I'm writing this blog post right now on a grayish afternoon in my "new" office in the Willersbau. My fellow PhD student is also in the room. And I have a bit of time left until I meet with a friend to talk math. ## What Happened So Far? Not much to be honest, at least on the work side. The only teaching I have done has been the one I have been doing for years at the start of every semester. The main administrative tasks have been the ones I need to do to convince the university that I am actually a PhD student and academic staff here. The math I have been doing has broadly boiled down to the math I have been doing in my master's thesis. Only now my advisor and (now) boss is more involved and active with it, since we are trying to build a paper out of it. I have, of course, been doing way more math than before, and I still very much enjoy it. So I guess while not interesting, it is not bad. ## And on the Personal Side? Different story entirely. Where to begin... - I met the platonic ideal of a guy who tries so hard to be the most progressive at the table, that he circles around to being pretty reactionary. It felt like what a twitter user would think a tumblr user is like. - A friend and I might have prevented a femicide? We can't be sure of course, but we (to be fair mainly he) definitely stopped domestic violence. That's something, isn't it. Quite a thing to carry into a work week. - I met an incredible woman during a great karaoke evening. The first (and probably last) time in my life woman in the span of 1 hour yelled at me that she loved my spongebob reference, body-checked me, meowed at me, sang with me, showed me her bird, and told me I could bring my girlfriend to our wedding. We (intentionally from my side) did not exchange contact, but I hope to meet her sometime in the future again and she even told me at what events that might be. - I have attended on of my last (as a student member) faculty board meeting of my "career", which incidentally also became one of the most interesting. - My girlfriend has been sick, so we haven't been together all that much. I would've liked to write more about us, but we really haven't seen each other that much since I started. - I have accepted that I have developed an interest in fashion (thanks Vaush) and intent to spent my first paycheck on a few, but very high quality, articles. I might do blog posts on them. I am still debating that. - And lastly, maybe most importantly, I have been reminded that I, despite all the personal progress I have achieved, am still heavily traumatized. I will probably need some sort of therapy for that whole schlep, but hey, where to get that in any sensible time frame? Let's see how that story goes. I am definitely more positive with that topic than I have been in the last two years. - Bunch of other stuff probably which I am leaving our for brevity. Overall, a very interesting and not at all interesting first two weeks. Let's see where this ride goes. ~16.10.2025