This week was fairly uneventful. In a way that was a good thing because I had a lot of work to catch up on after the trip to Switzerland. I've been home alone this week since my host family is in south Germany. This was fine since I'm used to living on my own in college station. Food was no trouble since Ariane made me enough food to last the week so all I had to do was assemble dinner every night.
Classes are interesting. I'm still not following half of what's going on in signals and systems but otherwise everything is going really well. History of medicine is really interesting. This week we discussed to roman empire and the middle ages. It really is terrifying how far backwards western Europe went after the collapse of the west roman empire. For centuries people accepted Galen's work as law and ignored overwhelming evidence that he was wrong. There was very little innovation until the renaissance. In physiology we are still discussing the cardiovascular system. We wrapped up the chapter on the heart and are about to start the chapter about blood vessels. I still need to finish the textbook reading for this chapter. Calculus has been pretty easy so far but I'm sure its only a matter of time. We still have the tutorials once or twice a week which haven't been helpful yet but probably will be when the math gets harder. Medical device design is not particularly interesting at the moment. On the other hand its pretty easy which is nice. I've made some progress on the solidworks course. It took a while to get started due to technical difficulties. The bluetooth mouse I bought refused to connect to my computer while it was in Windows mode. This has done nothing to improve my low opinion of Windows. I also need to start the research project for that class but I still have plenty of time. I haven't done my signals and systems homework for this week because I don't understand it at all. This is a little concerning because we have our first exam next Monday. On Friday Lacca joined us in class which was a lot of fun. It does make a lecture more interesting if you have to pause every few minutes because a labrador has jumped onto someone's desk or stolen rubbish out of the bin.
On Tuesday I had a meeting with an academic coach. This is part of my required fresh start orientation after the disaster that was last semester. The meeting was fairly straight forward; a basic overview of what went wrong last semester and how I can improve my study habits now. My main issues are procrastination and time management. She suggested a calendar and to do lists to help me stay focused. It was nothing I didn't already know but the hard part will be applying it and sticking with it.
On Friday evening after classes we met at a bar called Salvator where we had some food and a beer. Then some of the others wanted to do shots so we sat outside a different bar while they had a few shots. After that we ended up at an Irish pub. They put us in a small room on the first floor. It was really crowded and loud so I left not long after. When I got home I did some physiology reading and watched Star Trek.
This weekend was also uneventful. On Saturday I had planned to go to the university library to study. On the way there I ran into Amanda and Peyton who told me that you need a card to get into the library. We headed to a Starbucks where we met a few of the others. We were there for about an hour then Friederike gave us the access code to the AiB building so we can study there. I finished my math, BMEN 211 homework 1 and made some progress on solidworks. Today (Sunday) I did more physiology reading and wrote this. I need to finish my application to the USRG as well but that may have to wait until next weekend.
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