What a
week of little sleep and lots of stress!
 |
| Ethiopian Food |
This week
started out with my pharmacology presentation of Monday. Now this wasn’t too
bad because I was working ahead really early on, but procrastination took hold
and Sunday night I was scrambling to finish so I could present Monday afternoon.
I think the presentation went well and after that all my attention had to be
focused on enmodes. Our presentation was less than a week away and there was
still a lot of work to do. Monday and Tuesday were filled with normal classes
plus hours of enmodes gaps. By Wednesday and Thursday, the days were fully
dedicated to enmodes. They had warned us that these would probably be nights
that we were at the AIB until 2am and I was not prepared for that. However,
they said they would feed us, so that made it not so bad. Wednesday night they
ordered pizza and Thursday night we had Ethiopian food. That was quite an
experience in itself. I have never tried Ethiopian food and I had no idea how
to even eat it. We were given a bowl with a break/tortilla thing in the bottom
and filled with various things. I really don’t know what all of it was. I
learned that you are supposed to eat it without utensils, so you tear off some of
the bread and scoop/pinch the meats and vegetables and things on it. I tried
really hard to eat it properly, but it was a mess, so I gave up and used a
fork. In the end, I think I would eat Ethiopian food again, I just wish I knew
what exactly I was eating.
Back to enmodes. We worked hard to
get our stuff together so we would not have to stay all night. For hours, we
tweaked our PowerPoint, we went over our presentation endlessly, we worked to perfect
everything. When we thought it was close to perfect, we presented to Dr. Wasser.
Apparently, we were nowhere near perfect. He had so many comments. So, we went
back, worked on it more, and tried again. This went on most of Thursday. Around
10pm, we went to Rewe for a much-needed chocolate/candy run. Dr. Wasser finally
gave us the OK to go home. I think that it was late enough that none of us
would be performing perfectly. I know that if I would’ve kept trying to present
it would’ve continued to go downhill. So, we finally headed home for the night
and set our alarms to get up early Friday to head to Aachen.
 |
| Team Raphael |
Friday morning, we headed to
Aachen. Everyone was dressed up for the presentation and nerves were starting
to set in. The bus ride was quiet, as most people were exhausted from the past
few nights. We finally got to Aachen and settled into the room where we would
present. My group was the first group to go, and I was the first in our group
to speak, so let’s just say that the nerves were almost overwhelming. But I think
our presentation went really well. The other two groups also did really well
and I think the enmodes guys were impressed and interested in our ideas. Once we
were all done, we celebrated the end of the project and stress with champagne. We
went to a restaurant for lunch and then went to the Helmholtz-Institute for Biomedical
Engineering. Two of the PhD students showed us around and explained some of the
things they are currently working on, like artificial heart valves, total
artificial hearts, and artificial lungs.
When I decided to come to Germany
for the Spring, I was sad that I would be missing the Big Event back on campus.
I really enjoy this day of going out and helping the community with fellow
Aggies. I figured this would just be something I would miss out on while I was
gone. Well, the AIB does an International Big Event! I was really excited to
find out that I would not be missing anything. All of the students here at the
AIB were split into groups and sent out to give back to the community. Some people
were doing yard work and some were painting, but we were all helping in some
way. My group went to a local donation place and helped sort through clothing
donations and move clothes through the warehouse and go through boxes of hygiene
bags that had a “Welcome to Germany” paper that needed to be removed. The sun
was shining and it was nice and warm, so we worked outside to help this donation
center. They were so impressed with how much we were able to get done in the
little time we were there and they were very appreciative. There’s nothing quite
like waking up early on a Saturday morning and giving back.
Early Sunday morning, it was raining
pretty hard, bringing worry because the Bonn Marathon was that day. Luckily,
the clouds subsided and the sun came out, bringing another beautiful, but
slightly humid, day. I signed up to run on a relay team for the marathon and I
was the first leg. So around 10:30am, we lined up at the starting line and waiting
for the run to start. I knew I was not prepared for this, but it was too late
to back down now. I also knew that I don’t really like running, and this really
reiterated that to me. I am just not a runner. But I did it. I finished my 5.5
miles and passed on the time chip to Camella to continue the relay. I felt like
I could barely walk by the time I finished, and three days later, my muscles
are still feeling it. While I was running, I was so in awe of the people
running the full marathon. I can’t imagine was it feels like to finish
something like that. Around 3pm, Darby came around a corner towards the finish
line. Camella, Nicky, and I jumped into the lane to finish the race as a team. We
sprinted to cross the finish line and it was such a great feeling of
accomplishment. We each got a medal with a letter to spell Bonn. While I may
not have run all of my leg, it was still an accomplishment to finish the race.
Being just over 2.5 years post-op, I wasn’t sure if my leg would hold up. But
it did and that is such an amazing thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment