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Well there's the reason i didn't get it. I don't understand german.

Well, how's your Latin?
Dr. rer. nat. = doctor rerum naturalium

It's even worse.

I wondered if that's what you meant, but couldn't quite.. grok it, I guess. I don't know, I'm tired.

Congratulations, Don. You deserve it!

You got your Piled Higher and Deeper, I got it.

Went to another town with a friend. Without my mother, with only a half pill to calm any nerves I had (which was probably more excitement than fear) and zero signs of illness that comes with anxiety attacks.

I AM A CONQUEROR OF FEARS

Next level: NO PILLS!

I gained 18 pounds, and though I didn't invest in a tape measure beforehand, it feels like about half of that went in my arms.

I completed all the levels for Braid. Now I'm going for the stars.

Soooo, it's not really much of an achievement, I guess, but still...

I just finished ripping and converting the huge 2CD + 4DVD "Celebrators of Becoming" live box set from Therion. Which I had bought in fall 2010, and have not listened to yet...

This marks the final missing element in my "DVDs to be ripped" folder, for the first time in several years, it's empty!!

EDIT two weeks later: Ahem, I was partially incorrect. I had forgotten another DVD on a different hard drive, which I had left untouched because there seemed to be problems with the rip. Whatever they were, they are not there anymore (I guess it was a problem with the player software which disappeared in an update or so...), and now that DVD (Ayreon's newest album) is also finalized!!! *fistpump of victory*

After years of not doing well in Japanese these past few months I've improved considerably. I'm very proud of myself, though I still beat myself up about the wasted years... If I had kept this pace since when I started off I would've been fluent by now =(.

Yesterday I watched a movie and had a really high comprehension rate. Huge confidence boost, especially since it was unexpected.

My Spanish studies are also going well, though now I'm currently on a break so as to focus on school exams.

In the past couple weeks I've managed to break my trend of gaining up to 130 pounds, then dropping back to 126-127 in a matter of days. At present I haven't dropped below 132, and am creeping towards 133 1/2.

Also, I've been promoted to manager at the shop where I work at and earned a pay raise after impressing the boss by making him nearly six grand of pure profit - no labor, no time or money invested - in the span of a month.

Page 2 Threadlich! RISE!

Okay, so two things to report:

1.) I have my PhD!!

Everyone: "Wait, I thought you got that last year??"

Well, yes... and no. The process is kinda like this:

Do science --> write scientific publications and get them published in refereed journals --> write thesis and submit to university --> thesis gets read by three referees --> refs say: "All ok!" --> defend thesis publicly after non-public physics exam

This was where I was last July. It's basically the end point because after successfully defending and passing the exam, the chances of not getting your title are very, very small! But there are still a few things that need to be done, and beforehand, you are not allowed to call yourself a PhD!!

The passing of the defense as well as the grade are determined by the exam commission. They then send their recommendation to the faculty counsel. The counsel convenes, look it over, and say: Accepted! The student then gets a letter saying this. He/she then has to print his thesis (and in my case, create a PDF/A of it) and hand in the thesis at the university library. With this, it is officially published, and with this publication, you are practically finished*. You have the right to call yourself a PhD, and you can ask for copies of the PhD document (you know, the hang-on-your-wall thing). Finally, in an official ceremony, you get handed over the document, congratulated, and everything.

In my case, it had already taken ELEVEN MONTHS between handing in my thesis and finally getting my defense. The further process above took yet another 11 months!

As I wrote, the faculty counsel needs to convene to deliberate the exam commission's recommendation. They only convene during lecture time, for the first time a few weeks after lectures have started. In my case, my defense date was in the very first week after lectures had ended! And when was the next meeting? END OF OCTOBER!! Over THREE MONTHS later.

But this went fine, and I received the letter. Now, admittedly, my own laziness set in. For the next five weeks or so, I completely ignored printing and submitting my thesis. Then I went to La Silla, and then home, and did not return until the end of January. But then, it was pretty much the first thing I tackled, and I handed it in in early February. Which was the point I totally officially had the PhD in my pocket. Though I waited for some confirmation letter which never came, turns out they don't send them.

The ceremony, finally, takes place only once a year, in summer again, so I had to wait several further months for that...

* This is a historic artifact. In olden times, this publication of the thesis was the first time anyone outside a small group would be able to read about the work the student did. In the modern world, with journals and everything, it comes across as pretty archaic. No one reads PhD theses any more. Everything relevant has been published beforehand.

2.) I have a job!

Okay, so it's only a short stint... But a full-time, full pay job!

My group works very closely with this group near Munich. Their boss is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the camera we have in La Silla. So, we are more like one group split into two locations.

End of July, he called me at work and told me he had some money left in a "budget pot". The project associated with this budget had been extended for another five years, and this implied the money from the current incarnation of the project must be spent by the end of October, or it will just VANISH. Originally, he had wanted to use it to continue the salary of a high-level scientist loosely associated with our group, but this ran into some unspecified troubles, and he decided he'd rather hire me for two months than see the money get wasted.
Of course, this does imply I have to work here in Munich, and be here during the week. So I've moved into a guest apartment of another institute here. That's the one big downside. I'm of course not really moving, and will drive home for most of the weekends (250 miles one way), so I have to pay two rents at once. My pay is approximately 75% more than what I was getting from unemployment + micro-job at the observatory, but half of the extra money goes for renting the place here... Place if effin expensive, yo!

Yay Don!

After being largely absent from the forums for quite a while, excluding the odd post in the new comic page threads, I've posted 15 times today.

I think I may need to have my jacket refitted though.