Fredag Bar, Enigmatic Heiko, Excess Modifiers, Nørrebronx

I've been feeling uninspired to write lately. Thankfully, the drought is over! There have been some upslopes on the adventure pulse this month, and today, because I've found blogging much more interesting than studying the defect theory of ceramics, I'm finally sitting down to relate them to you, Dear Reader.

Fredag bar every week at Risø continues to provide chances for bettering my pool skills, spectating the intense fooseball tourneys, linguistic smörgåsbord (a Swedish word actually), and enjoying beer cheaper than Coors Light (à la bartender) and many times tastier. This past Friday, a Swedish woman living in Göteborg (midwestern coastal city) scolded us for complaining of the sleety high-wind weather of Thursday eve. I rode my bike home in that storm for 5 minutes, got thoroughly drenched (with the help of a city bus spraying gutter water like a tidal wave) and cold, despite my warm bundling, so I was a bit ruffled by her admonition. But, when she told us that in Göteborg wintertime, temperatures rarely get over -15 ˚C and the sun is up from 9-2, we all shut up. Which was good, because we were in the middle of a heated pool game. It was an international match--U.S.-China v. Sweden-India. Whenever Corin (the Swede) missed a shot, her "Queen's English" turned into a rapid-fire stream of Swedish curses. When I sank the 8 ball for the win, she was especially vocal. No hard feelings at Fredag bar though; we're all mild-mannered scientists.

I made some friends at the International Church of Copenhagen a couple weeks ago. We're mostly foreign students studying abroad and fall into the 20 and 30-somethings category. I find a lot of common ground to revel on with them, and am excited to see what adventures come our way this spring. Tentatively, I'll be going to Iceland in June with some of them, and maybe down to Berlin in the nearer future.

To make sure I get work done this afternoon, I've decided to split up the description of this group of friends I've merged into, and present one or two of these wonderful people here each post. Today, I give you Heiko Schluter. His origins are still a mystery to me because whenever we talk, I get so wrapped up in the deep and interesting dialogue that I've not yet fount out most of the basics. His surname sounds German to me, though I'm not positive. His accent is so similar to mine that he could be a midwest U.S. suburbanite. All this mystery I plan to solve at some point. Facebook stalking has proved inconclusive, as he's more ascetic with his profile than I am.

His stories have been rivetting. Heiko's life (the slices of which I've heard so far) has been beyond cool. He lived on St. Croix for 10 years, where his brother had moved after hurricane Hugo, to help residents rebuild. There, the Schluter I know honed his painting abilities (his job) and designed boats (his hobby). He also dabbled in biodiesel production out of his home. We chatted about eneryg policy, history, literature, religion, science, flying fish, building catamarans, rescuing buildings from monsoons, and the theories of Sanskrit scholars. His painting is very impressive. He works mostly in acrylic from what I've seen on Facebook (an album of an exhibition featuring his work) and fills his creations with resonating vibrancy, exacting perspective, and meticulous detail.

Heiko Schluter. Next post, David Tiprigan.

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My København neighborhood, Nørrebro, has been infamous for gang presence in recent years. Hells Angels biker gangs (no joke) have been squaring off with the ambiguous 'Immigrant' gangs for drug trafficking power, or so the natives say. While it's true there is a high concentration of non-Danes living in Nørrebro, dominantly Arabs as I've learned (evidenced by the 'Starbucks-like' density of kebab houses and birka-clad women), I have yet to witness any hostilities beyond a few heckling youths in my end of town. Actually, I am at the 'end' of it. Across the street, not 30 meters from my window, is the neighborhood of Frederiksberg, a decidedly wealthier part of the city containing no ruckus and abundant in pram-pushing new mothers.

Nevertheless, Nørrebro's reputation for being the 'seedy side' of København has been the inspiration for recent comical commentary by my lighthearted Spanish roommate, Fernando. "We are living in 'Nørrebronx,' my friend."

The humor is dark in light of the recent shootings and civilian casualties in parts of København. Nørrebro was one of the scenes, but no where near me, or I'm just completely oblivious. I've seen a few cop cars, ambulances, and news stations vans in hot pursuit, but I've heard no gunshots and seen no arrests. I think it's such a big issue because these violent events haven't happened hardly at all here. Fernando and Kristian have told me about the history of immigration tension in København and Denmark at-large. Many political refugees from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations were taken in by the Danish government decades ago. Since then, the numbers have increased, and two generations have grown up Danish citizens. Minimal integration (fault of both the immigrants and the government) has contributed to cultural stress and to a degree of societal polarization. And, like any other unmixing mix of vastly different peoples, violence is the speediest and loudest voice of the strain.

In what I assume to be reaction to the killings and injuries, I rode past a anti-violence protest march today. The hundred and fifty or so members, shepherded by several motorcycle-mounted police officers, slowly made their way across the Nørrebrogade bridge as I biked home into southeast Nørrebro. The banner at the front displayed a gun painted over by the universal 'No!' symbol of a circle slashed by a line. Black behind red. The words were simple and big: Våben Nej Tak (Violence No Thanks). At the flank, a couple teenagers unfurled a second banner saying: Liv Ja Tak (Life Yes Thanks). Concisely profound.

Snowing Thick, Quirky Sciencing, Pay To Dispose Your 'Private' Waste Publicly

(ahem)

A post mingled with a few just-barely-not-crude topics...

The eminent infinite complexity (the EIC, or "ike" forthwith), that is Earth's Nature, deigned to bestow a bit 'o home on me today, in the form of an all-day (so far) snowstorm. Ths is the first white, wet, coldness that hasn't evaporated by 10am; in fact it's still patching over each footprint, wheel rut, and drain cover as I type. Looks a bit like Colorado out there today...beautiful.

Without the courtesy of a segway, I'd like to mention a detail of the labwork I've been doing recently. In quick summary I'm taking very fine ceramic powders and pressing them uniaxially (like one of those can crushers mounted on walls) into pill-size pellets, about the width of my middle finger. They must be as dense as possible, and for that we have a more powerful machine called an isostatic press. Covering my bases, all this means is an equal force exerted on the pellet from all sides, tops, and bottoms, simultaneously. Any air jammed inside the structure is evicted this way. Evacuated, actually, and to ease this trapped this trace atmosphere's exit, the pellets must be vacuumed sealed before going in the isostatic press. Naturally. A vacuum pump's easy to come by here at the lab, but what to seal the pellets in before transport to yon machine?

Hmmm...

How 'bout a condom, says brilliant scientist?* Of course! Why didn't I think of that? A 'rubber' is a great way to keep _____ sealed inside!**

So, Dear Reader, at this multi-million kroner, government funded, PhD-filled research facility, a critical step in fabricating high tech ceramic test samples comes down to a 15 cent condom. Awesome! Does this whole situation crack you up like it does me? Maybe I'm just very strange, but hardly anyone I talk to about this fact finds it even mildly amusing. A shame. I think it's hilarious.

Again, without segway, the last item on my writeabout list is the state of Danish public restrooms. When I left for Denmark, I had already heard of there being a general lack of these pit stops available in European countries (this is also the case for drinking fountains, but see Jan. 16 post for why that is so, at least in DK). Out of all the farewells I received from friends and family, the most humorous was to compile a tally of all the coin-operated toilets I ran into during my travels (you know who you are that suggested this). I've neglected that light-hearted duty, but the obervation stands in my mind after repeated scenarios where I need to go and there's no decent going to be gotten for miles around. Not in grocery stores, malls, or train stations anyhow. Occasionally a restaurant will have them, with varying shades of vandalism. At Roskilde train station you have to put in a 2 kroner coin to get in the door. This measure prevents all the honest bums from getting in and sleeping the cold nights away, or the rambunctious youths with sharpies, spray paint, and bottomless dictionaries of bad puns and sick jokes. I found a McDonald's right next to Nørreport station (deep downtown Kbh) with the same fixup. There I was fortunate enough to see the 'changing of the change,' in which an employee empties the handle-mounted box of coins and resets the lock.

The water closets (so they're labeled) actually on the trains are free, so that's a bonus.

The takehome lesson on this final topic is that planning your bathroom stops (as well as you can) along with your trip agenda is the best strategy.


Peace to you.



*I haven't asked yet who came up with this idea. It's the first time I've seen it.
**This sentence should be a 'Mad-Libs' staple.

Insomnia

I have been bitten. I am here at nearly 1:30 am, writing a blog post because the fever I've been developing all day is making it impossible to sleep. So I was lying in bed, and thought, let's get up and be productive. Sometimes I enjoy being idle, but tonight, I have an itch in my brain that must be scratched.

I finalized my application for graduate school here at Mines in the coming fall. I feel a sense of pride in this fact, since I actually spent a great deal of time assembling it. What surprised me the most of all the application's elements was the statement of goals. As described on the application's web interface (more and more of the world is being run through the internet these days), this short essay should describe my interests at Mines and beyond and why. Though I've written many papers for classes over the years of my academic career, this brief personal decree plagued me. By far, it underwent the most revisions I've given any writing assignment to date: eight. Throughout the whole application process I have felt a great sense of anxiety that I will make some egregious error (or multiple ones) and be rejected from admission. I have been struggling to put words to these emotions and I think I have found a good explanation. I believe I have not done my best over my college career and I desperately want to change my image in graduate studies. I have always battled with confidence and self-worth issues, but I am strongly compelled to prove to myself that I can shine on a more advanced academic level. I long to 'make waves' in the realm where my work has the potential to be published and read by many intellectual and scientific minds, rather than simply be marked with red pen and returned to me to sit on a shelf collecting dust.

I have found all of this striving and thinking to be rooted in some fundamental characteristics of me. First, I am a voracious learner (this trait is tempered, sometimes embarrassingly, with powerful habits of laziness and inadequate patience) who wants to understand how all of the physical world operates. From Physics to Economics, I desire to cover all subjects, gathering as much instruction as my neurons can contain (I expect I have not even begun to make a dent in their capacity), and to remember it. I have great admiration for a friend of mine, Sean, who possesses the astounding ability to store and access a vast amount of information without writing it down. Whether this characteristic is inborn or comes out of an iron-clad self confidence and deep understanding of himself, I am not yet certain. I like to think the latter is true and that if I can develop my own mental skills in such ways, I will be more satisfied with my efforts to look on the universe and know its workings.

I seek to comprehend the why of all things too. As Mike pointed out to me recently, the whys of the world are dealt with from a more spiritual and metaphysical perspective. Gravity is a mysterious physical presence that, literally, binds much of the universe together. As a physicist I can study its effects on macroscopic entities and observe its reality. But to answer the question of why gravity exists is a much fuzzier query than my soul can grasp. I say soul because I think the mind deals with the how and the soul with the why. I must justify to myself that the world I perceive operates for a reason, whether that reason is order borne of pure chaos, or of intelligent design (a two-word snippet of language that has become quite trite over the last century).

It seems as though the fever and the lateness have caused me to babble and ramble, but what I really want to say is that I have caught another disease. The joyous plague of wanting to know, to explore, to wonder. I do not mean this condition in a bad sense, though the words 'disease' and 'plague' have, traditionally, negative connotations. What I mean is, I cannot help myself in these pursuits, that they are embedded in me so completely, I am sure I will never recover. I will never be complacent with stopping my trek for knowledge. I will never be satisfied with a day job at a restaurant, where the only intellectual stimulation comes in the form of day dreams while whiny American customers demand my immediate and complete attention. I will not truly be at peace until my feet touch the surface of an extraterrestrial sphere and I can look up into the heavens and see only more adventure and more wonderment.

I think I'm going to go do some homework Dear Reader. Whomever you may be, I hope you'll look at this smattering of sentences and not see disconnected mumblings. Rather, a restless spirit who still needs to learn patience and coherence in a wide wide universe of possibility.