You know those days you spend warming back up after a break? Well, lucky you. We dove right back in after the break, just as expected and I did my best to keep up. There was a brutal biomechanics test on Friday as well, but let me not get ahead of myself. Thursday we were served an excellent lunch from the AIB to get us nice and fattened up before our bus ride to the Horst-Stoeckel Museum of the History of Anesthesia. Our tour was given to us by none other than the god of modern anesthesia himself, Prof. Dr. Stoeckel, who filled the museum with some of his personally built collection of historical devices. Though he was not a particularly dynamic speaker, there was something humbling about getting a first-hand tour from a man as accomplished as he is. Doing that sort of job post-retirement can only be accomplished by someone who is completely enthralled by their work and I can really appreciate that.
So I got sick this week and then I got sicker. What started out as the sniffles end up as a lot of throat pain, recurring headaches, and recently a bad cough. Also there may have been a little eye infection in between but that was unrelated. Most of us have been sick at one time or another, so I suppose this was just my turn, but that rationalization didn’t help much while I was trying to study. In a funny coincidence, when I finally went to get some medicine to help with all this on Thursday I was given an anesthetic for my throat as well as some aspirin. It wasn’t a pleasant experience trying to do work that night, but what can you do?
Friday, once we were done with class a few of us met up at the high school my host brother attends and played some basketball on their outdoor court. There weren’t many people around at first, but a good number of kids showed up after a while and it ended up being a lot of fun. Talking to the Germans there (most in their last days as high school students getting ready to move on to college) about their futures was pretty interesting. I noticed that there is a trend amongst most of the high school students that I’ve met to want to go to distant places for their university education including schools like Oxford, California at Berkley, and a couple of Dutch schools. I’m definitely looking forward to playing and talking with more Germans our age in the future.
A common comment amongst people we meet is, “You need to learn German!” After I heard the same from one of my host sisters this week, I decided I’m going to do my best to develop my language skills more in the month or so left in the program. It is really convenient that many Europeans, and Germans in particular, are decent English speakers, but I’ve noticed it doesn’t compare to the way they speak in German. I feel like that would create a different sort of connection that I’d love to be able to establish, but then there is only so much we can do in the time we have.
Saturday was Megan’s birthday and that was a great way to relax after weeks of craziness and classes. Congrats to her on turning 20 and have a nice Sunday night everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment