Presenting : Julich

My second entry got posted on the daad website today: www.daad.de/blog It's about the trip I took over the weekend to Paris. I must seem retarded on there since the pictures I put on there are way to small...you'll see what I mean. Please comment. Please pity my lameless of asking for comments! Thanks.

Next, I got a new digital camera on my trip to Paris over the weekend so here are finally some pictures of my host city: Julich, Germany!

My working space at the Forschungszentrum - under the banana tree!

The best sandwich I've ever had. The meat patty is mixed with onions, spices and some kind of delicious fat. Erdbeer is strawberry in German.
The most scenetic spot in all of Julich

The three of them are always grazing together

A huge nail on the bike path to work. This one is sinistral (coiled to the left) while most coil to the right. BIOL111, what up.

It's 3:15AM.

ANNNNNNNND it's time for: what's your crazy plan for the future????

After graduating, I'm going to do what I always wanted to do. I'm going to be a VJ in Asia!!!! This is serious business for the time being, time being being between now and sometime before 7am today. LOL. Ok, I might have gotten the idea from watching the Shan + Rozz show on youtube. Both of them are down to earth but interesting at the same time, which makes their clips kinda special. It helps that Shan is extremely cute!

The point is, this semester living abroad has given me such a rush for life and for grabbing on to whatever's exciting out there. I shouldn't condemn myself to doing stuff that I'm not passionate about...like contributing to a stupid scientific database that noone ever returns to on their free will. People just want their stuff to be published. It's become such an honours to have your stuff where anyone can access them, even if it's just a pile of nonsense. (As you can tell, I've been maybe reading too many publications lately) The sad part is that I'm not really up to level to whatever I am very interested in, I'm thinking visual arts, music, generally dealing with people and head-hunting. It's going to be hard to get super good at any of them because I have too many interests, but I'll try my best to specialize.

I never know what title to give so why try.

Give people your full attention. I'm sure you're all familiar with that saying. But it has nothing to do with giving people your attention. It's about you and how much happier you feel when you are fully taking in someone else's words just for the sake of listening. Not like a vacuum, but like...(think Fanyi think)... a photograph.

Tonight, I was planning on working on that lab report I still need to finish for my class before heading back to Paris next week to give a presentation on it but instead, my neighbour David Wippler (I just had to write this name out, sounds too funny) and his friend came over to visit out of the blue. Nice to know someones cares that I'm still alive. haha David is the first person that I met in my building - he came over voluntarily to introduce himself after knowing that I moved into his friend's apartment last week. He's really fun to have around, always chuckling and making big gestures. It's weird, I feel like my social life here, in a city of 30 000, is better than that in Paris. People are so relaxed over here. It's very nice. I just don't want to get too happy too quickly cause I know I will get shot down. I'm always like this. Always keeping myself from being too happy. And that, ladies and gents, could be one of the deepest stuff I've ever divulged on here!

Seriously, I don't like meeting people for the first time. I like meeting people, just not for the first time. You know from experience that they are most probably never what they appear to be, and it would just so nice to cut the laborious dissection of first impressions. High five?

About a boss and possible friend?

I survived my first week in boonies-town, Germany and came to realize that I like THIS particular boonies. I'm getting along very well with my PhD student. Every morning I come to work and he's smiling and waving hello across his messy table full of chocolate bars and green tea boxes. I get a good second-round of laughter replaying the funny moments that happened during the day.

Nicolai: You should go to the laboratory this morning and join the others, they'll show you what to do. You remember where is it?

Me: Yep, no problem.

Nicolai: Are you sure, cause I can come with you.

Me: It's not in this buiding, right?

Nicolai (jumping up from his chair): Tell me you're kidding.

Later, he cramped up laughing when I told him to get his grant from the DAAD in the form of gummy bears. And then he said:
You know what I like about you, you're a very...spontaneous person. And kind of weird.
I think that description fits me pretty well, and woah, a bulls-eye from someone that I barely know. Now I can go to sleep happy knowing that my efforts weren't wasted. I've been trying to build up weirdo-ness for years! Juuuust kidding.

Contact with the human race!

My first weekend Germany was greeted with a holiday, which means four days of rest instead of two. I decided to stay in Juelich. Bad choice. There's absolutely nein to do over here. I'm really not trying to be cynical or anything. You know it's bad when sleeping becomes a way to waste time.

But, in the evening, I received a call from Andrew, another RISE intern from UVic that I have never met but emailed a few days ago, after I read a notice on the bulletin board downstairs that he was looking for someone to share the internet with. Turns out he lives right downstairs from me! I haven't met another Canadian for so long so it was great to chat with him. There is actually is an "North American" attitude that is very easy to distinguish. It felt so homey! Also, needless to say that I was glad to meet face-to-face another specimen of the homosapien sapien species, after four days of self-inflicted isolation.

Sleep early today because work starts at 8am in Germany.

And one more thing, I just submitted my first post to the DAAD blog. It should appear tomorrow at the address: www.daad.de/blog. Please give me some feedback! With this whole Paris blog thing, I've come to realize that I sorta like writing so I would really help me improve if I could hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks!

Arriving in Deutschland

Germany, be prepared to be Fanyiiied!!! I don't know what that means (lol who says this?)

I arrived in Aachen, Germany around noon yesterday. I left Paris so deliberately and voluntarily that I feel like I'm lacking something ever since I got here. It's like eating something very delicious all in one swallow and the regretting it since you'll won't be getting another one. The images of Paris are haunting my eyes, as if they still expect to see all that magic happening right outside my window. It's only my second day here, so reminiscing about Paris is completely normal. GEEZ, that city was amazing. GOSH I can't believe I was complaining about it. But I knew this was going to happen - that I was going to leave at the end of my exchange and miss every bit and piece of it. I really like the French. People say that Parisians are difficult (and why shoudn't they. Just this weekend, we saw a guy my age energetically giving the middle finger and shouting insults to boat-full of tourists on the Seine), but I feel like you could always spin the situation around once you realize that a "yes" most always comes out as "NO", at first.

For those who are wondering what I am doing in Germany: I'm participating in a program called RISE, that gives undergrads in Science the chance to work at research facilities all over Germany. I'll be working until the end of August at the Forschungszentrum (sucks for those who aren't good at spelling), in Juelich, about 30min east of Aachen (Aix-en-Chapelle for Frenchies). Yes, I promised myself to never get involved in lab jobs ever again, but this one is about pesticide contamination of soil, so it is something that I could be interested in. Turns out many laboratories at the center (it employs more than 4500 people!) also work on environmental research, like renewable energy and the dynamics of the atmosphere, which makes my work on soil look lame...but whatever!

At my arrival, I met up with my research supervisor on the train platform, who brought me to his flat in Aachen to wait for our ride to Juelich. I'm very happy to have him as my supervisor. He is an environmentalist who loves to travel and who has all these cool artefacts that he collected all over the world at his house. A few years ago, he went to Shaolin Temple to become a monk, only to realize that the monks only wants his money in the end. lol. Germany in general is a great place to be. People are extremely friendly, just like the English. I haven't met one single person I did not have a good impression of since I arrived. I hope this is the beginning of a memorable 3 months!

Trip to Disneyland Paris

I spent the day at Disneyland Paris with Zuzanna, who is leaving for Poland on Sunday. Many of the ERASMUS people that I had the pleasure of meeting this semester are leaving around this period, one goodbye party at a time.

Today was a fun day with awesome weather - couldn't ask for any better! I am now painfully exhausted. In so...much...pain........

Below are some photo highlights of the day. Hope you enjoy the "happiest place on Earth". No wonder a place like that doesn't exist, you'd die from exhaustion way too quickly.