It´s only been the second week of my project, but I already feel like I´ve fallen into a routine: I walk to the lab and arrive a bit before 9, a guy Daniel who works in the next lab usually unlocks the door of my ´office` for me (it´s just a wee room which I put my things in because there isn´t space elsewhere), I put on my labcoat:
and instantly become Chemistwoman and fly through the building saving people from potential explosions, low percentage yields, Schrödinger equations, the like... Or, I unassumingly look over what I wrote in my lab book the day before. Quietly concealing my true identity.
Then Sebastian arrives and we get to it, but just for a while before lunchtime comes at 11 and we´re off to the Mensa, then afterwards mainly the women head to the coffee joint in the Maths building. At lunch and coffee, almost all the talk is in German, quite naturally, but I think I get the jist of most things. It´s going to be a big step to become confident enough to join in... But I hope I get there before I have to leave!
Then back to work. It´s quite weird to be working over what would be lunchtime at home, but I think my tummy´s gettting quite used to it; even though I have breakfast at the back of 8, I´m getting quite hungry by 10. Maybe I am also an increasing pie, getting too used to big helpings at lunchtime and delighting in the multitude of bakeries I encounter when I go down to the Altstadt. Who can say. At 3 o´clock, we break for more coffee, and maybe possibly probably some form of confection. I don´t entirely mind this excursion. Then back to the lab for the final push, until between 5 and 6, then home!
I left too big a gap between the last post and this one, there´s a lot I could talk about. Last Sunday, I went to a church with Laura and Ronit, English and American girls whom I´d met the Sunday before. We went to the Open Door church which happens in a cinema. I used to think that going to church in a cinema would be very surreal, but it actually works very well; the seating is really just like the arrangements upstairs in bigger churches but you´re obviously closer to the action, and there´s a lot of space down at the front for speakers - and a band! I enjoyed the music, the first song was ´Better is One Day`, which took me by surprise! The other songs were in German, but lyrics were given, I still have some of them in my head now. After the first song, a man and wife were officially admitted as members of the church. After the second, a woman was introduced as having suffered from problems with her skin for ten years, and with reference to James 5:14, one of the elders put oil on her forehead, and then the preacher and two elders placed their hands on her shoulders. Later at lunch, someone told me that the same had been done for another woman who had very similar problems, and she´s now totally healed. You know, I´d never given credence to that verse as describing something that could be done nowadays, and be effective - I was inwardly embarrassed that I often underestimate the power of prayer. And again when someone else said that that same morning, the young daughter of the singer in the band had asked her mum to turn on a CD player which everyone thought was broken, and her mum told her as much... But then the girl prayed that it would be fixed, and then immediately asked her mum to turn it on because it would work this time. The mum was so worried about how she would have to explain why the CD player still wasn´t working... Except, it was now. I think that made me beam and blush at the same time. I think I understood the main ideas of what the preacher went on to talk about - he used videos too, which helped a bit. In any case, it was apparently a lot easier to engage with than sermons at other protestant churches here, and we were warmly welcomed.
Later that day, Laura hosted a viewing of The Sound of Music, which I´d never seen before (!!!!!!!!!!!). It is, actually, brilliant and magical. How Maria can play a tune with the children, who represent different notes, by pointing at them, as though they´d practised this for months... How Maria so conveniently knows Sixteen Going On Seventeen later on even though it was just sung between Liesl and Rolf at first... No, I did really rather like it. I would go to Salzburg and do ´the tour`. That much.
Tomorrow will hopefully see a Burns Supper at the ESG, I´m excited to see haggis in a foreign land! I hope I´m not called on for a recital as one of the two Scottish people likely to be present... I know the first couple of verses of To a Mouse, and it gets very patchy until "the best laid plans of mice and men aft gang agly". Maybe that´s a good thing to remember in the lab.
How to end? Here´s a picture of my German steed:
I bought it from a Flohmarkt (flea market), apparently that´s the thing to do for good value - mine was 25€! I hope the mannie wasn´t saying things like, "you know, I don´t think the brakes will last much longer, hehehe, good luck to you!", I don´t know what the German for that would´ve sounded like - but the cycle home was ok, I think I should´ve trusted it more!
No comments:
Post a Comment