ERFOLG BEI DAS GELDAUTOMAT!!

Woot woot! My new ATM PIN came in the mail yesterday!! I went to try to use it when I got it, but since I had tried to force too many wrong numbers down the throat of the ATM on Monday, my card was blocked. Aaaaand the bank was closed by then. Rat stew. But today, the teller lady went Bloop Bloop Bloop on the computer, and it worked! MEGA-WIN!!

So, halfway through Tuesday, I was thinking I was hitting a blogging 'wall' but I guess we all know how that turned out, lol. Today it just occurred to me that blogging for me, right now, kind of stands in for all the texting I'm not doing. A couple people have told me that they've reached for their phone at least a couple times to go to text me something, momentarily forgetting that I'm in Germany. It's easier for them to forget than me, since EVERYTHING is completely alien; even if my mind drifts, I still know that I can't reach any of my pals by phone anymore.

By the way, the phone I have over here is a wimpy little candybar phone.

I have the urge to start about three-quarters of my paragraphs with "so."

So I finally had hot chocolate today at work!! Grace, I know you said to mix milk and chocolate syrup, but A) Milk is SUPER EXPENSIVE here, so that's kind of a delicacy (not that I didn't consider it to be one before), and B) I have yet to see chocolate syrup. Or at least be paying attention when I see it. It's probably the issue of me not paying attention. I swear, Having Blinders would probably be listed under my superpowers if I ever had a baseball card made of me. But anyways, the package that I was talking about earlier? Contained a good-sized stash of hot chocolate packets! THANK YOU MOM!!!! :D She had also sent me one single packet of hot chocolate in an earlier piece of mail, but since I'm somewhat of a hoarder, and I only had the one lonely packet, I didn't use it.

I apparently have the Boat on my mind. Drinking the hot chocolate made me think of it. I heard a moped today that brought to mind a speedboat solitarily tearing across the main lake at 8 AM. ....sigh....

I would probably be more willing to approach my boss if he were in a cubicle or office. I don't like knowing other workers are able to hear me discuss stuff, especially me being an intern and EXTREMELY especially me being the INTERNATIONAL intern. But other than that, I kind of really like the open office scheme that the Deutschland Siemens has.

And now for the dry part of my time here in Germany. Up until now I’ve only had one project. This original project deals with an orifice plate and the flow involved in an oil pipe/tube that serves as the lubrication device for H-Compact Pluses and other motors Siemens manufactures. Well, the issue is that, for years, Siemens, namely this very office in Nürnberg, has been using the same tool to determine the characteristics of the flow. Very recently, this tool was proven to be errant in its calculations. My boss and another one of my coworkers have sort of developed another tool, but they wanted me to research the matter and to try to create my own. They want this issue solved once and for all, and told me that, while they understand that this might take some time, I should certainly complete the project by the time I leave. At first it looked simple. Then I started researching stuff. I found soooo much different stuff it made my head spin. Then I started researching stuff in English. Wow, did that make a difference. Over the first two weeks, I determined the basic equation I needed. Then in my weekly meeting with my boss (Willner) and colleague (Ebert), I learned that there were several different orifices I needed to take into consideration, and that they’d have to have different correction factors. Wonderful. The past two weeks since then have been spent in fruitless search of shape-based flow factors. Wouldn’t you know, it’s NOWHERE IN THE INTERNET!!!!! Probably hiding with Carmen Sandiego somewheres. Willner said that I might be able to conduct experiments at some point. I’m looking forward to some tangible engineer work. I made an epiphany at the end of last week which might ultimately help me understand all the variables and factors involved. I hate feeling like I’m groping blindly in the dark. Monday, Willner comes to me about a potential second project: At the beginning of February, one of Siemens’ clients wanted to know the mass moment of inertia of the machine they have. First of all, hold up. What? The mass moment of inertia of an entire motor, weighing over 2 tons?! What do you think you’re going to accomplish by rotating it? Well, regardless of what the customer does with this information, they are still a customer. Anyways, this request bounced around a couple departments and countries within the Siemens engineering network until two weeks ago it comes to Willner’s attention that no one had ever actually done anything with the request. So we come to Monday, with Willner telling me that since I have the time to devote to such frivolous pursuits (such as research), I am given this project. He’s told me this before, about the orifice flow project. I don’t like this pattern that I detect; both projects I’ve gotten are given to me because the real engineers are ‘too busy.’ Although, if he ever gets around to giving me the computative privileges in the Siemens database, or even telling me more about the project, I think I should like it better than flow through an orifice.

This morning, I didn’t have to wake up early to skype the boy, but I was going to wake up early so I could start working earlier. The alarm was set for 6:10 instead of 5:55. At 6:07, my body FREAKS OUT and I wake up in a panic because I think I’ve slept in. I can’t remember what I said, but I’m pretty sure I woke up and immediately started spouting nonsense. Lol. Well anyways, I needed the early work hours, because I had an appointment with the Einwohneramt at 9:30, and as with any government agency, you’ve got to be on time, even though they’ll prolly take forever to get around to you. They’ve got all the power, so you better follow their terms. I was on time – early, in fact – and I still had to wait until 10, 15 minutes after my scheduled appt time. Oh well. So I go into the guy’s office, give him the paper Siemens gave me explicitly stating that I was, in fact, a current intern of theirs. The set-up of this office was weird, because there was a second door to the right, which opened up to a conference room. And there were people in the conference room. Talking. Grrrr. So it was kinda loud. There were some parts of what the guy said that were drowned out because of it, plus the fact that his desk was sooooo big. I think I heard him say something about “wir brauchen etwas anderes” and “wir könnten das nicht heute machen” or something along those lines, but what it all meant was that I needed to make yet ANOTHER appointment with these people. Sigh. So then he asks if I had a statement from the University about me being in Germany. I rifle through my papers, don’t find anything directly from UC or Gayle Elliot. I pick up the packet that GIZ gave us (formerly InWEnt... I don’t like that new name at all...), and asked if it would suffice. He takes a look at it and gets really excited, and takes about 3 minutes shuffling his own papers and processing things and making copies and cutting and pasting and he just goes bureaucratically CRAZY all over the place! And he tells me I don’t need to come back in again at all! I’m completely done! YIPPEEEE!!!!! :D :D So now I guess I’m OFFICIALLY official! :D All paperwork is REALLY done, I’m getting paid, I’m able to withdraw moniez from die Bank, I have my Siemens ID badge.... WOOT! :D Alles im Butter!

So I had made my lunch to eat today, since I couldn’t withdraw money to load my cafeteria card with. I was about to partake in my sammich, when Willner comes over and says “we are going to the 25th anniversary with Siemens party for a colleage, and you’re coming. There will be food.” WIN! So I ate a better lunch today than I expected. It was delicious too. I’m certainly going to miss German food once I get back home. Butter, meat, fat, and kraut. Nom-lichkeit.