The learning curve

The first week of any new job is always hectic, especially while living abroad... but loving the city of Leipzig and its quirks makes it easy!

Abandoned textile factory in the Leipzig suburb of Plagwitz

My work day starts the same way as many Leipzigers': on a trusty but rusty bike bought off Ebay. My noble steed and I commute some 40 minutes to the Helmholtz Center, weaving our way through the numerous other travelers who use the bike lanes that border almost every major road in the city. We pass through the new and old, the city center with its well-kempt gardens and ponds and shopping centers and tramways, and the outskirts of town, with its abandoned factories and community gardens and graffiti-coated walls. Both sections of the city have their own charm.

The Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research is composed of eleven buildings, each specializing in a different facet of research. I work in the effect-directed analysis department, or "WANA," its German acronym, within the analytical chemistry sector. Early this week, I recieved my assignment. My project will be to chemically analyze water and suspended particulate matter (SPM) samples collected at 13 different locations throughout Europe along the Danube river as part of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program Project (EU-FP7), entitled “Solutions for present and future emerging pollutants in land and water resources management.” This program aims to provide an evidence-base framework for future water quality policy development.

During my time at the Helmholtz Center, I will be performing chemical assessments on suspended particulate matter (SPM) and large-volume solid phase extracted (LVSPE) water samples collected along the Danube by using liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Thus this week was spent primarily doing bibliograhic research on protocols and methodologies, and preparing my water and sediment samples for cleaning and analysis.

We'll see what next week brings!