Day 38: The Practical Sessions Begin

I've been in a constant mess lately because I have no clue about German...

The university is going to offer German courses throughout the semester for Erasmus students (I think they're required to do so) and the other day they gave us a German test to assess our level. I was in a hurry because I had to pick up my family at the airport (they came to see me and make sure I was well settled and not living in misery), so I did the exam as quickly as possible (since I don't know German, it didn't really matter), and when I went to hand it in, the professor looked at me very strangely and said something I didn't understand. I just laughed (whenever I don't understand something I just say yes, yes, yes) and she tore up my exam (this confirms an idea I've had lately: it's better to say you don't understand than to answer everything affirmatively).

She had asked me, seeing that I was leaving so soon, if she could tear up the exam and I said yes, so now I'll probably be put in a class with a bunch of Indians who not only don't know any German, but also don't know the Latin alphabet.

I've had a lot of problems with German when talking to professors and arranging my class schedule. I already told you about the time a professor told us to go to hell, but we've had a few more run-ins with professors who didn't want us in their classes. In the end, after studying and modifying the schedule several times, this is the final one:

Anyway... Today the practicum started. The routine for the practicum is as follows: A few days before doing it, you download the script with a summary of the theory, some questions, and bibliography, and you study the theoretical foundation of the practice very well because before starting the practice there is a colloquium/exam where they ask you about what you are going to do. If you pass the exam, you can do the experiment, and then submit a report summarizing everything you have done and the results you have obtained.

A week ago I downloaded the script for the first one on computer simulation of infrared spectroscopy (thank God it was in English) and I've been studying it all the time, I even took a huge book from the bibliography on the visit I made to Berlin with my parents. But everything I've studied has been useless. When José Antonio and I arrived at the computer room (we were late because since we don't know German we didn't understand where it was), the professor, Thomas Heine, gave us a computer and said:

"Well, here's the computer, go into Gaussian) and calculate everything in the script" And he disappeared. He left us alone with a computer running Linux in German. We had no idea how to do it, and the other students in the room didn't help us at all, they ignored us. There was one guy who stood out among all the other students, the poor guy laughed at us, but he thought we didn't notice. What he didn't know is that we did notice, and we had actually been laughing at him for even longer because his face looked like a big ass. This stolen photo with my phone gives a slight idea of the roundness of his face.

I would spend all the bits on the web telling you everything that happened to us today, so I'm going to list each of the things we had to discover on our own, without any help, during the long seven hours it took us to calculate the three shitty exercises they asked us to do:

1. Create a new user account in Linux
2. Understand that to open the program (Gaussian) you had to enter the Linux console.
3. Know how to open the program.
4. Understand that you first had to create a 3D model of the molecule.
5. Find out which program created the 3D model.
6. Know how to open it in Linux.
7. Discover how to make the 3D model.
8. Send the molecule to Gaussian.
9, Know what all the approximations we had to make meant.
10. Know how to ask the program for them.
11. Start the calculations.
12. Discover that the calculations take more than half an hour on the computer and that you have to send it to a more powerful supercomputer in another room.
13. Discover how to send the data to the supercomputer.
14. Since it took so long, wait for the queue of jobs from the other students in the supercomputer
15. Retrieve the results.
16. Know how to open them.
17. Receive from the supercomputer a page full of data and not know which data we are interested in.
18. Discover which data we are interested in.
19. Know what it means

Repeat the whole process Discovering and struggling, time has flown by. When they kicked us out, it was already night. With the nerves and the fights with Linux and Gaussian, we hadn't remembered to eat and we left with empty stomachs and heads like drums. We went straight to the kebab shop next to the faculty, where we were waiting for a couple of super dürums and a couple of cold beers. Today we definitely deserved it.

Next post: Day 42: Trip to Rostock

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