20th March 2006 - Day 154

We have a new member for the lab grouping. His former group was disbanded because one of the guys only needed to do 1 experiment, while the other had ex-matriculated, leaving only 2 of them.

Talks a lot. Is a great actor (a.k.a wayang). The experiment with him took a little longer than usual with his apparent concern that things are not done correctly and asking the Betreuer questions every 5 minutes or so, even though it was quite clear what should be done.

His performance was much appreciated. He defused the stern Betreuer. Earlier on, the Betreuer was asking Martina S. a lot of questions when she was not able to answer some questions. That took up about 40 mintutes.

I think it's common. They find so much excitment in exposing your weakness and will attack relentlessly until one is so panicky that he is unable to think properly.

But it's good training grounds for the students here. They have to know every single detail of what they are learning. In fact, things taught to me during the first 4 semester became clearer after being grilled by their questioning.

After the lab, I went to the cafeteria with Alex and Martina S. to do the lab reports. I hope I did not give the wrong explanation, or leave them with a wrong impression.

Temperatures hit 16 degrees Celcius in the afternoon. It has been a long time since the sun felt so warm.

There was a grill party here on the floor to welcome Spring. Supposedly, Spring starts tomorrow. I think there will be more grill parties after I leave.

I've been informed that there's actually nothing much in Innsbruck. As such, I intend to make it a day trip and go somewhere else instead of spending the night there.

I haven't really made concrete plans of what to do or where to go. I might forgo the bath at Baden-baden tomorrow in order to get all the information down on paper, especially the address of the hostels.

I'm no fan of bathhouses. 29€ for a 3.5 hours of bath time doesn't sound cheap to me anyway. The idea gets stale after shelving it for so many times. Still, it could be quite an experience. Guess the experience component is what makes it expensive.

So, going or not would depend on what time I finish lab tomorrow too.