Was sagst du? 樣樣都德

I can stop complaining about boring Sundays in December; at least the Christmas markets are open on Sundays and are a good way to kill time! Last Sunday (16th December) I made a trip with two other Hong Kong friends to Nuremberg, in order to visit the famous Christmas market there. 十二月的星期日絕無悶場——起碼可逛逛聖誕市集！我和另兩個香港朋友便在上星期日（16日）往紐倫堡，打算見識一下當地有名的聖誕市集。 A chance to start shopping upon arrival at Nuremberg railway station already! A huge vending machine that can rival a small convenience store. 甫到紐倫堡火車站，便見到這座可媲美小型便利店的售賣機，相信在售賣機林立的日本也沒有如此方便而包羅萬有的售賣機！ The Old Town part of Nuremberg lies behind the city walls, and that was where we were heading. 踏過城門，便進入紐倫堡舊城區。 We took time to explore the streets en route to the Christmas market. 未到達聖誕市集前先看看街景。 We must be getting close! 聖誕市集應快到了吧？ There were in fact several Christmas markets scattered across the town, the largest one being in the main square. 聖誕市集原來分好幾個，最主要的市集就位於大廣場。 We walked through the market row by row and saw quite a few interesting things.

My colleagues organised a ski trip on Sunday 9th December. It's my first time going to a ski field in the Alps and I haven't tried skiing before, so it was an opportunity not to be missed! We headed off to Skiwelt Wilder Kaiser in Scheffau, Austria. Before heading up the slopes, I needed to rent some skiing equipment. The first challenge to skiing came from the ski boots. They formed a very tight wrap around the calves and the feet to the extent that the feet basically became fixed. While I appreciate that this would offer the best protection against twisting ankles, the boots also rendered normal walking movements clumsy and robotic. Up on the hills, I put my boots into the skis and tried my best to navigate around, but I couldn't even manage my way up a very slight, harmless slope. My colleagues were finally convinced that I really needed some skiing lessons, like what I told them before! Thus I booked myself into a 2-hour private lesson. I first learnt how to walk on the

Last Tuesday at work, a new face was sitting at the communal computer in my office. Since we normally settle our visitors down at that computer, I thought that she was only another of those guests. I had things to do at my computer, and after we greeted each other I settled into my routine, plugged the earphones into my ears to listen to music while doing the work. It was going to be just another normal day, but to my surprise the visitor started cleaning the empty desk next to mine some time after 16:00. Only then did it dawn on me that she was a new colleague! I took off my earphones in no time and introduced myself to her while apologising for being impolite for the whole day. She smiled and told me that she had wanted to talk to me earlier but decided against it since I had my earphones on. I felt a little awkward because I certainly didn't mean to be cool towards her and I'm hardly that type of person! I only wanted to keep myself wakeful and alert at the computer with the

Our whole department went for a retreat at the Seeon Monastery this Monday to Tuesday (26th and 27th November). A main purpose of the retreat is for the students and junior post-doctoral staff like me to give a presentation on our projects and keep our departmental head in touch of our progress. Giving a presentation itself was no job too difficult, but the biggest challenge by far was to pack my 3 projects and the introduction into just 15 minutes. On the other hand, it was probably no easy task for the departmental head, who had to sit through more than 30 talks and absorb them all! 本週一至週二（11月26至27日），實驗室全體前往Seeon修道院「避靜」（Retreat），凡是學生或像我這些年資淺的博士後研究員，都得準備為時15分鐘演講，好讓老總掌握各人工作的最新進展。演講本身不是難事，但要把引言及三個研究項目濃縮至15分鐘，倒是最考功夫之處。做老總的也不易，要一連聽取三十來篇匯報兼且吸收，委實需要些特異功能才行。 Even though we were at a retreat, we managed to engage ourselves in a couple of battles! On Monday evening, we did battle at the bowling lane - well, it wasn't exactly bowling, but rather a German variation of skittles called kegel.

After 5 straight days of the Neuroscience Meeting, my brain felt a bit drained and needed recharging. A short break was what I needed! My first day of holiday was about shopping. The prices of many goods in the US are lower to start with (e.g. compared to Europe), and there's generally a greater variety to choose from. The freefalling greenback now makes it more affordable than ever to indulge a splurge in the US. Little wonder then I have spent about US$200 on books alone; a few of them were purchased during the conference where I could make use of special discounts. An old friend of mine came to join me from Stanford (in the San Francisco Bay Area) that evening for a short break as well. The next day, we set off with a couple of other people from our hostel to the aircraft carrier USS Midway, which is now decommissioned, docked in the San Diego Bay and turned into a museum. Our first impression upon entering the hangar deck was that the Midway was rather different from other norm