Ex-Pat in Hamburg: Flexible Working Hours

I have successfully made it through my first week of work, so I figure I'd write a post. (I skipped last weekend, because really nothing exciting happened the week before)

I started my job last Monday. I have my own office!

It's pretty plain right now, but I'm slowly adding plants and pictures to liven it up. And those windows are east-facing, so on sunny days I get gorgeous light in the morning.

I framed some maps from my travels last fall. Clockwise from top left: Hamburg, Edinburgh, London, and the Dingle Peninsula. One from each country that I visited, and I still have five more maps.

I'm really enjoying my job thus far. I've mostly just been reading literature to figure out where there are gaps in research we could possibly explore, but here's how I look at it: in college I was paying tuition to force myself to read uninteresting material on a deadline. Now I'm being paid to read what I like, with a far less-strict deadline.

Also, flexible working hours are awesome! On Thursday I had to go into the city for an apartment appointment, so I showed up for work at 11 and stayed until 6. I worked longer hours a couple of other days to make up for it. And the place was deserted on Friday. The few people who actually came in to work were gone by 3 PM.

I'm very excited for the chance to work on my own project and the potential to publish it at the end of my year here. For those of you who don't know, I'm studying the impact of wind farms in the North Sea on the surrounding ocean. Germany currently generates about 520 MW of energy from offshore wind farms and is looking to create 25,000 MW of power by 2030. (Data from Offshore-Windenergie.net) And that's just Germany's exclusive economic zone. Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the UK are all investing in wind power in the North Sea, which makes our research applicable to the not-so-distant future.

Potential impacts include:

1. bird collisions

2. changes in the electro-magnetic field from underwater wires that can affect fish

3. noise pollution due to pile driving that can negatively affect marine mammals

4. changes to circulation in the surface ocean

5. changes to local meteorology that can ultimately affect ocean temperature and precipitation/evaporation rates

And countless other possibilities. Some areas, such as direct effects on animals, have been extensively researched, while other areas, such as changes to ocean circulation, have hardly been touched. Another researcher is looking into changes to small-scale circulation, and we think my project might focus on how changes to circulation affect nutrient distribution and detritus settlement rates.

Everyday I'm thankful for the Environmental Science senior practicum at UCLA. It taught me how to start with the end goal in mind, create a timeline, and break the project into milestones. I've gained experience in working and re-working when something doesn't turn out as expected. And I know how to alter my expectations to align with the resources available to me.

I'm basically approaching this job as an extended version of my senior project. But, it's a year instead of six months, and it's my only focus, as opposed to when I was working on my senior project while maintaining a full class load and student job. I'm optimistic about my ability to tackle it.

My work might be out in the boonies, but there are some benefits, aka beautiful countryside.

The view from the back entrance. If you look closely, you might be able to see the TV tower and steeples of a neighboring town in the distance. TV towers and steeples: two things I associate unequivocally with German skylines.

The countryside I ran through the other day. Thatched roofs are still very much a thing.

And at the end of the week, I decided to celebrate with a glass of German Riesling.

I still kind of can't believe that I've actually achieved this goal toward which I've been working toward for years. I've known for a year that I might want to work in oceanography, and for two years that I wanted to live abroad in Germany. But I've known for 6 years that I want to work in Environmental Science. And here I am, actually studying the effects of human decisions on our surrounding environment. I feel incredibly privileged to be here.

And to wrap it up, here are some pictures from around the city of Hamburg that may or may not have made it to my Instagram. Most of them are from a couple of weeks ago, when the weather was steadily in the 20s and below for a week or so. There isn't really any snow right now, and the canals aren't nearly as frozen.

1/31/14

This day was one of the coldest: a high of 10 degrees. My fingers froze just in the process of taking this picture. 1/25/14

1/25/14

1/31/14

The Alster last Sunday (2/2/14), on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Panorama #1 of the Alster 2/2/14

Panorama #2 of the Alster 2/2/14

Part of my marathon training is to "cross train" on Sunday, which can literally mean just getting a good walk in. So I went in to the city and walked around there, which is far more interesting than walking around Geesthacht.