On Wednesday

On Student Dining

I finally got registered with the University and can now purchase food at the Mensa (direct translation: refectory; it's the cafeteria...) for student rates. It's awesome: less than EUR 2 for an entire plate of hot food! It's not the high class stuff we get at Tech, just regular old cafeteria food. Today, I had french fries, corn, and mystery meat. The other options I saw were a heaping plate of pasta, macaroni with cut-up hot dog pieces on top, or pizza. There's a salad bar and such too, of course. I much prefer it this way. Having one of the top-rated dining services is the country is great when you live on campus but is completely impractical for commuters such as myself. Why would I ever eat lunch at school when I can get more interesting food for less money just by eating around Town, with the added bonus of supporting an ever-so volatile small town economy? Bah, I can't wait for my EUR 2 lunch at the Mensa tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day...

On Sleep

I just woke up from a nap, which upsets me. I have always seen naps as a sign of poor sleeping habits and a way to perpetuate said habits. The first few days, when I was in my lonely culture-shock phase, I had to convince myself to get out of bed in the morning for another day of explaining my linguistic deficiencies to every single person I interacted with. Now I have the opposite problem. I am so excited to be here I can't fall asleep at night. Last night and the night before I didn't get to sleep until 3:30 am, which is quite incompatible with my 8:30 am wakeup time.

On Daily Routines

08:30 - 09:45

Wake up and shower, then eat corn flakes, drink coffee, and read from The Baltimore Review (starting to run of pages; I'm going to need to get my hands on an English magazine or literary journal pretty soon.)

10:00 - 12:30

Spend time in the computer lab. Usually Reimund stops by around 10:15 and sets things up on the computer for me and tells me some things I may be curious to look into. This is when I also ask him questions about the work I am doing, the City of Dresden, and the culture of the Germans. Once he leaves I just play around with the stuff on my own for a while

12:30 - 14:00

Lunch break! As I said before, I eat lunch in the Mensa, with two fellow interns, Vivek and his friend who's name I honestly can't remember. They are both from India. After I eat lunch I usually grab my bike and do some kind of errand, which is why it takes me 1.5 hours.

14:00 - 15:00

Spend another hour in the lab. I hate to say it, but I'm extremely bad at independent work, especially when there are no pressing goals or deadlines. This is why I usually just get up and leave after an hour of learning.

15:15 - 16:30

Hang out in the park and read. If I feel like treating myself I may sometimes even get myself an Italian ice! I guess it's not too big of a surprise that this ended up being part of my daily routine, as this was the case for the Virginia Tech Duckpond once the weather became consistently nice.

19:00

Dinner! My friend Teri and I have agreed that there is no reason for us to be eating alone, so we have formed something of a dinner partnership. Nothing big, of course, as is the custom in Germany. Simple breakfast, nice hearty lunch, followed by a simple dinner. This is more or less how I always did it in Blacksburg as well, but now it is the socially acceptable way to go.

00:30 - 03:30

Notice bed time is a range of hours. 00:30 is when I aim to go to sleep, and 03:30 is when I actually end up falling asleep. The time in between is some combination of reading, listening to music, and of course the classic tossing and turning.

On My Internship

I would say things are starting to go a bit better with this, as I have finally managed to get the Sioux processor to add two numbers and store the result! It gets better, though. Yesterday, in the course of conversation with Reimund, I mentioned my acute interest in mathematics. Today he came over with a document which outlines a quite complex linear algebra concept and how it relates to wireless communications and the CPU architecture that I am studying. This is kind of a breakthrough for my academic career, as it bridges my two main interests that until this point haven't really met head on yet. Computational mathematics applied to embedded systems. Sweet. It really makes me wonder how us American engineering students are supposed to accomplish anything meaningful with the pathetic mathematics background we are given. I have a lot of complaints about the engineering curriculum and this is certainly one of them--not NEARLY enough mathematics.

In the afternoon, I met a student who is getting the German-equivalent of his master's degree. He too works in the wireless communications chair, but less on the hardware side than what I am doing. When he asked what kind of stuff I am learning about, I showed him the document on QR matrix decompositions, and he smiled and told me that he was the author of said document. Funny coincidence.

On Roommates

I mentioned before that my one room mate is German and does not seem too keen on being social with me. This is still true to some extent, though I have been seeing him incidentally here and there and we have been saying a few more words. Of course, I live in a three-bedroom apartment...

The third room mate is great! He is from Slovakia, and is extremely friendly and outgoing. I usually keep my door open when I'm in my room (strange behavior in Germany, but I'm over here to learn about Germans, not pretend to be one), and he has absolutely no problem walking right in, sitting down on my bed and talking to me. Yesterday we chatted idly as we watched a somewhat-impressive thunderstorm, and he has given me a lot of good tips on Eastern Europe. He sat down with me at my computer and showed me what cities I should visit and how I should get there. It seems that for many cities (Eastern and Western Europe alike) my best bet is to take a train or bus to Prague and fly from there. I guess it goes without saying that I want to visit Prague itself. Any of you Marylanders are certainly familiar with the high concentration of Eastern European young people working at the establishments in Ocean City, MD. He did this one summer, except at some amusement park in New Jersey.

On American Comforts

First of all, I took my Big Brother's advice and got myself a coffee maker. It brews one cup at a time directly into the mug and only cost EUR 6. As I suspected, it brews coffee faster and hotter than any American coffee maker I have used due to the 250 V power system (compared to 120 V in America). I'm not sure what I was thinking when I thought I would be able to get along without a coffee maker. I'm so glad coffee is a socially-acceptable addiction--I'm addicted, proud of it, and will remain this way for most of my life!

Do me a favor. Go to your kitchen cupboard, and get out your jar of peanut butter. Don't lie--I know you have one. Open it. Smell it. Grab a spoon. You may even be lucky enough to have a new jar and have the satisfaction of breaking that virgin surface. Put the peanut butter in your mouth, and swish it around. Mmmmmm... that's good, isn't it? I was deprived of this sensation for my first week or so here, as Germans simply do not eat peanut butter. I mentioned this observation to Reimund, and he informed me that they have a international foods section at large department store around here. Sure enough, there was a small section labeled "U.S.A." What do these crazy cowboys across the ocean eat, you ask? Apparently some combination of peanut butter, jelly, marshmallow fluff, Oreo cookies, and microwave pop corn. I plan on taking a picture of this for you all next time I'm in the area and have my camera.



On Good Byes

That should be enough for today. I think I'm going to have myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich now. I can't wait for the Mensa tomorrow...