Quatsch!

I have been missing in action the last month or so, and so I thought it was due time to catch y’all up on my whereabouts and doings.

The second half of June was spent in an enchanting town of fountains and springs in Western Germany, Aachen. My experiences there were full of lush green countryside, happy family and friends and neighbors eager to teach me the fine subtleties of the German language (most frequently uttered word in the environments where I spent my time: Quatsch! or Nonsense!), and the end of an arduous doctoral masterpiece and the many festivities associated with its finale. I met a lot of new people, went to a ballroom dancing tournament, visited a fantastic exhibit of the photorealist American painter Chuck Close, got more than my fill of cool rainy days (aha! There’s a relationship between the greenery and precipitation!), meandered through a wonderful city and enjoyed its fountains, churches, main square, Starbucks, colossal book stores, and other secrets.

From 2007-06 Aachen

As a cultural aside, it was really interesting to note some of the ceremonies associated with finishing doctoral work in German universities. One such celebratory custom is one I would like to see adopted elsewhere: the doctor hat. When PhD students finish the grueling task of their degree, they are presented a handmade hat from their colleagues which includes personal, academic, professional, and whimsical notes about the time they spent studying together. I include Uli’s hat here as an example. His hat included a lego home (used as a model demonstrator for the eHome systems of his doctoral work in informatics – click here for more details and here for a video about his work), sandals in a cotton-bed of snow as he wears them year-round, a Linux penguin, an mp3 player of his laugh (quite distinctive, you’d say if you ever met him), and other anecdotes and inside jokes from his studies. A representative makes a presentation of the hat with an explanation for colleagues, family, and friends and the reception. To me, it seems a special memento, personal honor, and meaningful testament to the time spent together in community learning and studying for the last time (at least in a degree program). A very nice sending off.

The last weeks have been rather busy as well. I finished up at the University of Tartu for the year and moved all of my accumulated mass of possessions to another location for summer storage until I return in the fall. A good week was spent scurrying around dealing with landlords, immigration, healthcare, and other fun bureaucratic quatsch.

The last ten days have been total paradise biking on the Estonian coast and islands. More on that adventure in the next post (pictures forthcoming).