First REAL Post

Ok, as promised, here begins to good stuff.

- This is pretty obvious, but it needs to be mentioned anyway: the language barrier. (Screams into pillow). French is seriously the hardest language I have ever tried to learn. And I'm not just trying to pick it up as I go along. I've tried using audio CD's. No good. I've tried taking a class. Still nothing. I have a French Dictionary and a French Phrasebook and I can still barely speak a word of this language. If ever I need to think of a sentence to say, I pretty much need an online translator, and those are still wrong a good portion of the time. And here's the thing. Most people around here know English. Some of the nicer people will actually speak it to you if they catch on that your French isn't very good. Usually though, they just scoff at my ignorance. Now, I've tried to be reasonable about this. When I look at it from their point of view, I realize that they shouldn't automatically be expected to speak a foreign language in their own country. If someone came up to me in the U.S. and tried speaking anything but English, I wouldn't be able to help them, and I wouldn't really feel bad about it because I know the national language and I can't be expected to know just any language that someone may try to speak to me with. BUT, the official language at CERN is ENGLISH! All the scientists speak ENGLISH to each other (unless it's a private conversation, in which case they can speak whatever they want). All business is posted in ENGLISH! Meetings are conducted in ENGLISH! However, when I go to the cafeteria, those people don't speak a word of English. I don't know whether or not they CAN speak English, but if they can they certainly choose not to. And I'm pretty sure it's out of spite. I don't have any actual proof of this, but believe me. I can tell. Whenever I have to point to a food because I don't know how to say it, they give me a smaller portion than the people in front of me. When the people at the register have to point to the price because I don't instantly translate what they say to me, they give me the look of death. I'm getting a little off topic here, but I promise I will have more to say about the cafeteria in the near future.

Well, I was hoping to include a bit more in this post, but jet lag is kicking in and I'm already starting to forget some of the things I was going to say tonight. Once I get some shut-eye and get my head straightened out, I'll get back to y'all soon.

The first post: why I am even doing this at all

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog. I've never blogged before, nor do I really follow blogging much in general. This seems to raise the question: why are you even creating this blog then? Well, I have recently flown to Geneva Switzerland to work at CERN for the next two months, and I am currently residing on the Swiss/French border. Seeing how my graduate thesis work will be based on work being conducted at CERN, I face a very important decision: do I move out here long term, or do I stay in the US and make the occasional short term trip a few times a year.

Seeing how this decision will have a big impact on my life for the next few years or so, I decided that I should really analyze all the factors going into this choice. My memory is really bad, I mean REALLY bad when it comes to memorizing lots of information, so just trying to keep track of everything in my head was really a terrible, terrible option. I figured I should make a microsoft word document or something, but that's very boring and hard to be enthusiastic about working on. Not to mention nobody else would get to share in what are bound to be some golden moments here. So I decided to post them on this blog. In the off-chance that anyone actually reads it, maybe I'll even get some feedback.

Just to be clear though, this blog is not intended to talk about awesome adventures and trips I do this summer. I am a poor PhD student and must spend my time working if I ever hope to graduate. Instead, I will share my observations, anecdotes, and opinions that will help sway my opinion in one way or another. Blog entries will probably not have any specific themes, just stuff that I thought up since the last entry I made. I will probably begin nice things to say with a plus sign, mean things with a minus sign, and neutral with ... i dunno, I'll think of something. Also, if I can remember anything great from last year when I came here, I'll be sure to mention it too.

Well, that's it for the boring entry. if you've managed to read through all that, then good for you. I'll be posting the interesting stuff soon.