Sonntag, 14. Juni 2015

The angel and the beauty – or – just another summer day at Kits Beach

Franny is just about to transition from the down dog into the forward fold. She is standing with her back towards the crowded beach life. Running kids, flying volleyballs, screaming teenagers, blasting music from rattling speakers, while she is trying to find her inner peace. She takes a deep breath of fresh ocean air, filled with the smell of Korean barbecue, sun screen, dusty sand, sweaty bodies, and deep frying French fries. Her yoga pants are burgundy, her lotus-top glints in Alice blue and her blond hair is held back by a cream colored braided bead headband, matching her dusty rose colored yoga mat. 

 
Mitch and Andy have been playing beach volleyball together since their first year of college. Andy is lean, average height and uses just enough product in his dark brown hair to give it this very casual look. He goes to the gym three times a week, his stomach is flat, his upper body strong. His legs however, are slightly too skinny and his skin is still that tiny bit too pale. Behind him, Mitch is waiting for the other team to serve. He is a few inches taller than Andy. His dark blond hair reaches down to his eyes so that he has to stroke it back every other moment. Mitch goes to the gym 5 times a week, his skin gleams in a milk chocolate brown, his stomach is all muscle and no fat. He has not only upper body but also lower body and core strength. His muscles look painted, they show enough but not too much. A result of a meticulous balance of a careful diet, lots of training and self-control. Although, he would never mention to his friends that he is anyone other than Mr. I-can-eat-anything-and-never-put-on-weight. When it is his turn to serve, he “accidentally” hits the ball off the court towards the grassy area, where that hot chick is doing yoga.

Franny has been watching the volley ball courts through her legs. When she sees that the ball is rolling towards her, she quickly switches into the child pose. This very snazzy blond guy is coming over. But nothing can disrupt her from the deep state of concentration she is in. He was wearing sun glasses, so she couldn’t see the colour of his eyes anyways. A while ago, she came to the decision to only date guys with green eyes. Except for Taylor maybe. And there was Chris and now that she comes to think off it, Duncan had brown eyes as well. That’s probably why it didn’t work out. She carefully turns her head towards where the volleyball had landed. The tall blond guy is just bending over to pick it up. He gives her a sneaky smile, strokes his hair back and lets out a shy laugh. “Sorry angel!” he says and runs back on to the court. His every move is perfectly balanced, agile, and strong. Franny starts doing twists while peaking around her outstretched legs to look at the volleyball court with her head upside down.

Mitch gives Andy a playful tap on the butt and starts to seriously play. They are a good team and when they really want they almost always win. He switches with Andy to go to the net. No more “accidental” mishaps from now on. He blocks nearly every attempt from the other team to cross the net, standing in the air like a hummingbird watching his prey.  He not once looks over to the yoga girl, but he can feel her eyes on his naked, sun-tanned skin. When they convert their first match point, everyone shares laughs, a hand shake and a drink out of the cooler. Water is dripping from the outside of the ice cold can while sweat is running down their backs. Mitch slowly sits down on one of the drift wood logs, pushes up his sun glasses on to his head and then looks over to the yoga chick.


Franny has busied herself with checking messages on her phone. She casually opens and closes all kind of apps. She is thinking about calling a friend to not look like a loser girl that has to go to the beach by herself. She grabs a fruit shake out of her yoga bag and starts to do some more stretching. From the corner of her eyes she has noticed that the game of volleyball has ended. She purposely stretches a few seconds longer than she usually would. When there is nothing left to stretch, she takes another zip of her fruit shake. Absentmindedly, she puts the drink back into her back, checks her phone again and then, coincidentally, looks towards the hot blond guy. He has pushed the sun glasses of his eyes. His eyes are green.

Mittwoch, 13. Mai 2015

Unloading Only

Fancy-suit-guy has some egg yolk stuck to his left cheek. I am trying not to look, but once I have noticed it, the little patch of yellow seems to shine as bright as the morning sunlight in between his short black beard stubbles. I force myself to shift my attention towards the other end of the bus. Loud music is blasting out of long-haired-heavy-metal-guy’s direction. He remains absolutely motionless while electric guitar and drum noise leave his tiny in-ear headphones. Next to him small-Asian-woman is sleeping calmly. Altogether, I count 6 people sleeping on the bus: 2 with their head back and mouth open towards the ceiling, 3 nodders and little-Asian-woman who just peacefully sleeps sitting up completely straight. Now that’s a talent right there.

My thoughts get disturbed by chirpy-girl. Huge coffee mug in hand, she tells everyone about her most recent camping trip. Apparently, there were complications with the tenting situation when one of the couples split up because HE was being an absolute jerk. Hair-in-front-of-face-friend at who the camp fire stories are directed uncomfortably shifts from one foot to the other. She is desperately trying to quite chirpy-girl down by occasionally jumping in with “yes” - “no” - “maybe” - “really” - “hmm” - “I guess so”. Suddenly, the camping story gets interrupted by first-year-undergrad-dude who answers his phone and loudly discusses how his midterms are messing with his social life. Rainbow-hair-lady stops humming and even pimply-guy looks up from his smart phone. Rhythmically chewing gum, the baseball hat deeply pulled down into his face, he can’t hide a smile when undergrad-dude announces that he fell asleep during the microeconimcs exam after having a blast at John’s house the night before. Out of the entire bus population 5 look up from their smart phones, 3 fiddle with the volume of their iPod and too-much-perfume-chick next to me decides to pause the gossip girl episode she is watching on her iPad to listen to undergrad-dude’s academic adventures.

Bagel-guy enters the bus. Peanut butter and jam on a toasted sesame bagel. I am starting to feel nauseated. He is also not the most quiet chewer but just when I noticed, the bus comes to a sudden stop and chirpy-girl spills half the content of her coffee mug all over hair-in-front-of-face-friend. There is much excitement for the next couple of minutes when everyone close by starts looking for a tissue or similar item. Some of the spilled coffee found its way to sleeping-athlete’s naked muscular thighs. Chirpy-girl, hair-in-front-of-face-friend, and now-awake-athlete seem all rather happy with the general development of things.

Then, ancient-couple enters. As soon as the bus door opens, the driver as well as several passengers start suggesting that people should offer them their seat. At the same time 4 front-sitters had already jumped up to make room. Good-humoured-bus driver patiently waits till ancient-couple is safely seated before he continues his journey. Fancy-suit-guy starts a conversation with ancient-couple about the pros and cons of solar heating. The topic of egg yolk in beard does not come up. I wonder if this is due to old age vision loss or Canadian politeness. During all of this, serious-woman alone seems to be completely unaffected. Dark sun glasses are covering her eyes, while her facial expression and body posture remains unmoved for the entire duration of the bus ride. Don’t mess with serious-woman.

When big-rimmed-glasses-guy pulls out a paper about the fluid mechanic properties of a non-Newtonian fluids, I suddenly remember that I meant to finish reading a paper for today's journal club. I pull out the crinkled print out and start scanning it. By the time I have found the paragraph were I stopped reading the day before, the bus has arrived at the final stop.

- Creepily-staring-girl


Sonntag, 26. April 2015

HASHTAG DRUNKEN PROMISES

In January, it was just one of these times. One of these times were little Joli just couldn’t shut her mouth and declared that she wanted to join a few of her field hockey team mates in a half marathon. It was about 02:30 am. At 02:36:00 am I was registered thanks to the fact that I willingly and without further thought gave away my credit card. 


So here it is, the log book of my first full half marathon. 

Start - Oh god, what have I gotten myself into? No backing out now… and people look serious
1 km - At least the weather is nice. Kind of sunny but still cool enough. Getting in the rhythm. 
           All is good.
2 km - Just don’t over pace. It’s still a long way. Legs feel great but better pace myself.
3 km - Oh, we are turning, I wonder if we get down to the water now. I bet the view along the
           coast will be beautiful.
4 km - Turn again. No ocean yet. Just as well. Better stay focused now, there is a little hill coming
           up. Just keep breathing calmly.
5 km - I am thirsty!
6 km - Water station at 5.5 km was excellent. Quick drink. Some cool water over the head.
           I can keep going.
7 km - Three more of this. Sounds doable. Kind of.
8 km - Ok, seriously, where is the ocean?
9 km - Ha, nice running down hill. I wonder if my legs look like in a cartoon, similar to
           Speedy Gonzales is running really fast.
10 km - Is it getting warmer, or is it just me? Person behind me is breathing real heavy.
            Don’t collapse on me there, I have no intention of stopping now.
half way - Haha, look at the road sign “Keep calm, slow down”. You wish, I am unstoppable!
11 km - Oh good, water, I was just about to ask. One to drink, one over the head. On my way
             home now.
12 km - Ok, I might be stoppable after all. Damn you left leg. Ouch right thigh. This can’t be
             healthy.
13 km - This is ridiculous. Why would anyone ever want to run this far? There will better be
             beer at the finish line!
14 km - Step after step after step after step. Wait, this is only two thirds? How devastating.
15 km - Hill of death, here I come. See you on the other side. Maybe.


16 km - I think I drank the water and poured the sports drink over my head. Oh dear.
17 km - Definitely poured the sports drink over my head. Everything is sticky. Maybe that’s why
             I can’t lift my feet of the ground anymore.
18 km - I survived the hill! Yeah, it’s downhill from here. I can do this. I can do this. Oh god, can
             I do this?
19 km - Finally water to wash all this sticky stuff off. Maybe I could sit down for just a minute?
20 km - I am still not there? Oh no, I forgot about that last 1 km. Noooooo. And where is that
             damn finish line. The course seems to go on forever.
20.5 km - I still don’t see the finish line. What is this? Are they doing this on purpose? First no
             ocean, then no finish line! That’s why it’s called April Fool’s run, I see. But wait, I
             hear something…
21 km - “And just finishing now, Jolônd F**ken…” You are just right mate, finally the F**ken finish.


Luckily we did have beer at the finish line. A nice tricycle, beer with grapefruit (for the daily vitamin intake). And as it turns out, there is actually an ocean along the sunshine coast. Who would have thought? We just never saw it along the way from Gibsons to Sechelt (it is also possible that I was just highly delusional along the way). By the way, I ran a 1:55:41, so that is that. Anyway, we went to the water afterwards and it was beautiful. Still, I will remain I-hate-running-Joli until next time.



Freitag, 10. April 2015

To beard or not to beard

Not really sure what the rest of the male world is doing with their facial hair at the moment. In Vancouver there are some interesting things going on. Just to clarify, all of the below is purely observational and completely subjective. 


Bill gently strokes his cheeks. His skin is smooth, his face is clean. His hair is casually styled. Just the slightest touch of hair gel. His thick dark hair is neatly arrange to frame is face. Bill is part of an (on the north American west coast) in population shrinking minority of clean shaven men. Bill is complementing his (facial) hair style with a sleek dress shirt, neatly tucked into dark jeans topped off with a brown pair of desert boots. Bill is feeling good about himself.

Jeff is standing just opposite of Bill on the bus. Upon seeing Bill, he immediately thinks ’Who is that dude? He is so 00s. Has he not arrived in the 10s yet?’ Jeff is scratching his Dreitagebart (I wasn’t happy with the English translation to designer stubble so I am using the German term which literary translates to “three-day-beard”). Shaving every day is a waste of his already limited time. His dark blond hair is just drying off from his daily seven and a half minutes wake-up-shower. He is wearing a one coloured dark green T-shirt, slightly washed out jeans and chucks. He trims his beard once or sometimes twice a week, he gets a hair cut about once every two months. He is looking good and he knows it. He gets his phone out and starts playing Angry Birds. Yeah, he certainly needs the time for more important things in life.

Andrew has different problems. He is participating in Movember. Ever since a bunch of humorous Australians decided to grow a moustache throughout November men around the world grow themselves a moustache (or something that is supposed to resemble it) during November. Some do it to support different kinds of charity, others, just because they can. Andrew is heading into week 3. He is having trouble preventing his facial decoration from going wild. Little spikes of hair are starting to stick in random directions. Everything apart from the upper lip is more or less clean shaven. Will he be able to curl the ends of his moustache in week 4? Andrew, like many others, really can’t pull off a moustache. But what does he care? Moustaches are cool and hip and at the same time he is doing the world some good. He is practically wearing a superman cape.

For Paul it’s all about the neck line. It took weeks of research and practice to find the right neck/chin-covered-by-hair to neck-clean-shaven ratio. By now Paul has mastered trimming his beard close to perfection. The beard line looks neat and even, almost like drawn with a compass. Paul can only shake his head about the moustache guy. He is all about the face frame. An upper lip beard goes is in the same category as a goatee: so yesterday. Paul’s beard is a statement. He ain’t wearing no popular brands, no washed out jeans or fancy shirts. He ain’t following any commercialism. Paul will always go his own way, always remain true to himself. Pleased by this observation, he takes a refreshing zip of his Starbucks coffee and gets off the bus.

Charles is not aware of any of this. He couldn’t care less about beard lines, Movember or designer stubbles. He is just trying to grow something. On good days the fine layer of black hair on his upper lip might pass as the beginning of a moustache or beard. On bad days it just looks like a young man’s face before his first shave. He has tried eating protein rich meals, he even supplemented his food with special vitamins. There are a few patches of black stubbles now. No uniformity though. Charles sighs and dreamily stares at all the different kind of facial hair styles around him. Maybe one day…

If there is one thing that Seamus is proud of, it is his full beard. It took him 218 days to get to this point. He has watched several different youtube how-to-grow/maintain/clean/awesomize-your-beard videos, has spent over $300 on beard accessories (a beard comb, scissors, three different kind of trimmers, beard balm, oil, wax, pomade, itchy beard wash, hair loss prevention shampoo as well as beard conditioner) and has invested at least eight hours a week into extensive beard care. He also had to get new glasses to match the new uber beardy look. He wears shirts with catchy punchlines, witty jokes or designs by local artists printed across the chest. The colour of his pants range from dark red to bright blue. He has a pair of sneakers matching all of them. His appearance is an art, Seamus the artist. Can’t a man just live his creativity?


Freitag, 3. April 2015

Science at its best

A while ago I felt like I should have a grown up night out. Don't be alarmed, even the recreational fresh air in Vancouver cannot make a Joli grow up just yet. However, the thought was more that I am surrounded by <25 year old students in everyday on Campus school life. Consequently, I felt the urge to have a night of "mature" conversations and interactions only. So that night, no kids were allowed (except for one little British, but we all know exceptions prove the rule...). Naturally, such a special occasion calls for a special invitation. Plus: I was working on a research proposal at the time. Might have caused an urge to distract myself but at the same time keep the focus on scientific methodology and practice.

(Random email from August 24, 2014 at 5:33 pm)

Project Concept: The effects of intoxication have well been studied in the past. It also has been shown that an irregular high intake of bêor can cause odd conversations, loud insults, a certain degree of touchiness as well as side effects such as hick-ups or occasional memory loss. However, in recent years there has been a lot of innovation and development with respect to the art of beer crafting, which power has only been tested to a certain degree. Thus, it should be every computer scientists' duty to optimize taste-amount-endurance coefficient. 

Hypotheses: It will work.

Methods: Leave campus at 6 pm on Friday, August 29th, and head to the Beer Craft Market. Then, order beer. Lift the glass and drink with as little spillage as possible. Repeat this until no longer possible. 

Measures: Numbers of beer drunk. Numbers of pointless conversations. Time of consumption. Annoyance of the waiters. Spontaneous flashes of genius.

Expected Results: Headaches, sleeplessness, nausea, in summary: one hell of a night.

Follow-up: Results can be solidified by going to Portland Craft or to the Vancouver Alpen Club or both.

Participants: As addressed here. However additional participants are welcome and should be suggested to the group to go up for voting.


In retro-perspective, I can report that maturity level did definitely suffer. We especially accomplished to max out the measure of "annoyance of the waiters". Or at least we had some kind of very memorable Joli-waitress interaction. But that is a story for another time.

Samstag, 28. März 2015

Hans im Stress

I recently turned 28. About a week later I found a letter from a friend in my mail. I mean in the actual mail. The real deal, in a paper envelope written with ink on pretty letter paper, rather rare these days. You can imagine how thrilled I was. However, it wasn't the letter as such that inspired me to start this new blog but its content. In her letter my friend mentioned that she enjoys reading my traveling blog. She had been chatting to another childhood friend of ours and they agreed that it is kind of funny that someone, who enjoys creative writing as much as I do, goes into engineering/sciences. And I agree, I often miss a spark of creativity in my everyday research life. So what do I do? I write the most ridiculous emails, comments or notes whenever I find the time to. Since people seem to like the way I stagger words together, I decided to start this second blog. Joli reloaded. 
This little paragraph is in English. So is the following first entry. However, my mother tongue is still German so if you don’t master both, German and English, just be patient, there will be a little bit of both, whatever comes to my mysterious mind. On this note, lean back and enjoy reading. Here is the first entry, just something I came up with last week. A story of an average grad student.
(Beer call is a weekly Friday night social call in our department. As a proper German I am in charge of location and advertisement of this event. Original email: March 27, 2015)
Beer Call: 

This story is about Hans. Hans is in grad school. Monday morning, Hans slept in. He got to the lab at 11:43 am and caught up on his emails and other social media notifications before he joins his lab mates for lunch. After lunch he comes across this really interesting article about Costa Rica being powered by renewable energy only and then another article about explaining the energy consumption in the US and then another article about Stephen Harper’s political influence on environmental research institutions in Canada and then it’s time for coffee. When he comes back he pulls out a paper he meant to read over the weekend, answers a few emails and puts on his favourite paper reading music. He gets started with the abstract. Half way through the introduction he decides that he is too hungry to concentrate and heads home to cook some dinner. Tuesday morning, Hans is busy cleaning his apartment. He gets to the lab at 11:26 am. He just very briefly checks his virtual obligations and then continues reading the paper he started on Monday. He comes across an interesting reference. He googles the reference, scans through the paper and downloads it. He repeats this step 5 times, well not exactly the same step. It turns out that 2 out of the 5 interesting papers that were referenced seem irrelevant. The virtual pile of “to read” papers is growing. Hans leaves for lunch and feels like he had a very productive morning. He is on page 3 in his paper. This time he goes for a coffee straight from lunch, it’s just one of those days. When he returns to his lab he continues reading. When he gets to the methods part he is reminded of this other method that he just recently came across. A quick google search leads him straight into a wikipedia loop. The only way to get out is being distracted by one of his lab mates. They have an hour long conversation about the cricket world Cup and the significance of cricket in society in general. After that it’s definitely time for another cup of the good stuff. He returns to his desk to work his way through the rest of the methods section. Then he heads home. Wednesday morning, Hans has a meeting with his supervisor at 10:00 am. He gets there at 10:03 am even though he meant to prepare a few things before hand. The quick glance that he took at his notes on the bus must do. His supervisor gets there at 10:23 am giving him some time of preparation after all. He feels like the meeting went well. Lots of new ideas and possibilities. Hans feels good about not doing too much work before hand since the course of his project seems to spin into a completely new direction all together. Is it even worth finishing that paper he started reading? He remembers that he has a journal club in the afternoon. He panically prints out the paper and reads the abstract, parts of the introduction and the conclusion. Then he does a quick forward search to see what other people have thought of the paper. Always good to have a couple of comments ready for the reading group. After the journal club he finally finds the time to answer some emails and other virtual obligations. He then needs to go out and find some food, since he has had no time to eat earlier. He might as well go home after grabbing food, the bus is right there anyway. He takes the half read paper to finish reading it on the bus. He doesn’t. Thursday morning on the bus Hans gets into the discussion part of the paper he is reading. He has already forgotten most of the introduction and methods so he needs to go back and forth. He gets to the lab at 10:36 am. All his lab mates are going to a recruiting talk at 11:00 am. He joins them. After the talk there is a casual lunch. Luckily there is coffee at the lunch so he saves time which is good since he is behind with his work. When he returns to the lab he gets side tracked by a funny video. Youtube kindly suggested other videos he might like. He didn’t but still watched them. Then he returns to the discussion part of the paper he had been reading. He gets half way through until he gets sleepy and needs to head out for another cup of coffee. He runs into a friend he hasn’t seen in a while since they are not taking classes together anymore. They go for a beer instead, it’s Thursday after all. Friday morning Hans is slow to get up. He gets to the lab at 11:48 am. He skipped breakfast so after responding to his virtual obligations he heads out for lunch. After lunch he finally finishes reading this paper he had no time to read all week. He prints out a couple more to read over the weekend. It’s now Friday 3:30 pm. Definitely time for a cup of coffee, then he thinks he could attend this UDLS thing. “The art of crafting light swords”. Sounds cool and might be interesting. And after that he could join the others for a beer. It’s the end of a busy week after all.

If you have read this far, you are a Hans. If Hans is going to beer call, so can you! Tonight all Hanses of this department will go to Yagger’s Kitsilano. It was a week of hard work after all.