Back from the Black

Earlier this week, my whole Institute spent three days up at a little conference place slash guest house that is owned and operated by the University. It's approximately thirty minutes from and 1000m above Freiburg and technically in the Schwarzwald or Black Forest.

I'd been looking forward to the Hutseminar, as it's known, for quite a while - not only was it the first chance I had to properly hear about what all the other people were doing as far as work, but it was also my first outing with my new work and I'd only heard great things about it from previous years ... although the prospect of spending two nights in an isolated location with a couple of busloads of Germans (and not to mention workmates) can potentially be both intimidating and disastrous ;P

The talks were spread over four sessions and were generally pretty interesting, even the ones that I wasn't directly interested in. Unfortunately, I seem to have perfected my narcolepsy which seems to be specifically triggered by seminars, especially those post-lunch. My new mates cottoned on pretty quickly and spent each lecture looking out whether I was awake or not ... Hey, it's a skill - that's all I'll say. I'm working on the theory that it's at least in part a genetic trait that I've managed to inherit from my father. At least I haven't started snoring yet.

One of the nicest parts was the fact that I had a chance to met some people in other groups, whose home areas are located in different buildings, as well as bonding a bit more with people from my own building. We've had about six new people starting in the past three weeks and they've all been really nice additions. And considering that we were all living in the top floor of the Institute with no hot water ... well, I guess you could say that it acted as a bonding experience.

Anyway, we had enough time to be social - free afternoons and long lunchtimes, in addition to a pub-style quiz on the first night which was hosted for one round by Yours Truly. All I'll say it, well, I rocked. If this whole PhD thing falls through, I think that I've found my backup job. I was wisecracking with the best of them.

I've spent the time since I've been back catching up on sleep (my new place is just a little bit too comfy, I've found) and trying to get ready for our next conference which happens to be next week, four hours north in Göttingen, another quaint German university town. I'm looking forward to it in part - it just happens to be from Sunday till Friday which is long enough, I think.

Fun fun, and more updates later.