Oven issues

I got myself a Morphy Richards electric oven here in India after years of gas oven in the US.

I feel like the oven and I are speaking totally different languages. There's a guy in lab who looks at me like that when I talk... he gets this slightly shifty-eyed look, slight panic and nods to everything I say. And I know, just totally know, that he hasn't understood a word. Poor guy- he's good with the wet lab work and he's a genuinely nice guy. I just need to speak slower... or in a different language. We haven't had too many issues though, because we both have multiple translators, all of whom who understand that neither of us really "gets" the other and spend long periods of time helping us figure the other out.

I wish I had such multiple translators with my oven. Just when I gave up on it entirely last year, it magically made me the most amazing chocolate lava cake (I wasn't actually trying to make lava cake, just plain chocolate sheet cake, but hey). Then when I actually tried to make lava cake, I ended up with a dung-like lump instead.

The thing with it is, it's small. And it has two heating rods on top and two heating rods on the bottom. There are also controls to tell the oven which rods to turn on. This took me a while to realize (maybe this is obvious to others), but you can't actually just turn on all 4 rods for every baking project. Different baking utensils, different baking items require you to either turn on just the top, or just the bottom or switch from bottom to top halfway through the bake or vice versa. Different projects also require you to turn the vessel halfway through the bake to let the front go to the back and so on.

Baking has gone from me just plonking something in the oven and getting something reasonably good-tasting out, to me having to focus and visualize every step... it's as intricate as any molecular biology experiment. It requires reaching the same Zen-like state of "I've done the absolute best I can. The rest is out of my hands"... karmaNi eVa aDhikarasyE, ma phalEshu kadachana, as Krishna would say. Who would have thought baking would be a such a sure shot way to appreciate the Gita?

Anyway, Durga and I baked sponge cake today. I was watching it like a hawk, turning the knob to switch from top heater to bottom heater, barking orders to Durga and so on. Finally, it looked good, it smelled good so I pulled it out and stuck a knife in it, which came out clean. Hurray, we said and set it on the rack to cool.
But just then, I saw liquid goo ooze out of a hole. Gah! It only got done on one side properly (had forgotten to turn the vessel). So this time, turned the undone side towards the back, fiddled with the knobs again and turned the oven back on.
Two minutes later, more goo oozed out. Oh! Maybe this is for the good- the goo must be expanding inside and coming out, I think.
Fiddle with knobs some more and start getting the smell of burning cake.
Aaarrgh!
Popped it all out and let it rest. I'll cut the done bits and throw out the undone stuff where ever it is hiding.

I Googled "I hate my oven" and came across this. Is it weird that every single one commenting there is a guy?