Warm, kalt, warm, kalt und dazwischen das chinesische Neujahr

So, die ersten 2 Wochen sind geschafft und ich hab mich wieder gut eingewöhnt. =) Es ist schön, dass einen jetzt so viele Leute kennen und einladen. Das macht das triste Leben doch etwas schöner!

Puh! Ansonsten spielt bei uns das Wetter verrückt. Am Sonntag waren es hier noch über 20°C und am Montag dann nur noch 4°C! Man muss also jeden morgen erstmal das Wetter checken um die Garderobe entsprechend zu wählen.
Am Samstag und an dem davor war ich mit Freunden Badminton spielen. Jetzt nicht die aufregendste Sportart aber es hat richtig Spass gemacht und ich hoffe, dass wir das regelmäßig machen. Sport mit Freunden ist doch immer schöner als einfach im Kreis um den Campus zu rennen.
Am Freitag haben wir beim international Dinner das chinesische Neujahr gefeiert. Die machen das nach dem Mondkalender und deswegen fällt das anders. Ich bin schon 2 Stunden vorher dagewesen und hab mitgeholfen das Essen vorzubereiten. Es gab ganz viel verschiedenes chinesisches Essen und war suuper lecker. Vorallem die selbstgemachten Frühlingsrollen! Und so viel Chinesisch wie an dem Abend hab ich woh in meinem ganzen Leben noch nicht gehört.

Ansonsten hat sich noch nicht viel getan. Bald kommen die ersten Tests auf mich zu und mein erstes Paper hab ich auch schon geschrieben. Ich werde es hier reinstellen. Dann könnt ihr es lesen wenn euch langweilig ist.
In 2 Wochen fliegt die Miriam zurück nach Deutschland und ich muss bin dahin meinen texanischen Führerschein gemacht haben -.- sollte aber nicht allzuschwer werden... hoffe ich jedenfalls!

Soo, dann wünsche ich euch noch eine angenehme Woche und bis auf bald...

Lena


Serendipity

As I saw “serendipity” on the board and my first thought was: “What kind of a word is that? I have never heard it before!” Well, I came home and the first thing I did was to look it up in a dictionary. The first entry I found was at www.dictionary.com and says this:
“ser⋅en⋅dip⋅i⋅ty: [ser-uh n-dip-i-tee] –noun
1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
2. good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job she applied for.”
The German translation says the same as the first point. We do not have a compatible translation. I was so astonished by that that I decided to write my paper about the word itself and not so much about its meaning.
Supposedly this word was first mentioned in a letter from the English author Horace Walpole. He was the 4. Earl of Orford (was born 24. September 1717 in London; died 2. March 1797 in London) and a British author, politician and artist. Walpole is considered as the founder of the “Gothic Novel” and also of the English landscaping.
In this particular letter of January 28, 1754, Warpole wrote that "this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word." He explained to his friend Horace Mann who was an English ambassador Warpole met on his trip trough the European continent, that he made this word out of an old name from Sri Lanka, Serendip. Which is a part of the title of "a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of..." he goes on. This fairytale was probably written by the Indian-Persian poet Amir Khusro. But mentioning a word in a letter makes is not known all over the Anglophone part of the world. In 1945 Robert K. Merton (1910-2003) an American sociologist was the first who used „Serendipity“ in his work „The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity“ and popularized it primarily in the scientific language use.
At last I want to mention some famous examples for serendipity like the discovery of the American continent by Christoph Kolumbus 1492. He and his crew had been on the Atlantic Ocean for about one month and they almost decided to turn around as they finally hit an island and called it “San Salvadore”. Actually there were looking for a sea route to India and they found the American continent.
Another great serendipity was the finding of Penicillin. After Alexander Flemming came back to his hospital after summer break he noticed a molded bacterial culture. Special about this culture was that in the directly surroundings of the mold fungus the bacteria did not grow. So he started some tests discovered the Antibiotics and saved the lives of countless people.
The last example is about a very simple but useful thing known as the Post-it. Spencer Silver an employee at “3M” in 1968 was looking for a new super glue which was supposed to be stronger than every other glue. But the result was just a sticky mass which could be put on every surface but it also was easily to remove. Making a sticky pin board out of it was not the best idea. It was a shelf warmer and so they stopped making it. Years later 1974 Art Fry a member of a church choir remembered his workmate’s invention because his bookmarks always fell out of his music book while standing. Fry got a little of this glue put it on his bookmarks and it worked. They did not fall out and he could remove them easily. The Post-it was invented.
A lot of things were invented or discovered by a lucky accident or just by serendipity. These inventions made our lives easier or they even saved our lives. During my research I found a quote by serendipity that fits really well in my opinion and I want to close with that.
“Coincidence just benefits a prepared spirit.”