Six Days in Zürich
Mar. 26th, 2010 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaI am now back in Milan after six fun, but busy, days in Zürich. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clovis_t and I arrived on Sunday afternoon, and wandered around town a bit after checking into the hotel and scouted out the classroom for the writing workshop I was attending to ensure arriving on time in the morning.
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday the course ran from 9:00 to 17:45, with breaks for lunch and coffee at regular intervals. Wednesday was a writing day--where we took the information we'd gotten on the first two days and did new, improved, abstracts and a couple of other assignments before getting feedback on them on Thursday. It was a fun class, and I learned a fair bit. There were 10 of us in the class. We are all part of the c2c research group. The others are all PhD students, I'm the only c2c post-doc who took advantage of this opportunity this time. This was my first chance to meet most of these people, since we come from all over. One is at the Uni in Zürich (and so he got lots of extra duties with set up and printing things for us), one came down from Trondheim, Norway, a couple were over from France. One guy is from Ireland, but I'm not certain if that is where he's studying. I don't recall where the others are from.
We will all be attending the meeting in Norway in June, so it will be nice to already know this many people before that trip. We spent a good part of the time reading and revising abstracts on our current research, so I know have a good idea of what each of us is studying, so this class was not only useful in terms of providing a number of useful tools for writing papers, it also was fablous in getting to know my classmates and what they study.
The focus of the course was in using the techniques of the scientific method for planning an entire project, from the initial project idea, through submitting a proposal for funding through to publishing paper(s) on the results. For me the single most useful "trick" she shared for organizing the paper itself was what she calls the "zoom" exercise. Just as a camera can zoom in to various levels of detail, so we may look at our projects with different levels of detail. The assignment has us first writing *one* sentance each for the following sections/questions:
Introduction (why did I start?)
Materials and Methods (what did I do?)
Results (what did I find?)
Discussion (what does it mean?)
The form included a box for each section wherein we can put things which we wanted to include, but simply don't fit in a single sentence.
After doing that we repeat it, but this time first choose a target audience, write down who it is, then write *three* sentences for each section (with room for notes about what won't fit). If you'd like additional practice, choose a different target audience, and write three sentences for each section for the new audience, and see how different they are. Finally repeat it one last time (this time setting the target audience = the readers of the journal to which you'd like to submit the paper), but this time, instead of sentences, you get five bullet points you can include under each section. There is your outline.
Another *really* useful tool is the domino trick I wrote about in my other blog a couple of days ago.) (Our teacher is *very* fond of metaphors--one of our assignments was to come up with a metaphor to explain our research (or one aspect therof) to non-scientists.)
After the class ended on Thursdayclovis_t and caught a tram to one of the outlying parts of the city, where we met a delightful lady we'd met through couchsurfing. We had a very nice evening visiting with her and meeting some of her friends. This morning she had to leave for work bright and early, so we took the tram back into the city center (which I quite like, by the way--it is clean and pretty, the old buildings are in good repair and quite elegant, the people seem friendly, and I was very happy to wander around town during breaks and time off all week). We had thought to go to the museum, which is directly across the street from the train station, but we were out of cash and they wouldn't take my bank card (the tram costs 4 Swiss Francs each way!).
So we left our luggage at the museum and wandered off in search of an ATM. Before we found one we found a clothing shop with some reasonably cute clothes in natural fibres, and after trying on a number of items I wound up with a pair of black linen trousers and a blue shirt. By then we had little more than an hour before our train was due at the station, so we went back to the museum, picked up our luggage and returned to the mall under the train tracks (we'd thought to hang out in the lovely park along the river by the museum, but it had started raining). The logic had been that it wouldn't be worth spending 18 Swiss Francs for only an hour in the museum. It would have been *much* cheaper if we had. In addition the first stop we also found me a couple of t-shirts in a flattering cut--one in a beautiful shade of navy blue (of course!), and the other in a nice shade of purple (because they didn't have black in my size in that style and my wardrobe is kind of lacking in anything other than dark blue and black now that the couple of maroon items I own are wearing out). At yet another store we bought me a couple of pairs of cotton leggings. All of these clothing purchases was in addition to a nice very light-weight black cotton-silk top I bought earlier in the week because "summer is coming, and it is going to be hot".
Yes, I know, me, shopping? Yes, miracles do happen, sometimes. I shouldn't have to do that again for years...
All in all I really like Zürich. Yes, it is expensive, but it is also pretty. The university has a great feel to it, and the geology department has a truly amazing museum which just anyone can wander in to. If any of you ever get to Zürich, you need to check it out--not only do they have really, really nice display on gems, minerals, and rocks, they have some lovely models of various mountains in the Alps, including their geology, they've got a huge globe with a projector inside of it which plays a video of plate tectonics in action--it is cool to watch the continents break apart and re-form in different configurations in three dimensions. They've also got an earthquake simulation room (by appointment only) which is quite fun.
After a week spent in a town where cars don't use their horns and buildings are clean and shiny it was a bit of a shock to return to the sounds and sights of Milan. I love my job, and find many things to enjoy about being here, but I keep traveling places I'd like even better...
clovis_t and I arrived on Sunday afternoon, and wandered around town a bit after checking into the hotel and scouted out the classroom for the writing workshop I was attending to ensure arriving on time in the morning. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday the course ran from 9:00 to 17:45, with breaks for lunch and coffee at regular intervals. Wednesday was a writing day--where we took the information we'd gotten on the first two days and did new, improved, abstracts and a couple of other assignments before getting feedback on them on Thursday. It was a fun class, and I learned a fair bit. There were 10 of us in the class. We are all part of the c2c research group. The others are all PhD students, I'm the only c2c post-doc who took advantage of this opportunity this time. This was my first chance to meet most of these people, since we come from all over. One is at the Uni in Zürich (and so he got lots of extra duties with set up and printing things for us), one came down from Trondheim, Norway, a couple were over from France. One guy is from Ireland, but I'm not certain if that is where he's studying. I don't recall where the others are from.
We will all be attending the meeting in Norway in June, so it will be nice to already know this many people before that trip. We spent a good part of the time reading and revising abstracts on our current research, so I know have a good idea of what each of us is studying, so this class was not only useful in terms of providing a number of useful tools for writing papers, it also was fablous in getting to know my classmates and what they study.
The focus of the course was in using the techniques of the scientific method for planning an entire project, from the initial project idea, through submitting a proposal for funding through to publishing paper(s) on the results. For me the single most useful "trick" she shared for organizing the paper itself was what she calls the "zoom" exercise. Just as a camera can zoom in to various levels of detail, so we may look at our projects with different levels of detail. The assignment has us first writing *one* sentance each for the following sections/questions:
Introduction (why did I start?)
Materials and Methods (what did I do?)
Results (what did I find?)
Discussion (what does it mean?)
The form included a box for each section wherein we can put things which we wanted to include, but simply don't fit in a single sentence.
After doing that we repeat it, but this time first choose a target audience, write down who it is, then write *three* sentences for each section (with room for notes about what won't fit). If you'd like additional practice, choose a different target audience, and write three sentences for each section for the new audience, and see how different they are. Finally repeat it one last time (this time setting the target audience = the readers of the journal to which you'd like to submit the paper), but this time, instead of sentences, you get five bullet points you can include under each section. There is your outline.
Another *really* useful tool is the domino trick I wrote about in my other blog a couple of days ago.) (Our teacher is *very* fond of metaphors--one of our assignments was to come up with a metaphor to explain our research (or one aspect therof) to non-scientists.)
After the class ended on Thursday
clovis_t and caught a tram to one of the outlying parts of the city, where we met a delightful lady we'd met through couchsurfing. We had a very nice evening visiting with her and meeting some of her friends. This morning she had to leave for work bright and early, so we took the tram back into the city center (which I quite like, by the way--it is clean and pretty, the old buildings are in good repair and quite elegant, the people seem friendly, and I was very happy to wander around town during breaks and time off all week). We had thought to go to the museum, which is directly across the street from the train station, but we were out of cash and they wouldn't take my bank card (the tram costs 4 Swiss Francs each way!). So we left our luggage at the museum and wandered off in search of an ATM. Before we found one we found a clothing shop with some reasonably cute clothes in natural fibres, and after trying on a number of items I wound up with a pair of black linen trousers and a blue shirt. By then we had little more than an hour before our train was due at the station, so we went back to the museum, picked up our luggage and returned to the mall under the train tracks (we'd thought to hang out in the lovely park along the river by the museum, but it had started raining). The logic had been that it wouldn't be worth spending 18 Swiss Francs for only an hour in the museum. It would have been *much* cheaper if we had. In addition the first stop we also found me a couple of t-shirts in a flattering cut--one in a beautiful shade of navy blue (of course!), and the other in a nice shade of purple (because they didn't have black in my size in that style and my wardrobe is kind of lacking in anything other than dark blue and black now that the couple of maroon items I own are wearing out). At yet another store we bought me a couple of pairs of cotton leggings. All of these clothing purchases was in addition to a nice very light-weight black cotton-silk top I bought earlier in the week because "summer is coming, and it is going to be hot".
Yes, I know, me, shopping? Yes, miracles do happen, sometimes. I shouldn't have to do that again for years...
All in all I really like Zürich. Yes, it is expensive, but it is also pretty. The university has a great feel to it, and the geology department has a truly amazing museum which just anyone can wander in to. If any of you ever get to Zürich, you need to check it out--not only do they have really, really nice display on gems, minerals, and rocks, they have some lovely models of various mountains in the Alps, including their geology, they've got a huge globe with a projector inside of it which plays a video of plate tectonics in action--it is cool to watch the continents break apart and re-form in different configurations in three dimensions. They've also got an earthquake simulation room (by appointment only) which is quite fun.
After a week spent in a town where cars don't use their horns and buildings are clean and shiny it was a bit of a shock to return to the sounds and sights of Milan. I love my job, and find many things to enjoy about being here, but I keep traveling places I'd like even better...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-26 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-31 10:39 pm (UTC)I can't believe you went shopping without me!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-01 07:34 am (UTC)The lady upon whose couch we surfed the final night was not only an English-speaker, all of her friends and housemates who were there that evening (about seven people?) spoke English as well, so the conversation flowed through English and German both over the course of the evening. However, she is working on a PhD herself, and I got the impression that all of her friends are educated. What level of education is the norm for the non-English speaking Swiss people you met?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-05 01:22 am (UTC)Over the dinner table, they argued fervently against evolution, insisted that there is no such thing as peak oil (god is making more oil for us right now - you'll be pleased to hear that, I guess), climate change is a left-wing plot (thank heavens - I'm so relieved!!), and human beings lived at the same time as dinosaurs. How not, when the planet is only 6,000 years old? All were christians, and believe that women belong in the kitchen, and that feminism and athiesim are akin to witch-craft (hence their horror of Hans's choice of bride).
You might think I'm joking, or revving it up for a good story, but I'm not, and other statistics I have seen show that around 42% of the Swiss population share these views. In any country there is an academic culture, but if one checks at street level, one sees a very different picture. Judging by some of the shit I read in the local newspaper, I'm not sure Tassie is much better.
I didn't really meet any English speaking Swiss people, apart from a few who worked in tourist-type shops, for whom English was a necessity, and my conversations were limited to "How much is this please?"... But I wasn't in Zurich, I was mostly in Berne. I wonder, is there much difference?
Handy that Crian speaks German.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-05 08:33 am (UTC)Hmm. More oil being made? Perhaps. As I recall from lectures many years ago, all it takes to make coal or oil is a very hot, damp, lush climate with lots and lots of plant life growing, dying, and new growth over it so fast that there are huge layers of organic matter piling up, then something changes and that gets covered with mud or sand, and then more and more layers of mud/sand, till finally the pile is thick enough that the mud and sand turn to rock and the organic matter gets converted to oil or coal. Easy process, *if* everything happens just so. I don't know if there is anyplace currently developing that much organic matter (Amazon Rain Forest???), nor do I know if they will get buried (perhaps enough Global Warming to completely melt the ice caps and flood some basins, so that sand, mud, and other ocean-floor ooze covers the basins?), but if they do we have only to wait till they have been buried long enough to convert, the oil percolates upwards till it gets trapped in a fold of rock that is impermeable, then sufficent erosion happens that said fold is close enough to the surface to access with drills. Could all happen fairly quickly, say 50 to 100 million years. No doubt his family will be willing to wait that long. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-08 11:23 pm (UTC)Anyway, from the Swiss persepctive, however it was formed, it wasn't god, and it wasn't *for us*, and even Hans's brother in law won't live for 100 million years, clever as he is.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-09 07:02 am (UTC)