Author: home here and there

There is a lot of test prep happening in our house lately. My kids both have German exams coming up and my son is participating in his school’s spelling bee. The German tests are mostly multiple choice questions with a listening-understanding and reading-understanding part at different difficulty levels. Some of the answers even I find not completely straight forward but I find that to be the case with most multiple choice tests. As usual my daughter does that independently whereas I basically have to sit next to my son so that he will stay focused. You don’t know how the test will look like but practicing with old tests helps a little to learn what to pay attention to when the actual testing day comes along. With the amount of complaining he does about the actual test, the stupidity of the questions, etc. I sometimes question myself if this is all a good idea but I think I said this before. Considering the amount of complaining and claims of misunderstanding he does surprisingly well on the practice tests.

I can help him with his German but I have my phone and my daughter to help with the list of spelling words. For a good chunk I would not do the pronunciation correctly and sometimes I even don’t know the word – so it is a learning experience for me, too. I told my son when looking at practicing his spelling words he should apply “klotzen, nicht kleckern” what is a German idiom for ‘go big, or go home’ I guess. It can mean to work really hard on something, or to put in a lot of effort (to achieve the optimal result in the end). A “Klotz” is a big block or chunk of something like a wood block or a concrete block. A “Klecks” is a small speck. So he should use a block and not a speck in direct translation. Anyway he seems not to concerned about the whole thing. The last couple of years another girl from his grade won the spelling bee and I fully expect she will do so again (and I think so does he). She has way more competitiveness in her than either of my kids and I am fine with that. To say it with another German idiom “Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm” – “The apple does not fall far from the tree.”

Do you have a favorite idiom? I am sure there are plenty in English I don’t know about. I like them and as Amélie said in the movie of the same name (at least in the German versin) “Someone who knows idioms, can’t be a bad person.”

When looking at the translation of ‘Nicht kleckern, klotzen!’ I saw that it is also the German book title written by a public figure I rather not name – I might never use this phrase again.

I am wishing you a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2023!
On 12/31 the old year said goodbye to us with a serious downpour in the Bay Area. It always blows my mind that whenever ‘unexpected’ weather hits the area (and that seems to be true for other areas in the US as well) everything collapses. The drains were sorely clogged up in many areas and we felt like we had to drive through rivers on some roads going into San Francisco that day. We later learned that we actually were fairly lucky. I saw pictures online with people surfing the streets and a section of 101 south of the city was closed. There was an evacuation order in place for another town close by due to flooding. With 5.46″ of rain in San Francisco that day it was the 2nd wettest day on record. Considering all that we were extremely lucky with our small garage leak. There is another atmospheric river passing over us this week with the most expected for Wednesday – we will see.

On New Year’s Eve we had tickets for the “Ramses the Great‘ exhibit at the De Young museum in San Francisco (so that is why we drove into the city what we almost never do). I think it was pretty fantastic and we managed to walk through without major complains even from our strongest museum critic (our son). It’s still on through February 12th if you are interested and you have to get tickets in advance. I just wished we had eaten lunch before we went or at least taken something because there was a long line at the cafe and honestly it was a little too upscale a menu for some of us. I was glad we came a little early to walk a little through the rest of the museum before our timed tickets which was fun, too (at least I thought so). On the way back we decided to have a late lunch at In-N-Out Burger.

The rest of New Year’s Eve was pretty quiet for us. We had raclette for dinner. It’s basically a mini table top grill where everyone has their own little pan that is filled with raclette cheese (or other cheese if you prefer) and other things like corn, onion, tomatoes, bacon, mini sausages, etc. We had boiled potatoes and a dip with it, too. It’s popular to do in Germany even though it originates in Switzerland. After dinner we watched ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home” as requested but took a break to be continued in the New Year since everyone was falling asleep (not the fault of the movie I assure you). We adults tried to stay awake a little longer but fell asleep on the couch only to wake up again after midnight. The champagne we had before dinner gave me a migraine so I was a little extra tired anyway.

I am always a little puzzled why this last day of the year is such a big deal. I enjoyed reading all the word of the year and goal posts (past, present and future) but for now this is just nothing I want for myself. Maybe when I have a little more breathing room in my life I will think about it more deeply.

Now the daily trot has us back – school, work and the likes. Since it is raining this week I picked up my daughter from school yesterday. That meant being home earlier than usual and I got the chance to take a walk outside before the rain started during daylight hours. Sunsets are always something to behold in the bay and I love the views peaking through the houses. If I would make a resolution I probably would say I want to go on a 30 minute walk every day. That is doable, right?

It has been quiet here again. I guess that means that 30 days is indeed not enough to form a new habit (at least not for me). Did you know that supposedly it takes 66 days on average? This information originates in a scientific publication by Phillippa Lally from 2009 in the European Journal of Social Psychology. She published quite a few more research articles about the topic of habit forming so I trust that is about right. See, this is also the reason why sometimes writing something takes me forever. I start with something look it up and then that takes me down the rabbit hole (is that the right expression?) because I don’t find a good time to stop. It’s a little but occupational hazard since I always worked in research. Whenever we start a new project that usually means reading up on it what was already published and see how we can improve it. Sometimes it also leads to new ideas.

After high school I went to a 3 year school to become a medical technical laboratory assistant. A lot of my class mates worked in hospital labs after finishing but the first job I landed was in a research lab in the Anatmoy department at the medical school in Hannover. The next one was in a lab that was associated with the Nephrology department and after that I helped my PI then start his company. When we moved to the US I was glad I found a job again in a research lab at UC Berkeley in the Neuroscience department. I was not set on a specific research topic or a specific techniques and I think that somewhat helped in my case.

I love how exciting research can be when you discover something new or when you find a way that will ultimately help patients. I like to work with my hands, I like to do good work, I don’t like to be in the spot light or teach in front of a class. I like to keep everything running smoothly behind the scene. I think all in all my job is pretty perfect for me – at least for now. The lab works on gene therapy for eye diseases in the broader sense. For us that means pre-clinical studies in cells and mice to test if the ideas work in general but it is very exciting to see that these ideas can rlead to actual treatments that will be used in the clinic down the road and help patients. Right now I am mostly responsible for making the vectors which are used in our research. We use a non pathogenic virus called adeno-associated virus (AAV) and exchange its genetic information with the information that hopefully will repair genetic defects in the diseased retina. I am no specialist for retinal disease but if you have questions about that you should check out the Foundation Fighting Blindness.

One downside of my position is that my salary comes out of research grants which usually run anywhere from 1-5 years. For the last 25 years it always worked out and there was always follow up funding available. I could also look for a position in industry since I am a US citizen now and don’t have to worry about my visa status anymore but for now I am happy where I am. I get along with my PI, my work schedule is flexible enough so that I can fit in doctors appointments, school trips, sick kids, etc. I was able to reduce time after the kids started school. I am now at 80% and that works great for me.

I sometimes wonder if I should have done things differently. When I finished school, I first wanted to study chemistry but only knew chemists who were unemployed after they finished. I almost studied philosophy and history but changed my mind at the last minute and kept working. I did some courses in book keeping when I worked for the start up company. I liked that, too but I think I would have found it to boring overtime. I also liked the six weeks I had to intern at the hospital during my education and was thinking about medicine for a little while but decided that it was to emotionally challenging for me. I probably could have gotten my PhD as my PI suggested in the past but honestly I am perfectly happy where I am right now.

What about you? Do you sometimes think about the other options that passed you by or would you pick the same profession over again?

This marks my last NaBloPoMo post 2022. A big shout out to all the other participants and a big thank you for getting everyone organized goes to San from the in between is mine.

I plan to keep blogging – not quite sure what about and how often but the intention is there and I think I can manage at least ones or twice a week. So I am writing it down here: I am here to stay! I read somewhere that forming a new habit takes on average 66 days but since I enjoyed the last month lets hope for the best.

Today I managed to pull out a couple Christmas decorations when I had the house to myself. A German Christmas is not really complete without an advent wreath. It’s a standard (or also not so standard) wreath that has decorations and a candle for each of the 4 Sundays before Christmas Eve on top. Each Sunday you light an additional candle so that on Christmas you have all 4 candles lit up. When I was little there was one incident where we were all extremely lucky. Apparently a candle wick can keep burning inside the candle even though it looks extinguished. That is exactly what happened one year when my parents went to bed and thought the candles were out. We were very lucky and the table the wreath was sitting on was only smoldering and did not catch fire. The only thing that happened was that the living room needed a renovation. Even the sugar in the bowl was black from the smoke. It could have been so much worse. We got a table made of graphite after that and the candles were sitting on metal holders ever since that would prevent the wreath from catching fire. A couple of years ago I found this glass box above that holds 4 candles at Target and I have been using it instead. It’s filled with a string of lights and Froebel stars.

I also took out these little angels. My mom used to have a pottery studio and these are from her. She did hand building mostly but also had some precast pottery like these angels and snow man especially during the holidays. We spend many an afternoon helping her paint them when we had time. I am not sure I would have bought them myself but they always remind me of my mom.

This concludes my last post of this fine NaBloPoMo season. I hope I will see/hear some of you around and you keep checking in on me even after NaBloPoMo.

I am doing NaBloPoMo this month. 30 blog posts in 30 days. You can read more about it on San’s blog the in between is mine. #nablopomo2022

Honestly, I am not doing much racing these days. I am still really tired. I managed to fold the laundry today (alone in the basement, after I adorned my mask and put on new clothes and sanitizing my hands), but afterwards I collapsed in my solo room again with a big cup of hot tea. Tea is my friend right now (even though I can’t taste much of it today – man, I really hope that changes soon again – fingers crossed, please).

But really, can you believe it is the almost last day of NaBloPoMo? I can’t believe I made it this far and really uploaded a post EVERY SINGLE DAY. But it’s there, right in my history.

Can I tell you how much I enjoyed the last month? True, it was a lot of work and I definitely felt the exhaustion in between, because, lets face it: November is not the quietest of month in the year with Thanksgiving and the holidays looming ahead. It was so much fun to read all of the new to me blogs this past month and get to know their owners a little bit! I appreciated every single comment that you left. This made it all worthwhile and so much easier to get into blogging and pulling through.

I did not do much these past few days. The house is still not Christmassy. Now that the laundry is out of the way, maybe I pull out the box with the decorations tomorrow when everyone else is gone (assuming that I continue to feel better). The only Christmas spirit here so far lights up our front yard. My husband has a little competition going on with our neighbor (our sugar canes are bigger than his) and since he already had the lights up when we got home he could not wait – now we do, too. My brother-in-law was joking that the US apparently does not have an energy crisis.

Do you have lights outside your house? Do you like it or hate it? I kind of like driving through the neighborhood with all the colors up. When I can get outside again I have to check out our local map.