Don't Even Think About It

I saw this sign posted on someone's garage last night and it made me extremely happy. In essence it is a no parking sign, but the way it is worded is what makes it special. It basically says, "You should never even once let the thought occur to you to park here." It's like saying that you are guilty of parking there if you even have a hint of a thought of parking there. I love it.

Frau Prohaska's Paintings

My neighbor Frau Prohaska, who is the wife of the man who has his office in my house, is a painter. My housemate Pratibha and I paid Frau Prohaska a visit the other day to view her paintings. I was quite pleased with her work. She gifted Pratibha and me little photographs of a couple of her paintings, and I subsequently took photos of these photos to show you. The fairy/elf picture is supposed to be horizontal but the blog program won't put it that way. I love the way Frau Prohaska paints trees. Enjoy!

16 Hours of Bottle Shaking

These bottles must shake like this for 16 hours or more. I realize that they are just bottles of sandy liquid, but I still feel like it must be incredibly exhausting to shake for 16 hours straight. I stare at them for a few moments and I get tired.

The Torrent Miracle: "Weeds"

I just discovered that it only takes about 20 minutes to download (Torrent) a half-hour tv episode on the internet here at the university. So, I downloaded the first episode of season four of "Weeds" and am working on the second episode. I am crossing my fingers that the download finishes before my battery runs out. I would have left it at one episode for today, but "Weeds" is so addicting that I knew I couldn't watch just one episode without bursting for wont of more! I should have 9 minutes of battery life to spare, if everything goes smoothly. So excited!

It is Hot in Here

Today I am applying a skill which I learned from my years of schooling: keep all the lights off to keep the temperature down. It can be said that this technique is working for the temperature-sensitive Sedigraph, but I am still sweltering. I've got on shorts and a tanktop, but it isn't cutting it. My poor chocolate bar feels sad about the heat too ; )

Time Jump to the End of the Work Day: I am going to know the entire anatomy of that Sedigraph creature by the time I am done with it. I discovered today where my sample goes when the holding container is too full. So, I played with screws and knobs until I had everything nice and clean again.

VEGETABLES!!!!

I said it last Fall after a carbohydrate overload, but I think it needs saying again. Eat your veggies. They are good for you. I know that there are a lot of vegetable haters out there, but please, listen to my argument. I don't care so much about the vitamin value of veggies, although it is wonderful. I am concerned with what veggies do for my "system", if you know what I mean. Four days of carbohydrates, meats, and fruits and I was feeling like a lethargic block. Add some veggies and I am feeling so much better. It was hard to convince myself to eat that veggie/lentil combo tonight because of how all that other stuff was making me feel, but man was it worth it. Eating only fruit as a remedy for the system just doesn't cut it. I don't know how all you veggie haters survive. As for me, I love vegetables! And I'm proud to declare it.

Dear Sedigraph, Please be my friend.

It is difficult to operate a temperature sensitive machine in a country which doesn't believe in air conditioning. I have a fan blasting at the Sedigraph machine, but even that isn't doing the job to completeness. Grrrr. The windows are open wide and I am dearly hoping that some of that cool evening air will make its way down here into the basement. My hopes are high; my belief in them is low.

A Troubled Day for the Sedigraph Machine

My audience has declared that I have been neglecting my blog and I must confess that it is true. To make up for this neglect, I am going to relate my interesting, yet mundane day to you.

I got up and out of the house at a fresh hour this morning with full intention of analyzing several of my samples on the Sedigraph Grain Size Analysis machine. Today had been declared a day when I could have the machine all to myself and I was going to make the most of it.

I arrived at the lab, peaked around the corner and saw the lab manager, Ute, standing by my machine. I thought, “Oh, how nice of her to turn it on for me so I can get started quickly”. I went back around the corner, took off my coat, and got my notebook. Upon walking into the Sedigraph's room, I realized that Ute was cleaning mud out of the inside of the machine and that things didn't look promising for me. Apparently, a tube in the machine acquired a slit from use and liquidy soil sample was now layered on the inside of the machine. We cleaned for about two hours and I learned all about the mechanics of the machine. I let Ute do most of the work and offered my advice here and there, which she greatly appreciated having someone to give her moral support when pulling screws out of a very pricey piece of equipment. At one point she was trying to put a complicated piece back together and my hands-off assistance wasn't getting the job done, so I offered to put it together myself and “wah lah!”. Mechanic Laurie was born! I was quite proud of myself. While we were maintenancing the machine, I also decided to clean the filter and we replaced a few other tubes in addition to the slit one.

The day carried on quite mundanely after that with the machine functioning properly. It was only on my last sample which I wanted to accomplish today that things went awry. I put in the sample, I clicked Go, I left the room for a few moments to give the machine time to get to the point where I could assess its status, and then I returned. I returned to find an error message on the screen and part of my sample splattered inside the X-Ray compartment of the machine, which happens to have a window on it. Grrr. I first decided to try and clean things up and tighten the guilty looking tube. I tried running the analysis again to no avail. Thanks to my experience with the Instruction Manual in the morning, I looked up the error number to find out what the company suggested I do in this situation. From the option the manual gave, I decided that Ute would surely have to clean this portion of the machine in the morning because this is a sensitive area that I didn't want to mess with alone. Of course, who can resist cleaning up some of the mess and trying just one more time in hopes that things will miraculously change, and I won't have to redo all the steps for this sample that lead up to this machine? Definitely not me. But alas, I received the same error message. I wrote Ute a note, translating the Instruction Manual's suggestions from the English it is written in to German because her English is not so good. I find it kind of crazy that the machine sprung two leaks within a period of only a few days.

After dealing with the Sedigraph's issues, I rushed over to the Erlanger Tanz Haus for Irish Set Dancing! This form of dance is performed in pairs within a group of 4 pairs. And as I found out this evening upon inquiry, there are typically between 3 and 5 sets within a dance. I started out the evening dancing with an old man who tends to have two left feet and a bad memory. But, tonight he danced relatively well, even if I was still leading him around. About half way through the evening we took a break and I was part of a group conversation involving a man who had taught the Tanz Haus some Irish Set Dances a few weeks ago. I was flattered and delighted when he asked if I would dance with him. We were both a bit tired by this time of the evening, but his skill and enthusiasm were great assets with which to be partnered.

Let's recap the positives and negatives of this day.
Sedigraph broken (bad)
Sedigraph functioning (good)
Chatting with Steve (good)
Sedigraph broken (bad)
Left-Footed Dance Partner (bad)
Two-Footed Dance Partner (good)

Oooh, it looks like it is a tie today. But, those are just the highlights. I think that if really keeping score the bad would actually win, but I am writing this while laying very comfortably in my bed, so I am going to override the math and decide that the good wins.

New Names and Faces

I suppose that since I introduced you to my housemates when I first arrived that I should update you on the situation. Frank moved out at the end of March. His room has remained empty. Yve moved out a few weeks ago. A new MBA student from India, named Pratibha, has moved in to his room. She is working for Siemens. Sacsha, who also works for Siemens, will be moving out this coming weekend. A new guy is scheduled to move in to to his room on June 1st, so he said. When Sascha moves out I will finally be able to figure out which of the bottles in the bathroom we share are leftovers from old renters. There was a glass on our bathroom shelf up until about a week ago growing beautiful orange mold on its bottom. The entire time it sat there growing mold I was in disbelief that Sacsha really used it, but figured there was no other reason for it to be there. I finally asked and found out that it had been there when he moved in. Oh. It went directly to the trash bin. Pratibha's a cool girl. We tend to be eating breakfast and dinner about the same time so we chat (in English). She knows a little bit of German, but not enough to carry on any sort of even easy conversation. Sometimes when I come home and am in a German language mood I speak German to her and translate each sentence right after I say it. But, that gets annoying after a little bit and I switch to just English.

There's a new guy here in the lab named Baraa and he's from Egypt. He's working on his PhD. His German is pretty good for having only taken a 6 month intensive course. I try to converse in German with him, but sometimes we switch to English when the concepts we are discussing are too technical. Baraa is a nice, friendly guy. He makes me feel like I've been here in the lab for a while and have some sort of superiority because I explain to him what certain things are used for and where things are located.

I have come to feel quite comfortable in this lab. I am glad to have had this opportunity to participate in this aspect of geology research.

Sieving

Bernhard, my professor, told me that lab work would be like following recipes. This has been true. And like all kitchen work, for every utensil you get dirty, you have to clean it. Many objects can go straight into the dishwasher, some need to be pre-washed, and others, like this stack of 36 sieves, need to be individually scrubbed. So, if anyone asks what I'm doing in Germany, tell them that I'm a Dishwasher!