A few weeks ago I was in Germany. I arrived at the Frankfurt train station. I was in no rush so when I saw a big bookstore I went in. I love hanging out in bookstores. So it being a bookstore where most of the books would be in German wasn’t a deterrent. One book piqued my interest. It was titled “The devil lies in the detail”. I flipped through it, saw this chart:
![](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=2374bbc20e&view=fimg&th=14f5d3011aeec70d&attid=0.1&disp=emb&realattid=14f5bd91b02a55aa1051&attbid=ANGjdJ8k_EzkIWoeSZQq0a7LJO4eZuQn9QFTNLPkTFgCH1H2lq46DoWwjOkc5bbQgpOPU_FhPnLjqv5DFkge0c9wef2meUthG4RwoCruUi4TD9XdymHtYelrZ5-yRuY&sz=s0-l75-ft&ats=1446178449882&rm=14f5d3011aeec70d&zw&atsh=1)
So I bought the book. (Seems I can’t come back from an international trip without a book or two.) It’s a German book in German about English language. My German is not that good yet so I have to read it with dictionary but the first chapter is already hilarious. The author recounts a scene he overheard. A German lady in England asked at an ice-cream stand: “Can I please have two ice balls”. To which the seller replied: “My ice balls are not for sale, Ma’am!” If she had said “two scoops of ice-cream” it wouldn’t be such noteworthy conversation.
Anyways, this is an example of how I follow my curiosity. One thing will lead to another, and I am reading a book in German.
It is the same with this Personal PhD project. I don’t know where it is going to get me in 5 years, but I am convinced its gonna be some place awesome.
Already it has taken me places I didn’t plan for in the beginning. For example IÂ explored how to visualize my progress on the curriculum (thanks Dominique for the suggestion!)
See here:
![](https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/cpqnWIQlQRrTK1Dj8r0hlxBByl1mqe2vphRrTdICa7yEKovst84l23Otdm6F6FahX6Bo6nTa0P-vnL-XL5UM1CVI51cJ_2bGfc4DPASJNgM=s0-d-e1-ft#https://infogram.io/p/8a587ec0b40db233371eac4d5d0e46ae.png)
https://infogr.am/personal_phd_progress_q1
I picked infogr.am as its a startup I have heard a lot about (it is a Latvian startup). The result is best I could do with free version in half an hour. 🙂
Oh, and by the way. That brushing up on my German was very useful. While I was on vacation in Germany I was able to buy train tickets, order food, check in the hotel. Even though the total studying time didn’t add up to much, hearing it a little every day helped a lot. If anything I was able to keep the conversation going in German however broken as opposed the other person switching to English right away. So I am done with my 30 days of learning German but I will extend it to read the new book.