And now for some dream completely different

Once in a while I have a completely whacked-out dream – some absolutely crazy, semi-logical chain of facts and facets. I can’t guarantee that they’re better than hallucinations from taking drugs (haven’t tried), but I’ve been told so by people who smoke weed, anyway. I had another dream like that quite recently and wanted to amuse my readers with the scenario:

The blue-gray shine of morning’s first light illuminates a cemetary. Actual stone crypts are set in regular rows. Black coffins stand on each crypt, surrounded by flowers. Between the graves, people stand in a crowd. They are all white, wearing white suits and dresses. A queue is visible, forming in front of a coffin in the middle of the cemetary. This one is white, and on top of it is a model of the White House. The people approach it with folded papers in their hands, which they drop into a slit in the roof of the model White House. We move away a little bit further, and an enclosure becomes visible: The cemetary is only a fenced-in part of a larger graveyard, set apart by a tight wall of black metal spears, tips gold-rimmed. Outside the fence, more people are approaching. These people are all black, wearing black suits over white shirts or black dresses and hats. Some of them carry black coffins in teams on their shoulders. It is obvious that they are heading for the only gate in the fence, which is locked shut. As they continue to approach, a tune fades in from the background: Harsh, distorted cellos, starting out slowly, but accelerating. The sawing, straining chords of “Hall under Mountain King” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw0TikGmVz4) rip across the scene. As the speed rises, the black people start walking faster. And faster. As the cellos break into the full riff, they start to run, to charge. The people who reach the fence first can only push against it and rattle. But the groups approaching with coffins do no hit the fence. Instead, they launch their cargo over the top of the fence. Black coffins crash to the ground inside the enclosure and break open. Every single one of them contains a model of the White House – painted black.

And here I woke up. Most of the symbolism is very obvious – but it should be emphasized that this was a dream, not a deliberate statement. So nobody has a readon to be offended, okay?

Three Monkeys – Oscilloscope Style

With the start of my graduate studies, the common oscilloscope has suddenly become an everyday tool for me in a version that it has never been before. The novelty of this rather complex device has allowed me extraordinary opportunities to “turn myself into a monkey”, as we in Germany are wont to say.

Monkey One: See no signal

Two days ago, I was trying to adjust a back-reflection mirror. I.e., at the end of five meter beampath, with a fibre, two lens systems and any number of polarizers and mirrors in between, a perpendicular mirror should reflect the laser beam all the way, precisely. We had a photodiode set up that would detect this happening, and normally it’s simple. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t see a signal. I checked again that the laser was being reflected back properly (done by holding an IR card near the incoming beam to see if a reflection showed up sideways – ideally it should be right on the incoming beam). I even went so far as to check at the photodiode itself – the beam is weak there, and I had to turn of all the lights in our lab and the neighbors’, until I could with a lot of effort see a slight pinprick right on the diode. What was wrong? The oscilloscope has two channels, and I had the wrong one switched on.

Monkey Two: Hear no signal

Yesterday, photodiode again, but a different one, much easier. I could easily see the beam going into the diode. But nothing’s happening; flatline. The epic reason: I had the GND button toggled. This connects the signal to ground and is normally used to find the green line again if you’ve turned so many wheels you can’t see it anymore. Somehow, I must have touched it on putting in the cable.

Monkey Three: Speak no signal, either

Similar situation: Get a beam to hit a photodiode (this is a recurring theme in our work, yes). The beam was definitely going in there, and the channel was not grounded. If I turned the diode (very rough method), I could sometimes see a little flicker like it was about to hit the diode, but I could never get a decent hit resulting in a high, steady signal. Hmmm. There’s a button beside GND, called DC/AC (not the band). If you put it to AC, it’s optimized for watching fast-changing signals. Suddenly putting a steady signal into an AC channel results in a short increase which drops back to zero as the signal stops changing. Guess what happened? Yes, I was in AC mode. The strong, constant signal from the photodiode had been there the entire time. Arghlll.

All of these things have something in common: It’s difficult to see. You must know to check for the problem – and now I do. I remain with the old adage “it’s only dumb the second time”.

Sleeping well

Another update from the realm of work-life balance: Things have improved greatly. The key, interestingly enough, seems to be getting up early. Those who know me will need a few moments to cease laughing, but it’s what I’ve actually been doing. Well, okay, I’ve been getting up at 7:30 – which by my standards is so close to yesterday it’s amazing I wake up at all.

Next step: Don’t dawdle. Quick breakfast, shave and go. Do NOT turn on the computer, under no circumstances at all. This has me at work at about 8:30, way before everyone else. I can switch on the lab and perform some experiments of my own. Since I don’t run full measurements alone, I normally only have some more simple element characterization to do, or some behaviour to check. When other people start arriving, I either piggyback on their plan (if it sounds interesting) or go to my desk to perform calculations and read.

By the time lunch rolls by, I’m actually hungry and I have accomplished something. In the late afternoon (17-18 o’clock) I’m actually finished with a decent workday behind me and can go home. The main realization behind this is that there are two things that have been tiring me:

1. working late in the evening (not the same thing as working long hours)
2. sleeping too little

The last one was simply because I went to bed too late and had pretty long breakfasts (including some reading and music). After a week without either, I’m pretty happy with the way things are going. I think that for the forseeable future, I should be able to do everything that needs doing – although “needs doing” is very often my own decision.

On another note, my two official hobbies, choir and french, are both proceeding well. The choir may actually get Elias into decent shape before christmas, and while my french is even rustier than I thought, I’m slowly thawing it out again. The key seems to be some discipline in formulation: Stick to grammar I actually know instead of shooting for loftier phrasings. That’s what I normally like to do, but if it leads to four errors per sentence, it ruins the appearance.

Hello burnout

After pulling a twelve-hour workday on monday and feeling really beatup until late yesterday evening, I’ve decided that keeping my working hours lower cannot be a sin. I entered university working way too little and not even going to most lectures. This worked the first semester, but resulted in sharply declining grades and even two failed exams in the second and third semester; after that, I started kicking my own butt a little bit more and fortunately pulling up quite a bit. My diploma was the high point of my academic career with perfect grades. So, the lesson from my first five years was

I am lazy and when I work longer for some reason, it’s good.

In fact, working less with the excuse that it’s more efficient was one of the things that got me into the initial problems, so I mistrusted skipping something because it seemed less helpful. Sometimes I did it anyway, but I’d normally feel guilty in some way.

Now, however, I’ve started my thesis, and despite getting paid 20 hours a week, I work 40-50. I try to be at work 8 hours a day, and unless I have some important appointment, I work longer whenever it seems useful. This is normally the case when an experiment is starting to work late and I want to be there to see the entire process. For the time being, I’m learning the most from watching other people operate the lab. A situation like that is what led to the twelve hour monday. I’m feeling a lot better now, but yesterday was not a very good day – I felt worn out, twitchy and a little depressed the entire time.

I think what I have to learn now is that there is a limit to how much I can work and keep feeling well – this limit may be lower than some of my colleagues’. But frankly, my colleagues are all leaving a long time before I get my thesis, and at the moment, I’m learning a lot more from them then they are from me. So, nobody else is affected if I work a little bit less (say, 8 hours a day, not counting lunch). The only thing I should really care about is that I learn enough to pull off a good thesis when the time comes. I’m pretty certain that whatever position I take afterwards will be less work than being a grad student. So, for the moment, I should try to get a healthier and more efficient perspective on how much time I spend at work.

Heavy metal at the end of summer

My brother and I went to a festival on saturday: The Summers End [sic]  at Andernach! I originally saw the poster advertising it at the Rheinkultur festival a couple of weeks ago, and research showed that it was a small festival on some field outside a village.

Hoooowever, and this is big, there were several of the major names of the german gothic metal scene there: Subway to Sally, Letzte Instanz, die apokalyptischen Reiter. A quite amazing line-up actually, not to mention a good supporting casts with old friends like Van Canto, the 100%-guaranteed bravest band in the history of metal. Also, the only a capella band in the history of metal.

The drive was a little bit longer than we’d expected, but weather was excellent, the sun beating down and a light breeze cooling all the black-clads. We missed Van Canto (longer drive, remember?), but the first band we saw turned out to be the surprise of the evening: The previously-unknown Coppelius, styled after Hoffmann’s The Sandman (meaning 18th century garb, white make-up and a rather florid style of speech) presented themselves with Cellos, Oboes and interesting song-writing. A pleasant surprise, and I took a CD home with me.

The rest of the festival varied between excellent and okay: Saltatio Mortis and die apokalyptischen Reiter were not as appealing as Coppelius had been, but Letzte Instanz and particularly Subway to Sally showed their full abilities – these two bands are not my longtime favorites for nothing.

I think Andernach will be seeing me again next year – the field-and-forest atmosphere is kinda nice, and the bands were a really good deal for the low price.

Interior deco, my style

Without sounding too fancy, I like to put some thought into what I put in my flat. Mostly, I like bright colors, but I try to make it work with the white walls, bright wood look off the furniture and the red curtains. A new speck of color has entered my room today: The repainted drawers for my desk.

The desk is pretty ancient (older than me for sure) and has spent the last fifteen years in the attic at home, where my brothers used it as a desk, and more often, as a workbench. It was looking a little beat when I took it to my new flat, but it’s a rock-solid build, good wood, rather big and sturdy steel guides for the drawers. I maybe wouldn’t jump on them when they’re all pulled out, but anything less they’ll take.

The problem: There were stickers on it. Old, ugly stickers from when my brothers were little (i.e. I wasn’t born). Flags, soccer players, you know. The little stickers you find in choclate bars. First I tried to get them off with acetone – no reaction. Then I went to the hardware store, told of my troubles and was given Lösin (english roughly “Solvine™”). It kept its word – it vigorously dissolved the paint off the stickers. But not the glue, so now I had white stickers and a full can of something I didn’t want to touch if I could avoid it. Next attempt was sticker-remover from the electronics store, which (together with strong scrubbing) did the job. However, the wood underneath the stickers had of course aged differently. The only solution is to sand off the upper layer of wood and repaint.

My parents are better equipped for this – they have a sander, base paint and tough varnish. In between, the drawers have to dry, so it took two weeks until it was actually finished. But now I have colored drawers, nicely repainted, in my desk. For all those who wonder what colors I’d think appropriate on a desk, here’s a picture:

Bean bags: The seats of the gods

There is one item in my flat that I’ve come to appreciate a lot more recently, and that is my bean bag. It’s big and difficult to stow away when I’m not using it, but having it is totally worth it. It used to be that when I came home from work during my diploma, I’d just listen to music, cook, or go do something with friends. Well, I don’t have any local friends yet, and frankly, after nine hours or more at a rather challenging workplace, I can’t just pull through like that anymore. Or at least, it’s not as pleasant as it used to be after a six-hour workday back then.

So what I normally do now, is simply this: I come home, make sure there is nothing time-critical (like shopping) to do, pull out the bean bag, select a book and flounce down. The positive side effect is that I’m actually reading books again which are not just informative, but also fun. The current one is “the nightmare realm of Edward Moon”, a pseudo-victorian fantasy murder tale. I haven’t understood what the big conspiracy against the city of London is yet, but the book is not as predictable as it may sound now, anyway. I’ve put two flouncings (new unit of time) into it so far and expect to be done in another two. Normally, a flouncing takes about an hour before I decide that I have better things to do now. The benefit is that for the rest of the evening, I actually have some energy again.

Remember kids: Work is hard, no matter what they tell you 🙂

Painting again!

Glory be to art. I’ve taken up a brush for the first time in a month and not only had a lot of fun, but also produced a respectable painting. I’d like to draw my readers’ attention to

The Image

May there be many more to come.

Moving, isn’t it?

Prepare for the most moving thing you’ve heard today…

I’ve moved!

Instead of Aachen, the city of kings long gone by, I now live in Bonn, the city of rulers not-so-long gone by. For our international customers: The city of Bonn (300.000 inhabitants) was the capital of West Germany 1949-1999. Chosen for its location far away from the border to the Warsaw pact, it still enjoys the many benefits of that time. The cultural life is that of a much larger city, the suburbs are clean and wealthy and infrastructure is excellent. There is even a subway (albeit not where I live).

The reason I moved was work, as might be guessed. I’d finished my diploma in Aachen and was looking to continue my education by acquiring a PhD. However, it so happens that the physics in Aachen are not so reputable. The engineers are, however, but an engineering PhD would not help me in acquiring a physics tenure later on if I wanted to. So I re-oriented, looking across the republic for PhD positions with interesting topics and capable (as well as well-financed) institutes. My ultimate choice fell on professor Meschede of the Institute of Applied Physics in Bonn. He and his merry band deal with single-atom manipulation for the sake of enabling quantum computing. They are friendly, hard-working and well-regarded. In fact, a recent publication managed to upstage (in a friendly way) the competing group at Harvard, who could not offer the same degree of sensor acuity. I consider that proof that I chose well.

It certainly is a change for me, as well. I’ve slid through university mostly on ability (I’m intelligent, curious and good at combining things I heard about in various places). Now, however, that is no longer enough, and I find myself working 40-45 hour weeks. This is mostly to prove myself to my new colleagues. Also, since we work in a team on one experiment, not doing your work impedes your colleagues. Of course, this is a great disservice which I seek to avoid. I am confident, however, that I can maintain motivation to work so long and that I will be able to do right by my co-workers. They seem like the bunch to repay favors, too.

Apart from work, I’ve been trying to get some social network up again. This is starting out slowly, so far (it always is in a new city). I’ve contacted the local Mensa chapter and found it to be much more entertaining than the Aacheners. These people have more humour and are quite lively actually. They are also 10-30 years older than I am, but so what. I’m also looking for a choir, but investigations on which one to pick are still ongoing. Also, the summer holidays are not over yet, so most choirs are not even in session. Lastly, I’m trying to get evening courses in french. I promised myself I’d work harder on my languages (german and english are excellent, but I want one more).

Lastly, I’ve been taking care of my home. I live in a 35 m^2 room with separate bath that is well-kept and tastefully decorated. That has been some work, especially finding the right kind of light (bright, isotropic, energy-saving and aesthetically pleasing). I am convinced that it hasn’t been for nothing, though. Compared to my old room in Aachen, this one certainly leaves a much better impression.

Okay, this is it so far. I’ll try to post more in a couple of days. But you know me, so there might be a hiatus at some point 😀

Il faut avoir Bonn culture!

I spent yesterday in Bonn with INCAS, the international students club in Aachen. Our merry band of 25 men and women of all nations (well, chinese, indonesian, german, french, rumanian, columbian, …) boarded an early train to Cologne, then on to Bonn. Our first stop was the former Bundestag, the building that housed german parliament from 1992 to 1999. The building is modernist, very transparent and slightly understated – it looks like an Ikea convention center, actually. I do like it, however. It represents our country better than the Berlin parliament’s “Look how important we are” marble facade, although it might not impress every dictator that comes to visit Bonn right away. The sweetest thing was the waterworks building that housed parliament 87-92, while the new building was under construction. It’s so tiny! Parliament itself hardly fits inside the walls, and visitors had to be rotated. It was also only marginally glamorous.

After a lunch break on the rhine bank meadows, we walked to one of Bonn’s many excellent museum, the House of German History. This museum is dedicated mostly to the history of the federal republic (and communist east germany). It’s basically advertisement for our (relatively) new democracy, but quite interesting nevertheless. The tour wasn’t so great, but some of the pieces exhibited were. I found an instruction manual given to american occupation soldiers right after WW2 (the instructions on behaviour were both nuanced, even-handed and practical and they showed a considerable concern for universal ethics and justice). Other interesting pieces were the proposals for a new flag after the war, the BMW Isetta (aka little death trap)  and facts surrounding youth organisation in the east.

After the museum, our official program was over, and we split into groups of five for the rest of the day. My group went straight to the “Rheinkultur” festival, a no-entrance-fee open air that is hosted once a year by the city of Bonn. There were five stages spread over the grounds, with dozens of concession stands in between. Crowds were thick (about 180.000 visitors in total), and the mood was high. We started off by listening to one of my favorite bands, Schandmaul (gothic folk rock) for an hour, before wandering around a little bit between stages. We had some grub, then I tried to get onto a trampolin to do some jumping. Unfortunately, it’s only safe up to 90 kg, which is less than what I weigh. So no go. Instead, we had a look at the techno stage (which would later be taken off the air by a power outage, haha). Rain demanded temporary shelter, which was found in a beer stand. The music concluded with Sportsfreunde Stiller, a rather famous german… well, punk band.

We left a little bit early, walked to central station, took a VERY FULL train to Cologne, then another one to Düren, where we had to get out because of track repairs. Some busses took us to Eschweiler, were a train was waiting for us… not. Six hundred people stranded at four AM and not happy. The next train came half an hour later and was really small, so that was extremely crowded, too. We were all pretty much ready to bomb Deutsche Bahn at that point, but were way too tired. I finally got home at five and slept till noon. End of the day.