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?

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.

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 😀

Grotesque’s Conquest

Today is shaping up to be a day for the absurd! I’ve been up for four hours, and I’ve had three “what the hell?” moments already!

1. our network workgroup has one particular favorite customer: The guy is a paranoid screwup, aggressive and pretending to be litigation-happy; he keeps sending us letters purportedly from his lawyers that are so illogical that any lawyer would rather put a gun in his mouth than have his name written under it. What does this guy do today?
   He invites us to friend his facebook account.
2. Opening a cable tie without a knife is a little bit tricky, but fortunately, my house key is pretty sharp-edge. I put it through the tie, pull up and back, cut the tie, and then thanks to leftover momentum, I cut myself in the nose. I now have an exterior nose-bleed.
3. Taking a trolley is simple when you have the right coin (some rattling may be required). I saw an old man today, standing in front of a trolley with a 20 cent piece (decidedly not the right coin, ever) and complaining about technology never working right. He actually called the coin blockade in trolleys “technology”, like it was his hearing aid or something. Surreal.

I’m really guessing what the rest of the day could bring to continue this. So far, it’s been fun (the cut on the nose was light).

Grotesque’s Conquest

Today is shaping up to be a day for the absurd! I’ve been up for four hours, and I’ve had three “what the hell?” moments already!

1. our network workgroup has one particular favorite customer: The guy is a paranoid screwup, aggressive and pretending to be litigation-happy; he keeps sending us letters purportedly from his lawyers that are so illogical that any lawyer would rather put a gun in his mouth than have his name written under it. What does this guy do today?
   He invites us to friend his facebook account.
2. Opening a cable tie without a knife is a little bit tricky, but fortunately, my house key is pretty sharp-edge. I put it through the tie, pull up and back, cut the tie, and then thanks to leftover momentum, I cut myself in the nose. I now have an exterior nose-bleed.
3. Taking a trolley is simple when you have the right coin (some rattling may be required). I saw an old man today, standing in front of a trolley with a 20 cent piece (decidedly not the right coin, ever) and complaining about technology never working right. He actually called the coin blockade in trolleys “technology”, like it was his hearing aid or something. Surreal.

I’m really guessing what the rest of the day could bring to continue this. So far, it’s been fun (the cut on the nose was light).

Results or riches?

I went to a job interview in Bonn yesterday, at prof. Meschede’s laser physics group. This guy is well known because he has been editing a respected general physics book for several years now; he also held a public lecture in Aachen a while back on fancy things he’s been doing with ultra-thin glass fibers.

I first got to talk with his two post-docs a bit (he has two more, but the first pair seemed to be the middle management and the grant writers). After that, I held my diploma presentation again in front of his entire group. Over twenty listeners and a pleased reception made for good going and I even got a few good questions. Lunch was had, and I embarked on a tour of the laboratories.

First off: These guys are excellent. Professional, systematic, careful and reasonable financed. You cannot fake a good optical setup that easily, and the results are impressive. The current experiments have grown over a number of years and are obviously the result of a great deal of hard and inspired work. They are operated by pairs or trios of grad students and sometimes a diploma student.

The experiment I could get a position at deals with manipulation of single neutral atoms for the purpose of quantum computing, employing molecular optical traps, dipole traps and laser conveyors. These techniques only work when tuned to extreme precision, so good experimental procedure, patience and thorough trouble-shooting would be on the menu. There’s probably some electronics aspects, lots of programming and a required basic understanding of the theory required, too.

The group, so far as I have seen it, seemed to have a pleasant working atmosphere. These people do not get paid very much, but there are upsides: The post-docs write all the grants, the professor has at least some time available and the results of the hard work are world-class. Also, the city is pretty nice; our former capital is a 300,000 place on the rhine, much like Aachen actually. There’d be some tasks outside research work, like supervising an exercise class and maybe a diploma student, but that is quite moderate and has its own rewards.

Tomorrow, I’m going to Rostock to visit the institute for atmosphere physics there. They’ll have to go far to trump Bonn.

Diagnosing bike damage

What happens when your tire is flat and you can’t inflate it anymore? Then it probably has a puncture somewhere. You take the tire off the bike, check for surface damage. Then you remove the pressure hose, check that for damage. When you can’t find any, you take it to your room, inflate it and dip it into water. No bubbles. So where is the air going then? Some sort of vent trouble, maybe. Put the hose back in, fix up the vent, try to pressurize. No luck.

So what’s wrong then? Turns out that my pump is actually broken (I don’t even know how long I’ve had it)! Not only was the rubber ring corroded so the air didn’t go into the vent, but the pump mechanism itself was broken so that therewas hardly any air movement at all. That was why I hadn’t heard the air escaping when trying to pump up the tire. So, after making several attempts over a week to figure out what was wrong, I fixed it by buying a new pump for 2,50€. And lo! my tire inflated, my bike was ready and I could take a ride in the evening sun. Despite maintenance, my bike keeps having issues with the gear shift and the brakes (I replace them, but they wear down very quickly). At some point, I want to get a new bike. I’ve been using this one for at least seven years, and the it’s hardly ever been working right for the last two years.