Way to go Heels!

Heya!

Yesterday Herbert and I went to check out one of the most American sport you'll find, just because it's hardly played anywhere else (besides China I guess). ;) I'm talking about baseball! It was a novelty for both of us. The UNC Taar Heels faced the team from High Point University (somewhere westcoastish I believe). And of course we had some hotdogs and cotton candy to get into the baseball mood! ;D Our seats were really nice as well, very focal. The game lasted more than 3 hours, but it was fun!
For those of you who have absolutely no clue about the game (like me before watching it): Basically 10 turns, called Innings are played, in which each team gets to throw (pitcher) and to bat (batter). The aim is to hit the baseball deep into the enemies field, ensuring they don't catch it right away so the batter can start running towards one of the 4 base points. As soon as he passes all four of them he completed a run, scoring one point for the team.
It was a really close match, not decided until the very last inning. The Tar Heels managed to secure the 2:2 tie, and it was their turn to try scoring. These are the final moments:

Always nice when the team you are cheering for wins, especially when victory was not achieved so easily. ;)
So that's that. Hope I could carry at least some of the baseball spirit to you guys back there in good ol' Germany. Have a good one!

-Jan

Snatching a OneCard

Bazinga!

It took me more than six weeks to finally get one, the mills of American burocracy truely run just as slow as German ones, but now I can call myself the proud owner of a UNC student identity card (Thoska equivalent). With the help of this neat little piece of plastic I am now able to borrow books from library, borrow films for free, go to the gym and many many things more. It's super, it's awesome, it's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! ;D

-Jan

It's the Beer Olympics!

Hey folks,

once again the time has come for brave souls of the UNC geological science department to gather around and compete in a devastating tournament of struggle, emotions, fun, and a hell lot of beer! Yes, the annual Beer Olympics have come! The event started Saturday 3 pm and only god knows when it finally ended. ;)
According to tradition teams of two persons each, dressed up as representative figures of a certain country would battle against each other in American standard drinking games such as Beer Pong, Beer Ball, and Can fliping. Besides a long table, the key instrument for the first two sports is a table tennis ball which is thrown by hand to hit an object on the opponents side and if successful, trying to drink as much as possible in order to win the game. I was astouned how serious the players were about this: "It's not a game Jan, this is war!"


The following nations competed in the drinking contest: Australia, Iceland, France, Scotland, New Jersey and Africa, although technically speaking not all of them are actual countries! There were two more teams to compete for the dress award, namely Pangaea and Greece. A jury composed of 3 non participating individuals were deciding the winners for the dress contest, while the drinking pretty much was decided by the capabilites of the competing teams. The video enlosed shows you 2 teams fighting in the final game for a medal (medals turned out to be small liquor bottles).

Everyone was really into it and there was also a non drinking game where you tried to hit the opponents wooden board with little sacks. Very enjoyable! After the games we met in one of the organizors apartment nearby for some dinner and to relax a bit. ;)

So far about my weekend, have a good start into the upcoming workweek!

-Jan

Earth day!

Hi there!

A very famous American author named Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was obsessed with nature once wrote in one of his epic bulky novels: "In the woods we return to reason and faith." Why am I writing this you may ask?
Yepp, you guessed right it's earth day! A time where eco-warriors raise their voice to draw more attention on nature issues, and people go outdoors among with family and friends so as to appreciate the woods, mountains or wherever it moves them.
For my part I'm busy starting to write down the internship report, as you cannot possibly start early enough in order to finish this undertaking in time.

So anyways, have a wonderful Earth Day and seize it!

-Jan

A Weekend in the Smokys

Good day to all of you,

or rather good luck (Glück auf)?! That's right, this weekend was all about spending some time in the Great Smoky Mountains, which are part of the Appalachians. Along with 8 other adventure-seeker I travelled to the mountain range rising along the Tennessee-North Carolina border in the southeastern United States, which is about an 3,5 hours drive and actually quite near to Sugar Mountain. One of our companions, Dominion, has this mindblowingly awesome log cabin that his family owns and he offered this to be our base camp for the weekend. It has a huge kitchen and living room, table tennis, pool billiard and card table, a hot tub, sauna, piano, volleyball field, 2 ponds, some boats, ... literally everything you could possibly want! Dominion's family built this place from scratch and I think they did a marevellous job!
On Saturday we relaxed a little bit after long hours of driving before we eventually went out for a quick hike to a Waterfall nearby. Weary and pleased with ourselfes we returned to the cabin to have some grilled food and used the sauna and hot tub to conclude the evening. Sunday we had a lie-in til noon, and after some lunch we packed our stuff to visit one of the Blue Ridge Mountain hiking trails. Afterwards we returned to Chapel Hill and called it a day. ;)

So that's about it. Hope you like the pictures. Have a good week!

-Jan

Anadarko Symposium

Hey people,

sorry for the lack of news, but unfortunately my computer became infected with an annoying virus, messing up my Windows system files during the removal. Not very easy to re setup your system with neither a CD-Rom drive nor a Windows CD but somehow I managed to restore an old system status. ;) So thankfully everything is back to normal now, enabeling me to give you a brief summary over the last recent activities.
As the title already implies, this post has something to do with a symposium which was held last Friday, and some of you might now be thinking "What on earth is this Anadarko thingy?" To clarify things, the UNC geological sciences department is hosting a yearly symposium along with the Anadarko Petrolium Coorporation, which in fact is one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies. Every year in April, students and future PhDs are presenting their findings in a short presentation each. The fruitful collaboration exists six years already and will continue to go on at least a few years longer.
Afterwards around 20 geologists went to have some drinks and chit chat in one of Carrboros (small town within walking distance from Chapel Hill) notorius bars built on an old railway track (it's called The Station). We talked and laughed quite a lot, it was fun.
It would be really nice to have some equivalent in Jena as well, even though everyone was really busy because of all the preparations going on.

I'll catch you later!

-Jan

It's sunny!

Greetings everyone!

Though this might sound a bit cruel to all of you who suffer from long days and weeks of cold and unpleasand weather back in Germany, here in North Carolina it's the exact opposite. The 15 degrees difference in latitude between Jena (50° 56') and Chapel Hill (35° 54′ 22″) really makes a difference!
Most of the times it's sunny, and temperatures around day time are well above 20°C (or rather 70°F). So everyone is encouraged to go outside during free time to catch some tan and enjoy the warmth of the sunbeams. Flowers and trees are blossoming all over the place to the great displeasure of allergy sufferer who are having a hard time striving against the huge masses of pollen that float around these days. They cover almost everything, from the shoes and clothes you wear to cars and buildings and kind of look like an omnipresent dirty light green coating.

These Some pictures taken just recently. The first one is taken on campus showing a building near Mitchell Hall. The second one is part of South Rd. (my way to work), and last but not least my apartment.

That's it for now, stay tuned for more to come.

-Jan

Viva la México

Hi guys,

this is just to show you that fast food is NOT the only source of food, but in fact a lot of nice little restaurants can be found on Chapel Hill's Franklin Street. Herbert and I went to this Mexian Cafe called Bandido's and food as well as the atmosphere were both really nice! Herbert went for Buritos, I tried out Nacho's with Dip, very tasty! Even though no frozen magarethas were on the menu, I strongly consider going there again some time.

Bye, bye for now.

-Jan

Shoping in The States

Hi there,

I'm runnig samples on the mass spectrometer at the moment. Since it is taking them forever to produce trustworthy results, I just quickly want to share some experience on the topic shopping.
There are quite a few grocery stores around here, one of the most prominent ones is Harris Teeter (I go there almost all the time). Interestingly enough not only the variety of products is huge, bur also the sizes they have there. Family sized packages all over the place! And i guess that anyone who loves fast food would love to put up a tent at the cooling shelfs they have there.
Once I went to a mall with Herbert in order to get some new clothes. You would not believe the selection of sizes they have there until you witness them with your own eyes. About 75% of the clothes are L/XL or even larger! The limit is not 2XL, not 3XL but 4XL! I should definitely try one of these on and take a picture some time. ;)
The sizes of the buildes of course correspond to their content:
Okay, sample runs complete. Guess I can call it a day for now. See ya!

-Jan

Duke wins NCAA Tournament

Hello people!

This years America's basketball college league season has come to an end yesterday in a final clash between The Blue Devils (Duke University, Durham) and the Bulldogs from Butler University (Indianapolis). Everyone around here wanted Duke to loose, since they are the number one rival for UNC (the RWE to FCCJ if you want). It was a really close game, but in the end the Blue devils won by a 2 point lead and as soon as the tail lamp went on of the Bullogs tried a three pointer from the middle line, unfortunately only hitting the rim of the basket and the game was over. [59:61]
So the devils reign again and most of the people at the UNC are really unhappy about that, even though the trophy is staying inside North Carolina.

That's it for now, I'll catch you later.

-Jan

Zircon Chronicles Easter Egg!

Hi guys!

Just on a very short notice: I recently finished a small video that we (Herbert and I) recorded in the ski resort using my cellphone. It's not the greatest quality, and definately jittery, but I hope you guys like it. ;)



Have a nice day!

-Jan

Happy Easter!

Good day to you folks!

Yay, once again it's easter time, and children (regardless of what age) are looking for hunting hidden easter treasures, stay at home and enjoy themselves or go to church. Surprisingly overe here people do not tend to stuff themselves with delicious chocolate eggs and rabbits. But that's not too bad, as those sweets would most likely capitulate melt away under the influence of the merciless solar radiation.
To round things up here a few easter joke that I came across:

How does the Easter Bunny stay fit? EGG-xercise and HARE-robics!

How do you catch the Easter Bunny? Hide in a bush and make a noise like a carrot!

Why shouldn’t you tell an Easter egg a joke? It might crack up!


Now if you'll excuse me I'll have some tasty moon pie! See you around!

-Jan

Hitting the slopes at Sugar Mountain, yeah!

Hey everyone,

if you thought that exercising winter sports in North Carolina during this time of the year is impossible, you were utterly wrong! But where to find the necessary snow? Answer: Sugar Mountain Ski Resort!
It's about a 3,5 hours drive from Chapel Hill, so Herbert had this brilliant idea to go there last Saturday, and long story short we packed a few things and hit the road towards North Carolina's probably best spot for downhill skiing.
We had a lot of fun on the road trip. Driving on an American highway while listening and singing to loud Aerosmith music really is one hell of an experience! Time flew and we reached our destination at about 2 pm, which is okay as we were going to take full advantage of the twilight-ticket, allowing us to hit the slopes until 10pm! Herbert chose to run down the hills via Snowboard, I went for skis. As soon as we were geared up we headed towards the nearest lift to take a shot at the first few tracks. After a couple a of test runs we went all the way up to the top and had a blast. Although most of the snow was artificial and therefore quite icey, it was most enjoyable.

Around 9pm the sun set and the lights went on as we continued to go downhill. When the lifts closed, we both were really exhausted and felt blessed for this wonderful day. It was quite hard, at least for me to keep oneself awake during the return, and as soon as we arrived at our apartment I almost instantly fell into my bed. Unfortunately the skiing season is now over for the year, but even though travelling almost 7 hours just for one day of skiing was totally worth it!
Ok, enough talking for now as I need to get some work done.
Have a good one!

-Jan