Meander

When I was young I believed that you could reach your goals by working hard. It seemed to work for a while until people came along who destroyed everything. Somehow I can't manage to get out of the hole they pushed me into.

So don't make the same mistake. Learn bootlicking or quit. 

Bit late for me now though. 

I started to post some things lately and never felt like publishing so I think I'll rather quit here too.

This blog will still stay online for a bit longer in case I feel like writing again.

 

Take care!

 Irrwege

Früher dachte ich noch, man könne seine Ziele erreichen, wenn man intesiv darauf hinarbeitet. Das schien auch eine Weile lang zu funktionieren bis Menschen kamen, die mir alles zerstörten. Jetzt schaffe ich es nicht mehr aus dem Loch rauszukommen in dem ich gelandet bin.

Macht nicht den selben Fehler. Lernt zu schleimen oder laßt alles einfach sein.

Hier ist der Zug schon abgefahren.

Habe einige Male angefangen, was zu posten aber irgendwie war mir dann doch nicht danach, es zu veröffentlichen also werde ich das hier wohl auch aufhören.

 Der/die/das Blog bleibt noch ein bisschen offen falls ich doch noch mal in Schreiblaune bin.

Macht's gut.

Granite Tors

One of my favourite hikes in Alaska. Had to think about it when looking at coverage of the wildfire in Yosemite because parts of the trail had been destroyed by fire when we were hiking there (we almost lost our way and had to make a big detour to get back on track). A "tor" is a free-standing rock formation which has been preserved due to the resistance of weathering of the rocks relative to their surrounding.

It's also nice to see how the vegetation conquers back the areas of previous fires. 

 

Offspring

Sorry for the lack of updates here recently - I wish I could say it was because I am enjoying life. Some people are doing their best to destroy my future ... I cannot be more specific at the moment (www never forgets and so on).

Da gewisse Mitmenschen ihr Möglichstes tun, um mir meine Zukunft kaputt zu machen ist es hier gerade etwas still. Tut mir leid. Kann leider auch nicht mehr über die momentane Situation schreiben.

My precious (2)

It didn't quite look like it would be a bean year but I was a bit too pessimistic (as usual). We've had 3 meals already (beans fried in butter with garlic and a bit of onion after boiling ... mmmmmh) and the second generation is in full bloom right now. The effort to get them to this stage is the same as for the peas - they only spout in a special container and then need to be repotted until they are big enough to survive the nightly feasting of slugs.

Es sah eigentlich gar nicht nach einem guten Jahr für Bohnen aus aber ich war wohl etwas zu pessimistisch (wie fast immer). Mittlerweile haben wir schon 3 mal Bohnen essen können (in Butter geschwenkt mit Knoblauch und Zwieblen nach dem Kochen ... lecker) und die zweite Generation blüht gerade noch. Der Aufwand ist wie bei den Bohnen etwas größer, weil die Bohnen auch nur in einem separaten Behälter keimen und dann muss man sie ein paar mal umtopfen, bis sie groß genug sind, um die nächtlichen Freßattacken der Nacktschnecken zu überstehen.

Impressions of Oslo IX

The picture speaks for itself: ugly cruise ship behind even uglier town hall ... one of the reasons I never really thought Oslo was a beauty.

Taken out of the hotel room (16th floor) hence the rather bad quality.

Das Bild spricht für sich: häßliches Kreuzfahrschiff hinter dem noch häßlicheren Rathaus ... einer der Gründe warum ich Oslo nie so sonderlich schön fand.

Aufgenommen vom Hotelzimmer (16. Stock) deshalb die etwas schlechte Qualität.

My precious (1)

Peas - just enough to eat from hand to mouth each day ... totally worth the effort  :)

(They don't tend to sprout if directly put into the ground so I have to set them all up in a "sprouting bowl" in March then repot them several times until they are big enough to survive in the greenhouse)

 

And they are now in bloom again despite all the slugs ... 

My spot

This is my spot so leave me alone!

Bufo bufo I would assume; common toad; Erdkröte.

Three letters or maybe two

PhD/Dr.


more later, maybe.

Oh and I managed to stay calm all evening although somebody started to make a scene - apparently some people cannot even show a bit of maturity at 60+.

mehr später, vielleicht.
Ich habe es sogar geschafft, den ganzen Abend ruhig zu bleiben obwohl eine gewisse Person drauf und dran war, den Abend zu versauen - anscheinend können sich manche nicht mal mit 60+ vernünftig benehmen.

Radish face

Timing is everything

Neuerdings auch wieder zweisprachig - deutscher Text unter dem englischen ;)


Tomorrow in two weeks I will be defending my PhD thesis. In Norway that means that I will have to give a trial lecture in the morning with a topic I am not familiar with (and which I will get tomorrow so that I have 2 weeks to prepare). In the afternoon, I will present my thesis with a short talk and afterwards the two opponents (who have also reviewed my thesis) will ask questions and then the torture has an end. Well, there probably will be sparkling wine (ewwww) for celebration and I will pretend that I am happy and then we will go for dinner and I have to continue to pretend to be thankful and happy and then we will go to a pub and hopefully then I will not have to pretend anymore .... whoa.
Yes, you're right I should not have to pretend that I am happy. Yet so much went wrong those past few years that I will certainly have mixed feelings about that day. At some point I may write down what I have experienced - everybody who has listened to the story could simply not believe what they heard.
This post is just to show you how the university administration works in Norway (and this is only an example of many):

25th of March - officially submitted thesis; a committe has to decide if  the thesis will be accepted (not READ it) and if the suggested reviewers are ok. So in short just look if all forms are all there and if the two people are not complete nutters. You'd think that could be done in a day or so ... I was told they usually need a week but ....

29th of April - confirmation from the committee. Now, the thesis has to be sent to the two reviewers who usually get 4 weeks for an evaluation. Well of course there is the time issue so I am told that the evaluation should be completed by the 24th of May.

24th of May .... nothing (it can be quite unnerving having to wait so long for a decision)

3rd of June - evaluation is ready and luckily positive otherwise I would have gotten the thesis back for 3 or 6 more months or in the worst case not been able to defend (which was not very likely). Now the evaluation has to be signed by the dean ... You'd think this could be done in a day .....

12th of June - the dean managed to sign the evaluation

Summary: 1 month people have actually worked hard to evaluate the thesis and the other 5 weeks it was lying around on somebody's desk.
NOW, the thesis has to be sent off to the university publisher and they will print 40 copies. But they need a printing form signed by me and by a person from the department who is usually dealing with the PhD disputations. Of course the printing form cannot be sent before the dean has officially signed the evaluation so...

12th of June  - 8 to 14.30 - "you have to sign the printing form and send it today because I am on leave for the rest of the week and it's getting late"

Ye it wouldn't have been a problem if I sat at the computer all day but sorry I am not. I do not get paid so I choose my working hours myself and I had so many evil tidings by e-mail already that I just put off the time when I switch on the computer and check e-mails. Usually I do a bit of gardening before I go inside. I was half an hour too late but by that time nobody of the administrative staff is working anymore. And there was no plan B. What about appointing a replacement who could sign the form instead?  So they left me with all those horror scenarios that everything is scheduled for the defense but the thesis is not printed in time until today when I got an e-mail that she signed it after all. Whew. She probably was not happy to lose 10 minutes of her valuable holiday time.
 
So you guys do not manage to sign a piece of paper in less than a week and I get half a day to send a form? And no, you couldn't have told me a day before that you will be away and I could have sent it to you even though the dean had not signed yet? And you're not dealing with the umpteenth defense and could not plan a bit ahead while I am doing it for the fist and hopefully the last time?




Morgen in zwei Wochen werde ich meine Doktorarbeit verteidigen. In Norwegen bedeutet das, dass ich vormittags eine sogenannte Probvorlesung halten muss zu einem mir unbekannten Thema (welches ich morgen bekomme und für das ich mich 2 Wochen vorbereiten darf). Nachmittags werde ich dann mein Thema in einem kurzen Vortrag präsentieren und danach werden die Prüfer (die auch meine Dissertation beurteilt haben) noch Fragen stellen.Wenn wir damit durch sind, ist die Tortur enldich vorbei. Ok, es wird wohl noch Sekt geben (iiiiih) zum Anstoßen und ich werde so tun als wäre ich glücklich und dann werden wir essen gehen und ich werden weiter versuchen dankbar und glücklich zu sein und danach geht es noch in ein Pub und da muss ich dann hoffentlich nicht mehr so tun als ob alles total toll wäre.  
 Und natüröich sollte ich nicht nur so tun als wäre ich glücklich sondern es wirklich sein. Allerdings ist in den vergangenen Jahren einfach so viel schief gelaufen, dass ich diesem Tag wirklich nur mit gemischten Gefühlen entgegensehen kann. Vielleicht schreibt ich mal auf, was ich so alles erlebt habe - alle, die sich die Geschichte angehört haben konnten es nicht fassen, dass es so was gibt.
Dieser Beitrag soll zeigen, wie die Verwaltung der Universität in Norwegen funktioniert (und dies ist wirklich nur ein Beispeil von vielen):

25. März - offizielle Abgabe der Doktorarbeit; ein Prüfungskomittee muss nun enthscheiden, ob die Dissertation akzeptiert wird (es muss sie aber nicht LESEN) und ob die vorgeschalgegene Gutachter akzeptabel sind. Kurz gesagt schauen sie einfach ob alle Formulare vollständig ausgefüllt sind und ob die zwei Gutachter nicht totale Spinner sind. Man müßte meinen, dass dies an einem Tag erledigt werden könnte ... mir wurde gesagt, dass es normalerweise etwa eine Woche dauert aber .....

29. April - Bestästigung des Komitees. Jetzt muss die Doktorarbeit and die Gutachter geschickt werden, die normalerweise 4 Wochen für die Evaluierung bekommen. Natürlich wird das jetzt zeitlich etwas knapp und man sagt mir, dass am 24. Mai die Ergebnisse da sein sollten.

24. Mai - nichts (und es macht einen ganz schön fertig wenn man so lange warten muss)

3. Juni - das Gutachten ist da und glücklicherweise auch positiv sonst würde ich die Dissertation wieder für 3 oder 6 Monate zurück bekommen oder im schlimmsten Fall gar nicht verteidigen dürfen (ok, das war jetzt nicht sehr wahrscheinlich). Jetzt muss das Gutachten noch vom Dekan unterschrieben werden .... man müßte meinen, das könne man an einem Tag erledigen .....

12. Juni - der Dekan hat es nun auch geschafft, das Gutachten zu unterschreiben

Zusammenfassung: 1 Monat wurde die Doktorarbeit tatsächlich gelesen und beurteilt, die anderen 5 Wochen lag sie auf irgendwelchen Schreibtischen rum.
Jetzt muss die Dissertation aber noch zur Universitätsdruckerei geschickt werden und 40 Exemplare gedruckt werden. Aber die brauchen ein Druckformular, welches nicht nur ich sonder auch die Person vom Institut unterschreiben muss, die für die Disputationen zuständig ist. Natürlich kann dieses Formular nicht weggeschickt werden bevor der Dekan die Evaluation unterschrieben hat , deshalb....

12. Juni - 8 bis 14.30 Uhr - " Du musst jetzt dringend das Druckformular unterschreiben und es mir noch heute schicken, weil ich den Rest der Woche frei habe und die Zeit wird knapp"

Das wäre keine Problem gewesen, wenn ich den ganzen Tag am Computer säße aber das tu ich nicht. Ich werden nicht bezahlt also nehme ich mir auch das Recht heraus, dann zu Arbeiten, wenn es mir paßt und ich habe schon so viele Hiobsbotschaften per e-mail bekommen dass ich meist den Computer erst spät einschalte und meine mails checke. Normalerweise gehe ich auch erst mal in den Garten bevor ich mich an den Computer setze. Eine halbe Stunde war ich zu spät dran und um die Zeit ist keiner mehr in der Verwaltung zu erreichen. Und es gab auch keinen Plan B. Was wäre zum Beispiel mit einem Stellvertreter, der das Formular hätte unterzeichnen können? Und so ließen sie mich einfach hängen mit Horrorszenarien im Kopf dass alles für die Verteidigung gebucht wäre und alles daran scheitert, dass die Disputation nicht gedruckt wäre-bis ich heute eine e-mail bekam, dass sie das Formular doch unterschrieben und geschickt hätte. Puh. Sie war wahrscheinlich nicht glücklich darüber, 10 Minuten ihres kostbaren Urlaubs opfern zu müssen.

Die schaffen es nicht mal, ein Gutachten in weniger als einer Woche zu unterzeichnen und ich bekomme einen halben Tag, um ein Formular auszufüllen. Und man hätte mir ja nicht schon vorher sagen können, dass man für den Rest der Woche weg ist und ich das Formular lieber schon vorher ausfülle und unterschreibe auch wenn der Dekan noch nicht bestätigt hat? Und ihr habt ja nicht schon einige dutzend Disputationen hinter euch und hättet vielleicht ein bisschen vorausplanen können, während ich das nun zum ersten und hoffentlich letzten Mal mache?

 

Little guy

Yeah, I am a spider freak but more than spiders I like those little creatures. Yes, I know I've posted pictures before but this one was really really tiny and cute.

*Sniff*

Yes, I know ... these "where would I be now if this or that had happened" moods are actually not good.
But ...
Some years ago when I was about to finish my master degree, I started to look for PhD positions and found one which I really liked and at a fantastic location (at least for me). They probably would have taken me IF I had gotten my degree in time (but that was issued a few months later after they couldn't wait anymore because the professor at the old university just couldn't "make" it in time). Funnily enough, they took somebody who wanted to be in the city where I finally ended up to do a PhD (the second position I applied for). And we met accidentally in a pub in the first weeks of my PhD. So basically he would have preferred to be where I was and I would have loved to be where he was ....
I know, not every dream comes true and there was a short time in 2008 when I actually was happy with my PhD and managed to not think about this other position. Until the troubles started which is a different story of course.
I've never met this other PhD student again so I am not sure what he experienced during his PhD and how good/bad the supervision went (I do know that he has a PhD now though - which I have not ... yet).

But that was not all of the story. After a long time of struggle (not with myself but with obstacles in my way namely in the form of people) I managed to hand in a thesis after all and although I suggested other people, one of the two oponents who is evaluating the thesis and will also be present during the disputation would have been one of my supervisors had I gotten that first position.
Yes, you may say that I do not really know him and something might have gone wrong there, too. However,  today, I invited him to the dinner which we will have after the official defense and he wrote me such a nice e-mail wishing me good luck and looking forward to meet me and I feel just like "damn - why couldn't things have turned out differently". I know that I have to move on but it hurts inside ... so much. 

Formation spider ball

Some time later the spider accumualation looked like this:

Not quite sure why they stay all on one spot ... wouldn't there be less chance of being eaten if they spread out ??? Anyway the tiniest bit of wind or touch makes them spread out in all directions which is quite funny.

Cuties!

And ye it's hard to get all of these hyperactive mini spiders into focus :)

Why geology?

Because!

Adular with quartz crystals and some fluorite (the slighly more pinkish octahedrons) in a cavity.

The search

Since it looks like there will be a PhD defense in the near future after all, I have started to apply more seriously for jobs. Of course you're not always 100% qualified for everything so sometimes you just send an application and hope that you're lucky. Until now I didn't get a position mostly because I don't have the PhD quite yet and although it was not required everywhere, they preferred to take somebody with more experience which I can understand of course.
What I find a little more depressing is the fact that in the age of fast communication via the internet, where it takes only a few minutes to send a reply to a list of people, most institutions don't bother to tell you that you haven't qualified. I am not talking about just any employer - I am talking about universities and governmental institutions who always want to have very motivated and reliable people teaching their students. And they demonstrate how serious they are about this concept by just not replying to you at all.
What I would like to have is something like this:

A short, nice reply which tells you where you are and you will hence be able to move on.

So, I have decided to record a little more what happens on the job hunt nowadays.
Here is my little list (which will probably grow as time passes) of positions (not specified of course) and what has come out of them:

Canada - no reply
Finland - letter of refusal
North Carolina, USA - no reply
Jamaica - no reply
Sweden - letter of refusal
UK - letter of refusal

tbc

Fresh!

Ok, I admit that spring has its advantages.

Straight out of the greenhouse (except for the corn):

Nationality?

While applying online for a job at a university in the UK, I found the following in the drop down menu for the category "nationality":

At first of course I had to laugh because I really have experienced a lot of strange questionnaires while applying for a visa for the USA but I've never seen two choices of nationality for Germans. 

Later on of course I was wondering what on earth these people were thinking when they put this option into the list. They certainly cannot be THAT ignorant that they do not know that this G-country roughly in the middle of Europe has been united more than 20 years ago. So let's assume that whoever created this drop down menu has paid attention to their history lesson - what do you want to imply by that? 

We are one country by choice - people who lived in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) had no freedom of speech, no freedom to travel, they lived in a totalitarian system which they did not want to keep. So do you think that more than 20 years after the reunification, they would want to be labeled to be different Germans than the "other" Germans (are they supposed to be German (West) ???). I don't come from the eastern parts of Germany but if I did I'd find this highly discriminatory. Of course we still have our problems and people in the east still get lower salaries than people in the west and we tease each other about dialects and how we deal with things (but almost all other nations do that too) and certainly there might be a few nutters who want the old system back BUT we are one nation and despite our horrible history there is one thing we can be proud of: Germany was reunited in a non-violent revolution  (of course not counting all the people who have been killed while trying to leave the GDR and those who disappeared ...) and we managed to grow together after all these years of separation.

Sundown

Stangely enough the unromantic me likes sunsets but only those with lots of clouds because they never look the same (compared to the beach-ocean-clear sky-sunsets from holidays which are almost identical).

And yes, I am sorting through old pictures although these are not that old - they are from Christmas 2012. Looks like we had a not so white Christmas ... (as usual). I shouldn't complain about the last winter though since it was one of the better ones (better = a decent amount of snow).

Birds

Just a collection of more or less common visitors in the garden. 

Eurasian Jay

 Great Tit

 Spotted Woodpecker (hiding in the middle of the picture)

Blue Tit

Little helper

Once a year, the compost heap needs some maintenance by moving all the rotten stuff away and getting out the good earth from below. It's usually not really my favourite kind of work but today I got a little "helper". Well at least the little fellow improved my mood although he was usually roaming around where I wanted to work.

Plagiarism

I know, you found this blog because of pictures of stave churches or some other nice destinations to go to.

So this time I have to disappoint all the travellers and bombard you with a lot of text. 

Why do I bother? 

In the past two years, there have been quite a few politicians in Germany who have been found out to copy their PhD theses from other sources. One dissertation had one or more copied passages on 90% of the pages and the thesis was given a "summa cum laude" (which would equal something like an A+++++++++ for those who are not familiar with the German grading system). Needless to say that this person cannot call himself Dr. anymore nor could he keep his post as minister. Despite all the evidence, there were quite some people who argued that this was just a political coup of the opposition to get rid of the (oh so great) person and that he didn't need a PhD to be a good minister and that most people have copied some reports in school (the general bagatelle argument). 

Sure, you do not need a PhD to go into politics but if you cannot get one HONESTLY just leave it to other people and be decent enough to live WITHOUT that title.

Now of course you will wonder why I am so annoyed about this. I have written a thesis (PhD) which is hopefully  going to be defended within the next few months. It was the worst nightmare of my life because of many reasons but I won't go into that. Scientific writing is very special and sometimes it takes me days to just write a paragraph. In short, it is very hard work and the hardest part is the introduction because you have to be so carful about citing. And for those people who are not really into this topic a citation is a reference to the original source. This does NOT mean that I can copy a sentence from somebody and put a citation behind it (I would have to mark this with quotation marks as a quote and still give the source). So again, citing means that I REFORMULATE the ideas of somebody in my own words and then give the source. Reformulating without a reference is basically plagiarism because I have not marked the text as coming from somebody else hence pretending it is my own (for a better definition see: http://copy-shake-paste.blogspot.de/2013/02/a-good-definition-of-plagiarism.html).

And yes, mistakes can happen, people might forget to cite the source or the references are in the wrong place but there is a limit to how many times this can happen to be called a "mishap". Personally I also do not care if the person left out the citation by intention or if they were just sloppy and did not cite carefully enough for too many times ... the result is the same: you have gotten a degree by using material from other people (if it was intention, it is certainly fraud and if you were just sloppy you probably are not qualified enough for a PhD). The importance lies on DEGREE .... this is not just some homework you copied or a report (which is bad enough in my opinion because that is how it starts) but you get a PhD with material you pretend is your own and possibly you get a university position afterwards and maybe even a professorship and you will be responsible for other PhD students as somebody who actually even shouldn't have that degree.

And that is where the actual case comes in ... you could even be a minister of EDUCATION. What kind of example are you then for people at the beginning of their education? You are basically telling them that cheating is ok and lying about it is good form, too. Thanks a lot! Now of course, there are lots of people who say that the case is not "as severe" as the other plagiates. Is that a criterion? You copied 80 pages and I copied just 10 so my thesis is ok but yours is definitely faked? Of course it is difficult sometimes to find out where the original comes from but this woman we're talking about copied the mistakes in the references from an uncited secondary source. So the source from which she was copying (and not referencing) cited a John Doe but the article was by Arthur Doe instead, had the wrong title for an article and used wrong authors for another article and she copied all these mistakes except for one where she replaced the wrong title with another wrong title (which shows that she has not read or looked up any of those articles and the whole text around them cannot really be her own while the original author is not cited).

My thesis is article based which means that I have to submit manuscripts to journals which publish them after being peer reviewed (and corrected a thousand times). All journals have a plagiarism detection software so I cannot afford these kind of "mistakes". Why should the minister of education keep her PhD with that kind of sloppy work (even if we do not call it INTENTIONAL plagiarism) and I have to turn around each sentence a thousand times? Don't get me wrong, I want my PhD to be completely honest and  I am happy that there are these high standards so even if there were some citation mistakes they would be detected and corrected before any of my work is published or evaluated. These standards should be valid for everybody and it doesn't matter if she wrote the thesis 30 years ago or now, she still had the same rules for citing and obviously didn't follow them. 

To me it is like a slap into my face if that woman can keep her PhD because it does not only show that you can get a degree with dishonest methods but it also puts all people who have a PhD into the same boat and we will have to ask ourselves if this title is worth anything at all. And in case you wonder, I purely did the degree to get a university job with focus on teaching and not to show off with it.

161.53 m

The tallest church in the world can be admired in Ulm (and personally I think one of the most beautiful churches as well). Although construction began in the 14th century, the cathedral (or minster) was not completed until the 19th century. It is possible to go up the steeple to a level at 143 m from which you can see the Alps on clear days.