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There are a few unique things about my WG (Working Group). One of those things is that our Sekretariat is male. He is also a huge fan of the Kassel Huskies, the Eishockey club (Razor, you will appreciate this post). From now on, the Caustic one will refer to him as Huskie.

A few months ago Huskie organized an after-work outting to see the Kassel Huskies. Having not been to a hockey game since the ol’ Milwaukee Admirals, the Caustic One decided that this might be an interesting evening of fun, frolic and fighting – German Style. Besides that, the only other thing on her dance card was to play “Pocket Frogs” or watch “Midsommer Murders” or “Inspector Morse” with Panda Purraliscious. A gal should get out once in a while!

Soo last night, along with a few colleagues, the trip was made by train and tram to the Eishalle, meeting Huskie for an evening of ice, ice, baby ice, cold entertainment. One of the jokes from US Hockey was “it’s all about the fight”, and having heard tales of European Fan Passion, curiousity was high as to how it would all play out.

The game was played against EV Landshut, whose fans showed up with a HUGE flag and systematically undressed to shirtlessness and, in a couple of cases, down to their shorts. Perhaps they also had hormonal issues and were just too darn hot. Personal opinion is that they should have painted their flabby white bodies red and white as well, but hey, that’s just the Caustic One’s opinion.

This is how the evening began: Kassel Huskies Einlauf Video – Youtube

Different. The Huskie fans included amongst themselves several who brought drums. They beat out cadences and different songs/cheers would erupt from the crowd — the entire game, singing and chanting in support of their team, interupted only by a few “wass??” “oi!” when the refs ignored the opponent’s transgressions. Even when the trusty keeper, Mika Järvinen, was taken out, in the 3rd Drittel, by a backboard, the fans were politely pissed. The hallwide cry demanding the departure of the Schwarze Schlau was unremarked, however, with the offending Landshut player not even receiving a yellow card!

While the first Drittel was fast, and interesting, no goals were made by either side. The second Drittel resulted in one goal by the Landshut, and finally, in the last Drittel, the game actually commenced, with fast and furious plays by both teams, with the arrival of Kai Kristian Keeper for the Huskies.
Two goals were scored by the Huskies, for a final win of the home team at 2-1. For each goal, the fans hugged, kissed, and then danced to Ramalama ding dong, singing and swinging their Huskies Scarves over the top of their heads.

And the smell of Bratwurst, at 2.50 euros, was so overwhelming. Next time the Caustic one will partake in the Brats. She had expected that the concessions prices would be obscene, such as it is in American games (who can afford a hot dog at a MLB game these days?), but no… brats at 2.50, beverages at 3…

All in all, a great and fun evening.
In today’s news, Järvinen is apparently doing well.

Probably everyone who has lived as an expat has experienced this: the days when one feels as though they are losing their mind, as though they have no home, as though there really is No One to talk to over tea and silly conversation, to be as sarcastic or as open as one can with ones few really good friends. The days when screaming loudly seems like the only option, except that you don’t want to be “THAT neighbor”, especially if there’s already a passionate couple screaming and waking people up at 2 or 3 in the morning, and at least they are screaming at each other and not just to vent the five million things zinging around in your head in two (or more) languages, none of which makes any sense.

and while the brain is doing this manic spinning and circling and smashing into neurological “bang-head-here” walls, the body is, somehow, exhausted, and everything is an almost impossible effort. Probably related, at least that’s what the Caustic One’s house doc seems to think.

In the world of work — brain work, anyway — it takes between six months and a year before a person begins to grasp their job responsibilities. A year before they can really call them their own and start to really be useful in a more-than-just-the-minimum-requirements sort of way. Six months to figure out what all the oddball personality types around are, and know for sure if the boss/es are asses or ok, depending on their ability to bullshit around the new people. Occasionally a really horrible boss comes along and that takes far less time to figure out, but generally, in the average working environment where people are all trying to do their best, with only normal ego and group dynamics, six months to settle into a wary circle of workers, a year to “click” and begin to be a real team.

In the world of academics, in the US there is a chance that this means a real team will be there for a while, since PhDs take so damn long there. In Germany, it’s three years. So each person is about halfway through before they are really useful and improving processes, so teams are highly dynamic and never really fall into a real team.

On the personal side, it probably takes between six months and a year to find people that qualify as more than “Bekannter” — or, acquaintances/colleagues. A real extrovert can probably do it much more quickly, and a true introvert much more slowly. When the Caustic One moved to Long Island, it took her four YEARS to make friends, and after being there for over a decade, she has less than ten “friends”, only five of which she was able to spend any non-trivial physical time with at any frequency, due to the Long Island Busy Frenzy. This makes it pretty difficult to actually develop a true and lasting deep relationship with anyone. What is even more interesting is the difference between what a person considers as friendship in Long Island compared to somewhere a little less insane, like Wisconsin. While I may be very fond of a person and enjoy spending time with them, that really doesn’t make them a “friend”. Friendship is built on the same sort of pain that a partnership/marriage is built on — at some point, it stops being just fun and lazy; at some point one pisses the other one off and both parties have to decide if it is worth continuing the relationship.

Anyway, add this whole dimensional thing to being in a foreign country. No matter what anyone tries to tell you, you don’t get it till you live it. While one might become fluent in a language while not in a country that speaks that language, and one might be able to pick up the cultural and social differences that language often offers clues into, until one actually is living in the situation, it isn’t real. It’s a theoretical exercise — kind of like getting a Marquette University Engineering Degree or a Milwaukee School of Engineering Degree. Kind of like taking about death and actually dying. Actually, there might be an argument to be made that living in another country is sort of like dying! That could be a whole blog post there so I’m going to leave it alone for now.

Back to insanity and alone-ness and friendship, etc. The introvert in another country, who speaks the language badly but who is not too bad at charades, who is also older and not really into spending her free time with people that might fine individuals but are just, well, young, faces a challenge. Funny how we become our parents at some point; interesting how, with age, we prefer our free time to be comfortable, emotionally uplifting, mentally stimulating or rejuvenating, free from a plethora of negatives, free from the type of competitive attitude that seems to characterize many young, intelligent people. In short — it just doesn’t work for the Caustic one to hang out with colleagues that are her children’s age in her non working time. So what’s an old, caustic introvert to do?

Join the choir. Or two choirs.

Hang out at the cafe across the street run by an older gentleman and frequented by people of all ages.

Take a book and some crocheting.

It seems to be working, after nine months in this little University village. The Caustic One has finally found a few people (various ages, but the right kind of personalities) that have some common interests. Her dance card is filling up with interesting conversation, broken though it may be, and lovely personalities. She is learning about the culture on a personal level, and appreciating what people’s challenges are – earlier, there really was no way to know.

Along with this improvement, somehow, now the mood is better… the inner brain screaming is slowing down, the loneliness is not so intense, and an almost impossibly good mood has settled in, one which overtakes some of the frustrating moments of idiocy that is part of life. It’s grand to be feeling more like Herself!

The turning point, I would say, to the beginning of understanding and finding a place in this culture, this experience, this adventure.

Hopefully you had to put in a UID and PWD to get to this blog. Of course, the NSA can steal read it, but mere mortals are not invited unless they are part of a more intimate group of people interested in the life of the Caustic One, aka LaFerg, aka …. well, if you are here, you know who I am.

this blog might be fodder for a silly book later in life, with a working title of “Suburban Trails”. More on that later. It is currently a venting, joyfully exclaiming, crying, screaming, laughing journal of various and sundry things in the life of the author. This is especially needed as she is, at the time of this writing, an expat, living (as the term implies) away from “home and country”, struggling to live far away from the people she loves and holds dear. It’s harder than she thought, in some ways, and easier in others.

Gads, there are some folks on my FB feed that really make me feel like I am in a recurring REN AND STIMPY loop.

Ok, so a lot of my friends have higher academic standing. Which means they’ve had the tenacity to endure the torture that acquiring a PhD* entails. For the record, I don’t find my PhD training in Europe to be torture at all, it is sheer joy 90% of the time, but I’ve been in science a

long

long

long

time. And as such, I am used to a few things. Things like:

1 — Just because a person has a PhD means nothing as far as intelligence. They are probably over room temp. Maybe even room temp in the Sahara. But that doesn’t mean that they have a remote clue about EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE.

2 — having trained many a PhD candidate and postdoc, the CO can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that having a PhD does not mean someone is smart. It means they can buckle down and get it done. Possibly kicking and screaming.

3 — having a PhD in anything other than applied statistics, industrial engineering, reliability engineering, quality engineering, applied mathematics, statistics does not mean that the work  done is actually worth anything practical.   As Tukey said, there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. More PhDs than one can shake a stick at are terrible at statistics, don’t understand the basic rudimentary constructs of different types of statistics, are afraid of statistics, and just plain use a statistical algorithm because everyone else in their field used that same test. This does not mean they are doing good work. IT just means they can mimic a test and get a printout that says there is or is not a reason to reject the null.

4 — the CO believes there is a glut of American PhDs that think that because they have a PhD they are worth more respect than the guy that fixes their plumbing. Personally, anybody that would wade in muck and fix a backed up sewer system on Christmas Eve is definitely worth more respect than any PhD, ever. Period.

5 — PhDs are, by definition, generally worthless. This is to say that they cease being ‘generalists’ when they do their thesis, and unless they are very, very good at engaging in multiple projects to stretch themselves, they become very specific in their knowledge. If someone came up to the CO and asked her what was killing their pine trees, it is possibly that she could figure it out eventually, but since she spends most of her time with the Nightshade family, she’s generally NOT the person you’d ask for help with your grain production, or turfgrass problems. Besides, turfgrass is an environmentally irresponsible reality.

6 — that last sentence brings me to the next point — Arrogance. Some of us are not arrogant because of our graduate work. We were arrogant before our graduate work and our graduate environment allows us to continue. We really are asses. We don’t all mean to be, although there are a few of us that actually believe that we are better than others as a result of our interest in methodical engineering/scientific practice. Probably a high proportion of us are high functioning autistics with very little patience for what we consider idiotic conversation. We treat each other this way as well — for instance, the “pure” or “basic” sciences vs. the “soft” sciences. It’s all hard work. Some of us “pure” or “scientific/applied” folks don’t understand the work involved in Political Science or Sociology and find it dreadfully tiresome, just as folks in other fields find our work to be dreadfully tiresome. This is why it is always a bad idea to take a non-scientific spouse to a conference dinner and expect marital harmony. Unless —

7 — PhD’s don’t always attract other PhDs. Sometimes real humans partner with PhDs; real, honest, caring folks. These folks help to metre the arrogance and elitism of those folks that have somehow managed to inflate our ego to the point of our graduate work.

There’s a reason why the layterm for PhD is “Piled Higher and Deeper”. It’s a narrow pile.

HOWEVER! There is hope! There do exist a few beacons of hope and sanity in the advanced academic standing population. Generally these are folks that have had their PhD long enough to realize it really doesn’t mean that much except to get jobs in fields that are pretty tiny or involve education or for promotions or to practice in some sort of medical field (for a rant on why the MD/ND/DO/DNP etc is NOT a scientific degree, stay tuned — these are engineering degrees, not knowledge degrees). Thankfully the CO has worked with a few of them. There’s one on Long Island out East. There’s one in the Soil Lab at Rutgers. There’s a couple in the plant bio dept at Rutgers as well. There are a couple in the hort dept at Farmingdale State. And there’s a retired scientist not far from Rhode Island that is probably the best example of a humane, humble, I know-what-I-know-and-can-learn-from-YOU advanced academic that I have had the fortune to know.

So. Long story short — got a PhD? Not exempt from R&S** statments.

—–
* or MD, ND, DO, EdD, ThD, DNP, etc…
**Ren & Stimpy

There is a deck building game (for definition of deck building game, see google) called Dominion. It has many expansions, but the basic game in itself is a good game. A friend, GAMESDUDE, has a game store – not an arcade, but that old fashioned place where people can go and buy games, play games, indulge in magic or d&d or what-have-you tournaments, buy cheap 99c Arizona Iced “Tea” and similar ilk beverages. It’s a good location, and a great escape, although to the uninitiated it does have the gentle reek of nerds (which works out ok for the Caustic One as her sense of smell with regard to some of the more sulfur and ammonia products was destroyed by an ammonia-based blueprint maker in a room with inadequate ventillation many years ago). It was at this location that Gamesdude taught the CO Dominion.

(As an aside, Dominion was actually the second game with which the CO fell in love, the first is Agricolae, but Agricolae is a space-intensive, many pieces board game that, while a fantastic game, takes longer to explain than to play. Dominion is great b/c the learning curve is much shorter, the space more manageable, and, well — let’s be honest. CO’s German still pretty much sucks. Her game companions are pretty good in English, but Agricolae would be too much. And the apartment is soooo tiny, that the space management superiority of Dominion is a real plus).

So, anyway, back to Dominion. CO loves this game. Time spent in the US with ExtrovertBabe and Dancing Mom playing was always time well spent. SO, as a gift to the CO for heading off to Germany, ExtrovertBabe and Gamesdude gave the CO a shiny new copy of Dominion. After a few attempts at gathering a core group of interested players, it’s a regular once-a-month, every-three-weeks -ish event in Witzenhausen. Generally we have four players, although we do stretch and go with six occasionally. Dominion is supposed to take 30 minutes to play, but we take literally hours. Like, maybe the shortest we’ve done it has been 2 hours? 90 minutes? We don’t play Dominion like gamers. We play as collaborative socialists and talk about life, the universe, and everything. We also help each other “you know, you get another buy”. “Remember, the point of the game is to get the green cards”. Generally the points are close. We just have fun. Maybe in real life we are competitive, but we are all into agriculture and sustainability in some way, be it marketing, research, farming, social impact, etc. so perhaps we’re all just more cooperative than conquerers.

Generally speaking, we chow down on tea, or wine, or fruit juice and a huge tin of popcorn seasoned with Morton’s Seasonings. Oh. Yum. Yesterday the popcorn was accompanied by salad from the CSA share and a few doctored-up frozen spinach pizzas (why do they NEVER have enough cheese on them??). Panda Purralicious finds one person who looks like they will share a chair and ingratiates herself — possibly just to keep warm.

It’s also one of the ways in which the CO forces herself to keep her apartment reasonably tidy. Not perfect. Dusting — oh. Now, there’s another post.

Anyway — these evenings really are great for sanity. Nice people, fun game, good conversation, language learning for all of us — English, German, a bit of Czech… Quiet lovely. I remember when I was a child, my parents were part of a group of four couples that got together on a periodic basis to play Sheepshead*. Maybe this is a genetic need!

_______
* if you don’t know what Sheepshead is, maybe Schaffskopf? Or reverse Euker? Well, google is your friend.

well, like this. Days when one has been fighting some sort of bug for what seems like weeks, but when today standing in a shop makes one dizzy, so the thought of getting on a train or bus and exploring is just not that appealing. Days when the thought of doing just about anything is exhausting. Not unappealing, just exhausting.

For weeks, today was going to be “go through the clothes, put away the winter stuff, rearrange the bedding for warmer weather, play with some UFOs (Unfinished Objects)”. Most weekends I like to go for a walk, or a bike ride, or get on a train/bus and explore, but today, the quick little walk across the bridge, checking out the local thrift shop, back across to the Markt and surrounding shops to just imbibe in the ambience of a small town on a Saturday while the shops are open,listen to the music from Arends Sammelsurium & Antiquitariat old-style radio/turntable, listen to the children running through the Markt, old friends greeting each other, people having coffee or ice cream, well, that was enough of the walking around.

Did, however, manage to get a good price on some flower pots for my myriads of flowers outgrowing their pots. The Capt kindly put up some hooks and hung my macrame flower pot holders so that they can go up. The Caustic One remains skeptical that the smaller hooks will support the weight of three large pots full of dirt and flowers, but we will see, won’t we. Yup. We will. Of course, there isn’t enough potting soil / dirt to fill them at this point!!

Anyway, back to the day. All these words and ideas flowing through my cold-ridden head make for a sort of surrealistic mental experience. Maybe putting hair on a doll’s head wouldn’t be a bad idea — except for the klutz factor that always increasing with any sort of sickness. Large needle. Potential blood letting experience. Well, it is a plastic doll, it washes out. Maybe try to do a panel of this very cool pattern for a tablecloth in #10 cotton with a teapot motif. Maybe something more mindless, like ironing and watching Agatha Christie’s Poirot, as portrayed by David Suchet (for over 20 years … or is it over 30 years). Perhaps putting together a puzzle for the bedroom; there are four of them waiting for me to assemble specifically for tacky bedroom decor, they are all kinkaid ripoffs from the Big Lots! That could be mindless yet accomplish something.

Well … yeah.

There is a Gebrauchtswaren Zentrum (henceforth GWZ) here in Witzenhausen. This is akin to a municipal Salvation Army or Good Will store; tons of things for the home – but no clothing. Clothing may be found at various thrift stores or, for a less expensive option, the DRK – Deutsche Rote Kreuz.

The GWZ accepts donations from just about anyone, as long as the items are resalable. Sometimes they have amazing antiques that, even at the incredibly discounted pricetag here, are still a bit out of the Caustic One’s price range. Sometimes they have decent quality for quite a cheap price — but one must arrive when the things arrive, or shortly thereafter, in most of these cases or the things are snapped up. Currently the Ms Caustic is looking for a Kleidershrank — or two small Kleidershranke. There is a limit to the size of furniture that can be carried without disassembling. On several occasions the delivery mensch have looked at the steps, the curve, the ceiling, and said “ummm” and reasurances such as “yup. It will fit. You’ve done this before and this thing is smaller and lighter”, or “You’re the professionals, you can make it work!”.

Occasionally there is something there that the Caustic One finds so lovely that she stalks it in hopes that it might be there when the money to purchase is available. Today was one of those days — a week ago a really beautiful, ornate fondue kettle was available. She kept going back to it, caressing it, taking it apart and putting it back together but she didn’t have “bar” (cash) and wasn’t up to pulling out the ol’ bank card.

Today, she wandered into the GWZ as part of a feeble attempt to get out and get some fresh air. Alas, the beautiful thing was snatched up by a more savvy (and economically flexible) person. Of course, this meant spending thirty minutes or so perusing the Kleidershrank/e, of which there was one that was exactly the size, shape, and cost range necessary — already sold. It was stained a funny blue, though. Eh.

You win some. You lose some. Guess we’ll wait on the fondue party!

I’ve always enjoyed watching airplanes land. Since Slideman took me to see the Boeing 747 land at Mitchell Field in Some Year I won’t say, I have found it exhilarating. Almost as exhilarating as surviving my own landings. But that’s another story.

A few years ago I discovered Pelicans. I’d never seen them up close and personal, but across from Alcatraz Island is a great spot. Watching them fly and land reminded me of those huge, low, eerily clunky and seemingly impossible old planes from WWII. They really impressed me.

Today, as I was crossing the bridge over the Werra River, the white swan landed — came down over my head and to the river and I was just struck by the amazing beauty, majesty, even, and power of this creature as she came down, wingspan so much larger than one thinks, beautiful smooth tucked in suddenly, elegantly floating in the river.

Bad day to have left the phone camera at home.

…. to give it a little ‘zing’. To make it ‘pop’. To make up for the lack of Sriracha sauce currently residing in the flat.

Rainer Peppers are amazing. They come in all shapes and sizes. So far, the “just one Rainer Pepper” has been small. Those are gone. Now there are good size Rainer Peppers, safely ensconced in the freezer for when one is needed. Two sandwich bag sizes have been enough for six months of ZazzzOOm. More than enough. It is possible that the Caustic One will have to make some chutney with the cherries so that there is room in the freezer for the 2014 crop of Rainer Peppers! Rainer Peppers are *not* the kind of peppers that one just pops into one’s mouth and enjoys, unless one has an asbestos tongue. The Caustic One does not.

One of the great perks of being in Ag research is being in proximity with Really Good Organic gardeners. Who like to share their wares. Rainer is one of those amazing people. I am very fortunate to work with him, as he is in charge of my polytunnel tomatoes!

The other night — as in, three nights ago, one of the evenings to the beautiful over-15-deg-C days — a fly tickled me. That was just odd. They usually don’t “bug” me. The next day, there seemed to be a slew of them around, big ol’ “houseflies”. And easy to swat. And then I realized — I was swatting them in pairs. Apparently being in “fliegre\anto” dilecto makes ’em slow.

It didn’t end there, though. By the end of the day there were flies all over the place. We don’t have window screens in this little burg in Germany, and no matter what I tried to convince them to LEAVE the house, they refused. No way was I going to leave the windows closed on such beautiful weather, either.

So began the long siege. I began to wonder what was lying in the floorboards, or in a window casing, that brought on the infestation of the flies. The kitty toilet was cleaned out. There was no rotting anything hiding anywhere that I could find.

Some friends came by to help me eat that marvelous Panang curry (previous blog post), and I broached the subject of the flies. “OH!” my colleague said “They’re terrible! Apparently there is some bird that keeps them under control but the weather was too warm so the flies came early and the birds have not arrived yet”.

Well. I could use a hungry spider right about now. Or a bat. Or do they only eat mosquitos?