The primary reason that I am in Germany is to work at the Astrophysics Institute in Potsdam (AIP), outside of Berlin. I’m here to research small stars and form new collaborations with other researchers. I went into my first day at the institute feeling confident and prepared. I’ve been doing astronomy research for three years already. I had visited the institute a few weeks prior, so I knew how to get there and where my office would be. My research advisor, who is my boss and mentor for this year, is someone that I’ve known for a while. I figured that, in this new country where everything feels a little foreign, doing research would be the thing with which I felt totally familiar. Within my first few days, my office mate invited me to eat lunch in the cafeteria with her and some other scientists. Although everyone was very nice, said hello to me and introduced themselves, sitting at lunch felt kind of uncomfortable. I was used to eating lunch with astronomers back home, where I always knew it was lunch time when I heard laughter echoing down the halls. Everyday I had to be careful not to spend too much time at the lunch table, because I could spend hours chatting with the other scientists. Here, however, lunch was a quick 30 minutes with only scattered conversation. Part of what made me so uncomfortable was not being sure how to act.
