Helen FieldsScience Writer

Goodbye, best year ever! Best year ever? Oh yes. And I’ve had a lot of good years, so that’s saying something. I mean, come on. I went to the Bering Sea and got paid to do this:

And then I went to Germany and finally started to develop a taste for beer, which seems like an important step on the road to adulthood:

And I did lots of other cool stuff, too, like knitting and going to U2 concerts and discovering an obsession with dictionaries.

So, what excitement will 2010 bring? I know I plan to write more stories about science, spend a lot of time near home, sing a bunch, knit a sweater for my mom, and generally enjoy myself. I also reserve the right to add adventures as the opportunities present themselves. Read along with me, ok?

Photos: top, Chris Linder; bottom, me.

I’m really happy to be home, but I’ve also been pleased to notice some ways that my life in Germany is sticking with me.

For example: I went to the grocery store the other day and was surprised to remember they actually give you bags here. In Germany (and in Norway, and heck, maybe in most of Europe), if you want a bag, you have to pay for it. So of course I always carried reusable bags, and so far I’m doing that here, too. I have a giant collection. Might as well put them to use. Although I don’t know what I’m going to put my recycling in when I run out of paper bags from Trader Joe’s.

On Sunday I was reading up on parking near an event I was going to when I realized, geez, it’s only two miles away, I wouldn’t have thought twice about walking that distance in Berlin. Ok, I actually would have thought twice, because two miles is far. Also, unlike this neighborhood, Berlin is flat. But I walked the two miles over hill and dale and arrived feeling virtuous. I mean, that’s three good acts in one, right? Prevented pollution, got exercise, saved money by not using my car. Oh, and saved parking for others. Four! Four good things! So my new criteria: if it’s less than two miles, why not walk? Tonight I walked to the library (two miles, then took the metro home) and yesterday I walked to Safeway (less than a mile, and now I’m embarrassed that I usually drive it).

Now if only I could convince the water in my apartment to run hot instantly like the water in my Berlin apartment, I’d be in business.

Today was my first day at the new workplace, Die Welt. (”The World.”) It’s got the same publisher as Bild but is somewhat higher-brow. For example, there are no naked ladies on the cover and very few exclamation points in the stories.

I wasn’t optimistic about my first day – I’d never managed to reach my official contact before starting, and when I reached a secretary on Friday, she appeared to be mad at me – but it went really well. I already have an assignment for tomorrow. And it’s for a story I proposed myself. At a meeting. IN GERMAN.

I showed up in the morning and spoke German and somehow they took this to mean that I actually speak German, rather than just being able to fake it in brief, uncomplicated encounters, and they keep speaking it to me. (And repeating themselves more slowly and with simpler vocabulary when I’m confused, bless their hearts.)

I’m afraid the editor thinks I am also writing my story in German. My written German is like that of a five-year-old who has only learned one or two sentence structures and has a severely limited vocabulary and was probably also raised by wolves (see example of corrections here). Of course, everyone here reads English perfectly well and I’m sure I’ll be able to get translation help if I need it. But it’s for Wednesday’s paper. So they’d better help fast.

Wish me luck.

When I’m enthusiastic about something, I tend to talk about it a lot. Earlier this year I kept posting links on Facebook to shoes I wanted from this company, whose shoes are cute, comfortable, and – oh yes – wildly expensive. I own a few pairs, because they’re sooo gooood. (Financial responsibility note: They were all on sale.)

This morning my friend Sarah was biking through my neighborhood in her early-morning haze when she saw ahead of her a pair of Fluevogs walking down the street. Wow! Fluevogs! in Berlin! She looked up, and it was me, wearing my new heels to work for the first time. Ha.

I’m so glad I asked the downstairs neighbor to do my shopping today (my illness being such that I really don’t want to leave my apartment unless it’s for a medical facility). He was fast, and it wasn’t out of his way, which was nice, but most importantly: I got to learn the ultimate German home remedy for stomach problems.

There it is, my friends. This is the value of life overseas: learning that, whatever ails your digestive system, what you really need is pretzel sticks and coke. Two doctors did ask me if I was drinking coke and seemed a little surprised that I wasn’t. I look forward to trying the local folk remedy this afternoon.

Yeah, I haven’t really blogged this week. You know why? I’ve been sick. You know the only thing worse than being sick? Being sick in a foreign country. My fellow Berlin-based Burns Fellows turn out to be princes among men and women, and they’ve been taking turns coming to my apartment with bananas, white bread, ginger ale, and other essentials to the life of a person whose digestive system is running completely freaking amok.

I finally went to the doctor today – perky, ponytail, jeans – and she told me it’s probably a virus and to avoid meat, milk, and “Hülsenfrüchte.” That last one stumped me, so she made me write it down, and I just looked it up: legumes. In case you were wondering how to say “legumes” in German. And surely someone was.

So, there’s hope. It’s probably not appendicitis. That was one of the few times I lapsed into English during the appointment. Doctor: [poking at the lower right side of my belly] [in german] “You still have your appendix.” Me: “Ja. I don’t want appendicitis.” Her: [in german] “Then we won’t talk about it anymore.”

My measure of success in a foreign language is being able to get through transactions at stores – stores where you have to talk, not supermarkets – without the other person switching to English. I’m achieving this in German, so, three cheers! Example: Today I bought a SIM card for my phone. I told the guy I wanted a SIM card, I told him, no, I didn’t already have a phone number, I said, yes, my American Handy (the german word for cellphone – nice, eh?) will work here, and signed various things, all with him only saying “Thank you” once. Yessss!

It’s a good thing I’m having successes outside of the classroom, because in my intensive German class, I’m kind of a mess. My grammar’s not bad and I think my accent is pretty decent, but my vocabulary is the size of a flea. If I ask for the meaning of a word, I get a definition that uses other words I don’t know. Today we watched a half hour of one of the TV morning shows and everybody else seemed to understand what was going on in the news stories – they could discuss content – and I was the one who the teacher had other people practice their explaining skills on. (”Oriol, can you explain Formula 1 racing to Helen?”)

Oh well, it’s probably good for me to be the laggard in a language class for once in my life. The other students have been here for several weeks already, so it’s not really fair to compare myself to them. And I really do speak quite well (evidence: the SIM card transaction). I just need to expand my vocabulary, and I think two months of living here is going to be very good for that.

The most annoying thing about Europe is the trouble it takes to get here. My flying experience, I must say, was really not that nice. The first flight, from Dulles to Newark, was in a turboprop, and it started out just fine – I fell asleep, which is my measure of a good flight, and was dozing peacefully when suddenly the plane started jumping up and down. We hit three patches in a row of serious unexpected turbulence. A coke went flying (and not onto the person who’d ordered it) and there was some minor shrieking. Also, the temperature inside the plane was about 300 degrees. I think we were all pretty happy to make it out alive.

I had a much worse moment on the second flight, though, the one from Newark to Berlin. We had to sit for two hours on the runway in Newark because of a storm, but that wasn’t the bad part – they turned on the entertainment system and brought around water and snacks, and the time went very fast. No, the problem was Atul Gawande’s book Complications, about learning to be a surgeon. When I bought this book at the airport, I forgot that I am totally squeamish. After I woke up Monday morning, I opened it up and got to about the fifth page, where he describes his first attempt to put in a central line. (It didn’t go well.) By the time I had the sense to close the book, I had broken into a full-fledged cold sweat and I thought I was going to throw up. Whoops. I really want to read this book, though – maybe I can get through if I take it a few pages at a time, and also avoid reading it in the window seat of a 757 after two hours of bad sleep.

Despite the moments of misery, I would recommend Continental – it wasn’t their fault I made a bad choice of reading material, and the pilot on the second flight was really good about keeping us updated and informed during the two hours of waiting.

Since a lot of what I do for a living is type while talking on the phone, I thought it would be smart to sort out my headset issues. (See vivid visual representation of headset issues here.)

I do have a headset – it’s the kind with a little plug that goes into the side of a cordless phone. But it doesn’t really work. I have to strain to hear, especially with quieter people. Which is a problem when I’m trying to type what they’re saying, understand what they’re saying, laugh at their jokes, and think of my next question, all at the same time.

First I looked into getting one of those headsets that goes on an old-school corded phone, between the thing you hold in your hand and the base of the phone. I had these at my last two jobs and they worked great. But when I looked into those headsets, I discovered why it was always such a huge production to get the office people to order one. At the low end, they’re about $150, and they go up (way up) from there.

It was time to consider alternatives. My dad has the same basic setup as me – a cheap headset that plugs into the side of a cordless phone – but he claims that his actually works. So I decided to try the scientific method. I spent a day at my parents’ house, trying out various alternatives while I reported a story about piranhas. First, I did an interview with my dad’s headset and cordless phone. Yep – it worked. I could hear.

Next, I talked to someone while using my dad’s cordless phone and *my* headset. Whaddya know – that worked, too. So clearly the problem was not with the headset, it was my cheapo cordless phone, right? So I bought a better phone, for about $40. I brought it home. I plugged in my headset (already proven to work). I called my dad to test it while typing. And it still wasn’t loud enough.

It turns out I’d left out one factor: When I’m at my parents’ house, I type on my laptop keyboard. When I’m at home, I type on my external keyboard, which goes CLACKETY CLACKETY CLACKETY. The problem wasn’t my headset – it was that my keyboard is too dang loud. So now I do phone interviews with the headset on my left ear and an earplug in my right. This also blocks out the sounds of the AC and the occasional freight train. I did other tests and discovered that my cheapo cordless phone was also part of the problem, so I’m using the new phone, too.

And everybody is happy! Except my massage therapist. Ha ha, kidding – I can’t afford massages. I was just going to mess up my shoulder and enjoy it, dang it. While walking uphill both ways. In the snow.

I really need a new headset.

I didn’t take a picture of the right side of my face for comparison, but I’ll just assure you that my other ear is not bright red, nor are the buttons of my phone imprinted into my other cheek.

I have a headset that plugs into one of my cordless phones. But with that setup, I can barely hear the people who talk really loud, let alone people like the very quiet scientist I just interviewed. What I want is a headset that plugs into the corded phone, between the phone and the handset. I have a feeling the good ones cost a lot of money. I had a really good one at my last job, but I’m just too darn moral to steal office equipment. Sigh.