Goodbye, Mom, Adieu, Adieu

I put mom on the plan this morning back home to Florida (via Dallas, TX - crazy!). I don't understand why she wanted to stay a few more days. The airport was nuts, with (useless if you ask me) security people holding up the check in lines. Then the big windfall: I sent mom home with a suitcase full of my stuff. It weighed 40 kilos (100 pounds). The other suitcase weighed 20 kilos (50 pounds). Fortunately (we thought) we had a luggage allowence of 64 kilos per person, and the combined weight came just under that. What they didn't tell us was that it had to be evenly distributed between the two bags. This lead to a rather large fee to be paid to check the bags (redistributing the weight was impossible -- I feel sorry for anyone who opens either of those bags and then tries to repack them). The weird thing is the guy we paid kept insisting we had 330 pounds of baggage. I can't imagine that.

I was so proud of her, though, she achieved the ultimate goal of all travelers: not to leave the country with a single penny of the local currency with you (why not spend it, instead of letting it waste away in a drawer in a country where it can't be used?).

And back to work (also unfortunately)

My enthusiasm for work is RAPIDLY diminishing. Yesterday I went to a presentation of another exiting praktikant. All I have to say about it is: Thank god I don't do CFD!. Then there was the embarrassment of when I went to clap at the end of the presentation, and instead everyone pounded on their desks with their fists (I have to admit, that was more fun, it felt very primitive).

Anyway, it is now a promise that I won't be able to put my side tubes in the lab before I leave, so now I have to teach someone how to do the experiments. I thought it would be one of my fellow students (who are more fun). Instead its my absolute least favorite full time engineer - the Dilbert character I have mentioned before.

I am extremely tired, but feel like I need to make sure to put together an effort to go skiing this weekend. I want to go skiing, really I do, though staying home and vegging sounds much more fun.

And in the latest turn of events, Tina said that Oliver (often referred to as "our boss's boss" in this journal) stopped her in the hall and asked her how she was doing. She said she was tired from all the packing. He was surprised that she was leaving and asked when is your presentation? To which she replied that Bruno (our shared mentor) said that it would be easier not to do a presentation or exit paper (as long as we didn't need one for school), but just thoroughly document our work (a painstaking process, I might add). Well, Oliver replied something along the lines of "I will have to have a talk with Bruno." This unfortunately means, chances are, I will have to do an exit presentation. It will probably only take a day to put together. But still, one more thing to add to my list for the next two weeks. THEN, I realized the worse crisis of it all: Since I haven't had to wear a suit to work (except for the perfunctory first few days), I put them on the plane to America with my mom.

So the moral of this story is: I am prepared to do a technical presentation, BUT, whatever am I supposed to wear??