How to train a graduate in Germany sechs

How dare you? That’s blasphemous. How can you be so pretentious? (I imagine at least some of you screaming at me, who had been reading my previous post) But, hey, what is fun in reading what is to come if you already have been spoiled about it. There was a particular TV series that I had watched despite having been spoiled about the entire plot by some trustworthy friends. Thankfully they never made an eighth season for this particular series (yes, it is game of thrones). So as I was saying, there is no thrill in imploring over a spoiled title. This is probably the only interesting thing about this blog post since things are going to get gloomy pretty quick (get some dry napkins just in case).

An artificial Christmas tree placed in our institute.

You will get to know eventually the relevance.

I don’t want to jump to the depressing part just yet, a friend of mine reminded me about the Christmas party organized by our department well before this. Please press the rewind button along with me, so that we could get back to December of 2017. A week before Christmas, our course coordinator organized a Christmas get-together for the SiSc students from every year, including some alumni. I always had a knack for organizing events, so I offered some help to acquire the necessary goods and reorganize their positions in the serving table (shamelessly copied from my Curriculum Vitae which would be rather bleak without such events). While hand-picking other required groceries, I was reunited with this little joy I found in Germany. If you might have read the Monschau blog, you might know that it would be kinderpunsch. Little did I know that they sold it in supermarkets across Germany as cartons. They were disguised in the alcoholic beverages section which I have never taken a second look at. That was really shady of the floor planning team of the supermarkets. If not for the suggestion from my coordinator, the supermarket would have lost a lifelong customer of this carton (later I discovered that it was only available around Christmas, which is a shame). We picked up half a dozen of these cartons, and some fresh tangerine to add to the taste while heating it. To people who consider themselves as bad cooks due to overcomplicated recipe instructions, here is your redemption. Given below is the secret to brew the perfect kinderpunsch. Read and follow cautiously.

Ingredients :

1. Kinderpunsch cartons (affordable number of them)
2. Oranges (again, one on one correspondence, keeping the right balance)

Equipments required :

1. A whisk to just complicate the recipe (entirely optional)
2. Knives/Katana/dagger/sword/sharp objects
3. Mixing bowl
4. Cooking pot (could be the mixing bowl if you were me)
5. Flame source (haven’t tried a water heater yet, but nobody is stopping you from trying)

Procedure :

1. Place your cooking pot on the flame source with extreme care. Do this particular action under adult supervision.

2. Cut the oranges as evenly as possible vertically on a cutting board. The trick here is to hold knife at a right angle to the orange. Hold the orange with your weak hand and cut in a swift motion with the other hand. (R.I.P Orange)

3. Empty the contents of the carton into a mixing bowl and using a whisk, spin the juice around as long you go tired of this motion.

4. Transfer the contents of the mixing bowl into the cooking pot. Make sure the flame is low (How low, nobody knows).

5. Pick a slice of orange and place it gently on the heating mixture. Iterate this procedure until you run out orange slices.

6. You can keep heating the mixture until you run out of the contents in the pot.

If you are an avid reader of various cooking blogs, you could ask me about the backstory for this recipe. Alas, I have none, just wishful inspiration and stark observation of this being a winning formulae. Many batch mates of mine did not know this, head of the institute did not want us to consume alcohol, which meant we could not buy gluehwein for the Christmas party. Maybe he felt we weren’t adult enough, considering the fact that we were in one of the leading alcohol consuming countries. The party was quite formal, but the cleaning post party was a bit horrendous. Luckily we had some helping hands, and we were able to complete cleaning after about 30 minutes.

A car.

Look, another car.

However, before we get to the gloomy part, there was a little vintage car rally in the city centre. I am not very keen in vehicles per se, but very passionate in history. Vintage cars are a preservation of history in its finest form, so I would never miss this chance. I failed to recognize most of the models/manufactures, but they looked really classy. Due to my inept german, and low self confidence, I did not interact with any of the owners of these exotic cars. It is definitely a delight for car enthusiasts and photographers in general. These rallies are usually announced on Facebook, so be sure to keep an eye for them.

A sneak peek into my next trekking blog in Stolberg

Now let us get to the gloomy part, February 2018 marked the beginning of an apocalypse. That’s right, time for the exams of first semester (overly dramatic music with feverishly pitched opera singing). The first exam that I faced was “Parallel programming” which was followed by “Data analysis and visualization” (DAV) the very next day. These exams were like overenthusiastic teenagers who wanted to get done with things early. I can quote with no guilt, I thought that I was well prepared for my first exam. But this was probably the hardest exam I had ever faced. It was such a face burner and I did not see it through in my first attempt. And I was not alone, many of us could not see it through in our first attempt or ended with unsatisfactory grades. Prospective students, don’t be scared, from what I have heard, the institute handling this course has been changed, and their exam is relatively easier. There was nothing special to mention about the following exam, it was just a speed based exam with lot of easy or doable questions. What I would have wished for, is more time to prepare for this particular exam which I took. I appeared for the second exam rather than the first which was offered in early March (normally, many of the exams were offered twice in a semester, according to the convenience of the handling faculty). To me at least, preparation for DAV felt like preparing for “Inorganic chemistry” back in high school (memorize a zillion terms and definitions, and vomit them in the exam). What was not particularly helpful is that there were about 500 slides to prepare from for this particular exam. I am not quite sure which of the two exams “Applied quantum mechanics” or “Continuum mechanics” came first, and honestly the order doesn’t matter now. I am going to leave you just hanging there, and get back to the story in the subsequent blog.

Viel spaß!

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