Oddly, enough the bus strike almost made my week more fun. Lois and I decided to sleepover at Darby's house so that we would only have a twenty minute walk to school instead of some sort of hour-and-a-half long walk/bus combo. On the way back, Lois and I took one of the still functioning buses halfway -- or at least that was the plan. We ended up in the next village because we mixed up the bus stop names. It was nice weather for the hour walk back, thankfully. In preparation for the marathon, I also got a couple of runs in, which were very nice in the 50-60 degree weather.
The school week was one of the busiest. We had class at 8:45 everyday, mostly in preparation for the Enmodes presentation this Friday. Our class was split up into three groups of eight people; big groups are great for getting lots done, but sometimes it's hard to communicate and divide up the work. I learned a lot about SolidWorks and about clearly explaining complex ideas (that one took some work and a few different revisions of the powerpoint). Wednesday and Thursday were long days spent only working on the project. I had expected to be able to finish up earlier than we did, but we kept running into some hiccups. Eventually though, everything was all sorted out, and we were able to run through our final presentation multiple times. I was excited with how our presentation (and how the other groups') turned out on Friday. We presented to two Enmodes employees. For the afternoon, we got to visit the Cardiac Engineering department at RWTH Aachen University. I also really enjoyed that part. The two PhD students showed us different Aortic heart valves, a simulation lab for testing them, and many other lab things. I really enjoy learning about different research projects, especially when I can connect them with concepts I already know. Our Enmodes project dealt a lot with the cardiovascular system, so the different procedures and technologies we used in our presentations were similar to the ones they described.
Saturday, the AiB put on a Big Event, somewhat modeled after A&M's. My group got to go volunteer at a donation center, Zentrallager Sachspenden Bonn. They act as a organizer and storage site for donations that other organizations can come and collect from. Initially, their main focus was on refugees, but now since the crisis has subsided in this area, they focus mostly on homeless people. My station involved basic sorting through donations to see which were worth keeping and which should be recycled. I really enjoyed working with and getting to know some of the AiB student workers; I definitely should have talked to them sooner! It's nice to see that volunteering and service is important everywhere! After we finished up, my group went and got some gelato and walked around the Altstadt to see all of the cherry blossoms. It was so crowded. Travelers from other cities come just to see the cherry blossoms.
Sunday was centered around the Bonn Marathon, and not just for me, but for the whole city. The route was along the Rhine and circled around both sides of the river. I ran the second, 7-mile leg of the relay. It was a bit warm, but other than that I really enjoyed it! I love things like this. It was fun to run, but just as fun to cheer everyone else on. The main town square had the finish line, lots of music, and lots of people cheering. The Hofgarten also had tents for food and drinks for all of the runners. The marathon here in Bonn is one of the ways that they welcome the spring season! I am enjoying that everyone here finds ways to enjoy the nice weather.
Random Takeaways
SolidWorks does not like to export nice looking animations.
Practice does make things better! (particularly for presentations)
Running is nicer in the shade.
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