Week 11- I Got Some Exercise

This week was our second week in a row in Bonn without traveling- shocking, I know. It's funny that this is a big deal, because in the U.S. we'll stay in the same city without leaving for months on end. We had a lot going on in school this week, so staying around was the best option. On Monday, I gave my presentation in pharmacology. It had to be at least 15 minutes long and was worth as much as a final exam. I was pretty nervous and spent way too much time procrastinating and preparing for it. Luckily, it ended up going pretty well. Everyone was really receptive and we had a nice discussion after, even though I presented on some pretty dense health policy stuff. The next day was Uniklinik day. I actually hadn't been particularly looking forward to it because I've shadowed a lot of doctors and I'm not planning to go to medical school. I spent the day in urology- the first surgery was a cancer surgery deep in the patient's abdomen, while the second surgery was very painful looking (I won't elaborate). My first glance at the exposed insides of the human body was pretty shocking- it is so red in there! I wasn't sure how I would handle it, but I was able to watch all day without feeling faint or sick. The physicians weren't very talkative, but there was a German medical student with me who was very kind and helpful. I learned a lot from her about education in Germany, and she made the day a lot more interesting and enjoyable.

I spent most of the weekend struggling for a variety of reasons. I spent countless hours holed up in my room studying for my physiology test. My Sunday was a physical struggle of epic proportions- run 6.2 miles without having trained at all. I know that that's pretty irresponsible, but a lot of my friends didn't train either so I figured we could do really poorly and laugh about it together. When the time came, I was pretty worried about how it would go. Luckily, it ended up being a pretty fun and memorable experience. The weather was nice and it was nice to run under the cherry blossoms. I was able to run pretty well for the first 25 minutes and then I would take walking breaks every now and then. It also wasn't too embarrassing to walk because I was the third leg, and by that point my relay team was so far behind everyone else that there weren't that many people left to cheer for me/ see me struggle. It was a wonderful feeling to finish my leg (1 hr 10 minutes- I know that's pretty subpar). An hour or so later, I rejoined the race for the last few hundred meters to finish with my 4th leg, Nathan. It was fun to finish together and then eat an irresponsible amount of free food. I was extremely sore the next day, but I'm glad I did it.