Chatty Interview

I had the interview for my TA job yesterday; although I have to use the term loosely. Professor Güntherodt turns out to be a friendly old man going on sixty, and while I was two minutes late, he was five minutes late, so all was well. His secretary had already taken some personal information from me, so we just went into his office, settled down and started talking… about god and the world, as we say. We blabbed about Norway, about different ways of choosing topics for lectures, about upcoming research on information storage – several groups are working on replacing electronics, but they all have different principles to replace them with. Then we veered off into a discussion on how slightly old-fashioned physics is sometimes neglected in the curriculum despite still being very useful and interesting. Next topic change brought us to university bureaucracy, and after that we speculated on what the new tuition fees (our university has just introduced a 500€/semester tuition fee) will do for the teaching standard. In short, we had a nice little pow-wow, but in no way did we touch on any issues specific to the lecture in question. Nor did he ask to see my qualifications; he just took it on faith that I had them. A very legère way of doing things, but it was a fun half hour.

Eventually, he seemed to be running out of time, so he got into the organisational part of things. Including me, he now has six TAs signed up, one of which I still know from last time (he’s gotta be twelfth semester now). Assuming maybe 140 students in the lecture, that puts the number per group in the mid-twenties. No problem dealing with that, my first group was 35. The administration is going to set up a contract for me, which covers a seven-hour-a-week employment over a good three months. I don’t know what my salary is going to be, yet, but it ought to be decent for the work expended. Beyond that, we’re going to have TA meetings weekly to receive the official solutions from the exercise leader, then correct our collected exercises using those solutions and eventually return them to our students and present the solutions to them. Normally, each student has to present at least one exercise as well, so as the semester wears on, the TA sometimes has very little talking to do. We shall see how motivated my little sheep are.

Gainfully Employed

The time is ripe to think about the coming semester! Once the particle practical is done with at the end of september, I have a week until lectures for the winter semester start. I do plan to take my next diploma exam (theoretical physics, the hardest one) in december, but until then I still want to visit a few lectures. I also want to do teacher assistant work again. I’ve done it once before from april to july 05 for an applied physics 2 course. It was pretty neat; I had a group of 35 students to take care of. I collected and graded their exercises and presented the official solutions once a week. Keep in mind that most of these guys were my age, as I’m rather young for my semester count. Because of that, I didn’t really have a lot of authority, but I didn’t need it. These guys accepted that 90% of the time, I knew better than they did, and most of the rest was some calculation mistake. All in all, we got along swimmingly, and I even collected a reasonable salary. I think it worked out to 15€ per hour.

Until recently, I wasn’t sure if I shouldn’t apply for a research assistant position instead; that way, I’d have a foot in the door for a thesis spot at whatever institute I worked for. However, following the laser diploma exam, that no longer seems necessary, so TA work it is. It’s far from fruitless, as working with students is extremely rewarding. In the best case, they get help and support for their studies, and I get experience in talking to people. I’m still nervous when speaking in front of groups, and practice is the best way to combat that. So, to get a TA job. There are numerous lectures that need them because of obligatory weekly exercises. German universities love those far more than semester projects or anything like that. I’m not really a kick-ass theoretical physicist, so I thought I’d stick to the applied courses, and to ones that would be useful for my diploma exams. The logical answer is applied physics 5, which is a fifth semester lecture and part of the repertoire for my experimental physics diploma exam in january 07. Thus, I profit three-fold: I get paid, I get to gather experience and confidence, and I prepare the subject matter for my own exam. Coincidentally, the people who are taking app phys 5 now also had app phys 2 three semesters ago, so I might see some old faces again. I have written the professor who holds the lecture, and he has invited me to come by his office on wednesday. I’m brushing up a little bit already, but I’m confident that I can get the job.

TA jobs aside, I still want to visit some lectures myself. First one is theoretical thermodynamics. I should have taken that one in sixth semester, but it interfered with my TA job back then, so I didn’t. Now I have that exam coming up in december for which I really need thermodynamics, and I don’t want to be 100% autodidact. Second is solid state physics 2. I already had this class in Trondheim, but the professor had a rather weird selection of topics and the level was pretty flaky, so I’m taking it again, with a professor I know and respect. Besides, all my friends are also re-taking it; apparently, their professor the first time around wasn’t so hot, either. Third and last definite lecture is organical chemistry 1. I’ve had anorganical 1 and 2 and physical chemistry, but I know very little about organic chemistry. Depending on where I do my thesis, that might become necessary knowledge. If not, having it still won’t hurt. I’m also considering taking astronomy as a hobby course, but I’ll have to wait and see how well I can handle my exam preparation, TA job and the other three lectures.

It’s still over a month until any of this even begins; but with the moving and the practical in between, I’ll have to arrange everything now while I still have time.

Payday

I have tasted victory, and it is sweet. My oral exam for laser technology was yesterday, and it was an unmitigated success. Let me put things into perspective: I study for a physics diploma in Aachen. That usually entails a five-year course of study where you have to pass a lot of different courses. Once you have passed all the courses you need, you finish of by taking four oral examinations and writing a thesis. The customary sequence is three-thesis-one. These five things alone determine your diploma grade. Not the courses you passed before, no exam that you wrote, no practical you passed. In these four units of 45 minutes with a professor (and a six-month thesis), it’s all determined. So I took my first step to actually getting a diploma yesterday. I scored a 1,0 (i.e., perfect) and was asked if maybe I didn’t want to do my thesis at that institute. Success!

The exam itself is a 45 minutes q&a session with a qualified professor and another person to keep protocol. Since very good knowledge of the subject matter is expected (both knowing by heart and understanding) it is common to prepare several weeks. I happened to take eight, which may have been rather careful, but I didn’t want to mess up on the first exam. On exam day, the professor launched with his standard question (what is the main difference between laser light and normal light?) and listened to a five minute explaination on my part. Apparently, then he decided to veer of the beaten track and started feeling out the edges of my knowledge. Several questions were asked that clearly begged for educated guesses, while others required some rather exotic knowledge. I made sure to throw in odd pieces of information where it was appropriate, to show I had some background knowledge. I had prepared well enough that any of the normal questions about which laser types exist, how they work or how you weld with lasers wouldn’t have been a problem; but as it was, I had to do a lot of fast talking. The resulting grade makes me think that this professor tries to push everyone to the limit of their book knowledge and wants to see what happens then. I think I passed.

As for further ramifications, this means that I will soon enquire in the laser technology institute about a possible diploma thesis starting february 2007. I wanted to do my thesis there anyway, but heard they did not have any places left. Well, since I was offered one, I should definitely seize the opportunity. It also saves time, as most people are spending weeks just looking for a possible thesis place. Over the next few days, I have quite a few mails to send, and some time next week I should start with preparation for the upcoming elemental particles practical. Finally, next friday is moving day for me. It’s only a temporary room, so I won’t take as much stuff as I normally would, but it will still be hours of work. Come october, I will have finished the practical, and be ready to start learning for the next exam. I intend to take theoretical physics in mid-december. That gives me ten weeks to prepare, which seems most adviseable for this rather difficult exam.

University stuff aside, I wanted to draw attention to my artistic efforts once more. The link list on the right features an entry for my account on SheezyArt, where all my works worthy of mention are displayed for your viewing pleasure. I am still satisfied with my pace of development, and I have gotten a neat box of colored pencils. Leave a comment if you feel like it.

Room To Rent

A number of good and bad things happened since the last entry. Let me start with the bad first, or rather the troublesome. Since my stay in Norway lasted longer than six months, I had to register as a resident, which I did some time in september 05. This means that I get an ID number and am registered for the norwegian tax authority. So far, this seemed like a non-issue. They certainly said they didn’t want much from me, and why would they? I’m an unemployed student living off his savings and his parents, both of which are in a different country. Now, however, I have received mail from the tax office requesting a statement, otherwise they would “assume income as in 2004” – they don’t have income data for me from 2004. I have to write them and make sure they don’t presuppose some average employee kind of income. The fact is that I have gotten virtually no money in Norway at all, so there is nothing to get into a quarrel over. I just have to inform them of it. Related to that is my emigration filing, which also seems to have had some trouble. I will admit that I am not very well-informed about norwegian residency and tax customs, but which exchange student is? The helpful little brochures recommending I register certainly never mentioned such things, and I think a full tax claim would be worth mentioning for your average student.

Apart from that potential mess, there are good things to report. I have a room in Aachen from the first of september. The primary occupant is moving out and subletting it to me for two months, long enough to deal with the particle practical and maybe get a permanent room in one of the tree dorms I applied to. The room itself is 12 m^2, carpented and with furniture and has its own little shower and toilet adjacent. I met some of the people from the floor already, and they seemed friendly and open. I think it’ll be fun living there. The only thing that remains to be done now is to fix up the contract and clear it with the housing authority.

In my free time, I’ve done some more reading. I’ve finished “Einstein’s Cosmos” and moved on to “The Swarm”, which so far is a little bit preachy but has enough research to back it up. I’ll have to interrupt that reading soon, though, because Amazon was once again blindingly fast and delivered volume two of the Sandman. Yes, it’s long-winded, yes, it’s darkish fantasy and occasionally seems to think that superheroes are somehow a good cameo idea, but despite all that, I really like the story and I want to see where it goes. Epic doesn’t give me any trouble, I read way too fast for that.

Shopping and Sheezy

I spent the last few days prepping further for laser technology, reading books and drawing stuff. Got a call today from the laser institute that their schedule was messed up and they’d like to move my exam to the 22nd… why not. Gives me a few more days before I go into the final reading phase and I don’t have anything else to do before september comes anyway. I’m still looking for a room in Aachen and I have the particle physics practical all september keeping me busy. Nevertheless, things are actually going quite smoothly. I’m living at home with my parents, and we get along with each other rather well. I’m quite and not very demanding, and they try not to crowd me in. It’s working out well, except when we have glitches in our organisation. I’m admittedly slightly careless.

Case in point: I went to Aachen yesterday because my brother wanted his car back. So I could drive there, shop some and go home by train. I thought I’d have it all in a bag and be back home come 18:00 in time to cook, which I promised to do. Yeah, right. I arrived in Aachen at 14:00, parked the car at my brother’s, went downtown and got some pens I’d been wanting. Then I met a friend for lunch and some chatting. By the time we were finished, it was 17:00, and I still had to shop for new shoes and go south to central station. Miraculously, I found nice shoes almost immediately: Comfortable, robust, moderate price. Nevertheless, it was 18:15 until my train left the station, and with one narrowly missed connection it was 20:00 until I was home. Oopsie. So much for promising to cook. By that time my father had left for a club meeting he had that evening that I didn’t know about, so he ended up having muesli for dinner. Unfulfilling. I have plans to make it up with a nice Coq au Vin tomorrow.

Today I made another pencil drawing. After putting Mr. Moose, my little plush moose from Canada on paper two days ago, this time I attacked our cactus, which so happened to be in bloom. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, cacti can bloom, although mine always die beforehand. My mother can make them do it, however. The flowers are huge and trumpet-shaped, and they live only a good day, so I had to do it today. Hunkered down on the garden table with the sketch pad and pencils and went to work. Took me maybe 90 minutes to make the drawing to some success. The flower was very beautiful, but it may have been overambitious to attempt drawing it in pencil. Most of the lines in the flower are very soft, all the shades are very light pink and white, and there is a considerable perspective to be conveyed. If you want to see what one looks like, Google Image search for “cactus flower”. I tried my best nevertheless, and it looks somewhat pretty, although not particularly like the flower I was drawing from.

Which brings me to the last part of this post: I decided that my own limited webspace sort of sucked for posting images (no gallery function, no comments, no infos), so I went and joined SheezyArt, an online art community somewhat in the vein of Deviant Art. It’s free, it’s nice, and it’s full of people much better than I am. Did I mention how cool it is to browse the galleries of artists that awesome? Anyway, I have my own little place there now, and you will find it here:
[url=http://reignbow.sheezyart.com]reignbow.sheezyart.com[/url]
Behold my current works and as the profile says: Watch me improve.

100% Self-Expression 0% Quality Control

In entirely unrelated news, I have recently taken up a new hobby: Drawing. In school, I always used to hate arts. My pictures were terrible, the process felt rushed and forced and not one bit creative or expressive. I dropped the subject after grade ten, that is, at first opportunity. Until now, I’d never looked back. But over the past two, three months I began to feel that my life could use a little bit more variety. My work was book learning and my hobby’s were book reading and music. I wanted something completely different and hit on the idea of trying to draw from doing some absent-minded doodles on my laser notes.

After a few days of drawing stuff in the garden and working by some online tutorials, I hadn’t been put off the idea yet, so I decided to actually get myself a real instruction book and some materials. Several artist sites recommended “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” as an first book on drawing, so I ordered that one. I also got myself some cheap sketching paper , a soft lead pencil and a kneaded rubber eraser, which has since proven dead useful. My parents were absent for two weeks, so I had little else to do but study, read, visit some friends and work on my drawing. The book turned out to be a good choice. It’s not only a good introduction to the concepts of drawing, but also focuses on perception instead of mechanics. I hadn’t realized it before, but in most cases it was simply that I wasn’t looking closely enough, or that I was getting the wrong idea. Part of what the book is about is the tendency our linguistic center (part of the left hemisphere, thus the title) for reducing objects we see to symbolic, abstract representations. It’s a chair. But you can’t draw “a wooden chair”, because there are hundreds of ways it could look. For anything else though, such a macro is perfectly functional.

The first thing to do is therefore to look and see the precise graphical nature of things. There are a number of useful tricks to that, such as negative spaces and measurement by pencil, and with some practice it soon becomes easier. I proceded through the book and finished it the day before yesterday with a self-portrait, which was also the exercise it started with. In the spirit of advertisement anywhere, here’s a [url=http://www.reignbow.de/pictures/vorher-selbst.jpg]before[/url] and [url=http://www.reignbow.de/pictures/nachher-selbst.jpg]after[/url].
As you can see, there has been some improvement, although of course the newer image also has quite a few flaws. Despite that, I think my progress is good for three weeks spent on the skill so far.

As a side interest, I also started to dabble in watercolors somewhat. When you have a pencil sketch, it’s easy to ink the lines, erase the pencil marks and fill in with watercolor. I also tried markers, crayons and color pencils, but liked watercolors the best for their flexibility and bold look. What did I do with this new-found ability to terrorize the eyes of viewers everywhere? Simple, I did two pieces of fan art for one of my favorite webcomics, [url=http://hekshano.com]Inhuman[/url]. The images won’t make sense to someone unfamiliar with the comic, so go read it ;). The two pictures are [url=http://www.reignbow.de/pictures/sartre.jpg]here[/url] and [url=http://www.reignbow.de/pictures/chooka-choo.jpg]here[/url]. Yes, those are aliens and they are supposed to look approximately like that.

What next? I think I really like drawing and watercolors both. I’ll continue working on them, and look for a course offering further instruction and maybe the possibility of trying out some different techniques (aquarel pencils sound swell). There is also quite a lot to work on with perspective, body shapes, cross-hatch shading and so forth. None of those are really working yet.