Post o'trip: part 2

Team America, Fuck yeah
There was a group of American students lead by a Drew Carey lookalike, aka, Sergeant Slaughter. Now amongst this group there were some really nice students. Down to earth, embarrassed about their country and fun to go drinking with. However, there were also some real dicks. This one girl, Miss Team USA, was a stuck up rich kid, belonged to a sorority straight out of one of those 80's college flicks, and wore a diamond rock on her finger the size of a golf ball. Now she was a bioligist working on anorexia (she may well have been suffering from it herself). Ben asked her what her biological model was. She responded that they deprived mice of food. Even I, a physicist, knows that this is not anorexia, but just starvation. What you need are animals who are no eating out of choice. When Ben pointed this out, she just said that, "No, this is a model for anorexia". Ah, this is what I call the "But this goes to eleven" argument.

Getting to know you
Accommodation in Lindau was an interesting affair. A shared room consisted of two single beds within the frame of a double bed. That is, you basically slept in the same bed as your roommate. That's ok if you know your bedmate. But in a lot of cases strangers were just placed together, with guys sharing with guys and girls sharing with girls. One of the other Aussies, Ben, was shacked up with a pom who he had never met. Ben turned up to his guest house, grabbed the key off the owner and went to unlock his room. The key didn't seem to work. He tried a couple of times and then went back down to get another key from the owner. With this second key he tried again. Same thing, the key wouldn't work. Back to the owner. He explained that the key wouldn't work and that he had knocked on the door on the off chance that his roommate may be in the room. He got no answer. In a dead pan german accent, the owner of the guest house said, "Maybe he is dead.". Not quite the response Ben was hoping for. It turned out that, luckily, the guy wasn't dead and that both keys were just faulty.
How do you handle sharing a bed with a complete stranger? What do you wear consider the temperature is over 30 degrees C? The first night that Ben and his bed-mate lay together, Ben constructed the "Wall of Doona" between them. The reason for this is not what you may think. Ben has been married for ten years and when you are lying next to someone in a bed you can assume it is your partner. It would be a naturally tendency while asleep to cuddle up next to your partner. Hence the "Wall of Doona". Turned out that even in the hot weather, the pom wrapped himself up in his doona. They really are crazy.On the last night, as they get ready for bed, both Ben and the Pom are lying on the bed just in their boxers discussing the day. At this point Ben has that moment of realisation, "What the hell is going on here?". How things change.

No Kidding
What did I learn from this trip? That my philosophies are shared with these guys. Here is a list of principles that a couple of the speakers articulated that I agree with:
1. Family/personal life comes first.
2. Have fun. If you don't enjoy what you are doing then your life won't be enjoyable.
3. Have other interests. Don't just work.
4. Question, always question. If someone in authority tells you something, ask for the evidence, don't just believe it.
5. Science is not done in isolation. Humans are a social beast and you need to talk with others not just in your field, but also outside of it. You won't be able to do it on your own.

That'll do for now, there may be more later.