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.  

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.

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!