First Day as PA

Arrival at 9 am, welcoming receptionist, ensuing picture for badge, followed by an appointed with a nice person from HR. Followed by many more talks with even more nice people from HR. I had a great morning!

Discovery of my office on the fourth floor. 

Followed by a very pleasant lunch with one of the Directors.
Received a key, met my nice office neighbours.

Followed by a discovery of the various levels of ESA HQ Nikis and of who sits where. Met more nice and friendly people. Asked for some posters to add some colour to my new office. Discovered some hardware along the way.

And finally had some coordination meetings with my new colleagues followed by a high level meeting. All in all, a wonderful first day!

And now I need to finish my lecture for Friday.
PA by day, lecturer by night.

ESA Programme Advisor at the ready?

Yes! Programme Advisor to the Director General at the ready!

Yes, I know, this is supposed to be a blog about birdies. Real birdies. Not about some human thinking that because she is taking on a new super cool job, with wonderful new perspectives and responsibilities, that she too can fly just like a birdy.

But I just can't help it. I am so eager to take everything that I have learned so far and put it at the service of ESA and hence of Europe! Working hard is something I am seriously looking forward to. That, together with all the challenges that I know lie ahead.

Tommorrow will be my first day at ESA and I am curious as to what it will bring my way.

Cooperation, new technologies and missions, new paradigms, more cooperation, mediation, meeting and interacting with many new people in many new disciplines, new dimensions, myriads of stakeholders - old and new - ... these only some of the aspects that will keep me busy....

What is there not to be excited about and hence feel like you are flying?

High Season...

...I am thrilled!

A pair of Great Tits is nesting in the wood-concrete nesting box in the north-wing of the garden. 8 eggs so far and the female has started brooding.

I discovered a nest of Black Redstart (Phoenicurus ochruros) in the carport.

(source: wikipedia)

Two eggs so far. I will check again tomorrow. I have no idea how many eggs they generally lay. It is a mostly moss, twigs, dried grass nest. I will post pictures later.

And I saw a Blue Tit carrying moss into the wooden nesting box in the east-wing.

High season!

Birdies come and go

Yesterday was my last day at work, party and everything. I did not think that it would be quite so hard. Or rather, I knew that it would be hard but knowing is one thing, living it is another.

 

It feels weird leaving ones nest, as I call it, and at the same time it feels right. In some ways it is not different from when I left home for uni. In most ways it is exactly the same thing, the only thing being different, when all the details like space and time are shed, is how I see and relate to the events around me.

It feels weird because it is a strange mix of the things that I made to fill my life and of the people, each very special and unique, that quite spontaneously and of their own accord filled it even more in ways in which things never could.

I was asked if there are any earlier pictures of me at DLR...well here is one:

Back in days... in Köln....as a PhD Student who had decided that space transportation systems are THE enablers of all space activities.

But this is not a post intended for reminiscence. It is a thank you post and a forward-looking one.

Thank you to all those that pushed me forward not by pushing but just by serving my infinite curiosity and my enthusiam with chances.

The chance for a PhD, the chance to do testing at a testbench, the chance to build up a group and bring people together, the chance to pose questions and find and provide answers, to guide and be guided.....the chance to find solutions in scientific research, the chance to address high-level concerns and again bring even more people together to help decision makers provide the right answers, the chance to question standards and indicate alternative routes, and to then follow these other roads to success and shared joy and pride, the chance to grow and discover through hard work and dedication,....the list is truly endless,....

I, for one thing, I am looking forward to my next destination and even more to the road thereto.

I went to visit my PhD supervisor today - my second PhD - to inform him that I will not be able to continue as my road to ESA will no longer allow me to find the time to do what I had embared upon a few years ago (back then when I had but my group and research in Lampoldshausen): exoplanets and SOFIA.

I entered his office with a heavy heart as I felt that I had to part from something that I did not want to part from. I left happy having discovered a whole new level of interation with him: not student and professor, but rather two people interested in making a seemless chain of innovation in space a reality.

Chances.

With great power - the power of giving and receiving chances - comes great responsibility.

Restless sleep

First night since nest building

It took the Great Tit female about a week to build her nest.

And tonight for the first night, she is sleeping in it. Which makes me believe that there is an egg too!

 

This is based on observations of past years. Great Tit females I have observed in the past started sleeping in the completed nest, only after they had started laying eggs.

As, however, this birdy seems to be going about things slightly differently she might be also ignoring what I just assume is a constant in the Great Tit world. 

I will change the camera view tonight and hopefully we will find out soon.

At any rate assuming she did lay an egg we can also just count the days (1 egg/day at most)...and perhaps that will also help.

...and...just because I can...a cool space video: http://bit.ly/1Y9cqBM

Just for the record

..yeah, just for the record. Oh and it was not an April Fools'...