of charismatic churches because of the abuses that so frequently occur in America, with people jumping and dancing in the aisles during worship and "speaking in tongues" in the middle of the sermon. However, this church was not nearly as chaotic as I had always imagined a pentecostal church to be, and I was very happy with their style, which is actually quite similar to my home churches in the States. The congregation is small, not more than 100 people, and the age ranges from students like myself to young families to people in my parents' generation (there didn't seem to be many gray heads in the service - I suppose the church isn't 'traditional' enough for them). It is a very international church, partly because of the large proportion of student attenders (which I didn't get a very good idea of, since it is the summer and most of the students are at home unless they are international students for whom it is too far to go home), but there are also several families from Africa.
The international aspect of the church was really brought home to me when I attended the small group "Praise and Move" on Tuesday. Turns out it is a group which meets weekly to practice praise songs from all over the world, which they occasionally perform for the church during Sunday services. The first week I was there, they were working on an African song called "There's No One Like Jesus", which we sang in English, French, and German. I picked up the simple lyrics quickly enough and gladly joined in, but was a little nervous when Renate mentioned that they would try to perform the song on the following Sunday. It was great fun when we did it, however, and it went off well, and I smiled at the fact that on my second Sunday attending the church I was already at the front helping lead worship. Guess it pays to be friendly and take every opportunity afforded you! After that I gladly attended "Praise and Move" every week, and near the end of the summer we performed another franco-African song, "Jesus est mon ami", which I convinced another member of the congregation to video for us. In the "Praise and Move" group we had a Philippino woman, a couple of people from Ghana, three Indonesians, someone from the Cote d'Ivoire, me representing the Western Hemisphere, and even a young Vietnamese man who sort of stumbled upon our practice and was prevailed upon to join us, in addition to Renate and another couple of Germans. We all spoke German together, but my German was actually better than that of several of the group members, which they (as usual) marveled at and whined about a little bit. I guess I'm a living plug for Princeton's language education, if after nine months I can speak better than people who've been living in-country for years.
Immediately after the "Praise and Move" was the youth group meeting, which I unfortunately only got to attend twice before they stopped meeting for the summer. There I met another couple of Germans my age, including Renate's son Tobias, who speaks decent English and likes to joke around. Everyone was quite friendly and welcoming, as has been my unilateral experience here in Clausthal.
One of the church's traditions that I grew especially fond of was the "Kaffee & Kuechen" after the Sunday morning service, presumably provided by congregation members in a sort of rotation. Every week there would be about half a dozen types of desserts and pastries out for the congregation to enjoy while they fellowshipped after the service. The church can get away with this because it is such a small group - it reminded me of Women's Bible Study back home, and made me realize the advantages to a small church. During this time I met many other of the congregation members, and was able to share about my spiritual background and tentative plans for returning to Germany someday, as well as listen interestedly to whatever they wanted to talk about. A few people approached me claiming that they wanted to practice their English, but in most cases my German was better and besides, I'm here to learn, not to teach. My contacts through the church became very useful at times and I'm convinced that it was another way God was providing for me - once I missed the last bus of the evening coming back from a weekend excursion, but a quick phone call to Renate and her husband picked me up from the bus station 16km away without needing to hear any more. Another time, I needed to take a train very early in the morning to go visit a friend in another city, and was resigned to the fact that I would have to ride my bike the long and dangerous road to the train station. When I happened to mention this to Renate, she immediately exclaimed that there were people in the congregation who lived in Goslar right by the train station, so it would be really unnecessary for me to have to ride there when I could just stay overnight with them. I'll give you more details about that particular adventure later, but it set a new standard in my mind for German hospitality.
On my last Sunday in the church, the pastor approached me and asked if he might call me up to the front to pray for me before I left, to which I gratefully agreed. Several of the elders in the church came up and laid hands on me, and they all prayed that I might have a safe journey back and enjoy God's blessing in the coming school year, for which I was very touched and thankful. I know that God heard their prayers, and I will certainly lift up the little "Pfingstgemeinde" in Clausthal in turn. I know, at least, that if I ever return to this area of Germany, I will have a place to stay and friends to see should I choose to come visit Clausthal. I plan to stay in touch with the Eschmanns (Renate, Frank, Tobias and Tabea) and hope that I do, but even if life comes between us, I know there will be a joyful reunion someday in Heaven, where not even the language barrier will separate our fellowship. As one of the students from the "Praise and Move" group remarked, he will be sure to find me in Heaven, because all he will have to do is follow my laugh. :)
Bow to your partner...
One of my other questions to Leif on that my first day concerned the opportunity to involve myself in dancing in the area. While not being naturally endowed with any particular grace of motion, I have always been a rather active (I prefer this term as being more fitting than "athletic") person. When I first began my journey at Princeton I was enamored by the multitude of both dance and a cappella groups on campus, and purposed to get involved with both during my time there. I had no previous dance experience (the closest I had come was a couple of years of gymnastics as a young child and swimming lessons throughout my youth, culminating in two years on the high school swim team), so I had little chance of making it onto any of the audition-only dance squads, however, there were still several opportunities for which I needed little skill. I immediately sought to become involved in the Ballroom Dancing club, and attended beginner lessons sporadically for the first semester. However, there are nearly always more females than males in beginning dance courses, and the frustration of being repeatedly left without a partner (not being aggressive enough to snatch one of the few boys who did dare to attend) finally caused me to throw in the towel until I found a partner. This I thought I had managed in the person of Alex, a wonderful friend of mine who was also president of the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship (and a fine catch in the opinions of most of the female membership of the group). Alex is a gentleman in the traditional sense of the word, and a staunch defender of all things manly (including bacon, Lord of the Rings, bacon, swordfighting, and bacon, to name a few). Thus it came as little surprise to me that he was also highly interested in learning the fine (and very manly) art of ballroom dancing. I extracted a promise from him at the end of my freshman year to be my dance partner in the fall, and went off to my summer adventures quite content. We were foiled in this venture, however, by the unfortunate scheduling of beginner lessons on Friday evenings during Princeton Evangelical Fellowship's weekly assembly. The president of the organization couldn't very well abandon the group meetings to go dancing, so though we managed to attend a few "makeup" lessons scheduled throughout the week, we were never able to attend regularly enough to feel anything other than embarrassed and unqualified. However, it was in the fall of my sophomore year that I discovered the Princeton Swing Dance club which met weekly on Wednesday nights for lessons and free dancing, and fell in love. Not only was this dance more free and rhythmic than the strict technique of ballroom dance, it was created to be danced to jazz music, which is one of my favorite genres. One of my main challenges came with the spontaneous nature of the dance, which clashed firmly with my controlling, OCD, Type A nature which wants to know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing every moment so that I can know that I'm doing it well. However, after much (sometimes agonizing) practice I learned the art of relaxing, enjoying myself, and listening to the guidance of my partner, and with a good enough lead I can actually appear to be (though it may be only an illusion) a reasonably skilled dancer. Several months before my boyfriend and I started dating, I began dragging him along to swing dance (not unwillingly, but reluctantly as he was shy to be "not as good" as the other dancers there). I, in my turn, accompanied him to Contra and English Country dances as frequently as our busy Princeton schedule would allow us to attend them. I had discovered the local country dance group which hosted these dances when they came during OA Leader Orientation Week, prior to the Orientation camping trip which I helped lead, to host a Contra dance as entertainment for the leaders. The August air lay hot and muggy inside the gym, but heedless of it, we danced our hearts out until the sweat poured down our faces and backs, and I fell in love with the energetic, nearly frantic pace of Contra dancing. Unfortunately their weekly events are also held on Wednesdays, in direct conflict with Swing, but they occasionally also have Saturday dances which we can attend.
So I was looking with some reluctance towards my summer which I saw as being quite empty of dancing. I was in luck, however, because another member of the Princeton in Munich program was a much more avid swing dancer than I, and I have already detailed to you how she dug up several swing dance events for us to attend while we were in Munich. I scoured Google for similar opportunities in Clausthal, but I think this town is just too small for that kind of young city-dweller type of activity. Nonetheless my sharp eyes had not failed to notice the shirt that Leif was wearing on the day he picked me up from the bus station and how it had the logo and name of a dance group emblazoned upon it. Therefore I asked with a great deal of hope after opportunities for dancing in the area. Leif informed me that he was a former ballroom dancer and instructor himself, but my previous experiences with ballroom led me to only smile nervously at the prospect of trying to learn this strict art in another language. Then Leif mentioned, with a slight tone of disdain that I could hardly blame him for in his position, that there was a Square Dance group in the neighborhood. I, in his words, "ausgeflippt" (seriously, that's the German word for "flipped out" ;D). Not a minute later he was behind his desk typing furiously on his computer, and very soon he pulled up the website for the Harzer Country Dancers. He pointed out to me that they met weekly, on Mondays, having first one hour of square dance lessons, then one hour of line dancing, and concluding with an hour of hearty square dance. I was very eager to join in this most American of pastimes and somewhat assumed that my few experiences of square dancing (the annual PEF Hoedown and a square dance on a family vacation two summers prior) would be sufficient to keep me afloat in a dance which I imagined consisted mostly of "bow to your partner"s, "do-si-do"s, "promenade"s, and other such trivial movements. I was soon to find that I was quite wrong.
As usual, Leif knew just whom to call to find me a ride to where I was going, and the next Monday I walked to a Shell gas station near the Wohnung to meet a blue Honda whose driver would take me to the dance hall. (I've had more "blind dates" of this nature this summer than ever before, and I can't imagine being bold enough to go through with any of them without the enthusiasm, trust, and sense of adventure which my wonderful experience and friends from two years at Princeton have taught me. I'm so glad that I have, though, or I would have missed out on so many experiences.) Her name was Rita, and she was friendly and talkative as we drove the ten minutes to Buntenbock, the next village over. She asked me if I had any prior experience in line or square dancing, and, recalling middle school gym classes of dancing the Cotton Eye Joe and Electric Slide, and the aforementioned square dance experiences, I ventured an uncertain yes. We arrived after the square dance lesson, unfortunately, or I perhaps could have saved some of my dignity and received a bit of a warning of what was to come. As it was, I quickly learned that the line dances this group practiced were significantly more involved than the simple ones I had learned. Nonetheless I stood in a corner and watched carefully, and when a dance seemed simple enough that I could reasonably get the hang of it, I would step to a spot in the formation least in the way and, eyes fixed firmly on the feet of the person in the group who seemed most comfortable with the pattern, attempt to mimic. I got a couple of them down passably, though I can't say that I would remember how to dance them on my own. It was enough, however, to impress the other members of the group, who repeatedly approached me and asked how I already seemed to know several of these dances, to which I replied with a blush that I had never seen them before but was just mimicking what I observed. As happened many times during my first few days in Clausthal, my background and reason for coming to such a small and "off the beaten path" town were inquired after, and my language proficiency (after it being revealed that I had studied German for less than a year) remarked upon and admired. At first the people were reluctant to speak to me in German, and a few who knew English addressed me in it, but I always responded in German to the best of my ability and they soon accepted that I could understand just about everything they were saying, even if I didn't always know how to respond. All of this served to inflate my pride somewhat, but all of my haughty self-confidence was about to come crashing down as the hour of line dance came to an end and it came time for square dancing.
Now, I've always been too shy to ask a guy to dance, my boyfriend being the only exception, and that only recently. So my strategy is to stand near the edge of the dance floor and look hopefully and expectantly out onto the festivities, hoping someone will take pity upon me and ask. It was the same here, but since I was new one of the older members of the group graciously extended his hand to me at the first dance. I was fairly quivering with excitement as we stood in formation and I heard the familiar, "Bow to your partner; your corner too"... and then things fell apart. The caller was ostensibly speaking English, but half the time I couldn't make out what he was saying - and even when I could, it was unfamiliar commands like "Tag the Line" or "Weave the Ring" or "Two Ladies Chain." Sometimes the move was self-explanatory, such as "All Face In" (and even that's a little ambiguous - how do you define "in"?) but more often than not it was something completely not intuitive (how does one describe a "California Twirl"?) I quickly became completely lost but tried to put a brave face on it and keep alert, trying to disturb the flow of the dance as little as possible by looking desperately to my fellow dancers for clues. When a move was called and I was forcibly moved into the correct position (which happened more often than not) I would try to remember what that meant, but so many of the calls were so similar! How was I supposed to remember the difference between a "Swing Through", "Pull Through", "Pass Through", "Slide Through" and "Turn Through"? I wasn't completely horrible - I recognized a couple of moves (Allemande Left, Do-Si-Do, Swing and Promenade) but the vast majority of the time I would respond to a command with a blank look and a nervous giggle. Sparing you any more agonizing details, suffice it to say it turned out to be a very embarrassing and disorganized dance because of my incompetence. When the entire thing was finally over, I retreated shamefacedly into the corner. One of the callers soon followed me over and said, very slowly and clearly (in German), "Do you understand me?" When I assured him, blushing, that I did (he must have chalked my blundering up to an inability to understand the commands - I wish I could have blamed it on that!), he asked me curiously if I had ever square-danced before. Thinking about my experiences in comparison to what I had just bungled through, I realized that the proper response was "no", and told him so.
As soon as the members of the group found out that I had, in fact, virtually no square-dance experience, everything changed. Their attitude went from, "Wow, this girl's really not very good" to "Oh, poor dear, she's never been taught and is flying by the seat of her pants". Needless to say I was not invited to dance any more that first week, for which I was actually quite grateful. At the end of the time, the caller came up to me to explain a little more about square dance as they danced it here. It turns out that there are international rules for square dance, which is why all of the figures are called in English. There is an official rule book which describes all 62 of the basic figures in detail, and then there are additional figures which correspond to higher levels of complexity. This particular group dances "Mainstream", which is the first level of square dance beyond Basic. This means that there are 82 separate calls that one has to know how to perform from any possible configuration, in time to the music. Once this was all explained to me, I promised to look up the figures on the internet and learn them so that I could join in the dance without embarrassing and frustrating the other members of the group.
Somehow, though I only had to be in the lab 8 hours a day and had relatively few social commitments outside of the institute, I never managed to get as much done in my "free time" as I planned. Many grand projects passed the summer undone, and studying square dance was no exception. I remembered a couple of times, usually on Monday evenings while I was hastening to finish my supper before Rita or Jorgin picked me up for the lesson. But I found an excellent site where all 82 figures were described in detail with accompanying animated graphics of the dancers moving, so I could better visualize where each dancer should start and end up. I picked it up remarkably quickly (surprising even myself) and by the third week could dance an entire dance without getting confused and lost more than five times or so (and to give you some sense of scale, each dance lasts about 15 minutes and can include up to 100 calls, though there is often a pattern or string of calls that is repeated several times throughout the dance). All of the group members marveled at my learning curve - Jorgin, my sulky chauffeur while Rita was on vacation, complained that in three weeks I had learned more of square dancing than he had in 15 months, which I bashfully attributed to my youth.
One thing is true, I never failed to enjoy myself - the group was friendly and laughed a lot, and everyone always greeted me with a smile. It was definitely always one of the highlights of my week, and one of the aspects of Clausthal which I will miss the most when I return. Apparently, the group will miss me, too. On my last week here, I missed my ride because I got caught up doing something else and came late to our meeting spot, and Rita did not have her cell phone on her so she just assumed I wasn't coming. Undeterred (and determined not to miss my last chance to square dance), I took the bike Leif had lent me for the summer and rode along the back way to the dance hall (I was sure glad I had scoped it out before now!), arriving just a few minutes late. The season is approaching where the group will have many performances at folk events and such, so they were running through all of the line dances they knew, and I could only step in on a couple of them. Then in the middle of the practice the caller stopped everyone and, smiling at me, asked me to come to the middle of the room. He made a very nice speech about how enjoyable it was to have me there and to see how quickly I learned, and I just stood there with a gigantic smile on my face and blushing as hard as I could. Then another senior member of the group stepped forward with a present for me - a beautiful picture of the group, all decked out in their performance garb (cowboy hats and all) in a frame made of pine branches - appropriate for the Harzer Country Dancers. In addition to this wonderful photo, they attached a token to the frame. Now, once a dancer has "graduated", meaning that they are certified to know all 82 figures, they receive a very nice name plate from their home group. Then, when they travel around and dance at other groups, they receive a token from that group as a gift, which they attach to their name plate to show how well-traveled they are. I haven't graduated yet, and I have no home group, but if and when I do I will be able to attach the Harzer Country Dancer token to it, and if I travel around and get involved in this worldwide phenomenon I will always carry the memory of this wonderful group of friendly people with me in a very real way.
Now, I fully intend this blog to be something more than a chronological record of my daily activity in the summer. I want you to learn something from my adventures, as well. If I had been too shy to step out into such a totally new social situation as the square dance group (or the church I will tell you about in my next post), I never would have known the fun I have had and the friends I have made this summer. While it certainly pays to be wise and discerning, sometimes the best adventures are to be had well outside of our normal comfort zones and social circles. I have learned the valuable skill of laughing at myself and not valuing my pride higher than a good experience or lesson learned, and it has opened the door to many a friendship and memory that I look back upon fondly. So, especially if you're still young, don't be afraid to try new things. You will often be surprised at the warmth and generosity of others, and even if you should chance to have a bad experience, learn to take it in stride and don't let it stop you from trying again next time. Who knows how many hidden talents and passions you may uncover, and how many new friends you may find who may come into your life again in unexpected ways in the future!
Okay, enough moralizing. Go out and enjoy life to the fullest, and above all, keep smiling!!
So I was looking with some reluctance towards my summer which I saw as being quite empty of dancing. I was in luck, however, because another member of the Princeton in Munich program was a much more avid swing dancer than I, and I have already detailed to you how she dug up several swing dance events for us to attend while we were in Munich. I scoured Google for similar opportunities in Clausthal, but I think this town is just too small for that kind of young city-dweller type of activity. Nonetheless my sharp eyes had not failed to notice the shirt that Leif was wearing on the day he picked me up from the bus station and how it had the logo and name of a dance group emblazoned upon it. Therefore I asked with a great deal of hope after opportunities for dancing in the area. Leif informed me that he was a former ballroom dancer and instructor himself, but my previous experiences with ballroom led me to only smile nervously at the prospect of trying to learn this strict art in another language. Then Leif mentioned, with a slight tone of disdain that I could hardly blame him for in his position, that there was a Square Dance group in the neighborhood. I, in his words, "ausgeflippt" (seriously, that's the German word for "flipped out" ;D). Not a minute later he was behind his desk typing furiously on his computer, and very soon he pulled up the website for the Harzer Country Dancers. He pointed out to me that they met weekly, on Mondays, having first one hour of square dance lessons, then one hour of line dancing, and concluding with an hour of hearty square dance. I was very eager to join in this most American of pastimes and somewhat assumed that my few experiences of square dancing (the annual PEF Hoedown and a square dance on a family vacation two summers prior) would be sufficient to keep me afloat in a dance which I imagined consisted mostly of "bow to your partner"s, "do-si-do"s, "promenade"s, and other such trivial movements. I was soon to find that I was quite wrong.
As usual, Leif knew just whom to call to find me a ride to where I was going, and the next Monday I walked to a Shell gas station near the Wohnung to meet a blue Honda whose driver would take me to the dance hall. (I've had more "blind dates" of this nature this summer than ever before, and I can't imagine being bold enough to go through with any of them without the enthusiasm, trust, and sense of adventure which my wonderful experience and friends from two years at Princeton have taught me. I'm so glad that I have, though, or I would have missed out on so many experiences.) Her name was Rita, and she was friendly and talkative as we drove the ten minutes to Buntenbock, the next village over. She asked me if I had any prior experience in line or square dancing, and, recalling middle school gym classes of dancing the Cotton Eye Joe and Electric Slide, and the aforementioned square dance experiences, I ventured an uncertain yes. We arrived after the square dance lesson, unfortunately, or I perhaps could have saved some of my dignity and received a bit of a warning of what was to come. As it was, I quickly learned that the line dances this group practiced were significantly more involved than the simple ones I had learned. Nonetheless I stood in a corner and watched carefully, and when a dance seemed simple enough that I could reasonably get the hang of it, I would step to a spot in the formation least in the way and, eyes fixed firmly on the feet of the person in the group who seemed most comfortable with the pattern, attempt to mimic. I got a couple of them down passably, though I can't say that I would remember how to dance them on my own. It was enough, however, to impress the other members of the group, who repeatedly approached me and asked how I already seemed to know several of these dances, to which I replied with a blush that I had never seen them before but was just mimicking what I observed. As happened many times during my first few days in Clausthal, my background and reason for coming to such a small and "off the beaten path" town were inquired after, and my language proficiency (after it being revealed that I had studied German for less than a year) remarked upon and admired. At first the people were reluctant to speak to me in German, and a few who knew English addressed me in it, but I always responded in German to the best of my ability and they soon accepted that I could understand just about everything they were saying, even if I didn't always know how to respond. All of this served to inflate my pride somewhat, but all of my haughty self-confidence was about to come crashing down as the hour of line dance came to an end and it came time for square dancing.
Now, I've always been too shy to ask a guy to dance, my boyfriend being the only exception, and that only recently. So my strategy is to stand near the edge of the dance floor and look hopefully and expectantly out onto the festivities, hoping someone will take pity upon me and ask. It was the same here, but since I was new one of the older members of the group graciously extended his hand to me at the first dance. I was fairly quivering with excitement as we stood in formation and I heard the familiar, "Bow to your partner; your corner too"... and then things fell apart. The caller was ostensibly speaking English, but half the time I couldn't make out what he was saying - and even when I could, it was unfamiliar commands like "Tag the Line" or "Weave the Ring" or "Two Ladies Chain." Sometimes the move was self-explanatory, such as "All Face In" (and even that's a little ambiguous - how do you define "in"?) but more often than not it was something completely not intuitive (how does one describe a "California Twirl"?) I quickly became completely lost but tried to put a brave face on it and keep alert, trying to disturb the flow of the dance as little as possible by looking desperately to my fellow dancers for clues. When a move was called and I was forcibly moved into the correct position (which happened more often than not) I would try to remember what that meant, but so many of the calls were so similar! How was I supposed to remember the difference between a "Swing Through", "Pull Through", "Pass Through", "Slide Through" and "Turn Through"? I wasn't completely horrible - I recognized a couple of moves (Allemande Left, Do-Si-Do, Swing and Promenade) but the vast majority of the time I would respond to a command with a blank look and a nervous giggle. Sparing you any more agonizing details, suffice it to say it turned out to be a very embarrassing and disorganized dance because of my incompetence. When the entire thing was finally over, I retreated shamefacedly into the corner. One of the callers soon followed me over and said, very slowly and clearly (in German), "Do you understand me?" When I assured him, blushing, that I did (he must have chalked my blundering up to an inability to understand the commands - I wish I could have blamed it on that!), he asked me curiously if I had ever square-danced before. Thinking about my experiences in comparison to what I had just bungled through, I realized that the proper response was "no", and told him so.
As soon as the members of the group found out that I had, in fact, virtually no square-dance experience, everything changed. Their attitude went from, "Wow, this girl's really not very good" to "Oh, poor dear, she's never been taught and is flying by the seat of her pants". Needless to say I was not invited to dance any more that first week, for which I was actually quite grateful. At the end of the time, the caller came up to me to explain a little more about square dance as they danced it here. It turns out that there are international rules for square dance, which is why all of the figures are called in English. There is an official rule book which describes all 62 of the basic figures in detail, and then there are additional figures which correspond to higher levels of complexity. This particular group dances "Mainstream", which is the first level of square dance beyond Basic. This means that there are 82 separate calls that one has to know how to perform from any possible configuration, in time to the music. Once this was all explained to me, I promised to look up the figures on the internet and learn them so that I could join in the dance without embarrassing and frustrating the other members of the group.
Somehow, though I only had to be in the lab 8 hours a day and had relatively few social commitments outside of the institute, I never managed to get as much done in my "free time" as I planned. Many grand projects passed the summer undone, and studying square dance was no exception. I remembered a couple of times, usually on Monday evenings while I was hastening to finish my supper before Rita or Jorgin picked me up for the lesson. But I found an excellent site where all 82 figures were described in detail with accompanying animated graphics of the dancers moving, so I could better visualize where each dancer should start and end up. I picked it up remarkably quickly (surprising even myself) and by the third week could dance an entire dance without getting confused and lost more than five times or so (and to give you some sense of scale, each dance lasts about 15 minutes and can include up to 100 calls, though there is often a pattern or string of calls that is repeated several times throughout the dance). All of the group members marveled at my learning curve - Jorgin, my sulky chauffeur while Rita was on vacation, complained that in three weeks I had learned more of square dancing than he had in 15 months, which I bashfully attributed to my youth.
One thing is true, I never failed to enjoy myself - the group was friendly and laughed a lot, and everyone always greeted me with a smile. It was definitely always one of the highlights of my week, and one of the aspects of Clausthal which I will miss the most when I return. Apparently, the group will miss me, too. On my last week here, I missed my ride because I got caught up doing something else and came late to our meeting spot, and Rita did not have her cell phone on her so she just assumed I wasn't coming. Undeterred (and determined not to miss my last chance to square dance), I took the bike Leif had lent me for the summer and rode along the back way to the dance hall (I was sure glad I had scoped it out before now!), arriving just a few minutes late. The season is approaching where the group will have many performances at folk events and such, so they were running through all of the line dances they knew, and I could only step in on a couple of them. Then in the middle of the practice the caller stopped everyone and, smiling at me, asked me to come to the middle of the room. He made a very nice speech about how enjoyable it was to have me there and to see how quickly I learned, and I just stood there with a gigantic smile on my face and blushing as hard as I could. Then another senior member of the group stepped forward with a present for me - a beautiful picture of the group, all decked out in their performance garb (cowboy hats and all) in a frame made of pine branches - appropriate for the Harzer Country Dancers. In addition to this wonderful photo, they attached a token to the frame. Now, once a dancer has "graduated", meaning that they are certified to know all 82 figures, they receive a very nice name plate from their home group. Then, when they travel around and dance at other groups, they receive a token from that group as a gift, which they attach to their name plate to show how well-traveled they are. I haven't graduated yet, and I have no home group, but if and when I do I will be able to attach the Harzer Country Dancer token to it, and if I travel around and get involved in this worldwide phenomenon I will always carry the memory of this wonderful group of friendly people with me in a very real way.
Now, I fully intend this blog to be something more than a chronological record of my daily activity in the summer. I want you to learn something from my adventures, as well. If I had been too shy to step out into such a totally new social situation as the square dance group (or the church I will tell you about in my next post), I never would have known the fun I have had and the friends I have made this summer. While it certainly pays to be wise and discerning, sometimes the best adventures are to be had well outside of our normal comfort zones and social circles. I have learned the valuable skill of laughing at myself and not valuing my pride higher than a good experience or lesson learned, and it has opened the door to many a friendship and memory that I look back upon fondly. So, especially if you're still young, don't be afraid to try new things. You will often be surprised at the warmth and generosity of others, and even if you should chance to have a bad experience, learn to take it in stride and don't let it stop you from trying again next time. Who knows how many hidden talents and passions you may uncover, and how many new friends you may find who may come into your life again in unexpected ways in the future!
Okay, enough moralizing. Go out and enjoy life to the fullest, and above all, keep smiling!!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Horses!
So, when I first arrived at Clausthal I was given a quick introduction to the town and the institute and then sent off to unpack and settle in. Once I had emptied my suitcases and made my bed with the borrowed linens, I sat down and started thinking of all the questions I had about this new place where I would be for the next two months. I wanted to find activities that lined up with my interests and would keep me from long, lonely afternoons in front of my computer wishing for home, although I certainly would have had enough projects with this blog and the scrapbook I'm trying to put together to keep me occupied, had I really wanted to work on them. So I started in on that first Monday with a long list of questions for Leif, who graciously sat down with me (after having made the rounds and "met" all of the coworkers) in order to tackle them one by one.
One of my questions was whether there were opportunities in Clausthal for me to ride horses. I was imagining perhaps a small stable where they'd be happy to have someone with a decent knowledge of horses come and help out by mucking stalls/distributing hay a couple of times a week, and in return would graciously let me ride every once in a while. After all, that's what happens in all of the little-girl novels, right? She just stumbles upon a stable where she can work in exchange for riding? Well, such is not usually the case in the real world, but when I posed the question to Leif he assured me that there were several stables in the area, so riding was a distinct possibility. When, the following afternoon, I asked for more specifics concerning the horses, he exclaimed (in typical Leif style), "Yes, I've thought of exactly whom you need to meet!" and picked up his phone. Two minutes later I was sitting in the office of a mechanical engineering graduate student at the institute of Welding and Cutting, right across the parking lot from PuK. She was a wonderfully cheerful and friendly individual and started telling me all about her horse that she kept at a local stables - a young, fiery chestnut Quarter Horse mare whom she had ended up buying because of the previous owner's inability to sell a horse in the sudden economic downturn. My heart leapt - my favorite horse at Living Waters, the one I've been training and spoiling for several summers now, is a young, fiery chestnut Quarter Horse mare. It was a match made in Heaven!! Additionally, Mirjam (the graduate student) told me that she was the only one at her stables to ride Western - all of the other boarders preferred English and a more dressage approach. I don't like English, because I find it snobby, stiff, and impossible to wear jeans while riding (the stirrup leathers chafe against the inside seam of your jeans due to the unavoidable movement of your legs as you ride). So to hear that this lovely new friend not only rode a horse that sounded just like mine but rode her Western made me grin from ear to ear. We chatted for a few minutes, Mirjam also telling me about a dedicated Quarter Horse breeding barn in the area which specialized in the breed and also rode Western (apparently she didn't keep her mare there because of the cost or because she already knew the people at the barn where she boarded her) and sending a quick email to a friend of hers who rode there. Then she said abruptly, "Well, do you want to come with me today? I'm headed there right after work." Head still spinning from the swift turn of events, I gladly agreed.
A short 30 minutes later I found myself in the passenger seat of her little Fiat hatchback which had a bumper sticker on the back that read "Pleasure" and pictured the silhouette of a cowboy on a fine Western horse, as well as horse magazines and a halter or two scattered about the dashboard, floor, and backseat. She was obviously a horse person, and an animal lover in general, as I soon found out. On the way to the stable we stopped at a veterinary clinic to check on a stray mother cat and her newborn kittens which Mirjam had found just the week before on the side of the road and had brought them here, concerned about their survival. Her consternation was apparent when she found out that only one of the kittens had survived, and she sighed more than once, "I wish I could just take them all home, but my current pets wouldn't like that very much." Satisfied as to the condition of the mother cat and the remaining kitten, we continued on our way and soon arrived at the stable. Mirjam popped inside of one of the stalls and soon reemerged leading a beautiful mare who could have been the spitting image of my Tango. We quickly began to groom her and I tried to talk about horses in German, but found my vocabulary seriously lacking and soon switched to English, which Mirjam fortunately knew about as well as I knew German. Together we brushed mini-Tango (as I dubbed her in my head, never actually catching her real name from Mirjam) until she shone, which wasn't hard with her healthy and naturally lustrous coat. Then Mirjam explained that her horse tended to have back problems, which she eased by massaging her muscles before working her. This brought a smile to my lips as I recalled Babe, the bad-tempered Appaloosa mare up at Living Waters whom we had acquired as one of the sole survivors of a bad barn fire. We had eventually discovered that cramping flank muscles were also the cause of much of her crankiness and now made much ado about massaging her butt with special ointment, which was the only thing that would render her docile. After massaging mini-Tango, Mirjam went off to fetch a friend of hers who would do the actual working of the horse. Turns out that Mirjam is a relatively inexperienced rider herself and has done much of her learning along with the horse, which is never the ideal course of action and can lead to some serious quirks in both horse and rider if not supervised by more experienced trainers. It turned out that this particular day was not one on which Mirjam would ride, but her friend put the horse on a lunge line and soon had her trotting around in circles, though reluctantly. Seeing her cut capers and vehemently protest the exercise, Mirjam laughed and said, "See? She is so lazy sometimes. She does not want to work today." After watching the trainer's progress for awhile in motivating the lazy horse, Mirjam offered to take me on a tour of the grounds, which I gladly accepted. The barn was relatively small and quite full - some horses were two to a stall and one corner had been clumsily blocked off with gates to make room for another pony. It had originally been a barn for both horses and cattle, and there were only about eight horse stalls - the other dozen being where the cows were intended to come in for food and shelter. The people who owned the barn and lived in the sprawling farmhouse adjacent to it still owned cows, as we saw - their herd, located in a bigger, dedicated barn a good distance from the horse barn and arena, was at least 50 strong. The country around was absolutely beautiful - rolling hills and green pastures as far as the eye could see, and apparently the people who owned the farm owned a great deal of the surrounding land, as well. Having seen most of the interesting parts of the farm, we returned to check on the progress of the horse. The trainer had decided that she had worked hard enough for the day and was bringing her back into the barn. By this time it was already well past seven and clear that we wouldn't be riding that day. I was a little disappointed at this, but mostly just happy to be around horses again. A lesson was starting in the indoor arena and I watched that for awhile, and noted uneasily that my German was certainly not advanced enough to be able to understand the instructor who stood in the middle of the arena and muttered half-audible instructions to the riders. Growing bored of watching the lesson, I wandered back over to where Mirjam was, expecting that we would leave soon. However, she turned to me a tad sheepishly and explained that there was to be a celebration that night for some of the other boarders and her friends; one woman had just begun a new job, and someone else had recently celebrated a birthday. I didn't mind staying and participating in the celebration, just felt a little awkward since I didn't know anyone there but Mirjam. Nonetheless the dozen or so people who gathered around the table to celebrate were very cordial and friendly, though they were understandably more interested in talking among themselves. So I contented myself with sitting back and listening to their conversation, which I could mostly understand, and sampling from the generous spread (glad for the excuse not to have to make supper at the Wohnheim). There were hamburgers, lots of fruit, and some other strange meats and cheeses (Germans love their fancy meats). And - because it was a German celebration - there was plenty of alcohol. In addition to beer, which can pretty much be assumed to be anywhere there could be an excuse for it in Germany, there was wine and champagne. Partially out of politeness and partially out of curiosity, I did not decline a cup of strawberry wine when it was offered to me - and though I swear the bottle said wine, it was a carbonated drink. It actually tasted pretty good, better than any of the beer or champagne I had tasted. I also eventually worked up my courage and picked up a "grapefruit beer" from the table to try it. Now, I wouldn't know, because I've never been concerned with alcohol in the US, but I'm fairly sure that flavored beers like this one are a strictly German thing. On the table that night alone was grapefruit, mango, apple, and cactus. I really like grapefruit juice and it had been recommended to me during Princeton in Munich that the grapefruit beer was the best because of the combination of the sour grapefruit juice and the bitter beer flavors. Also, the brew was a mere 3.4% alcohol, and the bottle was 1/3 of a liter, so I didn't think there was much danger of me becoming raging drunk on it ;) It was surprisingly good, and I even thought "Hey, I could get used to this" before catching myself and remembering that I was drinking alcohol :$.
Once I had finished off my drink and well-satisfied myself on treats, it being already around 9:30, I was getting fidgety and ready to go, although Mirjam was obviously enjoying herself and didn't make any signs of being ready to leave. Nonetheless, noticing my agitation, she graciously asked whether I would like to go back, and when I sheepishly affirmed this, she lost no time in taking her leave of our hosts. I very much enjoyed myself that day, and Mirjam gave me an open invitation to come back whenever I wanted, as she went to the stables nearly every day after work. I even got an email that next day from her friend who rides at the Quarter Horse stable telling me that if I wanted to know more about that, I should just go over there and ask for her. However, somehow (and I honestly am not quite sure how) got quite busy over the next few weeks and never made it back. The weather wasn't very cooperative, either - it has rained here nearly nonstop for the past month, and I wasn't too keen on going to the barn when it was raining and there would be even less chance of us riding, even if they have an indoor arena. However, I finally had both the idea and the opportunity to ask again this week, and tomorrow I will once again accompany Mirjam to the stables. I can only hope that this time we may ride, but I don't want to be too forward about it - Mirjam's horse is young and inexperienced, and most of the other animals at the barn are likewise privately owned, so my chances are slim. But I'll let you know how it goes, regardless!
One of my questions was whether there were opportunities in Clausthal for me to ride horses. I was imagining perhaps a small stable where they'd be happy to have someone with a decent knowledge of horses come and help out by mucking stalls/distributing hay a couple of times a week, and in return would graciously let me ride every once in a while. After all, that's what happens in all of the little-girl novels, right? She just stumbles upon a stable where she can work in exchange for riding? Well, such is not usually the case in the real world, but when I posed the question to Leif he assured me that there were several stables in the area, so riding was a distinct possibility. When, the following afternoon, I asked for more specifics concerning the horses, he exclaimed (in typical Leif style), "Yes, I've thought of exactly whom you need to meet!" and picked up his phone. Two minutes later I was sitting in the office of a mechanical engineering graduate student at the institute of Welding and Cutting, right across the parking lot from PuK. She was a wonderfully cheerful and friendly individual and started telling me all about her horse that she kept at a local stables - a young, fiery chestnut Quarter Horse mare whom she had ended up buying because of the previous owner's inability to sell a horse in the sudden economic downturn. My heart leapt - my favorite horse at Living Waters, the one I've been training and spoiling for several summers now, is a young, fiery chestnut Quarter Horse mare. It was a match made in Heaven!! Additionally, Mirjam (the graduate student) told me that she was the only one at her stables to ride Western - all of the other boarders preferred English and a more dressage approach. I don't like English, because I find it snobby, stiff, and impossible to wear jeans while riding (the stirrup leathers chafe against the inside seam of your jeans due to the unavoidable movement of your legs as you ride). So to hear that this lovely new friend not only rode a horse that sounded just like mine but rode her Western made me grin from ear to ear. We chatted for a few minutes, Mirjam also telling me about a dedicated Quarter Horse breeding barn in the area which specialized in the breed and also rode Western (apparently she didn't keep her mare there because of the cost or because she already knew the people at the barn where she boarded her) and sending a quick email to a friend of hers who rode there. Then she said abruptly, "Well, do you want to come with me today? I'm headed there right after work." Head still spinning from the swift turn of events, I gladly agreed.
A short 30 minutes later I found myself in the passenger seat of her little Fiat hatchback which had a bumper sticker on the back that read "Pleasure" and pictured the silhouette of a cowboy on a fine Western horse, as well as horse magazines and a halter or two scattered about the dashboard, floor, and backseat. She was obviously a horse person, and an animal lover in general, as I soon found out. On the way to the stable we stopped at a veterinary clinic to check on a stray mother cat and her newborn kittens which Mirjam had found just the week before on the side of the road and had brought them here, concerned about their survival. Her consternation was apparent when she found out that only one of the kittens had survived, and she sighed more than once, "I wish I could just take them all home, but my current pets wouldn't like that very much." Satisfied as to the condition of the mother cat and the remaining kitten, we continued on our way and soon arrived at the stable. Mirjam popped inside of one of the stalls and soon reemerged leading a beautiful mare who could have been the spitting image of my Tango. We quickly began to groom her and I tried to talk about horses in German, but found my vocabulary seriously lacking and soon switched to English, which Mirjam fortunately knew about as well as I knew German. Together we brushed mini-Tango (as I dubbed her in my head, never actually catching her real name from Mirjam) until she shone, which wasn't hard with her healthy and naturally lustrous coat. Then Mirjam explained that her horse tended to have back problems, which she eased by massaging her muscles before working her. This brought a smile to my lips as I recalled Babe, the bad-tempered Appaloosa mare up at Living Waters whom we had acquired as one of the sole survivors of a bad barn fire. We had eventually discovered that cramping flank muscles were also the cause of much of her crankiness and now made much ado about massaging her butt with special ointment, which was the only thing that would render her docile. After massaging mini-Tango, Mirjam went off to fetch a friend of hers who would do the actual working of the horse. Turns out that Mirjam is a relatively inexperienced rider herself and has done much of her learning along with the horse, which is never the ideal course of action and can lead to some serious quirks in both horse and rider if not supervised by more experienced trainers. It turned out that this particular day was not one on which Mirjam would ride, but her friend put the horse on a lunge line and soon had her trotting around in circles, though reluctantly. Seeing her cut capers and vehemently protest the exercise, Mirjam laughed and said, "See? She is so lazy sometimes. She does not want to work today." After watching the trainer's progress for awhile in motivating the lazy horse, Mirjam offered to take me on a tour of the grounds, which I gladly accepted. The barn was relatively small and quite full - some horses were two to a stall and one corner had been clumsily blocked off with gates to make room for another pony. It had originally been a barn for both horses and cattle, and there were only about eight horse stalls - the other dozen being where the cows were intended to come in for food and shelter. The people who owned the barn and lived in the sprawling farmhouse adjacent to it still owned cows, as we saw - their herd, located in a bigger, dedicated barn a good distance from the horse barn and arena, was at least 50 strong. The country around was absolutely beautiful - rolling hills and green pastures as far as the eye could see, and apparently the people who owned the farm owned a great deal of the surrounding land, as well. Having seen most of the interesting parts of the farm, we returned to check on the progress of the horse. The trainer had decided that she had worked hard enough for the day and was bringing her back into the barn. By this time it was already well past seven and clear that we wouldn't be riding that day. I was a little disappointed at this, but mostly just happy to be around horses again. A lesson was starting in the indoor arena and I watched that for awhile, and noted uneasily that my German was certainly not advanced enough to be able to understand the instructor who stood in the middle of the arena and muttered half-audible instructions to the riders. Growing bored of watching the lesson, I wandered back over to where Mirjam was, expecting that we would leave soon. However, she turned to me a tad sheepishly and explained that there was to be a celebration that night for some of the other boarders and her friends; one woman had just begun a new job, and someone else had recently celebrated a birthday. I didn't mind staying and participating in the celebration, just felt a little awkward since I didn't know anyone there but Mirjam. Nonetheless the dozen or so people who gathered around the table to celebrate were very cordial and friendly, though they were understandably more interested in talking among themselves. So I contented myself with sitting back and listening to their conversation, which I could mostly understand, and sampling from the generous spread (glad for the excuse not to have to make supper at the Wohnheim). There were hamburgers, lots of fruit, and some other strange meats and cheeses (Germans love their fancy meats). And - because it was a German celebration - there was plenty of alcohol. In addition to beer, which can pretty much be assumed to be anywhere there could be an excuse for it in Germany, there was wine and champagne. Partially out of politeness and partially out of curiosity, I did not decline a cup of strawberry wine when it was offered to me - and though I swear the bottle said wine, it was a carbonated drink. It actually tasted pretty good, better than any of the beer or champagne I had tasted. I also eventually worked up my courage and picked up a "grapefruit beer" from the table to try it. Now, I wouldn't know, because I've never been concerned with alcohol in the US, but I'm fairly sure that flavored beers like this one are a strictly German thing. On the table that night alone was grapefruit, mango, apple, and cactus. I really like grapefruit juice and it had been recommended to me during Princeton in Munich that the grapefruit beer was the best because of the combination of the sour grapefruit juice and the bitter beer flavors. Also, the brew was a mere 3.4% alcohol, and the bottle was 1/3 of a liter, so I didn't think there was much danger of me becoming raging drunk on it ;) It was surprisingly good, and I even thought "Hey, I could get used to this" before catching myself and remembering that I was drinking alcohol :$.
Once I had finished off my drink and well-satisfied myself on treats, it being already around 9:30, I was getting fidgety and ready to go, although Mirjam was obviously enjoying herself and didn't make any signs of being ready to leave. Nonetheless, noticing my agitation, she graciously asked whether I would like to go back, and when I sheepishly affirmed this, she lost no time in taking her leave of our hosts. I very much enjoyed myself that day, and Mirjam gave me an open invitation to come back whenever I wanted, as she went to the stables nearly every day after work. I even got an email that next day from her friend who rides at the Quarter Horse stable telling me that if I wanted to know more about that, I should just go over there and ask for her. However, somehow (and I honestly am not quite sure how) got quite busy over the next few weeks and never made it back. The weather wasn't very cooperative, either - it has rained here nearly nonstop for the past month, and I wasn't too keen on going to the barn when it was raining and there would be even less chance of us riding, even if they have an indoor arena. However, I finally had both the idea and the opportunity to ask again this week, and tomorrow I will once again accompany Mirjam to the stables. I can only hope that this time we may ride, but I don't want to be too forward about it - Mirjam's horse is young and inexperienced, and most of the other animals at the barn are likewise privately owned, so my chances are slim. But I'll let you know how it goes, regardless!
Sunday, August 7, 2011
My 9-5
I am doing my internship here at the Clausthal University of Technology, founded in 1781 as a miner's training school in this little mining town up in the mountains. Today it is one of the more prestigious technical universities in the country, with departments such as Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Metalworking, and the institute that I work at, Polymers and Plastics Engineering. Like a true German university, it does not have a "campus" in the American sense, but the university's lecture halls and laboratories are instead intermingled with the town (which in itself is not all that large, so it's never far to get to classes). Fortunately, PuK (which stands for Polymerwerkstoffe und Kunststofftechnik, the German name of the institute where I work) is about a three-minute walk down a path from my dorm. One side of the building houses the offices of the grad students, faculty, and supervising professor (in Germany Professor is a very high title, even more so than Doctor), while the other side is the laboratory/workshop, or Technikum. There are easily a full score of grad students in the institute, several faculty, and a few technicians also, who work more in the Technikum and maintain the machines there. It also seems that every grad student and faculty member has at least two interns - there have to be twenty of us at the institute, at least. It makes coordination occasionally very interesting, as there are only a limited number of machines for compiling and testing samples, and everyone's projects progress at different rates.
The first day of my internship, Leif (my supervisor; I was supposed to have a grad-student advisor, but he finished his thesis and left the institute in mid-July, so I just report directly to Leif) took me around and introduced me to everyone, so I can recognize the people who work in the institute, but I am still only sure of a few names, and always afraid that I'm going to mix people up. For the most part, the grad students and faculty speak fluent English, but since they found out that I had been studying German and can sometimes carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation, some of them prefer to speak with me in German. At the very first, I preferred Leif to speak with me in German many times, too, because I wanted to practice, but now six weeks in I'm beginning to get tired of this foreign language thing and usually choose to speak English regardless. The coworkers are ALWAYS helpful and very nice, though, and if I need help with something like learning how to work a machine, or fix it when it's not working correctly, or have a problem with my computer or anything, they're always more than happy to help.
I usually go in to the institute around 8:15, because that's about the time Leif gets there and I often like to check in with him before starting anything for the day. However, if I've been given a specific task on my project to do and I know exactly what I need to do, I often like to come in earlier, even as early as 7:00, because I've more or less maintained this ridiculously early schedule (most days I get up at 5:00, or occasionally allow myself to sleep until 6:30) so it's not a stretch at all for me to come in so early. This has led to the problem of me working ahead of schedule, which I think occasionally frustrates Leif because he expects me to spend several days working on something, but I come back only a couple of days later looking for something else to do. Since I come in early I often leave early, as well, sometimes as early as 3:30 (although I'm technically supposed to stay until 5). But if my work for the day is done, I'd much rather get back to my room where I can do as I please, or even take a bike ride if the weather is nice (which isn't often) than hang around the institute doing nothing productive. I'm also given a one-hour lunch break, and most of the interns eat at the Mensa (dining hall), but I've never gone - since this fiasco with the money, I just can't justify going to a cafeteria and buying overpriced mystery meat when I can just make a sandwich or warm up some leftover pasta - which is what I normally do. On the days when I bring a sandwich and an apple to work, I don't even go back to my room for lunch - just sit outside and eat my simple fare, which takes about twenty minutes, and then get back to work.
My project itself is titled "Investigating Ideal Maleic Anhydride-grafted Polypropylene (MAPP) - Natural Fiber Ratios in Various Polymer Systems." It's a little bit of Mechanical Engineering, a lot of Materials Science, and a little bit of Chemistry (which I avoid like the plague, since I haven't taken chemistry since my junior year of high school :P). Reinforcing plastics (polymers) with fibers isn't exactly a new technology, but there's still a lot of research in the area. Polymers by themselves are rather soft and pliable, so adding fibers helps strengthen the material and make it more resistant to things like heat deformation or fatigue, as long as the bonds between the fibers and polymer are good. Carbon fibers generally work the best, but they're awfully expensive. Glass fibers are a good, cheaper alternative, but they're WAY heavier than carbon fibers - and in the applications where FRC (fiber-reinforced compounds) are used, like the automotive industry, more weight is generally a bad thing. Natural fibers, such as flax, cotton, hemp, and jute, are a very attractive option because they're lighter than glass, cheaper than carbon, and (because they're natural) both abundant and recyclable. But the particular problem with natural fibers is that they don't bond with the polymer very well, since the fibers are organic and very hydrophilic or polar (after all, the job of these molecules in nature is often to transport water) while the polymers are hydrophobic or nonpolar. And that's the extent of my chemistry, but suffice it to say that by themselves, natural fibers and polymers don't like to mix. So if you make natural-fiber reinforced polymers and then put any sort of force on them, the fibers actually weaken the material because they get in the way of the polymer bonding to itself and just slip out of the surrounding polymer without putting up any resistance. So the only option is to modify the fibers somehow, either physically or chemically. That's where this other class of molecules comes in called compatibilizers. The particular one that I am investigating is maleic anhydride-grafted polypropylene, or MAPP. It basically is an acid connected to a polymer. The acid bonds well with the fiber and wraps around it, and the polymer on the other side is much more agreeable to bonding with other polymers than the polar fibers. However, MAPP is polypropylene, a very specific polymer. And, surprisingly enough, most polymers don't mix very well with each other. So while we know that putting fibers, MAPP, and polypropylene together works very well, we're less sure how well this would work if we used any other polymer. So that's what I'm testing - whether MAPP improves bonding with these other polymers (specifically, polystyrene, polybutylene terephthalate, and polyamide 6.10, if you care) as well as it does with polypropylene.
Since I'm working so fast on my project, however, sometimes I find myself with nothing to do. After begging Leif for some sort of useful work, and getting fed up with him dumping me off on other coworkers to "see how things worked" that were never going to be helpful to me, I thought of a plan. Still mindful of my woefully reduced stipend, I asked Leif whether there was any work I could do for the institute, such as secretarial duties, which I could potentially be paid for. He thought for a bit, then had an epiphany - since I am familiar with German (and more importantly, know how to properly use a dictionary), he suggested that I could help by translating some lectures that the professor at the institute had given from German into English. Now, I envisioned receiving a transcript of a lecture, or perhaps a well-organized and detailed outline to transcribe. What I received instead were several enormous Powerpoint presentations - three 70 slides long, and one whopping 230 slides in length. This wasn't at all what I had expected, and while one might think that it would be easier to translate a Powerpoint than an essay, it requires a MUCH greater range of vocabulary. Most of the key terms used in the presentations, though engineering concepts, were words that I would never run across in normal conversation, so of course I didn't recognize the German words. However, armed with a physical copy of a Plastics Engineering German-English dictionary, and a couple reliable web dictionaries, I plunged into the work. I soon found, however, that this task was going to be much more tedious than I first thought. Changing bullet points and text boxes was easy enough, but since these were engineering lectures and not English presentations, they naturally included many graphs, diagrams and tables to illustrate the concepts. Precious few of these graphics were created in Powerpoint with easy-to-edit text boxes; instead they were .jpg files of scanned textbooks and internet images. Therefore all captions, labels, and other information, which was all in German, had to be painstakingly translated word by word through the use of individual text boxes which had to be created then formatted to fit within the image by size, font, color, and a white background to obscure the underlying German text. And of course, my OCD would not let me simply keep these translated pieces at one font, but I wanted to try and make them fit with the rest of the image (particularly when there were other words in the image which were similar enough to English, lacking perhaps one silent 'e' or something, that I didn't bother to translate them). Since I brought a part of this meticulousness on myself, perhaps I cannot complain, but it was powerfully tedious work. However, I am now much more familiar with German engineering terms and understand natural fibers and polymers better now (which will help me with my understanding of my project), so it was far from a waste. Not to mention I will be getting paid something above 7 Euros/hour for my labors, of which I have already logged 25 hours, so I really cannot complain - the sum will certainly help me buy groceries in my last couple of weeks here, and perhaps even an extra souvenir or two!
After I finish all of these subject-specific mini-posts about aspects of my life here in Clausthal, I'll go back to weekly summaries (which will be much shorter than they have been, as I've already explained to you broadly everything that I'm doing). I'll tell you specifics about what work I've been doing on my project then - hopefully before I'm done with it! Until then, keep smiling!
The first day of my internship, Leif (my supervisor; I was supposed to have a grad-student advisor, but he finished his thesis and left the institute in mid-July, so I just report directly to Leif) took me around and introduced me to everyone, so I can recognize the people who work in the institute, but I am still only sure of a few names, and always afraid that I'm going to mix people up. For the most part, the grad students and faculty speak fluent English, but since they found out that I had been studying German and can sometimes carry on a reasonably intelligent conversation, some of them prefer to speak with me in German. At the very first, I preferred Leif to speak with me in German many times, too, because I wanted to practice, but now six weeks in I'm beginning to get tired of this foreign language thing and usually choose to speak English regardless. The coworkers are ALWAYS helpful and very nice, though, and if I need help with something like learning how to work a machine, or fix it when it's not working correctly, or have a problem with my computer or anything, they're always more than happy to help.
I usually go in to the institute around 8:15, because that's about the time Leif gets there and I often like to check in with him before starting anything for the day. However, if I've been given a specific task on my project to do and I know exactly what I need to do, I often like to come in earlier, even as early as 7:00, because I've more or less maintained this ridiculously early schedule (most days I get up at 5:00, or occasionally allow myself to sleep until 6:30) so it's not a stretch at all for me to come in so early. This has led to the problem of me working ahead of schedule, which I think occasionally frustrates Leif because he expects me to spend several days working on something, but I come back only a couple of days later looking for something else to do. Since I come in early I often leave early, as well, sometimes as early as 3:30 (although I'm technically supposed to stay until 5). But if my work for the day is done, I'd much rather get back to my room where I can do as I please, or even take a bike ride if the weather is nice (which isn't often) than hang around the institute doing nothing productive. I'm also given a one-hour lunch break, and most of the interns eat at the Mensa (dining hall), but I've never gone - since this fiasco with the money, I just can't justify going to a cafeteria and buying overpriced mystery meat when I can just make a sandwich or warm up some leftover pasta - which is what I normally do. On the days when I bring a sandwich and an apple to work, I don't even go back to my room for lunch - just sit outside and eat my simple fare, which takes about twenty minutes, and then get back to work.
My project itself is titled "Investigating Ideal Maleic Anhydride-grafted Polypropylene (MAPP) - Natural Fiber Ratios in Various Polymer Systems." It's a little bit of Mechanical Engineering, a lot of Materials Science, and a little bit of Chemistry (which I avoid like the plague, since I haven't taken chemistry since my junior year of high school :P). Reinforcing plastics (polymers) with fibers isn't exactly a new technology, but there's still a lot of research in the area. Polymers by themselves are rather soft and pliable, so adding fibers helps strengthen the material and make it more resistant to things like heat deformation or fatigue, as long as the bonds between the fibers and polymer are good. Carbon fibers generally work the best, but they're awfully expensive. Glass fibers are a good, cheaper alternative, but they're WAY heavier than carbon fibers - and in the applications where FRC (fiber-reinforced compounds) are used, like the automotive industry, more weight is generally a bad thing. Natural fibers, such as flax, cotton, hemp, and jute, are a very attractive option because they're lighter than glass, cheaper than carbon, and (because they're natural) both abundant and recyclable. But the particular problem with natural fibers is that they don't bond with the polymer very well, since the fibers are organic and very hydrophilic or polar (after all, the job of these molecules in nature is often to transport water) while the polymers are hydrophobic or nonpolar. And that's the extent of my chemistry, but suffice it to say that by themselves, natural fibers and polymers don't like to mix. So if you make natural-fiber reinforced polymers and then put any sort of force on them, the fibers actually weaken the material because they get in the way of the polymer bonding to itself and just slip out of the surrounding polymer without putting up any resistance. So the only option is to modify the fibers somehow, either physically or chemically. That's where this other class of molecules comes in called compatibilizers. The particular one that I am investigating is maleic anhydride-grafted polypropylene, or MAPP. It basically is an acid connected to a polymer. The acid bonds well with the fiber and wraps around it, and the polymer on the other side is much more agreeable to bonding with other polymers than the polar fibers. However, MAPP is polypropylene, a very specific polymer. And, surprisingly enough, most polymers don't mix very well with each other. So while we know that putting fibers, MAPP, and polypropylene together works very well, we're less sure how well this would work if we used any other polymer. So that's what I'm testing - whether MAPP improves bonding with these other polymers (specifically, polystyrene, polybutylene terephthalate, and polyamide 6.10, if you care) as well as it does with polypropylene.
Since I'm working so fast on my project, however, sometimes I find myself with nothing to do. After begging Leif for some sort of useful work, and getting fed up with him dumping me off on other coworkers to "see how things worked" that were never going to be helpful to me, I thought of a plan. Still mindful of my woefully reduced stipend, I asked Leif whether there was any work I could do for the institute, such as secretarial duties, which I could potentially be paid for. He thought for a bit, then had an epiphany - since I am familiar with German (and more importantly, know how to properly use a dictionary), he suggested that I could help by translating some lectures that the professor at the institute had given from German into English. Now, I envisioned receiving a transcript of a lecture, or perhaps a well-organized and detailed outline to transcribe. What I received instead were several enormous Powerpoint presentations - three 70 slides long, and one whopping 230 slides in length. This wasn't at all what I had expected, and while one might think that it would be easier to translate a Powerpoint than an essay, it requires a MUCH greater range of vocabulary. Most of the key terms used in the presentations, though engineering concepts, were words that I would never run across in normal conversation, so of course I didn't recognize the German words. However, armed with a physical copy of a Plastics Engineering German-English dictionary, and a couple reliable web dictionaries, I plunged into the work. I soon found, however, that this task was going to be much more tedious than I first thought. Changing bullet points and text boxes was easy enough, but since these were engineering lectures and not English presentations, they naturally included many graphs, diagrams and tables to illustrate the concepts. Precious few of these graphics were created in Powerpoint with easy-to-edit text boxes; instead they were .jpg files of scanned textbooks and internet images. Therefore all captions, labels, and other information, which was all in German, had to be painstakingly translated word by word through the use of individual text boxes which had to be created then formatted to fit within the image by size, font, color, and a white background to obscure the underlying German text. And of course, my OCD would not let me simply keep these translated pieces at one font, but I wanted to try and make them fit with the rest of the image (particularly when there were other words in the image which were similar enough to English, lacking perhaps one silent 'e' or something, that I didn't bother to translate them). Since I brought a part of this meticulousness on myself, perhaps I cannot complain, but it was powerfully tedious work. However, I am now much more familiar with German engineering terms and understand natural fibers and polymers better now (which will help me with my understanding of my project), so it was far from a waste. Not to mention I will be getting paid something above 7 Euros/hour for my labors, of which I have already logged 25 hours, so I really cannot complain - the sum will certainly help me buy groceries in my last couple of weeks here, and perhaps even an extra souvenir or two!
After I finish all of these subject-specific mini-posts about aspects of my life here in Clausthal, I'll go back to weekly summaries (which will be much shorter than they have been, as I've already explained to you broadly everything that I'm doing). I'll tell you specifics about what work I've been doing on my project then - hopefully before I'm done with it! Until then, keep smiling!
Monday, August 1, 2011
My Space
So, this is the first of a series of mini-posts (at least, they'll be short for me...) focusing on a specific aspect of my life here in Clausthal, rather than trying to chronologically record my first impressions as they happened - since I'm so abominably far behind in my posting, this seems to make more sense.
So let's start with where I live. I have a smallish single in the Studentenwohnheim (dorms), and though I thought that roommates would be cool, I'm glad I live alone so that I can really be independent and keep my own schedule, although to a German the concept of multiple people sleeping in the same room is restricted to marriage and similar relationships, so in any case I would be guaranteed to have my own bedroom. My room is smaller than the one I had in Munich, but still bigger than my single in Joline this past year. It's technically an "Einzelappartement" - which means that I have a bathroom and kitchenette right in the room with me. And by "kitchenette" I mean two burners, a sink, and a large dorm refrigerator, which somewhat limits my cooking options (no stove = no pizza :( ). However, my advisor was gracious enough to bring me an old microwave that he had in his basement, so I am not limited (as I originally feared I would be) to making dishes in single-portion sizes. In fact, I've done quite well for myself food-wise this summer - but I'll finish telling you about my room first.
The downside to having my own kitchen and bathroom is that I'm entirely responsible for cleaning them, but really that's not too much of a hassle since I'm also the only one using them (and good practice for next year when it will be the same situation with my roommates). I went and bought a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner, a sponge, and a broom and dustpan, and that suffices for the minimal cleaning necessary.
The rest of the furniture in the room consists of a free-standing wardrobe (with no coathooks, however, so I had to scrounge up a couple of hangers for all of my dresses and sweatshirts), a desk that's really a table with a drawer in it, two cupboards that I use for my food supplies, and a low bed. The mattress is SO hard! I always complain about my bed at home being too soft, and I think the one I have at Princeton is just right, but this one here feels like sleeping on the ground, it's so stiff. It doesn't have any springs in it but is just a stuffed mattress, which may be why it is so hard. I've finally gotten used to it and can get a good night's sleep, but it took awhile (but I was certainly not paying 50 Euros for a new one, as the Studentenwerk offered...). My bedding is whatever mismatched extras we could scrounge up at the Institute, so my sheet is pink while my pillowcase and duvet cover are an ugly pattern of yellow and black circles - but again, preferable to paying 37 Euros for the Studentenwerk to provide them, or even buying them new at Marktkauf. The pillow was also scrounged, and it's an ancient and nearly lifeless goosedown monstrosity - I can fold it in quarters (because pillows in Germany are ENORMOUS and square... ??) and the filling still doesn't fluff it up. It's like sleeping on a rock - the mattress I could stand but the pillow (even supplemented with my softest pajamas and sweatpants underneath) was just too hard, and I soon caved and bought a 5-Euro throw pillow at Marktkauf to use in addition (I'm a side sleeper, so I need thick pillows), and now everything is dandy. The pillow is kind of cute, actually - it has a picture of a London telephone booth on it, and I'm a little bit sad that it can't come back to America with me (I simply don't have room for anything more than necessary, and a lot of my things are going to be staying in Germany as it is :P), but Mom would probably tell me that I have MORE than enough pillows, anyway ;)
So, food. I came from Munich with a very strange array of leftover food, some of it quite random - a bag of potatoes, a few onions, a package of Nesquick, two peanut butter jars, strawberry jam, Nutella, a couple boxes of pasta, a box of cereal, and some wurst. I ate it all - why let good food go to waste? - but it made for some very bizarre meals in the first few days of my stay in Clausthal. Fortunately there are not one but TWO grocery stores just a five-minute walk down the hill from the dorms, which makes shopping very convenient. On one of my first days here I went and did a diligent comparison between the two stores, finding that some goods were cheaper one place while others I was better off buying at the other store. One is Aldi, a Mardens type store but with mostly groceries - usually cheap, doesn't always have everything you'd want, and the selection of non-grocery items is on a sort of "surplus and salvage" basis - makes for some interesting surprises, though I haven't found anything there I simply HAD to buy yet (probably because I'm very money- and space-conscious here). Marktkauf, the other option, is more like a Walmart - a better selection and a TON of non-grocery items - everything from bike accessories to yarn to books to pots and pans to cleaning supplies. Between the two stores, I manage to keep my grocery bill to less than 20 Euros per week, and that's even with occasionally treating myself. So far I've made shepherd's pie, pasta & peas, hamburgers, wiener schnitzel & potato salad, chicken nuggets, and ravioli for my suppers. Lunch is usually a sandwich or occasionally leftovers (thank God again for that microwave!), but breakfast, of course, is my true specialty. Cereal and yogurt with musli is a quick and easy one, but I am also perfecting the art of the bacon-and-cheese omelet (I've got to survive somehow without ROMA omelets next year!) as well as experimenting with French toast and egg-in-a-hole (can you tell that I like eggs?). So far I've managed to avoid the common college traps of TV dinners or constant pasta, and this summer has definitely given me hope for my culinary survival next year.
Cooking implements, naturally, are not something I have a great supply of - after all, I don't want to go out and buy a bunch of pots and pans that I'm just going to have to leave behind after 8 weeks. I collected in Munich (by asking the other group members and "borrowing" from the well-stocked communal kitchens) a spoon, knife, fork, and plate, and was planning to make do with a technically "disposable" bowl that I had gotten from an ice-cream parlor. When I arrived in Clausthal I was shown to my delight the cupboard filled with various utensils and commodities which was dedicated to the international interns, and picked up a saucepan, frying pan, spatula, ceramic bowl, sand glass. With these minimal elements I sometimes have to be creative in my cooking, but in general they suffice (makes me think about what I really NEED to bring to Spelman versus what would be "nice to have/come in handy every once in a while"...) and don't clutter up my cupboard. It does, however, mean that I have to wash my dishes after just about every meal - simply because I have to use the same dishes for the next one. Generally I'm pretty good about this, but if you can keep a secret, there have definitely been a couple of nights where the bowl from supper soaked in the sink and didn't get washed until breakfast the next morning. This is one thing my future roommates were very adamant about in our discussions in the spring, that dishes *always* and *immediately* be washed and put away, so I'm trying to practice here (at home we just rinse the dishes and use them again during the day, and only wash everything at night, so it's not necessarily a habit of mine).
Overall, I am very content with my room, which is good because I spend most of my time here when I'm not at the Institute. The semester is now (finally) over and I'm fairly sure the students have gone home for the summer, because I don't see as many in the hallways, but I never saw very many and didn't ever meet any of my neighbors - the only people my age I interact with here are the other interns. This has its downsides, principally that most of the other interns don't speak German, so we talk in English and I don't get to practice my German as much as I was hoping. I have actually noticed a slight decline in my proficiency, especially because after about two weeks I got tired of reviewing vocabulary every night and have more or less let that habit slide (I know, I know, bad student Erin :( ). Everything I could need is here - bed, kitchen, and bathroom. The laundry is in the basement, but you have to pay for it here (like in normal places) so I try to go as long as possible in between loads - I can almost stretch it 3 weeks if I wash a few pairs of underwear in the sink ;) I'm so stingy I refuse even to pay for use of the dryer (it's 1 Euro per load and the washers are 1.50!!) so instead I go find a drying rack in one of the common rooms and sneak it back to my room so my clothes can dry on it, then return it. Most of the students, I've observed, take the drying racks (which are communal, as far as I can tell) and hang their clothes on them in the common rooms or out in the hallways, so I don't feel bad moving one to my room for a few days at a time to use it.
I also have a mailbox at the dorm, but it is usually very sadly empty. I've gotten one letter so far, and it made me REALLY happy - so I'm giving you all my address right here so you have no excuse :P Mail takes about a week to get from the States to Germany, so you all still have two weeks if you want to send me something - go!
Erin Mills
Leibnizstraße 20, Zimmer 82
38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld
Germany
The dorm is at the top of a hill, with the institute halfway down and the grocery stores at the bottom. There is a cobbled path that leads directly down the hill, but the road winds back and forth (Germans are REALLY big into pedestrian shortcut paths - they're way more official than they are in the States :D). Overall, it is a very nice arrangement. The country around is very nice, too - but I'll tell you about all that in another post, another day. Until then, keep smiling!!
And send me stuff!! Postcards/letters are always welcome!! (Or, if you're lazy, you can just send me an email. That works too :D).
So let's start with where I live. I have a smallish single in the Studentenwohnheim (dorms), and though I thought that roommates would be cool, I'm glad I live alone so that I can really be independent and keep my own schedule, although to a German the concept of multiple people sleeping in the same room is restricted to marriage and similar relationships, so in any case I would be guaranteed to have my own bedroom. My room is smaller than the one I had in Munich, but still bigger than my single in Joline this past year. It's technically an "Einzelappartement" - which means that I have a bathroom and kitchenette right in the room with me. And by "kitchenette" I mean two burners, a sink, and a large dorm refrigerator, which somewhat limits my cooking options (no stove = no pizza :( ). However, my advisor was gracious enough to bring me an old microwave that he had in his basement, so I am not limited (as I originally feared I would be) to making dishes in single-portion sizes. In fact, I've done quite well for myself food-wise this summer - but I'll finish telling you about my room first.
The downside to having my own kitchen and bathroom is that I'm entirely responsible for cleaning them, but really that's not too much of a hassle since I'm also the only one using them (and good practice for next year when it will be the same situation with my roommates). I went and bought a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner, a sponge, and a broom and dustpan, and that suffices for the minimal cleaning necessary.
The rest of the furniture in the room consists of a free-standing wardrobe (with no coathooks, however, so I had to scrounge up a couple of hangers for all of my dresses and sweatshirts), a desk that's really a table with a drawer in it, two cupboards that I use for my food supplies, and a low bed. The mattress is SO hard! I always complain about my bed at home being too soft, and I think the one I have at Princeton is just right, but this one here feels like sleeping on the ground, it's so stiff. It doesn't have any springs in it but is just a stuffed mattress, which may be why it is so hard. I've finally gotten used to it and can get a good night's sleep, but it took awhile (but I was certainly not paying 50 Euros for a new one, as the Studentenwerk offered...). My bedding is whatever mismatched extras we could scrounge up at the Institute, so my sheet is pink while my pillowcase and duvet cover are an ugly pattern of yellow and black circles - but again, preferable to paying 37 Euros for the Studentenwerk to provide them, or even buying them new at Marktkauf. The pillow was also scrounged, and it's an ancient and nearly lifeless goosedown monstrosity - I can fold it in quarters (because pillows in Germany are ENORMOUS and square... ??) and the filling still doesn't fluff it up. It's like sleeping on a rock - the mattress I could stand but the pillow (even supplemented with my softest pajamas and sweatpants underneath) was just too hard, and I soon caved and bought a 5-Euro throw pillow at Marktkauf to use in addition (I'm a side sleeper, so I need thick pillows), and now everything is dandy. The pillow is kind of cute, actually - it has a picture of a London telephone booth on it, and I'm a little bit sad that it can't come back to America with me (I simply don't have room for anything more than necessary, and a lot of my things are going to be staying in Germany as it is :P), but Mom would probably tell me that I have MORE than enough pillows, anyway ;)
So, food. I came from Munich with a very strange array of leftover food, some of it quite random - a bag of potatoes, a few onions, a package of Nesquick, two peanut butter jars, strawberry jam, Nutella, a couple boxes of pasta, a box of cereal, and some wurst. I ate it all - why let good food go to waste? - but it made for some very bizarre meals in the first few days of my stay in Clausthal. Fortunately there are not one but TWO grocery stores just a five-minute walk down the hill from the dorms, which makes shopping very convenient. On one of my first days here I went and did a diligent comparison between the two stores, finding that some goods were cheaper one place while others I was better off buying at the other store. One is Aldi, a Mardens type store but with mostly groceries - usually cheap, doesn't always have everything you'd want, and the selection of non-grocery items is on a sort of "surplus and salvage" basis - makes for some interesting surprises, though I haven't found anything there I simply HAD to buy yet (probably because I'm very money- and space-conscious here). Marktkauf, the other option, is more like a Walmart - a better selection and a TON of non-grocery items - everything from bike accessories to yarn to books to pots and pans to cleaning supplies. Between the two stores, I manage to keep my grocery bill to less than 20 Euros per week, and that's even with occasionally treating myself. So far I've made shepherd's pie, pasta & peas, hamburgers, wiener schnitzel & potato salad, chicken nuggets, and ravioli for my suppers. Lunch is usually a sandwich or occasionally leftovers (thank God again for that microwave!), but breakfast, of course, is my true specialty. Cereal and yogurt with musli is a quick and easy one, but I am also perfecting the art of the bacon-and-cheese omelet (I've got to survive somehow without ROMA omelets next year!) as well as experimenting with French toast and egg-in-a-hole (can you tell that I like eggs?). So far I've managed to avoid the common college traps of TV dinners or constant pasta, and this summer has definitely given me hope for my culinary survival next year.
Cooking implements, naturally, are not something I have a great supply of - after all, I don't want to go out and buy a bunch of pots and pans that I'm just going to have to leave behind after 8 weeks. I collected in Munich (by asking the other group members and "borrowing" from the well-stocked communal kitchens) a spoon, knife, fork, and plate, and was planning to make do with a technically "disposable" bowl that I had gotten from an ice-cream parlor. When I arrived in Clausthal I was shown to my delight the cupboard filled with various utensils and commodities which was dedicated to the international interns, and picked up a saucepan, frying pan, spatula, ceramic bowl, sand glass. With these minimal elements I sometimes have to be creative in my cooking, but in general they suffice (makes me think about what I really NEED to bring to Spelman versus what would be "nice to have/come in handy every once in a while"...) and don't clutter up my cupboard. It does, however, mean that I have to wash my dishes after just about every meal - simply because I have to use the same dishes for the next one. Generally I'm pretty good about this, but if you can keep a secret, there have definitely been a couple of nights where the bowl from supper soaked in the sink and didn't get washed until breakfast the next morning. This is one thing my future roommates were very adamant about in our discussions in the spring, that dishes *always* and *immediately* be washed and put away, so I'm trying to practice here (at home we just rinse the dishes and use them again during the day, and only wash everything at night, so it's not necessarily a habit of mine).
Overall, I am very content with my room, which is good because I spend most of my time here when I'm not at the Institute. The semester is now (finally) over and I'm fairly sure the students have gone home for the summer, because I don't see as many in the hallways, but I never saw very many and didn't ever meet any of my neighbors - the only people my age I interact with here are the other interns. This has its downsides, principally that most of the other interns don't speak German, so we talk in English and I don't get to practice my German as much as I was hoping. I have actually noticed a slight decline in my proficiency, especially because after about two weeks I got tired of reviewing vocabulary every night and have more or less let that habit slide (I know, I know, bad student Erin :( ). Everything I could need is here - bed, kitchen, and bathroom. The laundry is in the basement, but you have to pay for it here (like in normal places) so I try to go as long as possible in between loads - I can almost stretch it 3 weeks if I wash a few pairs of underwear in the sink ;) I'm so stingy I refuse even to pay for use of the dryer (it's 1 Euro per load and the washers are 1.50!!) so instead I go find a drying rack in one of the common rooms and sneak it back to my room so my clothes can dry on it, then return it. Most of the students, I've observed, take the drying racks (which are communal, as far as I can tell) and hang their clothes on them in the common rooms or out in the hallways, so I don't feel bad moving one to my room for a few days at a time to use it.
I also have a mailbox at the dorm, but it is usually very sadly empty. I've gotten one letter so far, and it made me REALLY happy - so I'm giving you all my address right here so you have no excuse :P Mail takes about a week to get from the States to Germany, so you all still have two weeks if you want to send me something - go!
Erin Mills
Leibnizstraße 20, Zimmer 82
38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld
Germany
The dorm is at the top of a hill, with the institute halfway down and the grocery stores at the bottom. There is a cobbled path that leads directly down the hill, but the road winds back and forth (Germans are REALLY big into pedestrian shortcut paths - they're way more official than they are in the States :D). Overall, it is a very nice arrangement. The country around is very nice, too - but I'll tell you about all that in another post, another day. Until then, keep smiling!!
And send me stuff!! Postcards/letters are always welcome!! (Or, if you're lazy, you can just send me an email. That works too :D).
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Changing Locale
Finally, the day had come to leave Munich and set out on my own adventure for the summer. I had set my alarm for 6:30, but woke up before it out of some combination of nervousness and excitement. It turned out to be a good thing I did, too, because packing took a lot longer than I planned on. I didn't remember having so much stuff when I was packing to come to Germany... of course, back in Princeton I packed leisurely over the course of several days, which may have made some difference... I packed for about an hour, then went downstairs to say my final goodbyes to everyone who was flying out together. I had also put out an all-call to the group for any foodstuffs and other nonperishables that they hadn't finished but didn't want to bring back to America - I never like to waste food, and anything I could bring with me to Clausthal was something I didn't have to buy once I was there.
I also had another motive for begging for food - money. I had received a $1000 scholarship to help defray the $2500 tuition cost of Princeton in Munich, but we were still responsible for paying for our own food during the month we were there, and the wealth of cultural opportunities that I had taken advantage of weren't free, for the most part. All in all, I had managed to spend around 900 Euros (that's almost $1300 at the average exchange rate for June) during my month in Munich - not exactly a small sum. I hadn't worried too much about this - my internship in Clausthal came with a 1300 Euro stipend for the 8 weeks which I figured should be just about enough to live comfortably and have a little left over for traveling and souvenirs. However, back in April when I was still ignorant about all of these kinds of grown-up living things, I thought that 1300 Euros wouldn't be nearly enough (I was calculating a monthly apartment rent in the neighborhood of 4-500 Euros/month, but fortunately my dorm in Clausthal is much cheaper than that). Therefore, I requested financial aid from Princeton to help make up the perceived difference - and was awarded $1500. I was delighted at this and now knew that I would have plenty of money, which is why I wasn't exactly living on a shoestring budget in Munich. However, in the middle of my last week of Princeton in Munich, I received an ominous email from the DAAD, the organization sponsoring my internship. Seems they had gotten wind of my aid from Princeton and had deemed that no student was allowed to receive more financial assistance during their internship than the minimal stipend they had allotted. Though I tried hard to explain my situation - that I had already been living in-country for a month and didn't have access to thousands of dollars of my parents' money as I deem many of the other interns do, the DAAD had no mercy. They declared they would dock my stipend by the amount of aid I had received from Princeton - suddenly I went from receiving 1300 Euros to about 250. A *huge* difference. Since my rent in Clausthal is 255 Euros/month (and the deposit on the room is 300 Euros), and my contract is technically for two and a half months (they tacked on a couple of weeks on either end of my stay, I'm not quite sure why), that in itself is almost a 900-Euro expense - yikes! Ultimately, it's not a make-or-break thing - I worked very hard this past school year (even working four jobs at a time) and managed to bring my accounts up to about $3000 - but I had been considering buying a used car for ease of grocery trips during the coming school year, and this news that the $1300 I had just spent in June basically came out-of-pocket essentially eliminated that possibility. Luckily, a bike still seems within my spending range (mine was stolen at the end of the school year and never recovered) and my especially frugal living in Clausthal has meant that I will only end up spending about 700 Euros more than the remains of my stipend (as opposed to the 1050 Euros that they docked me), but it was still an unpleasant surprise that effectively served to take most of the excitement out of my anticipation of Clausthal.
However, I may have bitten off more than I can chew by asking 40 people for anything extra they didn't want - my food pile, when I returned to my room after seeing the group off, was intimidatingly large. In addition, my time was growing ever shorter - my train left the Munich Central Station at 10:16, so I had originally planned to leave at 9:30 to ensure that I made it to the station in plenty of time to find an empty seat on the train and a good place to store my luggage. However, as 9:00 came and went and I was still sorting things into piles and playing a desperate sort of Tetris game to get everything to fit neatly into two suitcases and my backpack, it became clear that this wasn't happening. In fact, I began to worry about even fitting in breakfast and still making it to the train - I had a couple of eggs left over that I was planning to make into scrambled eggs or an omelet for my last breakfast, but if I stopped to make it I would surely be too late. An angel appeared about 9:15 in the form of another student who hadn't left with the group, coming to my room to return the USB stick I had given him to put pictures from the past month on (I am seriously planning to make a photo book this time and wanted as much source material as possible). Seeing my desperation and the stuff I still had to pack, he asked, "When did you want to leave by again?" and immediately followed that with "Give me those eggs - I'll make breakfast for you." I sheepishly agreed, knowing that it was the only way I was going to be able to eat before I left, but still kicking myself for not planning better. In the end, I was able to wolf down the wonderful omelet he made for me, stuff everything I had brought to Germany in my various suitcases, and bring a selection of the food offered to me - but a large bag of it had to stay in the communal kitchen, to my chagrin.
At last, at 9:50 I raced down the steps and bolted out of the Wohnheim, remembering to return my key on the way out but forgetting in my haste to empty the trash cans in my room or even empty out my refrigerator (I had a bit of OJ left, some margarine, and a tupperware of cooked chicken and tortellini that was intended for my supper :P). I had had to use the expansion compartment of my large suitcase, and it probably weighed a good 80 pounds on its own - my carry-on containing all of my books added a good 30 pounds at least, and my backpack was stuffed with food and entertainment for the train including my laptop - another 20 pounds, if not more. Even then I had another shopping bag with a few things which just wouldn't fit in my backpack but I really wanted to have for Clausthal - needless to say, I was heavy laden. No time to take my ease, however - I trotted down the sidewalk at a pace as close to a run as I could with all of the weight I was lugging. My arms were aching well before I got to the S-Bahn station, where I stared desperately at the several flights of stairs before looking around frantically for the elevator. However, there was no lift to the city-bound platform and I still had to drag my bags up a full flight of stairs - I physically couldn't do this all at once but had to make two trips, one to get my carry-on and another for the bigger suitcase, which I could barely lift more than three stairs at a time. All of this exertion, combined with the North Face jacket I had to wear for the pocket space, meant that by the time I was standing on the S-Bahn platform I was panting hard and sweat was streaming down my face as it hadn't for years - not since my days in high school as a cross-country runner when I would give my all at the end of those first races of the season, when the hot weather and my still-soft muscles conspired against me. The entire journey, from the elevator in the Wohnheim through the familiar 10-minute S-Bahn ride - was one long desperate prayer. I knew that nothing but a miracle would get me to my train in time, and to miss it meant hours of hassle and expense and not getting to Clausthal that day. Finally the S-Bahn pulled up to the Hauptbahnhof and I dashed off the train and ran to the nearest escalator - at this point there was no way I was getting my luggage up more stairs, so I had to ride the escalator stationary like a normal person instead of my usual method of using it as a turbo-stair. At the top I looked around frantically for the signs to "long-distance trains" and dashed off in the direction the sign indicated, praying that the station wouldn't be too crowded or the trains too far away. My constant stream of "Oh Lord, You're the only one who can get me on this train, so please do a miracle" didn't stop even when I saw my train still sitting in the station - only when I had sprinted the length of it to find the first second-class car and given my luggage one last mighty heave onto the train did I pause, completely winded and shaking, to say one of the most thankful prayers of my life. It was 10:14 when I got on the train, and I had only just collected my bearings and begun traipsing through the train searching for an empty seat when I felt the jerk of the train beginning to move out of the station. I finally found an empty seat, stowed my big suitcase in a space at one end of the train car, and collapsed, still trying to catch my breath. The sweat didn't stop pouring off of me for a good 30 minutes, and my shirt was soaked in several places, but I was safely on my way to Clausthal, and that's all that really mattered. That is potentially the closest I have ever been to missing a public transit connection and still making it - and these trains aren't the kind that leave every half-hour. If I had not made my train I would most likely not have been able to find another until the next morning, and I had already relinquished my key which was my entry into my living quarters, so I would have had nowhere to stay for the night. But God is good even to those of His children who don't deserve it, and I made it on the train safely and only a little worse for wear.
Although I had not reserved my seat beforehand, thankfully no one else had either, so I was left in peace for the entire three-hour train ride to Göttingen. I spent the time alternately in looking out the window at Germany passing me by, catching up on The Case for Christ, napping, and listening to my iPod. At Göttingen I had a 45-minute layover, so there was plenty of time to lug my bags over to my departure track (now I know why they call it "luggage") and look around at the station - it was quite small compared to Munich (which was basically all of Germany I had seen so far), but I was to see much smaller before my journey was done. The regional train ride which took me from Göttingen to Goslar lasted another hour, so it was mid-afternoon by the time I detrained in Goslar for the last leg of my journey, by bus. This proved to be a little more problematic than the trains, as far as luggage went - I couldn't lift them up the cramped space of the bus steps, so the driver generously said (after glancing at my ticket), "Why don't you just use the back door?" and opened the door in the middle of the bus which was designed for people with bikes and strollers and was a much more open area. The bags were still heavy, but I eventually got them on the bus and sat down, panting again. The next 40 minutes was a bumpy ride along winding mountain roads, mostly going up. All that could be seen on either side of the road were trees lining seemingly endless ridges and hills, and I realized that I wasn't exactly in Munich anymore. A slow smile spread across my face as I surveyed the area which was to be my home for the next eight weeks - I liked it already.
When we finally reached the Clausthal Central Bus Station (nothing more than two bus stops in a medium-sized parking lot), I was relieved to see an old beat-up Toyota parked in the corner and a confident, smiling, balding man striding towards the bus. He said, "Erin, I presume?" and upon my relieved nod, beamed and grabbed the handle of my larger suitcase. The two-minute ride to the institute consisted of him spewing information and questions (all in English) and me nodding meekly and looking around at what could be seen of the town from the windows of the car, more glad to have arrived than anything else. That night I was shown my dorm, the institute where I would be working and how to get between the two before Leif shooed me off to my room to settle in and clear my head. Supper was an improvised meal of some no-longer-frozen veggies that I had rather unwittingly packed, made with extra water to which I added a bit of instant potato mix (which also makes a great cheap thickener for soups and such ;]). And so, as much as I wanted to find out everything about my new surroundings, I paid attention to first things first - starting to unpack and getting a good night's sleep, which is my primary key to success. Which is also what I will do right now, with the intention to (finally) tell you everything you've been dying to know about my life here, which I've been living for FIVE weeks now (my, how time does fly), in the very near future.
I also had another motive for begging for food - money. I had received a $1000 scholarship to help defray the $2500 tuition cost of Princeton in Munich, but we were still responsible for paying for our own food during the month we were there, and the wealth of cultural opportunities that I had taken advantage of weren't free, for the most part. All in all, I had managed to spend around 900 Euros (that's almost $1300 at the average exchange rate for June) during my month in Munich - not exactly a small sum. I hadn't worried too much about this - my internship in Clausthal came with a 1300 Euro stipend for the 8 weeks which I figured should be just about enough to live comfortably and have a little left over for traveling and souvenirs. However, back in April when I was still ignorant about all of these kinds of grown-up living things, I thought that 1300 Euros wouldn't be nearly enough (I was calculating a monthly apartment rent in the neighborhood of 4-500 Euros/month, but fortunately my dorm in Clausthal is much cheaper than that). Therefore, I requested financial aid from Princeton to help make up the perceived difference - and was awarded $1500. I was delighted at this and now knew that I would have plenty of money, which is why I wasn't exactly living on a shoestring budget in Munich. However, in the middle of my last week of Princeton in Munich, I received an ominous email from the DAAD, the organization sponsoring my internship. Seems they had gotten wind of my aid from Princeton and had deemed that no student was allowed to receive more financial assistance during their internship than the minimal stipend they had allotted. Though I tried hard to explain my situation - that I had already been living in-country for a month and didn't have access to thousands of dollars of my parents' money as I deem many of the other interns do, the DAAD had no mercy. They declared they would dock my stipend by the amount of aid I had received from Princeton - suddenly I went from receiving 1300 Euros to about 250. A *huge* difference. Since my rent in Clausthal is 255 Euros/month (and the deposit on the room is 300 Euros), and my contract is technically for two and a half months (they tacked on a couple of weeks on either end of my stay, I'm not quite sure why), that in itself is almost a 900-Euro expense - yikes! Ultimately, it's not a make-or-break thing - I worked very hard this past school year (even working four jobs at a time) and managed to bring my accounts up to about $3000 - but I had been considering buying a used car for ease of grocery trips during the coming school year, and this news that the $1300 I had just spent in June basically came out-of-pocket essentially eliminated that possibility. Luckily, a bike still seems within my spending range (mine was stolen at the end of the school year and never recovered) and my especially frugal living in Clausthal has meant that I will only end up spending about 700 Euros more than the remains of my stipend (as opposed to the 1050 Euros that they docked me), but it was still an unpleasant surprise that effectively served to take most of the excitement out of my anticipation of Clausthal.
However, I may have bitten off more than I can chew by asking 40 people for anything extra they didn't want - my food pile, when I returned to my room after seeing the group off, was intimidatingly large. In addition, my time was growing ever shorter - my train left the Munich Central Station at 10:16, so I had originally planned to leave at 9:30 to ensure that I made it to the station in plenty of time to find an empty seat on the train and a good place to store my luggage. However, as 9:00 came and went and I was still sorting things into piles and playing a desperate sort of Tetris game to get everything to fit neatly into two suitcases and my backpack, it became clear that this wasn't happening. In fact, I began to worry about even fitting in breakfast and still making it to the train - I had a couple of eggs left over that I was planning to make into scrambled eggs or an omelet for my last breakfast, but if I stopped to make it I would surely be too late. An angel appeared about 9:15 in the form of another student who hadn't left with the group, coming to my room to return the USB stick I had given him to put pictures from the past month on (I am seriously planning to make a photo book this time and wanted as much source material as possible). Seeing my desperation and the stuff I still had to pack, he asked, "When did you want to leave by again?" and immediately followed that with "Give me those eggs - I'll make breakfast for you." I sheepishly agreed, knowing that it was the only way I was going to be able to eat before I left, but still kicking myself for not planning better. In the end, I was able to wolf down the wonderful omelet he made for me, stuff everything I had brought to Germany in my various suitcases, and bring a selection of the food offered to me - but a large bag of it had to stay in the communal kitchen, to my chagrin.
At last, at 9:50 I raced down the steps and bolted out of the Wohnheim, remembering to return my key on the way out but forgetting in my haste to empty the trash cans in my room or even empty out my refrigerator (I had a bit of OJ left, some margarine, and a tupperware of cooked chicken and tortellini that was intended for my supper :P). I had had to use the expansion compartment of my large suitcase, and it probably weighed a good 80 pounds on its own - my carry-on containing all of my books added a good 30 pounds at least, and my backpack was stuffed with food and entertainment for the train including my laptop - another 20 pounds, if not more. Even then I had another shopping bag with a few things which just wouldn't fit in my backpack but I really wanted to have for Clausthal - needless to say, I was heavy laden. No time to take my ease, however - I trotted down the sidewalk at a pace as close to a run as I could with all of the weight I was lugging. My arms were aching well before I got to the S-Bahn station, where I stared desperately at the several flights of stairs before looking around frantically for the elevator. However, there was no lift to the city-bound platform and I still had to drag my bags up a full flight of stairs - I physically couldn't do this all at once but had to make two trips, one to get my carry-on and another for the bigger suitcase, which I could barely lift more than three stairs at a time. All of this exertion, combined with the North Face jacket I had to wear for the pocket space, meant that by the time I was standing on the S-Bahn platform I was panting hard and sweat was streaming down my face as it hadn't for years - not since my days in high school as a cross-country runner when I would give my all at the end of those first races of the season, when the hot weather and my still-soft muscles conspired against me. The entire journey, from the elevator in the Wohnheim through the familiar 10-minute S-Bahn ride - was one long desperate prayer. I knew that nothing but a miracle would get me to my train in time, and to miss it meant hours of hassle and expense and not getting to Clausthal that day. Finally the S-Bahn pulled up to the Hauptbahnhof and I dashed off the train and ran to the nearest escalator - at this point there was no way I was getting my luggage up more stairs, so I had to ride the escalator stationary like a normal person instead of my usual method of using it as a turbo-stair. At the top I looked around frantically for the signs to "long-distance trains" and dashed off in the direction the sign indicated, praying that the station wouldn't be too crowded or the trains too far away. My constant stream of "Oh Lord, You're the only one who can get me on this train, so please do a miracle" didn't stop even when I saw my train still sitting in the station - only when I had sprinted the length of it to find the first second-class car and given my luggage one last mighty heave onto the train did I pause, completely winded and shaking, to say one of the most thankful prayers of my life. It was 10:14 when I got on the train, and I had only just collected my bearings and begun traipsing through the train searching for an empty seat when I felt the jerk of the train beginning to move out of the station. I finally found an empty seat, stowed my big suitcase in a space at one end of the train car, and collapsed, still trying to catch my breath. The sweat didn't stop pouring off of me for a good 30 minutes, and my shirt was soaked in several places, but I was safely on my way to Clausthal, and that's all that really mattered. That is potentially the closest I have ever been to missing a public transit connection and still making it - and these trains aren't the kind that leave every half-hour. If I had not made my train I would most likely not have been able to find another until the next morning, and I had already relinquished my key which was my entry into my living quarters, so I would have had nowhere to stay for the night. But God is good even to those of His children who don't deserve it, and I made it on the train safely and only a little worse for wear.
Although I had not reserved my seat beforehand, thankfully no one else had either, so I was left in peace for the entire three-hour train ride to Göttingen. I spent the time alternately in looking out the window at Germany passing me by, catching up on The Case for Christ, napping, and listening to my iPod. At Göttingen I had a 45-minute layover, so there was plenty of time to lug my bags over to my departure track (now I know why they call it "luggage") and look around at the station - it was quite small compared to Munich (which was basically all of Germany I had seen so far), but I was to see much smaller before my journey was done. The regional train ride which took me from Göttingen to Goslar lasted another hour, so it was mid-afternoon by the time I detrained in Goslar for the last leg of my journey, by bus. This proved to be a little more problematic than the trains, as far as luggage went - I couldn't lift them up the cramped space of the bus steps, so the driver generously said (after glancing at my ticket), "Why don't you just use the back door?" and opened the door in the middle of the bus which was designed for people with bikes and strollers and was a much more open area. The bags were still heavy, but I eventually got them on the bus and sat down, panting again. The next 40 minutes was a bumpy ride along winding mountain roads, mostly going up. All that could be seen on either side of the road were trees lining seemingly endless ridges and hills, and I realized that I wasn't exactly in Munich anymore. A slow smile spread across my face as I surveyed the area which was to be my home for the next eight weeks - I liked it already.
When we finally reached the Clausthal Central Bus Station (nothing more than two bus stops in a medium-sized parking lot), I was relieved to see an old beat-up Toyota parked in the corner and a confident, smiling, balding man striding towards the bus. He said, "Erin, I presume?" and upon my relieved nod, beamed and grabbed the handle of my larger suitcase. The two-minute ride to the institute consisted of him spewing information and questions (all in English) and me nodding meekly and looking around at what could be seen of the town from the windows of the car, more glad to have arrived than anything else. That night I was shown my dorm, the institute where I would be working and how to get between the two before Leif shooed me off to my room to settle in and clear my head. Supper was an improvised meal of some no-longer-frozen veggies that I had rather unwittingly packed, made with extra water to which I added a bit of instant potato mix (which also makes a great cheap thickener for soups and such ;]). And so, as much as I wanted to find out everything about my new surroundings, I paid attention to first things first - starting to unpack and getting a good night's sleep, which is my primary key to success. Which is also what I will do right now, with the intention to (finally) tell you everything you've been dying to know about my life here, which I've been living for FIVE weeks now (my, how time does fly), in the very near future.
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