Bulletin

Well (since I apparently start every single entry with this word). A few random thoughts on a drizzly Friday:

1. Laptop: still not working, although I didn't try to turn it on today.

2. I did something I've never done before last night: go to a party where I knew absolutely no one. All the grantees in Berlin are on a list-serv, and occasionally people send out invitations to go out for drinks or what have you. I generally have had something else to do during these events, but I replied to the invitation for last night. The other people there weren't teaching assistants, they were research grantees - the really big guns, who'd had a different invitation from the TAs, so I hadn't met them - and they were all really nice and had a lot of interesting projects they were working on. We sat around and ate flatbread and drank raki (sort of a weaker Turkish equivalent of ouzo) for a few hours. It was a lot of fun.

3. The payment situation here is sort of confused - we get paid once a month, but no one's really sure if it's prorated for September or for June, and some people have been paid and some haven't, so it's a bit of a mess. During the course of various conversations with other TAs, it emerged that I was paid about a hundred euros more than everyone else (from those who have been paid). So I've just sent an e-mail to our sponsoring organization pointing out the mistake. It's not every day you get to write an e-mail informing people that they seem to have given you too much money. Still, I'd rather tell them than have them tell me.

4. A friend took me on Tuesday to this really good Vietnamese restaurant, where we had curry and tea. It's not exactly local color, but I'll bring people there who come to visit. It's a cool place.