Blogging vs facebook

I never used to use facebook but use it more now - at the expense of starting to blog again. There are a couple of things that make facebook preferable. I find it more interactive, whereas blogging was something I viewed as writing for writing's sake. Right now it's the interaction I prefer. I also like being constrained by the length of facebook status updates - it prevents the sort of rambling I'm engaging in at this very moment. Being forced to get to the point and eliminate superfluous information takes more thought than blog writing. However, blogging has allowed me to "meet" online people I would never have known otherwise. And I've appreciated all the comments on my solar cell work. But facebook only it will be, for now.

The year gone by

Yep, a whole year and then some since my last post. In the year and a half since leaving Sweden I've move my entire household three times and have lived in 9 different places for stays ranging from 2 weeks to 2 months. I now consider myself to be fairly settled, having lived in my *permanent* home for 4 months already. I'm actually quite pleased with my new digs, an appartment outside of town (Zurich, that is). Still, I can't find anything and I seem to be lost in a jungle of bureaucracy as I sort out all the governmental fallout from my travels. This, too, will pass. Just picked up my new Swiss residence permit this morning.

Developing flexible CIGS solar cells has, of course, occupied the bulk of my time this last year. I'm happy to say that the project is as full of challenges as I had hoped! Plain old CIGS on glass is already old hat to me. It's so much more fun to try and get energy out of a thin sheet of plastic!

Normally I'd say that I'll write more about this later, but I think I'll just stick to good intentions about writing more at this point. I do hope, though, that I'll be back to blogging regularly again.

Zurich...

...it is after all! 2 weeks to go before I move, again. The big world of solar cell production in Berlin proved to be a bit too distant from my sheltered research life to date. My whimsical and impulsive approach to experiments had been replaced with goal-driven planning and motivation. I learned how to write experiments in the smallest details and analyse and report the results without ever seeing a solar cell - a different world indeed. While my helter-skelter ways did need a bit of organizing, I'm afraid being 100% methodical is not a sustainable work style for me. I hope that I will be able to find a balance between the two worlds in Zurich. I'll be working with flexible CIGS solar cells at a tiny spin-off company from ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) with a tremendous amount of work needed before any solar cells roll off a production line. I think I'll like it!

Still Here!

It looks like I'll be continuing my "leave of absence" from blogging for a while longer. But I can recount some highlights of my whereabouts this past month. After deciding to come to Berlin, there was, of course, lots that needed doing - moving, selling my house in Uppsala, finishing my job and, oh, attending all those good-bye events! Now in Berlin, I very much miss my Uppsala friends and colleagues, despite having wonderful new Berlin colleagues.

Realizing the likelihood of a vacation in the next half year would be unlikely, I decided it would be best to take a break prior to my start date in Berlin. After saying good-bye in Uppsala, I flew to Zurich to spend several days with a childhood friend, Sybil - and get over my regrets that the Zurich job never came through! From there I took a train to Zermatt to join old friends from high school for a week of skiing, despite being entirely unsure about how to do this with a hand barely able to hold a ski pole. As it turned out, holding a ski pole for a week was the best therapy I've done for my hand all year! Even though the mobility hasn't increased much, the strength has and the pain has become much less. I've decided that a ski week every year is a must from now on!

From Zermatt I took a sleeper train to Berlin, arriving Sunday morning, March 8th. I'm not experienced with sleeper trains but found it enjoyable and not unlike staying in a youth hostel. My compartment slept 4 - there were three very friendly German girls to chat with.

In Berlin, my new colleague, Andreas, fetched me at the train station and we returned to his house where I am still staying with him and his wife, Katharina, while I search for an appartment.

The following day, March 9, was my first day at work. My German is quite reasonable and I can understand if I concentrate well enough. But I wasn't quite up to the task of hearing nothing but German at work and I had 10 meetings scheduled my first week! I remained in a state of constant exhaustion, but at least I slept like a log every night. The second week was better (I think my new colleagues are speaking more slowly with me now). I had a 1 hour presentation about my work in Uppsala which I held in English, thank God! This allowed me to assess my coworkers' language capabilities and it looks like I'm going to have to stick to German.

Evenings I've been traipsing around town trying to determine which areas would be suitable for living. It's hard to accept that everywhere I go it's all city. But I've now lined up 5 rentals to look at next week. I would love to finally move in and have the movers take my things out of storage - I arrived here with only two suitcases.

My plans for today: shut the brain off and rake the leaves in Anreas' garden.

Next week at work I'm off on my first trip, even though just for the day. It's to Freiburg - and I'll get to look at some mountains. Sigh. Berlin is even flatter than I had imagined. I look forward, though, to discovering the city and its fascinating role in Europe's history. I work on the east side and expect to live there, too. I've already discovered that Berlin is still very much categorized as "East" and "West".

But enough for now. It will probably be a month before I write again.

Berlin...

...is my next destination. I'm packing up, selling the house (I hope) and will leave Uppsala in exactly 3 weeks. A new job awaits me at one of the thin film photovoltaic companies lucky enough to secure financing before the financial crisis hit. For almost a year I've been hoping to join a small start-up in Zurich with a long way to go before having anything ready for market. Not surprisingly, the financing stalled and so did my job offer. It's too bad, because they're working on flexible solar cells with a long list of tricky problems to solve - just the kind of thing I thrive on. However, I've been assured that there are plenty of problems at the relatively successful company in Berlin. I'll be in research and development, hopefully not too terribly close to production. I expect the work will be exciting enough. So will discovering Berlin.