I spent most of my first week at work in my office either reading papers or doing calculations. The time I didn’t spend in my office was spent in lab watching other graduate students run experiments in an attempt to learn optical spectroscopy. Then last week, I put on those fancy safety goggles and did some real science with my own two hands.
Random incidents/scattered thoughts:
1. In one of the labs, the gas pipelines are fairly high up on the wall. I’m the only person in lab who can’t reach them, so they had to get a two-step stool for me. If I stand on the two-step stool on my tippy toes, I can barely reach them. Conclusion: Germans are tall; Numa is short.
2. Almost everyone in my lab is German or can speak German fluently so unless they’re specifically talking to me, everyone always constantly talks in German. One of the graduate students apologized to me for constantly talking in German saying “we don’t know how to talk to girls in English.” I want to know if they would speak in English more if I was a guy.
3. Since they primarily talk in German, I have gotten some of the most interesting Physics explanations in English when they can’t remember certain English words. I’ve gotten things explained to me as a “lollipop” and an “airplane.”
4. My lab group loves to eat. Someone brings different snacks every day. I’m kind of okay with them not talking to me much as long as they keep bringing delicious food. Today, we had four different kinds of cake and strawberry pie.
5. I have spent most of my time in lab playing with liquid nitrogen and/or liquid helium, and I literally mean playing. No safety. Much science.
6. Last week when I was using liquid nitrogen and liquid helium to cool quantum dots for spectroscopic measurements, there was a small leak in the liquid helium tank which froze almost everything in lab. It was literally like ice age in there.
7. Universität-Würzburg makes its own liquid helium instead of buying it. Last week, they showed me how to make liquid helium. There are helium boats! HELIUM BOATS!
7. The 2014 FIFA World Cup is a huge deal for my lab group. While talking to one of the graduate students in lab, I expressed my excitement for the World Cup and that was the moment they finally accepted me as a lab member. He then told me a story about how they met some Canadians earlier who didn’t know that the World Cup was happening since it didn’t have anything to do with ice hockey. We are playing an “online betting game” and placing bets on all the matches. Winner gets half the money and the other half is used for a barbecue.
8. All the equipment and all the programs are in German. I spent more time trying to figure out the German program for taking spectroscopic measurements than actually taking spectroscopic measurements.
Till I do more real science, chüs!a
Translation of German words:
a. Bye!
a. Bye!
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