...is one day away from convocating.

I'm not sure what that means, except that I'll have a new stack of paperwork and set of people to see. I can only hope for a pay raise, but we'll see. Oh, and maybe something new to hang on my wall. I haven't quite gotten to that whole decorate-the-office thing.

The weekend, on the whole, balanced out to okay. Saturday night was mostly fun, including an amateur theatre performance, dinner out, then a Peter Tosh tribute concert. (Okay, I'll not sign up for Bavarian bands doing reggae again, but it was an experience.) Con was that, as I was biking home, I dropped my iPhone and the screen smashed. The phone itself still worked but looked like crap. By Sunday I had gone through denial, rage and guilt and moved on to acceptance. I took it to the store on Monday. They had to send it away to some shoppe -- I'll get the bad news in the mail. (I decided that was just something that could have happened to anyone. Then, Tuesday evening, I dropped a glass and smashed it in my house. Okay, I change my verdict to clumsiness.)

German classes are going forward. The class size seems to fluctuate between six and twelve, but that doesn't really matter so much. Being in an immersion environment serves as a constant reminder as to how little I truly understand, but (as my father reminded me) it'll take a shit ton of work to get to some kind of reasonable level. Okay, frozen pizza time. Tschuss.

...has been slightly busy

Apologies for the delay! I got back from Prague and then on Friday of that week ended up moving to my next temporary spot (see pic). Here I'm going to be living until the end of November, at which point I get to move into a real apartment. Yes, I'm already excited about it.

So far it's been good here. The place is very nice, and includes fresh linen and towels and cleaning twice a week. Cons are that it's a bit further from the university and downtown and that it's in a basement.

Work has kept me pretty busy lately. I started my German classes on Tuesday and while they're not great, I think I'll keep going so that there's always something pushing me to do some homework. Also in the cards for next week is the start of tutorials. I have two sessions with the little ones but I'm looking forward to it.

...is off to Prague in a few hours.

Saturday I made a day trip to Munich with Verena, who is an old student of Franz's. We hit up the Deutches Museum and then the city center before heading home. The Deutches museum is huge. Too much of it is in German to really learn a lot but they have a great collection of simple physics experiments. I think I'm a sucker for coupled pendulums. They also have a recreation of the "original" STM.

The Marionplatz (photo) is the main square of town and has a few walkways with street vendors and normal stores. While I like the size of Regensburg, it's always nice to head back into a bigger town. Of course, I'll be in Prague soon for two nights on a conference, so I can't really complain about that.

...enjoyed the Abbey

From Monday till Wednesday, a group of us was at the SFB workshop in nearby Niederachdorf. Aside from the Abbey itself, the only other draw is a private aviation museum. The collection there was purchased and is maintained, I've been told, by a fellow who lives next door to it. Unfortunately we couldn't get in.

The talks were pretty standard and I realize that if I'm to pretend to be a physicist, I'm going to have to brush up on spin-orbit coupling. Evidently this grant helps fund my salary. (Where did my beloved molecules go...) Anyway, evenings at the abbey are pretty much standard. After the talks, we headed over to the biergarten to network. And I'd like to say that not all talks were completely over my head. Right now I'm prepping for a sweet workshop we have next week in Prague. And off to Munich tomorrow for the day!

...survived the week

I don't think you truly appreciate a weekend until you work a job where you're expected to be in Monday to Friday, during normal working hours. Hats off to all those who do. (I expect to be hired as a prof one day, where I imagine I'd be able to take half-days off at a whim.) The weekend's been a slow one but a good one.

This week, though, should be cool. We're off to a town that's not too far away for a workshop. Most of the attendees are from my university, but evidently we need to hold it somewhere else. The venue is a nearby abbey, "just downstream on the Danube," (as Franz puts it).

The top pic I posted is of downtown Regensburg, taken from the south end. In fact, if I turn around then you see the second pic, including this gazebo. It's rather nice how they've trimmed the trees enough to give you a line-of-sight view of the cathedral. And tree huggers, don't worry, they've left most of the trees standing.

...is ready for beer and coffee again.

So I've been hit with a cold this week. It's not a pleasant thing, and if you've forgotten the stages, they are sore throat, general tiredness, stuffiness, then getting rid of the stuffiness (ugh) and residual horribleness. I'm at the stuffiness part but what this has been is a lesson in buying medicine in Germany.

Over the counter medications are just that. You get them by going into a pharmacy (called an Apothek -- how sweet is that) and talking with someone who gives you the appropriate medication. This, in my opinion, is much better than wandering down isles of medicine labelled in German, trying to guess what I should have. I'm also now the proud owner of Mucoangin and Rhinospray. Mucoangin is a sore throat reliever. It is a local anesthetic that you suck on. Rhinospray helps unclog your nose. It's a spray that works by contricting (loosening? someone with an MD help me out here...) the blood vessels in the nose. Both work quite well. This makes me much happier than going to a Canadian drugstore where I can only buy cough syrup for "sore throats, coughing, and phlegm in the lungs" or "sore throats and headaches". I like the specialized medicine approach.

And I'm not going to post a pic of me looking crappy, so I thought I'd post one from my archives of the cheapest Scotch I've ever seen. 8 EUR for that bottle. Don't worry, liver, I'm not going to subject you to that. Although someone did recommend a warm beer to help a cold...