Week 13- Big Event and
Bonn Marathon and 2 Tests and Enmodes and Us
Saturday, I was
hardly able to drag myself out of bed. I am now 2 for 2 on going to Big Event
sleep deprived- this time still a bit inebriated. Don’t forget, I hadn’t eaten
any dinner Friday night! Last year, I was a big event site leader, so as much
as I wanted to continue sleeping after getting back to my dorm at 4 am, I
muscled through that 7:50 alarm and got to Kyle Field Plaza. It was a great
experience.
This one was also pretty cool. I wouldn’t have made it
without the help of Lindsay and Adriana, giving me coffee and a banana and
water and some clothes. We ran to the bus- another thing I couldn’t believe I
was doing- and got to Markt and started heading toward Old AIB to get our
assignments. My group was at a retirement home, painting and gardening. When we
got there, there were two little kids that I gravitated towards and made
friends with. They took a bit of time to get comfortable, but by the end, we
were laughing and joking and I had practiced my German all day with them. Although
Miriam was a trouble-maker and Ibrahim was shy, we had fun re-painting the big
concrete spider in the yard with their mom and Ariella. I had to take a break because I felt faint, but I was okay after we ate.
I went back to AIB to study for a while and Facetime my best
friend from home. It was nice, I talk so rarely with anyone back home.
Sunday- The next
morning was the Bonn Marathon! The first leg was set to run 5.5 miles and I
have never run more than 2.5 miles in my life. But I was pumped.
Even though I was late, I got there just in time to sprint
to the start line and find the rest of AIB. I jumped over the fence and stood
with them as the music played. I saw Sebastian there, about to run his first
marathon. I was pumped and happy and excited; and then we started running. It
got hard running over the bridge in the sun. It was awesome seeing people cheer
us on, but I did end up having to slow down and walk for some of the time. I set
little goals in my head of how far to run. A good bit of the run was scenic and
sweet- people cheering, kids high-fiving, drummers pumping us up, water
stations every now and then. I kept my eye on certain people and tried to stay
with them throughout the race. We even ran through a street of cherry blossoms.
At the end, we went to the food court and got as much as we
could. We left to go cheer on Sebastian and the third-leg runners, which was
super fun. As we waited for people we knew on the bridge, we called out the names
on the nametags and cheered strangers on. It was nice to see them smile.
As the race was finishing, AIB went over to the finish line
to cheer people on and finish the race together. After socializing for a bit
and then going home to shower, Kevin and I came back to take pictures with the
cherry blossoms, and then to AIB to study. I ended up meeting with Dilschad and
his friend to walk around Bonn together, and we spoke a mix of English and German
to talk about Egypt and school and me getting lost.
At the end of the night, I still felt like I had a lot of studying
to do for math, so I decided not to take my night bus home and sleep at 2 just
to wake up at 9 and come back with no studying done. So I slept on the black
couch in the library until 8 am, and when Karina had to start opening rooms
up, I went down to the lounge to keep sleeping until 10:10.
Tuesday, we had
an enmodes meeting in Aachen. The engineers were stressed because we had a test
when we got back to Bonn, so we studied whenever we could. The Helmholtz Institute
was really cool to see and truly made me more interested in Biomedical
Engineering. To see the devices themselves and how they changed over the years
was cool, and I would definitely be interested in interning there.
Our presentation with enmodes went smoothly and cleared up a
lot of questions, and we played Heads Up to pass the time when the other teams
went inside. I was glad to have gone first and be able to study. On the bus,
Reagan said she would buy us pizza, which was awesome, and we had a little more
time to study before taking the test. The math test wrecked us, however,
despite our hopeful group prayer.
Sid, Marcus, Kevin, Lindsay, Ryan and I stayed at AIB a
little longer to play Taboo and try to study, even though I spent the night
talking to my sister about travel plans and Lindsay about love probz.
Thursday, we
spent the day at New AIB. I liked the classroom environment a lot more there
and enjoyed seeing some new faces. We studied for Signals until it was time to
take the test in the 3 hour block given to us, and then we went to BurritoRico
and walked through the cherry blossoms to get some ice cream until Math Tutorial started.
At the end of the day, I went with Kevin, Masha, Sebastian,
and Lindsay to go see Jordan Peele’s “Us” (for just 5 euro!) I normally NEVER
watch horror films, but I had to go see another of Peele’s works. And I did not
regret it. I was captivated, although it was a slow start. It was also cool to
see the German subtitles at the bottom.
We were blown away and wanted to keep discussing it when we
walked out of the theatre, so we went to a bar and asked all our questions and
made all our comments about the observations we made. It was so intriguing to
hear it all come together and help each other analyze deeper meanings to the
scenes.
Friday, I went
with Melania to get Birkenstocks and we spent 2 whole hours in the store.
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