7 - Week 1: New Kid on the Block 5ieme - Geneve

 Friday, February 28

Alrighty, last day of the first work week.  Let's finish strong today 😂  The day started with one of the chemists presenting at 8:30, which I managed to pay good attention to initially but as we delved further into chemistry beyond my periphery I got lost.  After that, I had the morning to read a couple reports while fighting off drowsiness, the office was very quiet today.  

It was chilly this morning, evidenced by frost on the fields.

Step into my office.  A very different take on the office compared to home.  

At lunchtime, my offer earlier in the week to join a colleague for un footing came due and he showed me where the locker room was.  We kept the run short (30 minutes) since he had a meeting at 1:30 but it was really impressive how the site has some nice trails along a forested river or hilly vineyards; by contrast, we only have gritty roadways and garbage-laden wetland near my NJ office.  It was a quick run but I greatly enjoyed it and I think a bit of exercise was what I needed.  

One of the first things of the run was to cross a bridge; my colleague was unsure if I wanted the graffiti in the background, I optimistically called it modern art. 

I was underdressed compared to everyone else but with the sun and 8C weather, I was doing a-ok temperature-wise.  

The afternoon saw me enter a lab for orientation.  My goal here wasn't to take up a chemist position, but this seemed like a good opportunity to engage more with the chemists in their home.  I might be a fish out of water in the lab but it's true that plenty of chemical engineers work in labs, or at least I know a few who've done PhDs working in labs.  This will also be a good excuse to spend more time in the chemist building, which is across the street from the engineers building; there's many more chemists I'm supposed to visit than engineers.  

I finished the work day with a meeting talking to people in NJ.  I think the run really caught up to me because I started to feel exhausted all of two minutes after telling them I had just about licked the jet lag.  Anyhow, the meeting wrapped in a reasonable time with a few action items sent my way but these were things already on my checklist unofficially, so it's nice to have the official stamp on them.  

I managed to snag the 5:53 train back to Geneva and made it home in time to relax a bit before dinner.  I'm super tired but I still need to make a choice about tomorrow's activities.  I was waffling between trying to ski or playing it closer to Geneva but I think I'm gonna try to ski in the Valais canton, where I'd received a few recommendations.  I'll have about 1.5 hours on the train to decide where exactly I want to ski, I just need to dress warmly and fuel up.