The "latest" news - ooops, it's over..

I'm back in Germany, somehow, I still don't quite get it. The flight even amused me with all possible events, except an actual crash ;) (there was a passenger needing a physician, hard turbulences and a baby who was able to cry with a frequency that I enjoyed all the plastic and not glass devices).

Anyway, the last entries:

- It's time to say goodbye and thank-you
- the most delicious goodbye I had so far

- and always interesting: 

Chicago .

A Final Goodbye; my come back ;-) – 09-28-13

That’s boring, sorry. No alarm, no excited officer, not even a word to the whole pharmacy I transported with me (of course, in the pre-scribed squared zip-back, in total not more than 3 oz ;-)). I’d just got a huge grin on my face after leaving the security control. At least my last work day was finished by an emergency alarm in the neighbor building (evacuating that one, including the parking lot). 

And now I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my flight (in four hours…), reading the time I calculated for the police to arrive for checking the medications I wanted to get on the airplane (eye drops for a good friend), me, explaining over and over again, that, yes, indeed, those fifteen pages explained the content of the liquid, but.. no :-)

I’m glad about that and somehow, indeed, it’s sad to leave, but I think the joy to see my family again will outweigh the loss of finishing the project early and to cement new friendships. For sure, Vuk, YoonYoung, Sheng and all the others, we’ll stay in touch! Many thanks again to everybody in our group and the nice time we had together! I enjoyed working with you and getting to know you a lot!

Thus, I leave a report to be proofread and many ideas behind… and a country which has got the potential to be “visited” again! Nevertheless, my whole life... Errr, maybe right now I am still too “European” if this mode exists to imagine the rest of my time in the US; but a great part of me will stay there ;-)

Okay, so far this blog was “funny” to write: Just the rather exciting stuff, something’s always fascinating to report, not the boring things, like my regular getting up, how I’m alone, except Skype-contacts in the evening… There haven’t been any friends or family around (except my colleagues and Benni ;-)) and that was sometimes slightly exhausting. Therefore the additional greatest thanks to my family in Germany who supported me with regular Skype calls, long mails during the week and all possible emotional, immaterial and financial support I could imagine. I can’t express the thanks you deserve in words.  This also concerns my friends in Australia, UK and Germany who (I hope ;-)) survived my spam mails.

Furthermore a great thank-you to the German Academic Exchange Service and to the German National Academic Foundation for sponsoring me. I don’t want to miss the experiences and possibilities I got here – a mile stone and a signpost for the future!

 Thus, Max, my extended luggage will arrive soon :-) See you and everybody else then. Cheers!

Last, but not leat; A First Goodbye and the Last 48 h - 09-26-13

Everything's got an end ... (to almost quote a famous German politician who just left office due to the defeat in the recent governmental election; and just sausage's got two).

Anyway, I'm now the proud owner of a Argonne thermos flask which has been the goodbye-present from my supervisor. But today (my very last day, Friday), I was overwhelmed by the baking skills of one of my new friends, Vuk:

A delicious piece of baking masterpiece saying "Gute Heimreise, Lotta"

It's an unbelievable tasty orange-and-dark-chocolate symbiosis (which needed the whole Thursday evening). Thanks so much!

And, also, thanks to you for proofreading 45 pages of my report so thoroughly ... ;-)

An Oktoberfest, how to "prosit!" in the USA - 09-21-13

Driving innocently to a water park near Chicago we suddenly recognized the typical blue-white pattern at the roadside. Aah, of course, WalMart or Walgreens might have had those table cloths and tent style on offer...

But finally, the German and the Bavarian flag suspicious, so it turned out to be a proper German (or, sorry, rather Bavarian) Oktoberfest, sponsered and initiated by the local bank. We couldn't resist to find out what was going on...

Slowly approaching the small festival our ears confirmed the assumption: The original Oktoberfest-hits were tootled over and over again. I have to admit that I am not the greatest fan of this music, but somehow I felt related to the sound - probably (I hope!) he language is responsible for this effect ;-)

Then one of the bank employees explained the event: The bank had got its 40th anniversary and obviously the had to celebrate their apparently rather small company. When we mentioned that we came from Germany and Bavaria he was really excited and asked us to enjoy a "Bratwurst" and "Sourkraut" in the US-American way (resulting in a nice hotdog with a sausage and sauerkraut). Thus, thanks to everyone for welcoming us! (Even though one could argue about the representativeness of Bavaria for whole Germany, but never mind...)

An Alarm - 09-20-13

In contrary to the unlighted streets in the suburb the Hotel I stay at was flooded with light when we arrived on Thursday night after a friend gave me a ride from a colleague's home where everybody was invited to a great Turkish dinner (many thanks to our hosts (!), I'm still fascinated how you managed to cook so delicious food in such a short time for so many people).

To be honest, I'm not to keen on strolling around alone after dawn, so I didn't know how the Hotel facility looked like during night. Additionally, some lights in some rooms flickered which attracted my friend's attention - they are a part of the fire alarm system. Thus, after a few moments, all guests had gathered themselves in the forecourt. We didn't have to wait  for the firefighters, but they were too relaxed to be alarmed by an actual emergency...

... it turned out, that somebody was not really skilled in microwaving popcorn (hu, it wasn't the wing I stayed in). Finally, we got back to our rooms pretty quickly and my friend, who stayed to see if everything turned out alright, left to drive home. Nevertheless, we saw an original fire engine:

A Collaboration - 09-17-13

Sometimes the relationship to siblings (or overall relatives) can be... okay, let's call it "exciting". But I'm glad that I've got a wonderful sister who spent her time decorating the pattern I had constructed a few weeks ago (What? You can't remember??? Mh, then click here).

And I think the result of our team work will be the logo for my presentation in our group meeting next week:

An Abstract // What Bothers Me ... - 09-13-13

Today I rode down a street just to do it, just to see the US-American flag directly flying above the McDonald's', to see the most well-kept houses left alone and to see the Willis-Tower in a 40 miles distance excelling everything - but with a clarity, authority and superiority I'd never recognized it before.

I think the impression was emphasized by the weather today - after a storm people say it's supposed to be extra-ordinary clear.

But I have to admit, nothing's clear. At a first glance, of course: Yaaay, the supermarket's opened 24/7; I get everything xxl-sized including chocolate muffins; I'm offered iced water for free in a restaurant...
... and I know that there must be people working 24/7 to guarantee this service; xxl-sized burgers won't support my health; there's a reason why we spend a higher tip for waitresses than the one in Europe.

Indeed, maybe "just" 5% of the nation's work force are occupied with two jobs. Officially. Furthermore many (17%) think about taking an additional job to ensure their children's college education, which will require fees in astronomic dimensions (the term educational bubble was born). Thus, the number of jobs per person is likely to increase according to some newspapers...

Just, to have mentioned this topic... I mean, it seems to be quite "efficient" to work at two places since people say that you earn more money because the taxes are lower. And your insurance is your choice, too, great! Somehow, it works, but many things stand on disco legs.

To come back to my non-existing topic: I visited a Catholic church around here attending the church's choir. Hearty and sincere people greeted me and I felt like we knew each other for a long time. One of the singers cared about my sheets, instructed me where our voice began etc. Nevertheless, at the end the surprise was waiting. Someone mentioned Europe or a similar matter and the most welcoming woman took a deep breath to outline her position - probably the greatest nonsense I've heard so far: "The other churches are going to take over in Europe and they will say "multiply!" and then the Christians will be persecuted! The politics in Europe are just too moderate... that's what the percentages tell." Fortunately, her daughter (who fell silent) commented that I'm from Germany and the "conversation" was finished. Later, I noticed the "Pro-Life"-Cap which just fit to the picture forming in my head.

In fact, this could happen in Germany, too. And it's "only" been one person out of twenty - moreover those other nineteen singers were honestly friendly as I haven't experienced that in Germany. You're right, I shouldn't compare, but that's just the impression I perceive.

So let's continue comparing ;-) I switched on the TV (take a guess... CNN) and I made a bet with myself that any topic or advertisement would take longer than two minutes until the "Syria Crisis" took over. I lost: 30 sec ... The daily program consists of several blocks, a three quarters for Syria, an eighth for ads and the rest for other news or maybe a movie which is interrupted every 10 min. to inform you about the latest toothpaste technology (ads again). In some way it's fancy to be up-to-date at any time and the small news line at the bottom of the screen tells you what you should know beside the main channel.
Then some friends asked me, if I followed the political debating duel and the election campaign in Germany. Suddenly, I noticed that it hasn't come up in TV over here at all. Germany might not be the most important country, that's true, but I wouldn't cal it irrelevant since the US-German-relation is not too frozen.
Anyway, just to confirm that the US news channel posts one "breaking news" after another about Syria. A German news magazine annotated that their US partners just launched into the subject.



Mh, basically I hope I could provide you an abstract of what's going on here. If you read it (and if I read it ;-)) it sounds in parts negative, but, no worries, there are many positive events maybe outweighing the experiences above :-)

One weekend in Atlanta - 09-08-13

"How was your weekend?" - "Oh, it was nice, I just rode to a lake around here and enjoyed the sunshine.... and yours?" - "Mh, mine was nice, too, I've been to California."

Eeer, I beg your pardon?!

That's just been a dialog between my supervisor and me, he was the one flying to California ;-) so I got my flight to Atlanta on the next weekend (I mean, where's the difference in taking a bus or an airplane?! I've never heard of CO2 and what's actually this "climate change" some people talk about... ?! ;-)).

A Picnic, or: Social Time #2 - 09-04-13

I'm sorry for the delay! A lot of things happened in a short time, for example the picnic of the ANL's Nanotechnology and Engineering Division. Fortunately I chose the eight weeks which include this annual social event which is attended by ... well, nearly everybody. To be honest the number of actual scientists was too easy to determine since most of them were excited about conferences coming up and, thus, they polished their presentations and had to get those through clearance - nothing will leave the ANL grounds digitally or in the "old-fashioned" printed style without official permission.

However, I joined a group of very nice secretaries and administration stuff tasting the whole palette of US-American deserts. When I felt that I had achieved the ability to roll away, luckily two colleagues started playing "beanball" and suddenly they'd got a third teammate. (I never thought that I'd fail so much in throwing a small bag into a hole just 4 m away! Mh, I have to admit that my combatants didn't score better... )

At the same time the fire alarm test in the childcare center next to the ANL park went off - that's just where we were hanging around so relaxed. It  just reminded me of the fire simulation in a Boarding school I stayed at at about 5 o'clock in the morning, it was raining and we all stood with blankets in our pajamas outside. But it didn't rain, no, the annoying noise vanished and instead an interesting animal appeared:

A Sunbather - Mantis Religiosa

A Day Off - 09-01-13

How to call a National Holiday which is meant for rest? Rest Day? No way, it's Labor Day today, or in other words: Every 1st Monday in September becomes an official holiday to celebrate the achievements of workers (that's the international reason). In the US the holiday was established in 1887 mainly by the Central Labor Union (CLU) and the Knights of Labor (in the 1880s a big and vital labor organization).
The original proposition is a little ambiguous: One root goes to Canada, another one to a worker of the CLU. However, after the Pullman Strike in 1894 involved the death of many workers at hands of the U. S. military (amongst others), the Congress voted in union for a national holiday.

To conclude the history lesson: Why is the 1st May not honored? Back in 1886 a labor demonstration in favor of the eight-hours-week was bombed (to google: Haymarket affair). That's just been around the beginning of May, so there won't be any confusion with the memorial of the bombing and the Labor Day if a long weekend appears in September...

... in order to open the football season, of course! :-) If you might not be into football, many retailing stores will welcome you with open arms, since it's on of the greatest annual SALES-day (next to e. g. taken the Black Friday after Christmas). I really get the point of getting up at 2 am to do my Hollister shopping for half the usual prices...

To sum up: I jaunted through the neighbourhood and spied out some nice places to go. Nevertheless, I just saw places,  not people. Everybody seemed gone or caught by the TV and the Syria crisis which is 24h a day on the news. The former appears typical since a national flight is just like taking the train (which is even more complicated) and the latter... every detail is discussed, every feature, smile and movement in politics is analyzed. We just can hope that the well-considered, internationally appreciate steps are going to be made.

Just briefly, the vicinity:

A Dependency - 08-31-13

It isn’t hot, it’s the hottest place on earth, of course, we have to stick to our superlative principle! And if it’s so warm, it has to be cold inside, but cold is boring, so it’s now about 18°C in my office in the basement. My colleague started bringing a blanket and I … got a cold.Never mind, the weather’s warm, so at some point Physics deduces a thunderstorm. But just any storm and lightning, again, would be normal. Thus, the lights went off and an interesting sound started, immediately stopped again and everything was switched back to the previous state.

That’s been the appetizer of an one-hour electric power outage. We sat in darkness with emergency lights on the corridor and smartphones as torches. Slowly all the consequences came to my mind: The fridge shut up, the dryer stopped and the water turned cold. No Internet, no TV, no connection. That was funny, but just in retrospective ;-) ... when everything worked again, taken the Internet as an exception.

Now, what to do without my social life ;-) I went to Downer’s Grove downtown where I tried to escape the rain. Haha, great idea… no chance:

I mean, everything was great: I got the bus (bus station signs are totally superfluous, by the way), found the Public Library and the post office and was not hijacked by anyone! But, still… there are more exciting places than the “City Center” of a Chicago suburb. But probably I’m just fastidious, the trip was exciting! :-)

And, did you know, that mailmen have to scan a bar code at some buildings so the can prove that they actually visited this place? Just another small part of supervision …

A Germanism - 08-30-13

There might have even been a proper battle call of the warriors against Anglicism (I could imagine at least "Nationalsprachsschutzgesetzabkommen"), manifested in  many German classes and books and warning monologues...

 But now let’s see, how some German words enter the English language cosmos:

• There are the nearly normal ones: Kindergarten, Kindercare, Auto, autobahn, zeitgeist or even weltgeist, angst, gestalt, weltschmerz and many, many more, but especially interesting are:
• doppelgänger and poltergeist (even in Harry Potter!),
• schadenfreude (mh, strange that there has to be German word to describe the emotion ;-) According to some language theorists things just exit when there is an expression for them… ;-)), but there is also gemütlich to compensate the impression schadenfreude might leave - and don't forget about wanderlust,
• eigenvalue and eigenstates (great! Quantum physics rules),
• gedankenexperiment (that was explained by the author: it's an experiment in your thoughts; as far as I can remember it was Griffiths)
• ansatz (that’s some kind of problem, since I use the plural in my report: “there are several ansatzs (? or ansätze?! ) to solve the problem…”),
• rückwärts (my Serbian colleague told me, that you go either forwards with your car or backwards or rückwärts) 
•  … and last but not least, which actually made me laugh and I still have to smile when I read it: The infamous Aha-Erlebnis. I just bumped into it, when I read the last chapter of the book (that does not imply that I read the whole book or vice versa) where the author mentions his hope to satisfy everyone’s expectations with his book (De Graef, An Introduction to Transmission Electron Microscopy):

 “... [reasons to like the book]. If you are an experienced microscopist, it is hoped that you could find something new in this text, perhaps a derivation that suddenly makes sense, or an illustration that provoked what the German language so efficiently describes as an "Aha-Effekt".” (footnote: An Aha-Erlebnis is: "Ein eigenartiges im Denkverlauf auftretendes-lustbetontes Erlebnis, das sich bei plötzlicher Einsicht in einen zuerst undurchsichten Zusammenhang einstellt." (K. Bühler, speech phsychologist)

Even if the exchange rate is not fair, the languages have started mixing and let’s hope that there are sensible completion and we won’t end up with an unified Kauderwelsch.

A Bike Tour - #1 - 08-24-13

The weather's amazing and my bike can't possibly stay at the wall in my room. Thus, I decided to get on the 10-miles-track in the Waterfall Glen County Forest Preserve around the ANL. Somehow, the 10 miles became 14, but I don't mind - I got a tiny little bit confused at one crossroad and why always take the path straight ahead?! So I took the other one and couldn't believe my mind when I looked on the map after some time and it just stated the position I had left about 30 min. ago.

After all, I arrived at my accomodation safely :-) and with memories of a cute waterfall (which does not represent a great concurrence to the Niagara Falls) and of many nice, quiet moments in nature :-)

A Nanoscientific Piece of Art - 08-23-13

"I've got a job for you." - Alright, that sounds interesting! "Could you reconstruct this pattern?"

Eeer, NO?!

Okay, yes, of course, finally I was able to manage that... With a super nice demo version of a mathematical software which was so kind that I could not safe the image in its construction mode. Thus, my laptop had cope with a hard time, but we survived. Furthermore we adjusted the length and width to 6.8 microns (pixel-scaled of course ;-)).

But... why?

The direct occasion were some people from Norhtwestern  University of Chicago. They build the pattern, which is a Penrose tiling (quasicrystalline structure (1)) and ran a simulation of the pattern engraved in a magnetic nanomaterial to see the magnetic domains. That's just been a simulation  - now here we are and we  patterned the image yesterday on a permalloy membrane. The observation of the magnetic behaviour will take next Tuesday, I hope.

(1) Ha, the quasicrystalline structure has been the greatest fun factor during the construction of the flower: Quasicrystalline means that there is no "brief" mathematical description like the direct, not turned repition of a small pattern. Nevertheless, a formula exists, but I had more fun to pull out all the stops in geometrical construction. And - don't you immediately recognize the "golden ratio" between the main short and the main long strokes? ;-)

If you got interested (as I hope), there exists more information about my work here.

A Taste of India - 08-18-13

The highest, the greatest, the best. That's the US.

To be honest I didn't expect one of the greatest Hindu Temples just at Lemont's village boundary. I just passed with my bike and realized a sign saying "The Taste of India, 08-18-13", just tomorrow - lucky me! Eeerr, including many other people of course: When I arrived on Sunday a car line already welcomed me. Probably my bike had found the easiest parking space :-)

The event itself was brilliant! Mainly there was a lot of food and many clothes to buy, everything accompanied by Indian music. I just had to try one of the offered culinary delights - but I could not match the names with the dish so I just guessed and got kulfi faluda, which consists of ice cream and noodles. That was really cool :-)

Afterwards I finally started my exploration of the Glen Forest Park Preserve which is next to the Argonne National Laboratory. And I met a nice company:

We glanced at each other for a long time (mh, maybe in reality just 20 seconds) until a car came which destroyed my mental countryside idyll. Nevertheless, new friends  :-)

A Brothaaa! - 08-17-13

"Thanks!", "Thanks, brother!", that's what I'd call welcoming. After now about three weeks which just span away I can understand that cyclists own a dangerous life, so once you meet another you are quite happy to see another surviving example of your species. Now I was invited to this new community on the bridge to Lemont because one whole meter was granted the bikers to be kept safe from the cars (haha, or rather: to keep the cars safe from the unasthetic scratches a bike leaves ;-)).

Two cyclists came close to me, so I had to dismount my bike. I'm sorry, I'm just too happy about getting the "Thanks"  and then this hail-fellow-well-met Thank :-)

Lemont itself is a really nice, small town or village (that's a matter of definition; the basics are just here). I just biked there and enjoyed the view on the heritage corridor:

Today's greater idea was the visit of Las Ryds Greatest Show Un-Earthed. My associations consisted of some medieval stuff, children's games and maybe a few artistic shows. To be honest, I was really scared: It turned out to be an exhibition of hearses. Those cars are probably not too scary, indeed, but the people did the job! I mean, most of them smiled and were just wearing black clothes, but then there was this Ferris wheel for skeletons and I was alone ... aaaah!

To sum up, it was interesting! :-)

A City's Dancing - 08-10-13 (or: how to get rid of 10$)

Fortunately I haven't woken up in a midsummer's night tream yet, but then it was Sunday and we went to Chicago downtown again. Then imagine 200 people of all ages and all cultures dancing in the park to music from the 50s and 60s! And add an old-fashioned band with a car-piano and a proper party stage.

Probably that's been the most fascinating event I've seen so far - in fact, we could not resist to join in and so we danced our own version of Rock'n'Roll, Discofox and Line Dance. Then we built a huge snake touching the shoulders of our forerunner (of course it's been the greatest one the band has seen in their lives ;-)). They also player "Surfin' USA" a song we sang in high school - brilliant! I think I'm a fan of my parents' music now...

The overall bouncing did not even pause when the rain set in... We started dancing in the rain.

... and another story:
Grrrr... You want to get rid of 10$? Great!! Me, too... it just hasn't been my intention: 

"Oh, may I help you, what are you looking for?", asked a slightly mumbling gentleman when we stood at the crossroads in the center of downtown waving with our street map. We just briefly outlined our problem and immediately he started telling us to follow him; he was going to show us the way. I got a very unwell feeling due to his surprising kindness and began to be busy with the street map again.

What the holy burger was he going to do with us? When we arrived at our destination he continued talking about the Magnificent Shopping mile (since I am female, I love shopping, yes... indeed... just found a sense for my life...) and about McDonald's and so on...

Until (okay, actually that's just been five minutes) he asked for his charge, 40$. I would underestimatedsay that I was alarmed. Luckily we haven't been alone and we got away with 10$ without a tumult - but with a lesson learned.

Nevertheless, we found out about the once busiest McDonald's restaurant - so please look here to trace our whole path (please scroll down then, the effort will be worthwhile).

A Social Time - 08-09-13

"Is it, like, you know, prost?!" asked one of my colleagues, when we went to the Gordon-Biersch-Company for lunch. He'd just been promoted and invited us to a Steakhouse which is famous for Burgers and Beer (of course, from Germany ;-) ; by the way, it's rumoured that you can feed babies with American beer, but that's still not an alternative to the slightly chlorinated water.).

I answered, "yes, indeed, prost! And cheers!". The translation of phrases has become a ritual during lunchbreak: My supervisor learned "Guten Appetit!", and we all had to cope with the pronunciation of the Korean version. "Schönes Wochenende!" - that's was the goodbye for today.

 

(Actually I was supposed to publish this picture at 7pm, now it's about 3 o'clock in the morning ;-))

During our sponsored lunch I was glad not to talk about Physics - instead, we talked about Steve Jobs and about all the world and his brother. I remember especially one joke my supervsior told:

"In the Eighties we used to have Johnna Cash, Steve Jobs and Bob Hope. Now Steve Jobs's dead and we don't have any cash, jobs or hopes."

I thinkt that put all pessimism in a nutshell ;-)

Unfortunately I was a little bit pessimistic about mankind, too, when I was jogging. At some time, that's probably a law by nature, I had to fall. Thus, I got scrapes on my knee, hip and hands. There was no way around going in a strange position back to my acocmodation.
And it's just unbelievable how many people driving or riding passed me without a look! Do people just not notice what's going on around them or do they not want to know? It's indeed quite late that I pick this issue up, but it's always astonishing; sometimes life seems so much easier without much cerebration.
The point is that I don't want to blame anyone, because it's so likely that I acted in the same way; I just can hope that the will for recognition exists.

A bike’s license – 08-06-13

Once upon a time I took my driver’s license to demonstrate that at least once somebody thought that I represent enrichment to the traffic; finally I (somehow) passed the practical and theoretical exam.

Waiting for so long I was confronted with quite demanding challenge: I was told to watch a video lasting for an hour and afterwards there was going to be an exam (what a surprise!). Then another form would be issued to me saying that I passed the bike safety course ESH561.

Thus, the nervous, curious intern concentrated on “Jason” who showed how not to wear your helmet, how to examine your bike with the ABC-Quick-Check and how to act when some deer might cross the street.

I clicked the button “Next” with a rising adrenaline level and read the instruction tasks how to take the exam (one passes with a score of 80%!). Again, “next”…

Question 1 of 1: “Did you watch the video and agree on all terms and conditions?”

NOO!! Of course I don’t…  No further questions, passed with 100% ;-) (Actually an interesting method for university examinations, isn’t it? You just have to end up with a Gauss distribution…)

Alright, that was indeed a cakewalk. One of the safety and security xaminations (one out of four) was challenging since I had to think about whether to call 911 (US emergency number) or not in case of emergency... 

To sum up, I have spent as much time on safety courses and instructions as on reading papers. But that'll change soon :-)