1) I'm learning to use the past tense in German! I feel like this will seriously aid conversations. For example, if I wanted to say "I work" I would say "Ich arbeite" but if I wanted to say "I have worked" I would use "Ich habe gearbeitet." Just a note - I didn't check that so it may be wrong. Figuring out the perfect tense is hard. Anyway, even if the Germans are reading this they never comment, so I'm safe.
2) I have a package that was given by the post office to my neighbor. I thought I had figured out which neighbor it is, but when I finally spoke to her last night, she told me that it's actually the man upstairs (Herr Frankenburger) and that he's out of town until Friday. Sigh. But the neighbor I spoke to is very friendly and told me in English that I could knock on her door if I needed anything. So it worked out well. Except that I won't get my book of crossword puzzles until Friday.
3) Charles and I took apart the coffee machine. You may remember that I mentioned it in a post a long time ago. There's even a picture if you look really hard. So the deal is that the machine occasionally needs to be cleaned out, but often, even after you get rid of all the coffee grinds it refuses to work. Next comes cleaning in three easy steps:
a) gentle wiping
b) vigorous scrubbing
c) violently hitting the machine and swearing.
When even step three didn't work Charles and I decided to take it apart and really clean it well. I took pictures! Here you go - the inside of the coffee machine.
And if that weren't enough - here are some more exciting pictures, including Charles hard at work. The bananas are a nice touch, right?
I'd like to say that when we put it back together it worked perfectly, and that's sort of true - I mean, after the horrible grinding noise stopped. It turned out that those extra screws weren't really so necessary after all. As for the original problem, it's um, somewhat alleviated, but not entirely cured.
4) German chemistry students are both adorable and hilarious! Remember the Chemikerball? Okay, so apparently every Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. the students who will be hosting the next year's ball do a little presentation in which they announce their faculty sponsor for the the coming year. Guess who it's going to be next year? That's right. Georg. This presentation involved making the professors compete in games, producing silly chemistry-themed advertisements, and (my personal favorite) a dance involving little cations. Oh right, and my real favorite - bratwurst and gluehwine after the presentation. Next year's ball will be June 6. I'll have to go dress shopping before then...
Okay, that's all for now. There are a couple of other things I could share with you - like learning to do PCA on my LC-MS data, but I really think I should get to work now.
5 comments:
hey, I am not german, so I can post a comment.. your verb is correctly used... I know what you are suffering learning german, we do that in school for 8 years in Switzerland, and the best thing ever, when you finish school, is to realise that you will not have anymore test in german vocabulary....
Also I am glad you did not speak about the minor flooding incident during the coffee machine reparation... ho! someone tells me I just did mention it... nothing happend...
Finally, I am impressed how you wrote glühwein, as you did use the correct form to write an "umlaut" on the u, when you actually do not have the umlaut on your keyboard (I mean, as I realise this sentence is maybe not as clear as it would be in french, that you replaced the ü by ue, which is correct)..
I also hear the call of the wild... hum the work I mean...so I stop here...
Dude's name is really "Frankenburger?" That is truly epic.
Kelly described exactly the same snarky coffee machine! Before you had posted this post, she explained how the coffee machine that she had would say, in German, "You need to clean me." and you would and then you would push 'ok' and it would say, "Ok is not yes." or something and she had to go find someone and get them to clear up the argument between herself and the coffee machine.
I met Herr Frankenburger last night. We didn't really talk, but the connection was there, I think. He had a visiting fat man on his couch. I guess he's back early. Anyway, now I have 200 more crossword puzzles.
I am going to be patronizing and say that I think it is so adorable how in the hierarchy of dorkiness the chemistry folks and their weird(and I'm sure painfully socially awkward balls) give you ecologists something to giggle over. It's nice to know everyone has someone. 6 days until I'm on the plane, can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!
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