Chapter 1

I had my first week of classes so far: Physiology, History of Medicine, Pharmacology, VIBS 311, and German.

A lot of my peers have warned me about Physiology being incredibly difficult so I for sure need to keep my eye in that class. So far, it's interesting and I've noticed that the powerpoints are diagram heavy. The enmodes related part of the course sounds difficult yet doable; we had a presentation and meeting in Aachen. (I was also able to try some prinen in Aachen — there were so many different options!) I won't be able to talk about the project for half a decade so I guess you'll just have to know it's related to my physiology class. I hope the group I'm in works well together.

The first lecture of History of Medicine has a lot of similar content to one of my previous classes, Great Diseases of the World. History/Social Studies is one of my favorite school subjects, so getting to take a history class that's somewhat related to the career field is refreshing. 

In my German language class, I could not pronounce the number 8 very well and the whole class figured that out quite quickly. The book for the class is picture heavy - hopefully there's a good section for pronouncing the words well. Despite using the DB Navigator, google maps, and the paper schedule, I was late to my german class due to a train hogging the train tracks, which made my train cancelled. Some people started asking me for clarification on direction which was weird and there have been times I have missed my bus or subway by a few minutes where it increased my commuting time home by about 40 minutes. (I take the bus and either a train or subway to get home!)

Pharmacology so far is interesting - I see why one of my friends decided his career choice based on this course. I did have a huge empty gap period this week for this class and hopefully that does not become routine.

My required writing course for my degree (VIBS 311) already seems a bit intense, but that's probably because I consider myself a slow writer.

This program is definitely not slow though - right away we went on an excursion to Mayschoss Altenahr and learned about the local history, background on wine, and got to know our peers a bit better during a tour and wine tasting activity. 

Our biosciences program had a Scavenger hunt at Rheinaue park with the other AIB programs. Despite the windy cold weather, seeing the UN building and other related landmarks such as the spoons and gardens was quite pretty. I was part of Team Pink who had not only reached the end first but also was first place in the race, which was surprising to me as I did not expect to be close to the top — after all, the majority of answers should have been the same for each group. Afterwards, we had an AIB Welcome Event with our host families while each program performed skit. I love meeting new people, so it was nice to mingle a bit despite the language barriers and awkward small talk conversations. Apparently there are two other students who live in my street, but they are in different study abroad programs. 

When I got home from the AIB welcome event, my host mom advised me to start planning for weekend trips on Sunday, as the majority of shops in town are closed and my school load is not too heavy. That was an excellent idea, as an initial plan to go to Amsterdam was made — however, the travel and housing prices for Brussels, Belgium were extraordinarily cheaper which helped convince a large share of the class to head to Brussels in the future. Additionally, I also shopped around in Bonn for essentials, such as notebooks and shampoo. In Cologne, our group took a tour of the area as well as climb to almost the top of the Cathedral. The view was break taking and beautiful, but at one point I was nervous. I was definitely scared when one of my classmates spooked me that I even teared up a little! The entire time when we were going up and climbing down, I felt like I was a character in a video game -- maybe Eragon or Assassins Creed?

Everything seems to be happening at quite a fast pace, which I don’t have many complaints for, but I hope this semester doesn’t go by too fast! The beginning has just started.

                                                                Aachen Cathedral next to a Printen shop