How to train a graduate in Germany III

I spent more time thinking about what I should name the third part of this series more than I should have. Sure the other choices were as compelling as this : pre-sequel, back to back, not again; but since Romans were quite disciplined and maintained balance, I chose their numerals (Romans exclaim “I am not worthy of such honour“). Over the past couple of years, I have read a couple of blogs over the internet, and I feel guilty about the fact that mine being structurally incoherent. I do not exercise my vocabulary jargon, nor load mine with exquisite words. The reason being that I do not even know the meaning of half of them (nervously looking at my GRE verbal score, good job champ!). So let us keep this storytelling as naive as the person writing this is.

Take one last look at Autumn for this semester and sun for a couple of months.

It was a bright sunny day, there was the scent of flowers in the air, calmness of the woods, and a periodic bird chirping while in Juelich. This all would have happened if they had not retained me early in the morning before my lecture in Juelich. You might think that I am exaggerating, but they actually made me wait at the reception every week for a mistake they had made. If I remember correctly, I was about the first one to submit the required documents for gaining entry to their premises. Lesson learned, do not be the first person to complete paperwork, they might casually lose it.

Now let us get back to our coursework. Let us the call this other course we had in Juelich as FMCP. Why FMCP, because that was the abbreviation to a rather lengthy course name. The organizers of this course were deliberate enough to choose a long course name but not a long syllabus (they were dealing with ensemble of molecular phenomena, of course such things become irrelevant at macroscopic scales). The lecture offered by them, was probably the most interesting lecture I have ever attended in my entire life, interesting for all the wrong reasons. I do know that I have an Indian accent and people had a difficulty in understanding what I wanted to say initially (after which, they just zone out and treat it as white noise.). But I never actually thought I would have such difficulty in understanding even 10 percentage of what Italians handling this course tried to convey when they spoke in English. I did not experience this with other Italians in the later semesters, maybe because I interacted with none. But, wait a minute, another course was handled by an Italian professor who I understood perfectly (not the content of the course, but rather during his lectures, course still stays as one of the hardest course our batch went through). After such a fun filled first week, the weekend was well spent in the library, trying to understand the basics. My first weekend of studying Quantum mechanics can be summarised through the following song (original composition, though you might feel that you have heard the lyrics somewhere) :

“Let it go, can’t hold back tears any more, let it go (x2), this is not what I am made for. Newton, you, made it far simpler for us, why does the math seems so complicated, quark never bothered me any ways“

For someone, who was quite satisfied with the classical mechanical viewpoint until then, things were starting to get uneasy. I always wondered what would our world seem to be, if only modern quantum mechanics was introduced before classical mechanics. What if our computers ran purely on qubits, rather than bytes. What if we did not think in terms of binary, but as a superposition of different states. In my later semesters, I realized the complexity of implementing this, and realized that even single Integer programming was quite difficult to handle. There was a certain beauty and farfetchedness that quantum mechanics had to offer, which I realized much later in my life. Let me tell you a story to tickle your funny bone (alright, that is gross, who came up with this expression). The first social gathering that was organized by my batch mates outside the classroom was a karaoke night in one of the karaoke bars in Cologne. I narrowly missed (3 minutes 20 seconds 5 milliseconds) the train which was taken by friends to Cologne, so when I got back to see the departures billboard in the station, there was a train in 10 minutes to Cologne. I was like, that’s perfect, let me head to the platform. My attention to detail has always left me in embarrassing situations, and this serves as no exception. Before entering the train, there was a ticket conductor(collector/checker/bouncer/terminator) which was quite unusual, since they only check tickets while we are seated. And the train looked surreal, I was like wow, how come I never got to travel in such a train. Well, it turns out to be a Thalys (don’t bother checking them out), they are one of the most expensive trains which cost close to a flight ticket or sometimes more. My semester ticket for the whole semester costed the same as one ticket to Cologne through Thalys. I was not aware of this, so I walked confidently towards the conductor with my semester pass (mistakes were made that day). He was dressed much better than me, in fact every one who had boarded the train too. He laughed feverishly at me and said something in German. It goes along the lines of, you cannot travel with this pass. And there goes my walk of shame as I was leaving the platform. I heard wine glasses clinging, people pointing fingers and laughing and giving me a smug face. Stop, this is all happening in my head, nobody battered an eye. I did not make it to the karaoke night that day, but I felt content that I made a conductor laugh. Now think about this, he works everyday, checking your tickets, giving that fake corporate smile while you board the train. I made him genuinely laugh this time, even though at the cost of my stupidity. This also serves as a motivation for me to write this blog now, I could make someone laugh at my ineptness, and that made me feel better about myself. I vowed to never set foot on a Thalys again, not because of the embarrassment, but because it was insanely expensive. About two weeks after regular lectures and assignments, a senior of ours invited us to join them for ice skating. I know what you would be thinking, this guy definitely doesn’t know how to ice skate, and you are right. Then why did I go, because I must make ourselves vulnerable to new experiences. But that’s not my reason, I wanted to interact more with my batch mates and seniors, possibly making some friends (that’s impossible, he has cracked the code! Well, no.).

Ice rink poorly captured by me, partly because I was shivering.

First lesson to be learned in terms of ice skating, wear more clothes. Despite the protective gear and equipment provided at the venture, you will feel a bit frozen unless properly dressed. Since childhood, me and my balance were poles apart. I wanted to have a go with this nevertheless, probably thinking back then that I would be a prodigy in this sport which I had not realized. And I fell the minute I entered the rink. And then again, and again. It was like an infinite loop. But the only soothing part was being that most of my batch mates had similar experiences. The only ridicule being that they were getting better as the time went by, but my learning curve was flat with some kinks downward. True horror stuck when one of my batch mates fell, and blood was dripping from her mouth. I remember panicking after that, even though I hardly moved around the rink. A senior felt sympathetic towards me and taught me some of the basics and held my hand to guide me through. What she did not know, how much flat my learning curve was. After my body started getting numb, I decided it was time to get back home. Thinking about it now, I should not have quit so early, thinking about it every minute I waited for the bus, guilt was creeping back to me. That is the thing about life, as a fresher, we always want to be in our comfort zone and expect instant favourable results. This experience helped me get out of my comfort zone and try out things which I would never even imagined that I would be able to do (or not do). And it also served as a slight motivation to continue my main’s (master’s) and face challenges, be it assignments or socializing with people (I got better at one of the two things, I would leave it to your interpretation which of them it would be).

Spooky, spooky! Halloween it is.

Cometh end of October, and it is Halloween! I realized that Germans were not as excited about it as the Americans portray it to be in movies. Turns out, none of my batch mates wanted to join me to see the rally being held so I went with my roommate and his friend. You might be asking me, so, what costume did I wear? Well, I went as myself, which would serve to be scary enough, and it worked! People appalled me there and gave me strange looks. (this is all happening in my head). Though thinking about it, I looked quite strange with a camera back then. I did not stay for too long throughout the rally, partially because it got cold, and in no way I would stay entertained through it had I not been drunk. Literally everyone was drunk there, and I realized now the reason why my batch mates were not attending it (or perhaps they hated me). Everyone knows which month comes next, and it also brings winter along with it. Stay tuned to read the next blog on the most exciting time in Germany (strictly only in your first semester, and possibly only during the first snow).

Snow in Monschau by captured me. To read more about my experience there, head to my trekking blog.

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