How to Train a Graduate in Germany 2.1

I realized only recently that it would be daunting to future archaeologist (cyber-archaeologist maybe) to reorder my preceding blogs. Part of me want them to suffer with this little ordeal, but perhaps I am not as cruel as I may seem (even though it becomes quite obvious if you see the timeline of release of the blogs). Perhaps English as a language would be non-existent while you are deciphering this, but if I want to pass down one piece of information from my generation to yours, it would be that “Imagination is the key to the future, until reality strikes”. Wait a minute, that makes no sense. Precisely! Some of the philosophical quotes our ancestors left for us make little sense too, and is highly irrelevant to our current lifestyle. The ultimate goal would be to make sure our future generations are as clueless as we were. Now, let me provide the order of the blogs and corresponding links to access them. To make life easier for the future readers, I am going to stick to 2.1 to denote second semester, first blog respectively. The order is as follows :

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany/ (Smooth beginning)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/06/29/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-sequel/ (You must think twice about your career decisions if you didn’t recognize that this would be second)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-iii/ (Pretty straight forward unless you didn’t follow Roman numerals in the distant future)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/07/16/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-sequelsequel/ (There’s a tricky one, but if you have figured the second one, this one is a piece of math/cake)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/07/26/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-101/ (I agree that this was could be hard for you when you are dealing with qubits, that would be five)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-sechs/ (I am pretty sure German will still exist, but if you are French then it is six)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-sept/ (And vice versa, that would seven, gute menschen)

• https://witfulmadrasi.wordpress.com/2020/08/21/how-to-train-a-graduate-in-germany-hyperbole/ (Unless the world is conquered by Chinese/Mathematicians, that would be eight. Rooting for the later though!)

We should be on the same page now, and I hope that frequent readers would have deliberately skipped until now. A little doze of excitement to start a new semester, Woohoo! After a seemingly long short vacation of a week, I welcomed the second semester with close arms. Having mastered the art of cracking German exams, and with rejuvenated hope of breezing through the proceeding semester, there existed no formidable force to slow me down. And then I did something, no one in my batch probably did. And what was that you ask me? Well secrets are best preserved until the last. This is partly to keep my readers on hook for a predictable story, and the other being that it cannot be deemed to be termed as a secret. For every semester that followed, I religiously started it with a trek. I believe that trekking could be the coolest religion, and Greek god Pan would be a delight to “worship” (now it should be more apparent where the idea of Peter Pan originated from).

The massive advantage in my program compared to many others is the flexibility to choose electives from a giant pool, and the ability to observe the course for a month before crediting it as part of your coursework (spoiler: You have time until the last date to register for the exams, if you would like to credit it). Due to confidentiality reason and not breach the oath I had taken before being part of the admission committee, I have excluded many of the humorous segments I had gone through this semester in order to choose the prospective students. I can tell you one thing about the process, it is brutal and can lead to sleepless nights. Being a football fanatic (those were my dark days), I was excited for the FIFA world cup for no particular reason. One thing a fanatic would always do, is to validate himself/herself by finding people with similar interests. I was (un)lucky enough, as I had some batch mates who followed the world cup feverishly too. Being in Germany was an icing on the cake, since they were participating in the tournament too. I must warn the German readers (especially fans of Germany) to proceed with extreme caution, I do not want to trigger any PTSD. Fair warning to Spanish fans too, for things weren’t too pleasant to them too.

Thankfully, important matches were scheduled late in the evening, we were able to witness the brooding love for football in best pub in the world (by a stretch, “Guinness pub” you are very close to our hearts). It is especially close to my heart since I was not discriminated/targeted by waiters for ordering non-alcoholic drinks. Okay, I must confess, I did test their patience by ordering a coffee once or twice. But hey, who doesn’t order coffee in a pub. I am not going to overload you with highlights from every match, save but one which I so vividly remember. Most likely, the biggest regret of my life was to accompany the taco man to witness the match between Germany and Mexico.

Want to know why? If I recollect the event best to my knowledge, only three of us went to witness the match in the pub. The Portuguese speaking Spanish/Brazilian and the Spanish/German speaking Mexican. Surrounding us in almost every corner of the pub were alcohol-charged Germans. Being a neutral for this game, I had a little bias towards Mexico in order to be supportive of my American friends. Perhaps I should have not chosen empathy back then, for I regretted it as soon as Mexico scored a goal against Germany around half-time. That is exactly when I stood witness to the horror unfolding before me, as my Mexican friend rose to give a battle cry, screaming “ole” at a dumbfound mob/audience. Thankfully his wits took better hold of him, for I was ready to abandon him in mercy of the German fans, when he raised his hand and apologized. As for me, the secret I preserved until the very end is that I undertook eight courses as a milestone for this semester. Bravery is definitely not the right adjective to describe my decision, since things became haywire. How much closer was I to breakdown you ask, stay tuned to find out.

P.S. : I have disabled the like feature since it reminds me of the recognition hungry person I used to be. All I care about now is to hear your comments, which could provide enough motivation to write better memories on the internet.

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