Chapter 14

This week was the final days before we give our enmodes presentation, along with a bunch of work that needed to be done as the semester wraps up. Class registration occurred, and I’m still debating if I should finish my minor and certificate and whether or not I would have a spot in certain classes to do so. Class registration is always stressful, as BIMS for some reason always gets full and of course certain classes occur at the same time but you need both class and whatnot. 

In class, I had my pharmacology presentation. Since I didn’t time myself, I had a timer in the corner and tried to stay within the allotted time. However, I later realized that the timing seemed more like a formality as one of my comments said not to speak so fast. OPSA was also due, so I finished that but I still want to put more polishing touches to it. Somewhat related to OPSA, I had an interview back in Texas at 2:40AM for an officer position. After my interview, I made a video speech that was to be shown at the officer election meetings and it was super awkward making the video. On some advice I got from friends, I made the video reminiscent of a Youtube video. (yikes)

For enmodes, we basically had a lock in to complete it. We spent about 14 hours at AIB the night before the actual presentation. AIB did give us dinner, and they gave us tasty Ethiopian food which was nice as a lot of places were closed already. On the day of the presentation, it was a breath of relief when the semester long project was over and everyone seemed genuinely excited and proud. 

Even though I’m abroad we were able to do Big Event. They didn’t have the Big Event leader portion for obvious reasons as AIB assigned us places and would provide us with a bit of direction. I really did not want to do a gardening project even if the weather was nice because I’m allergic to a lot of pollen and I felt that I could do a project that was more specific to European troubles. Luckily, I was assigned to the Zentrallager Sachspenden group. The Zentrallager Sachspenden Bonn collects, distributes, and stores donations of clothing, hygiene products, and everyday items such as toys or school supplies for refugees and people in need. I spent quite a while preparing hygiene bags and my table group even managed to get a whole system down. After Big Event, we walked around Altstadt and saw a type of street side garage sales occurring underneath the cherry blossoms. I went to Eis Labor, where I had an avocado flavored ice cream. 

The next day was the Bonn marathon. I did the relay team and was the third runner out of four runners. For some reason, the second runner missed the trade off point for me because they split the runners between relay and full/half marathoners. (The signs were in German!) I decided to run after the second runner, and at one point I was like, “Woah, this person’s a really fast runner,” because I could not catch up. I decided to ask a worker for help, and the worker said to take this shortcut and maybe I can catch up. Apparently, the short cut was too good and I went too far, and ended up past the check off point for the fourth runner. I met up with the second runner and eventually traded off, but since we had run off course with the tracker and was therefore disqualified, we decided that I’ll also run the last leg with the last runner for fun. I ended up running 9.6 miles, and our group ran a total of 31.75 miles throughout scenic Bonn. I was definitely not mentally prepared to run a couple more miles then I was notified, so mentally I was not okay at all and it showed. In my opinion, running can be more mental than physical, and my physiology class further cemented that opinion. AIB provided us with heart shaped waffles afterwards, and I could not stop eating them, they were so good! I even got Eis Labor afterwards (again).