Happy St. Patricks day everyone! This is your ultra special St. Patrick’s day themed blog! ... Don’t believe me?... well, OK, it’s actually not St. Patrick’s day themed. How in the world could I blog about St. Patrick’s day. I don’t even know who he is... it’s kinda like St. Valentine’s day, or Flag day or something... why is it even there? I suppose St. Patrick’s day does have a historical background that we know about, but historians aren’t even sure who St. Valentine really was. He must have been pretty awesome though...
Well there’s one thing I do know. We celebrate Irish culture on this day by eating Irish food, buying green hats and chocolate coins, pinching people, and dying the Chicago river green. I bet the Irish people in America really appreciate that. It probably reminds them of home, you know? Where the rivers are green and everybody has a pet leprechaun.
Ok, I’ll stop hating on St. Patrick’s day now... They don’t really celebrate it in Germany, which makes sense. They don’t celebrate Pi day either, which makes me sad...
In other news, I did stuff recently...
Neue Praktikum!
I am finally working again. After a long and relatively pointless few months visiting classes at the University, and then a month of doing literally nothing, I finally have started working at the Forest Genetics department in Göttingen. I started on the 1st of March, so I’ve been here for a couple weeks already, and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. I spend most of my time just learning about the different methods and concepts that I need to know to have an idea of just what it is that I am doing, and then when there is some lab work that needs to be done, I help or watch, or they let me do it while they watch. It’s not terribly exciting, but I find it really interesting. If you find sciency things terribly boring go ahead and skip the next part. I’ll let you know when you can start reading again.
Forest genetics: I honestly had no idea what it was, I just applied for it randomly because I needed to do something and it looked strange and obscure. Well, it is. So I guess I got what I wanted. The main objective of most of the research here has to do ecology, but the research is done through genetics. We study diversity within populations of trees and among populations of trees, and by diversity I mean the genetic diversity of certain species. For instance if we wanted to study the diversity among populations, we would take samples from a specific species of tree near Göttingen and compare them with other samples from other areas in Germany. Some people are even doing studies that compare samples throughout Europe. These studies are mostly funded by the EU.
What does does it mean when I say “we study genetic diversity” you might ask. Well this means that I am looking at the DNA of the tree, and comparing it with the DNA of other trees and measuring how many differences there are between the two. A single difference between genomes is called a “polymorphism,” and there are usually tons and tons of polymorphisms between individuals, too many to count by hand every time. In order to study diversity effectively we need to compare small parts of the genome, which involves copying DNA in vitro using process called PCR. Through this process we end up with a large number of identical, but much smaller pieces of DNA.This basic technique is used in many fields of study, because it allows us to study the genome without actually having to know the exact sequence. In forest genetics we can compare the small cut outs of DNA and identify differences within one species, because each individual would have a different DNA “fingerprint,” and thereby we can quantify genetic diversity within or among populations of plants. The more different the fingerprints are the more diversity there is. In forensics this technique would be use to genetically “fingerprint” a human individual and compare it to the samples found at the crime scene. They also use this method to identify family members, because your DNA fingerprint would be very similar to your family’s, or even to map out similarities among species and find out which ones share common ancestors.
IF YOU FOUND THIS BORING, YOU CAN START READING NOW. So basically I’m learning techniques that I will be able to apply if my path of study relates to genetics in any way at all, so it’s pretty practical. Most of the work is just working with pipettes and moving very small amounts of liquid around, haha.
CeBIT, Köln, und Karneval!
If you are reading this you probably know that a couple weekends ago I had a lot of things going on at once. I spent Saturday with my friend in Hannover at the CeBIT computer convention. It’s one of the biggest ones in Europe and is mostly for companies to display new products and for business to get their business done, but there was quite a bit for the average person as well. I got to see some 3D TVs and 3D computers, as well as the 3DS, which was cool. There was a couple of nifty computer programs being displayed, and then there was a big PC computer gaming worldwide tournament, where we watched the finals of the Starcraft 2 tournament. The games were really exciting and it was definitely worth it considering Hannover is so close to where I live.
After CeBIT we went back to Ebergötzen to take part in the small Karneval celebration going on there. We got in our costumes (pictures available on facebook), and spent the evening drinking beer and listening to German Karneval songs that get stuck in your head very easily, just like any other German celebration pretty much. There was also some dances put on by three different groups. One was a more traditional can-can type thing, and one was a hip-hop dance group, and, I mean those two had some good looking girls in it, but it was nothing compared to the grand finale. The last dance group is the Over-50 soccer team. A bunch of middle aged men dressed in skimpy women’s clothing and wigs came out and gave us a show, which was just ridiculous. It was so funny, especially since my host dad was one of them, haha.
The weekend doesn’t end there though, oh no. Early Sunday morning we headed out to Köln, the biggest place to celebrate Karneval in Germany. We spent Sunday night in Bonn catching up with the other people in the program that were there and got up early to head to Köln and see the parade. That Monday was “Rosenmontag” which is the most important day of Karneval. There is a huge parade in Cologne on this day, and it was a must-see. The parade started at 11:11 and we saw a large chunk of it. We spent a lot of time watching on a corner in a huge crowd of people dressed in costumes like us. As the floats go by they throw candy at you, and you try and catch it. The candy isn’t crappy bubble gum and tootsie rolls either. This stuff is legit chocolate and gummies. Good stuff, but after 4 hours of watching the parade and discovering that it wasn’t even half way over, we decided to head back. We really wanted to eat dinner, because none of us had had lunch, and all the restaurants in Cologne were either full, or too expensive, so we went back to Bonn. We hung out for the rest of the evening and went to a club for a while, and then eventually fell asleep at 3 a.m. or so Tuesday morning. Zac and I woke up early to head back to Göttingen, and spent most of the day traveling, and relaxing, because the next morning we both had to work. Overall it was a great weekend, I had a fantastic time, although I was exhausted afterwards.
Ende
Well that’s it for now. I can’t say I did much except for that. Last weekend I had a spontaneous trip to Marburg, another university town about an hour and a half away. It was pretty cool, there’s basically a castle on top of a huge hill, where most of the old part of town is. We took an elevator to get up there, which was pretty nifty. It’s a very quaint and pretty town with typical German Fachwerkhäuser and small, cobblestone alleys.
To close I’d like to ask you to pray for those that are victims to a terrible natural disaster in Japan. There are many families that have been left heart broken and traumatized by the events of this week. I want to pray to give those families strength and faith, and that no further damage will be done by the nuclear disaster, which I’m sure is reminding many of the older people of the horrors they experienced as a young child from Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And on that depressing note, I will close.
Skez
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Berlin. . . and stuff
Well it seems that I had like half of a blog written, that I just forgot to finish and didn’t publish it. . . whoops. Well that’s deleted now, because it was rather outdated so...
Lazy Intro: In this blog you will learn about my experiences in Berlin, my time wasting time because I couldn’t find an internship, and whatever else I decide to write. 3...2...1...go
Berlin Berlin
As you were probably aware of, all the CBYXers were together again for a week in what was called the “Berlin Seminar.” Basically from Sunday until Thursday we stayed in a hostel together and attended presentations in the morning/early afternoon about Berlin’s history and the city today, as well as a little bit about the German government and the EU. Late afternoon/evenings we had free time to roam about the city and do whatever we wanted, which was quite fun. I would include pictures but I can’t figure out how to do more than one on this blogging site.
Berlin is a huge and diverse city with tons of life, and stuff to do and see around every corner. It’s not something for country bumpkins, but especially for young people, it’s the most attractive city in the world to live. The cost of living is dirt cheap when compared to the other major cities on the earth. The rent’s cheap, the food’s very affordable and good, and the public transportation is of course fantastic. Because of this it’s an ideal place for young artists and the large fashion scene is apparent once you notice all the well dressed hipsters walking around. And naturally the city is very international. I heard English every day, it was so surprising. All these aspects add up to create a historic, young, and vibrant city that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Like I said, the first half of the day consisted of a series of presentations given to us by a british fellow, who was a good friend of our program director. After the presentations we would go out and see something of the city around noon time, such as the holocaust museum, an old Stasi museum, or the parliament building. We also took a bus tour of the whole city, which was nice, because then I could take note of the things I wanted to go back to on my own time. The weather was generally pretty crappy for such things, but it was still alright. At about two we had free time. I spent a lot of time walking around the city, visiting areas that I wanted to see, and talking with the other people from my program. We visited a few clubs when I was there, which were pretty cool. I have mixed feelings about clubs. They are only fun when you have the right people with you, which means in Göttingen I don’t go clubbing much at all, but in Berlin it was really fun because I’m close with all of the people on the program. It was definitely not good for my ingrown toenail though. . . I don’t know if I mentioned that, but for about a month and a half I’ve had an ingrown toenail that has been quite problematic.
Other than that, there’s not much else to say about Berlin. It’s a fantastic city that I would visit over and over again if I could, and I had a great time. I got to see my dad, too since he had business there, which was fantastic. Oh and he brought me a new pair of jeans and a sweater, which are both really great. Unfortunately the sweater tore in the washer somehow. . . but it will be easily sewn back together. And the jeans. . . I have a funny story about them, but it doesn’t fit in this category.
Oh there is one more thing: Döners. Berlin is the birthplace of my favorite fast food (rivaling the Qdoba burrito even), and it is very apparent by the way they taste there. Not only are they slightly cheaper than the ones in Göttingen or Bonn, but they taste so much better. The ingredients are so fresh and they add feta cheese too it. The most famous place adds grilled potatoes and chili’s as well, creating the best food experience you will ever have for 3 bucks.
The calm after the storm. . .
After this busy, sleep-deprived weekend, it was finals week at my University. Something that I would have taken part in had I been a real student. But since I wouldn’t even ever know what I would get on the tests, I deemed them rather pointless, and didn’t take them. I then started internship hunting, a process that has been very slow. it took me two weeks to finally set up a meeting with a researcher at the University for next week. My area representative had problems because of her kids being sick, and one professor has not even responded yet. It looks like I will be getting an internship in forestry genetics, an interesting subject. The do research on the state of forests, how the ecosystems work, and how they are affected by climate change. Should be enlightening. But until then I will share some stories of what I have been doing in the mean time.
I have been so incredibly bored lately. I’m over it now because I know that next week I have something in place, but for a while there, when it looked like my boredom had no end, I was going to go crazy. I made arroz con gandules for the first time, rather successfully if I may brag. My host dad luckily also had vacation, so we’d sometimes do stuff together, like go to the sauna. . . oh the sauna. . .
FKK at the Sauna
I didn’t let him know, but when I went to the sauna with him, I kinda expected people wearing towels around the place, and totally forgot that I was indeed in Europe, where they make fun of Americans for their timidness. We went to take a shower before entering the sauna area, and as is pretty normal for a shower, everyone is naked in there, but when I entered the place, I soon realized everyone is naked. . . everywhere. And they are all “over the hill”. I soon felt awkward not being naked, which just does not happen very often in every day life. I felt like I had no choice but to submit, else I be stared at even more, even though the youngest person there was 20 years older than me, and I eventually got used to sitting in the sauna or dipping in to the cold pool without a scrap on me. I still used the towel when walking around though, because walking around naked is something very different than sitting in the sauna naked.
With that said, I did enjoy the sauna experience very much. It helped that I didn’t wear my glasses or contacts. Sometimes not seeing things in detail is a good thing. I had never really had the full sauna experience until then, and it was definitely something new. There were about 5 different saunas of different temperatures and even different smells. We went in the 90 degrees Celsius one, which I think was the hottest. And we timed it so that when we went in the employee came in shortly after and poured the scented water on the rocks, creating a huge swell of heat in the room which I could only stand for a minute or two before going out. Afterwards we dipped quickly in the ice cold pool three times, which shocked the system, closing the pores as rapidly as they were opened. Then we chilled for about 15 min to a half hour before repeating the process again. We did it two and a half times, because the first time did not have the guy pouring water on the rocks, so it was not as intensive. What was interesting was that after dipping in the cold water three times, we sat outside in the lounge chairs before going in again. It is definitely still winter here, so it was pretty cold outside, but oddly I didn’t feel like it was cold at all. The weather seemed rather quite ideal. Overall a new and relaxing experience. My skin and muscles did indeed feel good afterwards, so I can understand why people do it. It gets the heart rate up actually too.
After the sauna I we with to the swimming pool part of the place, in which we were luckily permitted to wear swim shorts, haha (actually you had to, although one day in the month you can go skinny dipping there). That was also a really nice place. There was a lap pool, a regular kind of swimming around pool, where the kids played as well, and then there was a heated salt pool that was outside. That was really nice since it was cold outside, and the pool was really warm. Plus it had jets like in a spa. And it felt really good for my toe. Oh and there was a super awesome water slide.
Smuggling Pants
So, as I mentioned before, I hung out with my dad a couple of times in Berlin, and one of the times he gave me a bag with jeans and a sweater in it. Well, while walking around we walked through an electronics store to get on to the main street. As I was exiting the sensor went off at the doors and a guy came and checked to make sure I wasn’t stealing anything. We figured out that something in the bag was making it beep, and then the guy looked in the bag, saw that there was only jeans and a sweater in it, and let us go. I totally forgot about the incident until this past week, the first week that I wore the jeans.
On Thursday I went to a large grocery store with my host dad to pick up a few things. It’s kind of like a Walmart Super-center in that it sells clothes, electronics, and everything else under the sun along with food. As I was exiting the sensor beeped on me again, except this time I really only had my jacket on me and it wasn’t that which was causing the sensor to go off. Nor was it my shoes. Nor my belt. That meant it had to be my shirt or my pants, and I didn’t really want to take any of those things off in the grocery store. So I got taken to a back area, where the guy used a scanner like in the airport and it turned out that there was a tag in my pants that I didn’t know about, which had a magnetic strip in it. It says on the thing “remove before purchase” but I guess the people at Gap never took it out, so I ended up having to go through these big shenanigans to try and cut the tag off while keeping my pants on (it was on the inside of the pant let). It was all quite comical. The guy was really pleasant about it though, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I should have kept the tag and slipped it into someone’s purse without them knowing. . . oh well. Hindsight is 20/20
Skez
Lazy Intro: In this blog you will learn about my experiences in Berlin, my time wasting time because I couldn’t find an internship, and whatever else I decide to write. 3...2...1...go
Berlin Berlin
As you were probably aware of, all the CBYXers were together again for a week in what was called the “Berlin Seminar.” Basically from Sunday until Thursday we stayed in a hostel together and attended presentations in the morning/early afternoon about Berlin’s history and the city today, as well as a little bit about the German government and the EU. Late afternoon/evenings we had free time to roam about the city and do whatever we wanted, which was quite fun. I would include pictures but I can’t figure out how to do more than one on this blogging site.
Berlin is a huge and diverse city with tons of life, and stuff to do and see around every corner. It’s not something for country bumpkins, but especially for young people, it’s the most attractive city in the world to live. The cost of living is dirt cheap when compared to the other major cities on the earth. The rent’s cheap, the food’s very affordable and good, and the public transportation is of course fantastic. Because of this it’s an ideal place for young artists and the large fashion scene is apparent once you notice all the well dressed hipsters walking around. And naturally the city is very international. I heard English every day, it was so surprising. All these aspects add up to create a historic, young, and vibrant city that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Like I said, the first half of the day consisted of a series of presentations given to us by a british fellow, who was a good friend of our program director. After the presentations we would go out and see something of the city around noon time, such as the holocaust museum, an old Stasi museum, or the parliament building. We also took a bus tour of the whole city, which was nice, because then I could take note of the things I wanted to go back to on my own time. The weather was generally pretty crappy for such things, but it was still alright. At about two we had free time. I spent a lot of time walking around the city, visiting areas that I wanted to see, and talking with the other people from my program. We visited a few clubs when I was there, which were pretty cool. I have mixed feelings about clubs. They are only fun when you have the right people with you, which means in Göttingen I don’t go clubbing much at all, but in Berlin it was really fun because I’m close with all of the people on the program. It was definitely not good for my ingrown toenail though. . . I don’t know if I mentioned that, but for about a month and a half I’ve had an ingrown toenail that has been quite problematic.
Other than that, there’s not much else to say about Berlin. It’s a fantastic city that I would visit over and over again if I could, and I had a great time. I got to see my dad, too since he had business there, which was fantastic. Oh and he brought me a new pair of jeans and a sweater, which are both really great. Unfortunately the sweater tore in the washer somehow. . . but it will be easily sewn back together. And the jeans. . . I have a funny story about them, but it doesn’t fit in this category.
Oh there is one more thing: Döners. Berlin is the birthplace of my favorite fast food (rivaling the Qdoba burrito even), and it is very apparent by the way they taste there. Not only are they slightly cheaper than the ones in Göttingen or Bonn, but they taste so much better. The ingredients are so fresh and they add feta cheese too it. The most famous place adds grilled potatoes and chili’s as well, creating the best food experience you will ever have for 3 bucks.
The calm after the storm. . .
After this busy, sleep-deprived weekend, it was finals week at my University. Something that I would have taken part in had I been a real student. But since I wouldn’t even ever know what I would get on the tests, I deemed them rather pointless, and didn’t take them. I then started internship hunting, a process that has been very slow. it took me two weeks to finally set up a meeting with a researcher at the University for next week. My area representative had problems because of her kids being sick, and one professor has not even responded yet. It looks like I will be getting an internship in forestry genetics, an interesting subject. The do research on the state of forests, how the ecosystems work, and how they are affected by climate change. Should be enlightening. But until then I will share some stories of what I have been doing in the mean time.
I have been so incredibly bored lately. I’m over it now because I know that next week I have something in place, but for a while there, when it looked like my boredom had no end, I was going to go crazy. I made arroz con gandules for the first time, rather successfully if I may brag. My host dad luckily also had vacation, so we’d sometimes do stuff together, like go to the sauna. . . oh the sauna. . .
FKK at the Sauna
I didn’t let him know, but when I went to the sauna with him, I kinda expected people wearing towels around the place, and totally forgot that I was indeed in Europe, where they make fun of Americans for their timidness. We went to take a shower before entering the sauna area, and as is pretty normal for a shower, everyone is naked in there, but when I entered the place, I soon realized everyone is naked. . . everywhere. And they are all “over the hill”. I soon felt awkward not being naked, which just does not happen very often in every day life. I felt like I had no choice but to submit, else I be stared at even more, even though the youngest person there was 20 years older than me, and I eventually got used to sitting in the sauna or dipping in to the cold pool without a scrap on me. I still used the towel when walking around though, because walking around naked is something very different than sitting in the sauna naked.
With that said, I did enjoy the sauna experience very much. It helped that I didn’t wear my glasses or contacts. Sometimes not seeing things in detail is a good thing. I had never really had the full sauna experience until then, and it was definitely something new. There were about 5 different saunas of different temperatures and even different smells. We went in the 90 degrees Celsius one, which I think was the hottest. And we timed it so that when we went in the employee came in shortly after and poured the scented water on the rocks, creating a huge swell of heat in the room which I could only stand for a minute or two before going out. Afterwards we dipped quickly in the ice cold pool three times, which shocked the system, closing the pores as rapidly as they were opened. Then we chilled for about 15 min to a half hour before repeating the process again. We did it two and a half times, because the first time did not have the guy pouring water on the rocks, so it was not as intensive. What was interesting was that after dipping in the cold water three times, we sat outside in the lounge chairs before going in again. It is definitely still winter here, so it was pretty cold outside, but oddly I didn’t feel like it was cold at all. The weather seemed rather quite ideal. Overall a new and relaxing experience. My skin and muscles did indeed feel good afterwards, so I can understand why people do it. It gets the heart rate up actually too.
After the sauna I we with to the swimming pool part of the place, in which we were luckily permitted to wear swim shorts, haha (actually you had to, although one day in the month you can go skinny dipping there). That was also a really nice place. There was a lap pool, a regular kind of swimming around pool, where the kids played as well, and then there was a heated salt pool that was outside. That was really nice since it was cold outside, and the pool was really warm. Plus it had jets like in a spa. And it felt really good for my toe. Oh and there was a super awesome water slide.
Smuggling Pants
So, as I mentioned before, I hung out with my dad a couple of times in Berlin, and one of the times he gave me a bag with jeans and a sweater in it. Well, while walking around we walked through an electronics store to get on to the main street. As I was exiting the sensor went off at the doors and a guy came and checked to make sure I wasn’t stealing anything. We figured out that something in the bag was making it beep, and then the guy looked in the bag, saw that there was only jeans and a sweater in it, and let us go. I totally forgot about the incident until this past week, the first week that I wore the jeans.
On Thursday I went to a large grocery store with my host dad to pick up a few things. It’s kind of like a Walmart Super-center in that it sells clothes, electronics, and everything else under the sun along with food. As I was exiting the sensor beeped on me again, except this time I really only had my jacket on me and it wasn’t that which was causing the sensor to go off. Nor was it my shoes. Nor my belt. That meant it had to be my shirt or my pants, and I didn’t really want to take any of those things off in the grocery store. So I got taken to a back area, where the guy used a scanner like in the airport and it turned out that there was a tag in my pants that I didn’t know about, which had a magnetic strip in it. It says on the thing “remove before purchase” but I guess the people at Gap never took it out, so I ended up having to go through these big shenanigans to try and cut the tag off while keeping my pants on (it was on the inside of the pant let). It was all quite comical. The guy was really pleasant about it though, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I should have kept the tag and slipped it into someone’s purse without them knowing. . . oh well. Hindsight is 20/20
Skez
Monday, January 17, 2011
Pushing though the Winter Slush
Hello hello! You have reached Tim’s blog. Except this time, it’s actually updated! Yay! I’ve was kinda really busy in December and fell out of the habit of writing them, but I feel like I should get back into it. The reason I was so busy in December was that I had some sort of practice pretty much every day. Our orchestra was preparing for a concert that was before Christmas and that international concert that I was talking about also took up a lot of time. I had practices for the rock band and the horn duets. So pretty much the same thing that I did to myself in high school. I won’t give you every single detail about what I have done in the last couple of months, that would take up too much time, but I’ll certainly give an overview and try to get back in the habit of writing these things again.
Band (Yeazz)
As I said, the international music concert was put on at the beginning of December entirely by students. We hung out flyers a couple of weeks before, and as a result, the turn out was surprisingly big. We didn’t even have enough chairs, haha. We had some tables in the back which people could stand at, but then the sides and front of the hall were packed with students/professors that were interested in coming to hear some unique music.
The main part of the concert was our strange rock band with 2 horns. We played several pop hits with our own little twist to them (of course none of these songs were originally played with horns), such as “Toxic” by Britney Spears with the synthesizer part played by the horns. We also mixed in some parts from other songs that worked with the chord structure. It was much better than the original in my opinion.
In between every couple of songs, we had the other groups play their respective solos/duets. We had a girl improvise on the Korean drum, a classical piano solo, 2 much different singing solos (one was Portuguese and the other. . . Italian maybe? I forget...), my horn duet, a duet between drum set and didgeridoo, a classical horn solo, and another singer from India. Yeah, it was a big program and it took forever. It was successful though, and we might be doing it again.
Orchestra has been going really well. Most of the people I know come from there considering attending lectures where nobody knows you’re even an exchange student is in no way a good method to get to know people. We went to Bremen for a kind of rehearsal weekend. That was pretty fun, although I didn’t get to see much of Bremen, we just practiced a lot. Our concert was the week before Christmas (twice actually: Friday and Sunday and it went very well.
Christmas Time!
One of those weekends in December I visited my brother and my sister-in-law in Bonn. It was probably the last time I will see them there, as they are moving/have moved to Frankfurt. I was able to wish them a Merry Christmas and give them my presents to take on the plane, since they were going to the states for Christmas.
I had a lovely Christmas with my host family. Christmas eve we had Bockwurst and Kartoffelsalat, and then watched good ole “Home Alone” in German. Saturday the twins and my Host-grandma came to share a big Christmas dinner in the early afternoon. We made Roulade and Knödel and Rotkohl cooked in Glühwein. Mmm Mmm Mmm! After things settled down and the Oma left, I Skyped in to my own family’s Christmas morning.
The day after I then left for Stade, where I was born, to visit old family friends that knew me as a baby until I was 4. That was quite lovely; I got to hang out, talk, and take a tour through my birthplace. It’s a really picturesque town and I really enjoyed the visit. After I got back home it was time for the New Year’s festivities. On New Year’s eve I headed over to the Seeburger See with my friend Zac and we ran 10 km (twice around the lake) with a bunch of other runners. I was not really in that of shape, but whatever. At least I finished it (and only got lapped by two ridiculously intense runners). It was cold though, and my lunch did not settle too well. New Year’s was spent at a friends house in Göttingen. We watched a movie and then turned on the equivalent of the Time’s Square countdown in Berlin. It was pretty fun.
Whoo, almost caught up, just got a few more things to say about December, one of those being the Weihnachtsmarkt. Translated it’s the Christmas market, but it’s something really unique to Germany, so I’ll probably end up just calling it the Weihnachtsmarkt. Basically at the beginning of December/end of November many cities around Germany put up a market with multiple stands that have yummy stuff like bratwurst, currywurst, roasted mushrooms, calzones, crepes, roasted nuts, and this list could basically go on forever. I seriously could spend so much money there. . . They also have stands with home made jewelry, felt things, and other little souvenir like items.The size of the Weihnachtsmarkt obviously depends on the size of the city. Ours took about five to 10 minutes or so to walk around and look at everything, but in cities like Leipzig, which has one of the best, if not the best market, require pretty much a whole day to explore. Leipzig actually had multiple ones: a normal one, a middle ages themed one and a Scandinavian one. But despite the size there is always one thing unique to each market: the Glühwein glass. If you didn’t know already Glühwein is a traditional Christmas season drink, which is basically a type of very sweet wine that one drinks hot, like hot chocolate. Each city has a glass unique to it’s city and the larger cities have different ones from different parts of the city. In Leipzig I saw four or five or more different glasses. You can easily collect them by paying one or two Euros. I have the Göttingen one of course, as well as a couple more, two from Leipzig and one from Hannover. Yeah, that was definitely a high point of the German Christmas for me, and if I ever make it back to Germany I would try to go in December especially for that purpose, because they are fantastic.
School
Yeah, school is boring. I’m not going to talk much about it. I’m taking two General Biology classes, a Genetic/Biotech class, and a Music science class. I like the Music one and the Genetics/Biotech class the best. They are both seminars, and therefore smaller, and much more interactive. Plus I just loved learning about what technologies are put to use that we aren’t even aware of. Basically, be careful what you eat, but most importantly moderation is key. There are often times sketchy things in your food, but for them most part you shouldn’t be paranoid, there is a lot of media hype about Biotech being evil, when the truth is that it has a lot of good aspects, and we have been using Biotech ever since we’ve been making beer and cheese. Biotech does a lot of good things for us, for instance drugs like Penecillin have been created by using fungi, and Corizone is produced significantly easier by using a type of mold. Another type of mold also produces citric acid originally found in lemons, so think twice before thinking that the citric acid in your gummy bears comes from actual fruit. That point is actually pretty creepy.
You know what? The music class is also very interesting, so I am indeed going to talk about it, too. You can skip this section if you don’t want to read about me analyzing Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #6. Not that I need to give you permission. I’m giving my report next week on this symphony and I must say that I found the whole research process to be extremely interesting. You see, Tchaik was a Russian composer that fell out of the norm of Russians, by writing in a more western manner. The forms of his earlier symphonies were reminiscent of the Classical-era symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven. Many important Russian composers of the time disapproved of him, because he was not Russian enough. Russians at the time liked to take a melody from their folk music and play around with it for a whole piece, unlike the western way of taking a melody and developing it into a counter melody that leads to another one, with tons of fluidity and standard Sonata form. The problem that came into the Romantic era at this point was that many melodies were extravagant and intense, and really didn’t fit into this kind of writing. Tchaik found a solution to this problem by kind of going away from Sonata form in his later symphonies. He did his own thing, which suited him well, because he was a master composers of memorable melodies (everybody knows the beautiful melodies of the Nutcracker Suite and Swan Lake). Many critics were of the opinion that he should stay that way and avoid writing symphonies. When he did he got criticized of not having unity in them. His melodies did not really flow into other melodies like what was traditionally done. He had one melody and then introduced another and then messed with them both in a development section. As a result, his sixth symphony was highly criticized. There is a really great Youtube video of Leonard Bernstein defending Tchaikovsky, and pointing out how his sixth symphony achieves unity, that is incredibly insightful if you’re interested. Yeah, so I have gotten to like really the symphony. The way he writes, changes and integrates melodies is really great to listen to and study.
Alright you can start reading again
I have that presentation on Wednesday, I’m super nervous. Anyways, this week is the last week at the University before finals, because next week I will be in Berlin for the Berlin seminar. I’m super excited to see everybody again and explore Berlin, it should be a great time. Basically that means I should be starting my internship again. I want to try something new for February and March and then definitely come back sometime to the Graslandwissenschaft internship, because the people there were really great, and working outside when nature wakes up from it’s slumber is quite nice, although we’ll have to see how my allergies take it. I heard May is pretty bad for allergies.
Ende
So that’s basically it for today. I have other things that I could talk about like my friends ridiculous area representative, and my opinion about the sad state of Christianity in Germany (the one thing that I would consider a kind of culture shock for me), and me being quite homesick at times during the times where nothing is really going on, like after New Year’s, but I’ll save those for another blog that is lacking on content. It’s kinda strange thinking about the fact that I’ve been away from home for 6 and a half months. The most I’ve done before that was 4 weeks and I was with my family still. I have literally been living in another family’s home since July. . . weird. I’m looking forward to this Semester though, starting this next internship will really get my mood up again, and I have a feeling the next six months are going to fly by. Until I write again, macht’s gut!
Skez
Band (Yeazz)
As I said, the international music concert was put on at the beginning of December entirely by students. We hung out flyers a couple of weeks before, and as a result, the turn out was surprisingly big. We didn’t even have enough chairs, haha. We had some tables in the back which people could stand at, but then the sides and front of the hall were packed with students/professors that were interested in coming to hear some unique music.
The main part of the concert was our strange rock band with 2 horns. We played several pop hits with our own little twist to them (of course none of these songs were originally played with horns), such as “Toxic” by Britney Spears with the synthesizer part played by the horns. We also mixed in some parts from other songs that worked with the chord structure. It was much better than the original in my opinion.
In between every couple of songs, we had the other groups play their respective solos/duets. We had a girl improvise on the Korean drum, a classical piano solo, 2 much different singing solos (one was Portuguese and the other. . . Italian maybe? I forget...), my horn duet, a duet between drum set and didgeridoo, a classical horn solo, and another singer from India. Yeah, it was a big program and it took forever. It was successful though, and we might be doing it again.
Orchestra has been going really well. Most of the people I know come from there considering attending lectures where nobody knows you’re even an exchange student is in no way a good method to get to know people. We went to Bremen for a kind of rehearsal weekend. That was pretty fun, although I didn’t get to see much of Bremen, we just practiced a lot. Our concert was the week before Christmas (twice actually: Friday and Sunday and it went very well.
Christmas Time!
One of those weekends in December I visited my brother and my sister-in-law in Bonn. It was probably the last time I will see them there, as they are moving/have moved to Frankfurt. I was able to wish them a Merry Christmas and give them my presents to take on the plane, since they were going to the states for Christmas.
I had a lovely Christmas with my host family. Christmas eve we had Bockwurst and Kartoffelsalat, and then watched good ole “Home Alone” in German. Saturday the twins and my Host-grandma came to share a big Christmas dinner in the early afternoon. We made Roulade and Knödel and Rotkohl cooked in Glühwein. Mmm Mmm Mmm! After things settled down and the Oma left, I Skyped in to my own family’s Christmas morning.
The day after I then left for Stade, where I was born, to visit old family friends that knew me as a baby until I was 4. That was quite lovely; I got to hang out, talk, and take a tour through my birthplace. It’s a really picturesque town and I really enjoyed the visit. After I got back home it was time for the New Year’s festivities. On New Year’s eve I headed over to the Seeburger See with my friend Zac and we ran 10 km (twice around the lake) with a bunch of other runners. I was not really in that of shape, but whatever. At least I finished it (and only got lapped by two ridiculously intense runners). It was cold though, and my lunch did not settle too well. New Year’s was spent at a friends house in Göttingen. We watched a movie and then turned on the equivalent of the Time’s Square countdown in Berlin. It was pretty fun.
Whoo, almost caught up, just got a few more things to say about December, one of those being the Weihnachtsmarkt. Translated it’s the Christmas market, but it’s something really unique to Germany, so I’ll probably end up just calling it the Weihnachtsmarkt. Basically at the beginning of December/end of November many cities around Germany put up a market with multiple stands that have yummy stuff like bratwurst, currywurst, roasted mushrooms, calzones, crepes, roasted nuts, and this list could basically go on forever. I seriously could spend so much money there. . . They also have stands with home made jewelry, felt things, and other little souvenir like items.The size of the Weihnachtsmarkt obviously depends on the size of the city. Ours took about five to 10 minutes or so to walk around and look at everything, but in cities like Leipzig, which has one of the best, if not the best market, require pretty much a whole day to explore. Leipzig actually had multiple ones: a normal one, a middle ages themed one and a Scandinavian one. But despite the size there is always one thing unique to each market: the Glühwein glass. If you didn’t know already Glühwein is a traditional Christmas season drink, which is basically a type of very sweet wine that one drinks hot, like hot chocolate. Each city has a glass unique to it’s city and the larger cities have different ones from different parts of the city. In Leipzig I saw four or five or more different glasses. You can easily collect them by paying one or two Euros. I have the Göttingen one of course, as well as a couple more, two from Leipzig and one from Hannover. Yeah, that was definitely a high point of the German Christmas for me, and if I ever make it back to Germany I would try to go in December especially for that purpose, because they are fantastic.
School
Yeah, school is boring. I’m not going to talk much about it. I’m taking two General Biology classes, a Genetic/Biotech class, and a Music science class. I like the Music one and the Genetics/Biotech class the best. They are both seminars, and therefore smaller, and much more interactive. Plus I just loved learning about what technologies are put to use that we aren’t even aware of. Basically, be careful what you eat, but most importantly moderation is key. There are often times sketchy things in your food, but for them most part you shouldn’t be paranoid, there is a lot of media hype about Biotech being evil, when the truth is that it has a lot of good aspects, and we have been using Biotech ever since we’ve been making beer and cheese. Biotech does a lot of good things for us, for instance drugs like Penecillin have been created by using fungi, and Corizone is produced significantly easier by using a type of mold. Another type of mold also produces citric acid originally found in lemons, so think twice before thinking that the citric acid in your gummy bears comes from actual fruit. That point is actually pretty creepy.
You know what? The music class is also very interesting, so I am indeed going to talk about it, too. You can skip this section if you don’t want to read about me analyzing Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #6. Not that I need to give you permission. I’m giving my report next week on this symphony and I must say that I found the whole research process to be extremely interesting. You see, Tchaik was a Russian composer that fell out of the norm of Russians, by writing in a more western manner. The forms of his earlier symphonies were reminiscent of the Classical-era symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven. Many important Russian composers of the time disapproved of him, because he was not Russian enough. Russians at the time liked to take a melody from their folk music and play around with it for a whole piece, unlike the western way of taking a melody and developing it into a counter melody that leads to another one, with tons of fluidity and standard Sonata form. The problem that came into the Romantic era at this point was that many melodies were extravagant and intense, and really didn’t fit into this kind of writing. Tchaik found a solution to this problem by kind of going away from Sonata form in his later symphonies. He did his own thing, which suited him well, because he was a master composers of memorable melodies (everybody knows the beautiful melodies of the Nutcracker Suite and Swan Lake). Many critics were of the opinion that he should stay that way and avoid writing symphonies. When he did he got criticized of not having unity in them. His melodies did not really flow into other melodies like what was traditionally done. He had one melody and then introduced another and then messed with them both in a development section. As a result, his sixth symphony was highly criticized. There is a really great Youtube video of Leonard Bernstein defending Tchaikovsky, and pointing out how his sixth symphony achieves unity, that is incredibly insightful if you’re interested. Yeah, so I have gotten to like really the symphony. The way he writes, changes and integrates melodies is really great to listen to and study.
Alright you can start reading again
I have that presentation on Wednesday, I’m super nervous. Anyways, this week is the last week at the University before finals, because next week I will be in Berlin for the Berlin seminar. I’m super excited to see everybody again and explore Berlin, it should be a great time. Basically that means I should be starting my internship again. I want to try something new for February and March and then definitely come back sometime to the Graslandwissenschaft internship, because the people there were really great, and working outside when nature wakes up from it’s slumber is quite nice, although we’ll have to see how my allergies take it. I heard May is pretty bad for allergies.
Ende
So that’s basically it for today. I have other things that I could talk about like my friends ridiculous area representative, and my opinion about the sad state of Christianity in Germany (the one thing that I would consider a kind of culture shock for me), and me being quite homesick at times during the times where nothing is really going on, like after New Year’s, but I’ll save those for another blog that is lacking on content. It’s kinda strange thinking about the fact that I’ve been away from home for 6 and a half months. The most I’ve done before that was 4 weeks and I was with my family still. I have literally been living in another family’s home since July. . . weird. I’m looking forward to this Semester though, starting this next internship will really get my mood up again, and I have a feeling the next six months are going to fly by. Until I write again, macht’s gut!
Skez
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Student Life!
Hello everybody, welcome to my blog number something. . . 15 or so maybe? If you don’t count the one that got censored. Wow. . . that means it’s been about 17 or 18 weeks or something since I’ve been here. I’ve now transitioned from internship stage to university stage, which made me feel a little uneasy at first, because I didn’t have a ID that said I was allowed to visit the classes, and because I still didn’t know anybody at all that I would enjoy hanging out with. But, after the first couple weeks a few surprises have come my way, and I feel much better about the whole thing, even though I’m still waiting on my stupid ID, and I still hardly know anybody in my classes. . . So without further introduction, I present to you the rest of my blog #15 (or #16 for all you hardcore collectors out there).
Grrr. . . Gasthörerschein
So as I mentioned before, I started going to lectures before I had my ID that said that I was an auditor and would be visiting the classes. Well, I’m still doing that now, but at least I know why I haven’t received an ID yet. At the beginning of October, I sent my money over via money transfer from my account in the Sparkasse to the account of the university. Well, I did this at the Klinikum, because it was nearby my work and I wanted to do it as soon as possible. Well, I had though that everything went smoothly. I even got a carbon copy of the money transfer with all the information on it. It was handwritten, copied by the employee there in the Sparkasse. So I left all happy and feeling accomplished. Little did I know that the number she wrote down was wrong! (Duh duh duuuuuuhhh!). So when I started classes, I wondered “Huh. . . I should really have received some sort of confirmation from the university by now. . .” I then proceeded to look into my account to see if I had received my refund from my bus ticket that I sent into our program’s headquarters last month. Not only was the refund from the program there, but somehow the 150 Euros that it cost to apply as an auditor was also still there. What? The money transfer didn’t work? I then proceeded to go to my Sparkasse in Ebergötzen. When I explained to them what I did they rolled their eyes at me when I mentioned that I went to the Klinikum bank to do this. Turns out the people there are just mostly students and not nearly as awesome as the people working in the small town bank. I eventually confirmed that nothing had happened to the 150 Euros that I meant to have transferred, so I was sent to an electronic terminal in order to try again. When I went to type in the bank account number from the carbon copy I still had, it immediately notified me that there was no such account. Great. So I found the number that was given to me by the university in order to check it again, and discovered that the number was incorrectly copied down by the girl in the Klinikum. That’s not an uncommon mistake, because she was hand writing it, but let me just mention that there were four zeroes at the end of the number, and she decided to write down three zeroes and a one. Where she got the one from? No idea. Kind of odd if you ask me. But wait, there’s more. Remember when I mentioned that the computer immediately notified me of the false number? Well the girl should have also been notified when she tried to process the request, so why didn’t I get a heads up that the money transfer didn’t work. They have all my contact information, and they could’ve just sent me an email and all this wouldn’t have been an issue. But no, she was probably just too lazy to say something. Now I’m awkwardly trying to contact the university, but I can’t ever manage to get their attention and am pretty fed up with that. Sigh. . .
More exciting stuff, like . . . Orchestra!
So Tuesdays I now have Orchestra practice. I auditioned my first week of classes and played something that I might have called music, and yet somehow still got in because they are desperate for horns. Yeah. . . it didn’t go so well. I picked out a modern piece to perform, and it turns out, when I got into the audition, that’d I’d have to be standing. I absolutely cannot stand playing while standing. I chip a lot more, I sound a lot harsher, it’s just a bad idea. Not to mention, it does wonders on the confidence. So after a really bad attempt at Hindemith, I eventutally had to sightread some stuff. In the key of C. I have no practice reading in the key of C while it’s in treble clef. In bass clef it’s really not that big of an issue, nor is it with E of Eb, because I sometimes practiced reading my trombone parts from jazz band, read Dvorak in E last year, and read Eb alto sax parts this year in Blasmusik, but this was in C and in treble clef. . . sigh, it was terrible. So they basically said I need to practice a lot to be able to stay in this ensemble. Well, I have the time for it, so I don’t really see that as that big of a problem. I made it in, yay! Not only that but I met a lot of new people, and we share interests, which is fantastic. We had a lot of time to get to know each other considering our music isn’t in yet and the brass has just been kinda sight-reading silly stuff. Unfortunately they are all students. The parties start late and end later, which is a problem when there is one night bus at 11:15, but at this point, I don’t really mind. Gives me an excuse to get some sleep, haha. I went to an international party Friday that was lots of fun. I met tons of interesting people from all over the world, here in Germany for some reason or another.
Oh and our orchestra is going to be traveling to Bremen later this month. Cool, right? I’m so excited.
Well, while I was auditioning I also met this horn player who was auditioning at the same time who was from England. It was pretty weird, because we both started out speaking German to each other and then realized that we both were totally not German. Well, he invited me to take part in another concert happening on the first of December. It will be put on only by international students. We have a few asians playing piano/other instruments, me and the Englishman playing a duet, a solo from him is also going to be played, another american is playing a solo, and Irishwoman playing something and a pop rock band playing quite a few songs. This band consists of a Spaniard, a Brazilian, Me, the Englishman, and a Frenchman. I think our bassist was originally German, but he didn’t show up to enough practices apparently, so that is going to change. I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. I got to meet some really cool people and am finally getting connected to the university. I also have learned a whole bunch already. For instance the way that Germans say sharp keys is by adding “is” on the end, for example Fis or Dis, and likewise for flats it would be Des or Ges. And then there is the whole “H” thing where it is really Bb, or maybe B is Bb and H is B natural. I’m still confused about the whole thing. Also the Englishman was taught totally different fingerings on his horn. He uses the Bb side a lot more, which I find interesting and worth writing, because when I use his fingerings, I play out of tune. It makes me wonder whether our horns were build differently to accommodate for that or not. I haven’t actually spent enough time playing horn with other German horn players to note a difference in fingerings yet, but I’ll get back to you on that one.
Classes
I’ve decided on a distinct schedule, and I am taking 12 credit hours (although I don’t dare get credit for any of them, or else I’ll lose my scholarship back home because I will no longer be considered a first year student) Mondays and Tuesdays I have a General Biology lecture that is right now about zoology, evolution, and anatomy. Wednesday I have a Genetics and Biotechnology course in which I am currently learning about DNA being duplicated and also transcribed, and then translated into proteins. That class is quite difficult to understand in German, but I don’t get a grade, so I just understand what I can. Wednesday is also a Music science class, in which everybody has to give a speech on a specific piece or symphony. I am doing a speech about Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony with the Englishman again. I’m pretty excited/nervous about it. It is in January, so we have plenty of time. Thursday and Friday is General Biology again, but this one goes more into Cell biology, organic chemistry and such. The two classes seem to be coming from opposite directions. The first one is going from big picture evolution, and whole organisms, whereas the second one has started about elements and atoms and is going from small to big. So that’s it for classes, my schedule is right now just busy enough for me not to be bored, but still relaxed. The classes are only an hour and a half, but they are rather complicated and go deeply into the material, so I really have to concentrate hard the whole time, which is rather tiring.
OMGoodness! I hate buses. I think when I get back to the states I will never ride a bus again. I’m sick of waiting for them, riding in them, getting frustrated because of the occasionally obscure alternate schedules. Did you know there is one bus that just randomly doesn’t go through Ebergötzen like it does every hour? It just goes right past. Why? I have no idea.
Ende
Well, to end on a more serious note, I’m sitting here writing my blog without internet access to waste my brain away, and have been looking though pictures that I have in my collection from high school. It made me look at those years and smile on them. I’m not wanting to still be in high school, but there were sure a lot of great memories from it. This experience has really made me appreciate my family and friends back home. I love you guys so much and I honestly don’t think anyone else could have done so great of a job of getting me though high school and into life with a great mindset and drive to get something accomplished. I miss you guys so much right now. I can hardly think about all the great experiences we had together, or even the not so special ones, like going up to Grandpa’s farm on some weekend just to spend some time with him, because it make me homesick (random note: I have also never appreciated Indiana weather so much). As much as I miss hanging out with my brothers right now and just annoying my mom by having meaningless silly conversation, I can’t and it’s still a long way off, so I’m not going to think about it. But I wanted to give you all a big blog hug, because you are awesome and I’m excited for the future that you have made possible for me.
So, kinda homesick, but at the same time, when I walk into town and see the beautiful city when it’s full of people going one way or another, I think “Wow, this is awesome!” and then I grab a cheap pastry and feel much better, haha.
Skez
Grrr. . . Gasthörerschein
So as I mentioned before, I started going to lectures before I had my ID that said that I was an auditor and would be visiting the classes. Well, I’m still doing that now, but at least I know why I haven’t received an ID yet. At the beginning of October, I sent my money over via money transfer from my account in the Sparkasse to the account of the university. Well, I did this at the Klinikum, because it was nearby my work and I wanted to do it as soon as possible. Well, I had though that everything went smoothly. I even got a carbon copy of the money transfer with all the information on it. It was handwritten, copied by the employee there in the Sparkasse. So I left all happy and feeling accomplished. Little did I know that the number she wrote down was wrong! (Duh duh duuuuuuhhh!). So when I started classes, I wondered “Huh. . . I should really have received some sort of confirmation from the university by now. . .” I then proceeded to look into my account to see if I had received my refund from my bus ticket that I sent into our program’s headquarters last month. Not only was the refund from the program there, but somehow the 150 Euros that it cost to apply as an auditor was also still there. What? The money transfer didn’t work? I then proceeded to go to my Sparkasse in Ebergötzen. When I explained to them what I did they rolled their eyes at me when I mentioned that I went to the Klinikum bank to do this. Turns out the people there are just mostly students and not nearly as awesome as the people working in the small town bank. I eventually confirmed that nothing had happened to the 150 Euros that I meant to have transferred, so I was sent to an electronic terminal in order to try again. When I went to type in the bank account number from the carbon copy I still had, it immediately notified me that there was no such account. Great. So I found the number that was given to me by the university in order to check it again, and discovered that the number was incorrectly copied down by the girl in the Klinikum. That’s not an uncommon mistake, because she was hand writing it, but let me just mention that there were four zeroes at the end of the number, and she decided to write down three zeroes and a one. Where she got the one from? No idea. Kind of odd if you ask me. But wait, there’s more. Remember when I mentioned that the computer immediately notified me of the false number? Well the girl should have also been notified when she tried to process the request, so why didn’t I get a heads up that the money transfer didn’t work. They have all my contact information, and they could’ve just sent me an email and all this wouldn’t have been an issue. But no, she was probably just too lazy to say something. Now I’m awkwardly trying to contact the university, but I can’t ever manage to get their attention and am pretty fed up with that. Sigh. . .
More exciting stuff, like . . . Orchestra!
So Tuesdays I now have Orchestra practice. I auditioned my first week of classes and played something that I might have called music, and yet somehow still got in because they are desperate for horns. Yeah. . . it didn’t go so well. I picked out a modern piece to perform, and it turns out, when I got into the audition, that’d I’d have to be standing. I absolutely cannot stand playing while standing. I chip a lot more, I sound a lot harsher, it’s just a bad idea. Not to mention, it does wonders on the confidence. So after a really bad attempt at Hindemith, I eventutally had to sightread some stuff. In the key of C. I have no practice reading in the key of C while it’s in treble clef. In bass clef it’s really not that big of an issue, nor is it with E of Eb, because I sometimes practiced reading my trombone parts from jazz band, read Dvorak in E last year, and read Eb alto sax parts this year in Blasmusik, but this was in C and in treble clef. . . sigh, it was terrible. So they basically said I need to practice a lot to be able to stay in this ensemble. Well, I have the time for it, so I don’t really see that as that big of a problem. I made it in, yay! Not only that but I met a lot of new people, and we share interests, which is fantastic. We had a lot of time to get to know each other considering our music isn’t in yet and the brass has just been kinda sight-reading silly stuff. Unfortunately they are all students. The parties start late and end later, which is a problem when there is one night bus at 11:15, but at this point, I don’t really mind. Gives me an excuse to get some sleep, haha. I went to an international party Friday that was lots of fun. I met tons of interesting people from all over the world, here in Germany for some reason or another.
Oh and our orchestra is going to be traveling to Bremen later this month. Cool, right? I’m so excited.
Well, while I was auditioning I also met this horn player who was auditioning at the same time who was from England. It was pretty weird, because we both started out speaking German to each other and then realized that we both were totally not German. Well, he invited me to take part in another concert happening on the first of December. It will be put on only by international students. We have a few asians playing piano/other instruments, me and the Englishman playing a duet, a solo from him is also going to be played, another american is playing a solo, and Irishwoman playing something and a pop rock band playing quite a few songs. This band consists of a Spaniard, a Brazilian, Me, the Englishman, and a Frenchman. I think our bassist was originally German, but he didn’t show up to enough practices apparently, so that is going to change. I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. I got to meet some really cool people and am finally getting connected to the university. I also have learned a whole bunch already. For instance the way that Germans say sharp keys is by adding “is” on the end, for example Fis or Dis, and likewise for flats it would be Des or Ges. And then there is the whole “H” thing where it is really Bb, or maybe B is Bb and H is B natural. I’m still confused about the whole thing. Also the Englishman was taught totally different fingerings on his horn. He uses the Bb side a lot more, which I find interesting and worth writing, because when I use his fingerings, I play out of tune. It makes me wonder whether our horns were build differently to accommodate for that or not. I haven’t actually spent enough time playing horn with other German horn players to note a difference in fingerings yet, but I’ll get back to you on that one.
Classes
I’ve decided on a distinct schedule, and I am taking 12 credit hours (although I don’t dare get credit for any of them, or else I’ll lose my scholarship back home because I will no longer be considered a first year student) Mondays and Tuesdays I have a General Biology lecture that is right now about zoology, evolution, and anatomy. Wednesday I have a Genetics and Biotechnology course in which I am currently learning about DNA being duplicated and also transcribed, and then translated into proteins. That class is quite difficult to understand in German, but I don’t get a grade, so I just understand what I can. Wednesday is also a Music science class, in which everybody has to give a speech on a specific piece or symphony. I am doing a speech about Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony with the Englishman again. I’m pretty excited/nervous about it. It is in January, so we have plenty of time. Thursday and Friday is General Biology again, but this one goes more into Cell biology, organic chemistry and such. The two classes seem to be coming from opposite directions. The first one is going from big picture evolution, and whole organisms, whereas the second one has started about elements and atoms and is going from small to big. So that’s it for classes, my schedule is right now just busy enough for me not to be bored, but still relaxed. The classes are only an hour and a half, but they are rather complicated and go deeply into the material, so I really have to concentrate hard the whole time, which is rather tiring.
OMGoodness! I hate buses. I think when I get back to the states I will never ride a bus again. I’m sick of waiting for them, riding in them, getting frustrated because of the occasionally obscure alternate schedules. Did you know there is one bus that just randomly doesn’t go through Ebergötzen like it does every hour? It just goes right past. Why? I have no idea.
Ende
Well, to end on a more serious note, I’m sitting here writing my blog without internet access to waste my brain away, and have been looking though pictures that I have in my collection from high school. It made me look at those years and smile on them. I’m not wanting to still be in high school, but there were sure a lot of great memories from it. This experience has really made me appreciate my family and friends back home. I love you guys so much and I honestly don’t think anyone else could have done so great of a job of getting me though high school and into life with a great mindset and drive to get something accomplished. I miss you guys so much right now. I can hardly think about all the great experiences we had together, or even the not so special ones, like going up to Grandpa’s farm on some weekend just to spend some time with him, because it make me homesick (random note: I have also never appreciated Indiana weather so much). As much as I miss hanging out with my brothers right now and just annoying my mom by having meaningless silly conversation, I can’t and it’s still a long way off, so I’m not going to think about it. But I wanted to give you all a big blog hug, because you are awesome and I’m excited for the future that you have made possible for me.
So, kinda homesick, but at the same time, when I walk into town and see the beautiful city when it’s full of people going one way or another, I think “Wow, this is awesome!” and then I grab a cheap pastry and feel much better, haha.
Skez
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Finally got this blog up. No good exuse really. . .
Well, I figured since I’ll be starting at the university on Monday, I should probably update my blog. I’m going to go ahead and blame the long gap on the fact that we lost our internet for a week. Well, it’s been three weeks now, I believe, since I last wrote and a lot of things have happened. I ended my internship in Grasslandwissenschaft and started and ended another one that was in Plant/crop quality, and now, like I said, I will be auditing lectures at the Uni. In between there someplace I went to Hungary and did some other cool stuff. I’ll just write it as it comes to me.
Internship
So, my last week with the grassland science people was fairly uneventful. I basically got to work outside one day, and that was it. I had to make the final measurement of the grass heights. Other than that it was counting grass, entering data, and so on. It was kind of frustrating since I wanted to start in plant quality that week, but it got pushed back, even though they didn’t need me. Oh well. I got a nice little going away card from them; it was quite pleasant. I still go back to visit every once and a while.
The next internship was in plant quality. Basically, it’s more like what I wanted to do in the first place. There’s different experiments going on with strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, and even potato chips. My first day I titrated a solution that consisted of dissolved, freeze dried strawberry powder. What that means is I measured how much acid was in the strawberry by adding a base to the solution (a base is basically the opposite of an acid. When mixed they form water and a salt). When I write down how much base I needed to neutralize the acid in the solution, I can determine the amount of acid that was originally there. The process is quite slow and the work was extremely boring after a while, but that’s why iPods were invented.
After that day it went a little better, or at least it was more interesting. When I was working in Grassland science I got to see one of the projects that involved different types of tomatoes and different ways of growing them. There was wild ones, ones you see in a store, big ones, and tiny ones, grown either hanging or left on the ground. Well after they grew them they were subject to a few taste tests earlier in the year. The participants were asked to grade taste, juiciness, sweetness, ect. Then what I did is take the remaining tomatoes and test them in the lab. I measured juiciness, sugar content, and acidity, which involved using all sorts of cool machines and stuff. A blender to liquify it, a giant refrigerated centrifuge to separate the solid from the liquid, and a refractometer (or something like that) to measure the sugar content for example.
Other then those two things I also worked once more with the strawberries. I did this whole big process involving different chemical reactions in order to measure the Phenol content. Phenol is a common antioxidant found it red stuff or blue stuff and sometimes yellow stuff, such as strawberries, blueberries, and other brightly colored fruits and vegetables. That was pretty cool. I got to use a photo-spectrometer hooked up to computer. I felt like a pro. After that internship I got a nice little coffee mug, pen, and bag from the university as a thank you. It was quite lovely.
Excuse me while I rant (actually a lot smaller than my original rant)
I’ve been devouring podcasts like crazy: “Radio Lab”, “This American Life”, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, “All Songs Considered”, and I’ve even started with BBC and NBC daily news podcasts. As a result, I’ve been quite up on things such as the election coming up in the states. I apologize if you agree with them, but some of the interviews that I hear of Tea Party members makes me a little bit embarrassed to be an American. And being American, I often get questions about what the heck their goal is. I still have no idea. In fact in one interview I even heard a man use the Bible and Christianity to support using fossil fuels. No joke. “God created the earth for us to utilize. . . I read my Bible,” he said. Really? God created the earth for us to utilize, and not to preserve? That’s not the way I interpret it. I don’t think I ever read “You have heard that it was said ‘Be fruitful and increase in number,’ but I tell you ‘DRILL BABY DRILL!!!!’” but maybe I missed that part. I just want to see some people suggesting constructive ideas instead of just being anti-whatever they need to to get them in office. I’m afraid this movement is making our conservatives more conservative and our liberals more liberal and inhibiting our ability to compromise. If the Republicans do win the majority in both the Senate and the House, I want to see them work with the president instead of against him. By the way, I know the Tea Party does not even represent a significant percentage of the American people, but it’s the only thing that gets covered here, which bothers me a lot. Sigh. . . rant over.
Ungarn
Thats German for Hungary. They didn’t like the “H” I guess. I went to Hungary last weekend, from Thursday night until 1 in the morning on Tuesday. Our little town’s soccer team has a partnership with another little town’s in Hungary called Aba. No, not ABBA, Aba. They’re actually about 4000 in population, double the size of Ebergötzen, but a small town nonetheless. It’s about 80 km south of Budapest, but at the same time a world apart. Aba is very old-fashioned, poor looking town in my opinion. It’s still very agriculture based, with plots of crops mixed in between the houses. I’m talking about good old family farms, that you don’t really see in developed countries anymore. It was something that I’d never really seen. The houses are not so well maintained and there probably hasn’t been a new one built since forever. The streets look dusty and worn out, although there isn’t really any pot holes. They do, however, look more like dirt roads than paved ones. Budapest is completely different. It’s a big city with beautiful architecture and even a gigantic modern shopping mall that reminded me of the Circle City in Indianapolis. Next to it Aba looks rather pathetic.
But anyway, we were there because of this partnership. We did play soccer at 11am on saturday as a friendship game type thing, but other than that it was just a bunch of eating and drinking. I ate soooo much food. This one night we basically got a huge platter per 4 people with a bunch of goodies on it, and we weren’t limited to just one. Schnitzel, deep-fried mushrooms, chicken breast, flank steak, fried eggs, rice, vegetable mix, and onions. . . ‘nuff said. It was delicious. Then, after we were all stuffed full of food, they were like “dessert?” and we were like “Heck yes!” and they gave us crepes stuffed with nutella-like chocolate deliciousness and topped with whipped cream. Oh and there were sprinkles on top, just for kicks. I was so full. And then this drunk guy bought me a Weizen beer even though I insisted that I didn’t want it because I was stuffed to the brim and Weizen takes up quite a bit of room. Yeah, I had to pretty much stay put for an hour before I could actually move.
But not all of the food was that well appreciated. Ok, I’m jumping forward in time a bit now to our last dinner in Hungary: the notorious fish soup. They served us this traditional Hungarian soup in which they tood a huge fish, chopped it up perpendicular to the spine, and dropped it in. Every bowl had a chunk of fish in it shaped like a U (part of the spine and ribs with the meat being around the ribs). I honestly did not think it was that bad, but you just had to get past the way the soggy, overcooked fish looked and not be grossed out by taking out the spine and ribs. But, yeah . . . It made this one guy puke even though he hadn’t even drank anything. Other people were puking for the very opposite reason. They drank a bunch without eating anything, because the fish soup looked gross.
So, back to Saturday, we went to a big festival after the soccer game. What we did was get into the back of a horse drawn wagon and ride around the town in a parade, stopping only to drink wine, eat food, and dance some traditional Hungarian dances. I mean, we didn’t dance, rather the other people participating in the parade. Some other carts carried the dancers, who were kids dressed in traditional clothing. There was even one dance where the girls danced around with big flasks of wine on they’re heads. It was pretty cool. The wine was the focus of the festival, so I got to try all sorts of different wines that were all made right there. Actually, not all of them. That stuff take a toll on the system after three hours of parading, so I eventually stopped and switched to the tea.
And that was that. Afterwards we went to the pathetically tiny disco there and danced it up. It was a good time, especially for the sober people. Some of the people that were not so sober started relationships that they largely regretted the next morning. So it goes. I found it amusing, considering they couldn’t really communicate to each other. Oh and at the end of the night, like 3am, this guy decided to push a little too hard on the door, broke the glass, and then proceeded to run away. My host dad, being the good policeman he is, chased after him in vain before returning and instructing us to be very careful going home. It was kind of frightening, but ended up not being a big deal because there were so many witnesses and they new that we didn’t do it.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Budapest was on Sunday. Like I said, we visited the big, beautiful, touristy buildings and statues. There’s a really nice area that’s on top of a mountain looking over the Danube (I think that’s the translation for “Donau” right?”), which had a beautiful view of the whole city, including the really cool looking parliament building. There was also this gigantic church. Because no great European city is complete without a gigantic church.
Yeah, so that was it. I explained Sunday night already. Nothing else really to say there, besides that these kids drink like crazy. Sunday these two guys had drunken 13.5 liters of beer, starting at 8 in the morning. While drunk they challenged me that if they could reach 15, I would have to drink a bunch of shots or something, but I convinced them that I should just have to sing instead. So I promised to belt our National Anthem if they made it, as long as they promised to sing the German Anthem if they lost. Well, they lost and I’m still waiting on the German Anthem to be sung to me. How disappointing.
Last Week
So, last week, like I said, was my last internship week before starting at the University. This weekend was pretty fun. It was relaxing at least. It’s starting to get super cold here. It feels a lot colder than it is, too, because it’s moist and windy as well. I watched our soccer team lose on Saturday and froze my butt off while doing it. I opted to stay inside most of the rest of the weekend. On Friday night my host parents had friends over to make some Gluhwein, which was pretty cool. What you do is get a big cauldron and put it on a propane stove, and then fill it with the bottled wine. After heating it up, they took a chunk of sugar, doused it with rum, and then burned it, letting the liquid sugar drip into the wine. What resulted was a sweet, hot, delicious drink. It’s normally for Christmas time, but seeing as it was really cold, they decided to officially start the celebrating. So that was a cultural experience.
Ende
That’s about it. As I’m now well adjusted here in Ebergötzen, I’m starting to get a little homesick. It’s always a little bit depressing watching my friends facebook statuses roll by saying stuff like “Going home for fall break, woo!” or “Heading back to Carmel this weekend, anyone wanna hang out?” while I sit there thinking “Yeah. . . how about in 8 months or so?” I would also like to point out that living in a small town with only a bus that comes every hour to access the city, plus being a university student, equals awful. The bus times are terrible for getting to the lectures on time, resulting in me just having an hour to burn in the cold mornings. And afternoon classes? Forget it, it’s so pointless because they are timed perfectly so that I would either have to wait two hours or go home only to immediately take the bus back again. Grrr. . . It makes for a terrible combination and it’s really hard to get to know people only going to morning classes, not to mention the fact that they already know each other from department orientation stuff that I wasn’t invited too, because the University apparently thinks it’s ok to let me turn in my form and then ignore me. . . sigh.
I promise I’m having a good time, though. It’s just turning into a rather frustrating transition right now that I don’t really want to deal with at all. Classes are looking to be decently interesting, and at least I’ll be learning a lot.
Skez
Internship
So, my last week with the grassland science people was fairly uneventful. I basically got to work outside one day, and that was it. I had to make the final measurement of the grass heights. Other than that it was counting grass, entering data, and so on. It was kind of frustrating since I wanted to start in plant quality that week, but it got pushed back, even though they didn’t need me. Oh well. I got a nice little going away card from them; it was quite pleasant. I still go back to visit every once and a while.
The next internship was in plant quality. Basically, it’s more like what I wanted to do in the first place. There’s different experiments going on with strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, and even potato chips. My first day I titrated a solution that consisted of dissolved, freeze dried strawberry powder. What that means is I measured how much acid was in the strawberry by adding a base to the solution (a base is basically the opposite of an acid. When mixed they form water and a salt). When I write down how much base I needed to neutralize the acid in the solution, I can determine the amount of acid that was originally there. The process is quite slow and the work was extremely boring after a while, but that’s why iPods were invented.
After that day it went a little better, or at least it was more interesting. When I was working in Grassland science I got to see one of the projects that involved different types of tomatoes and different ways of growing them. There was wild ones, ones you see in a store, big ones, and tiny ones, grown either hanging or left on the ground. Well after they grew them they were subject to a few taste tests earlier in the year. The participants were asked to grade taste, juiciness, sweetness, ect. Then what I did is take the remaining tomatoes and test them in the lab. I measured juiciness, sugar content, and acidity, which involved using all sorts of cool machines and stuff. A blender to liquify it, a giant refrigerated centrifuge to separate the solid from the liquid, and a refractometer (or something like that) to measure the sugar content for example.
Other then those two things I also worked once more with the strawberries. I did this whole big process involving different chemical reactions in order to measure the Phenol content. Phenol is a common antioxidant found it red stuff or blue stuff and sometimes yellow stuff, such as strawberries, blueberries, and other brightly colored fruits and vegetables. That was pretty cool. I got to use a photo-spectrometer hooked up to computer. I felt like a pro. After that internship I got a nice little coffee mug, pen, and bag from the university as a thank you. It was quite lovely.
Excuse me while I rant (actually a lot smaller than my original rant)
I’ve been devouring podcasts like crazy: “Radio Lab”, “This American Life”, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, “All Songs Considered”, and I’ve even started with BBC and NBC daily news podcasts. As a result, I’ve been quite up on things such as the election coming up in the states. I apologize if you agree with them, but some of the interviews that I hear of Tea Party members makes me a little bit embarrassed to be an American. And being American, I often get questions about what the heck their goal is. I still have no idea. In fact in one interview I even heard a man use the Bible and Christianity to support using fossil fuels. No joke. “God created the earth for us to utilize. . . I read my Bible,” he said. Really? God created the earth for us to utilize, and not to preserve? That’s not the way I interpret it. I don’t think I ever read “You have heard that it was said ‘Be fruitful and increase in number,’ but I tell you ‘DRILL BABY DRILL!!!!’” but maybe I missed that part. I just want to see some people suggesting constructive ideas instead of just being anti-whatever they need to to get them in office. I’m afraid this movement is making our conservatives more conservative and our liberals more liberal and inhibiting our ability to compromise. If the Republicans do win the majority in both the Senate and the House, I want to see them work with the president instead of against him. By the way, I know the Tea Party does not even represent a significant percentage of the American people, but it’s the only thing that gets covered here, which bothers me a lot. Sigh. . . rant over.
Ungarn
Thats German for Hungary. They didn’t like the “H” I guess. I went to Hungary last weekend, from Thursday night until 1 in the morning on Tuesday. Our little town’s soccer team has a partnership with another little town’s in Hungary called Aba. No, not ABBA, Aba. They’re actually about 4000 in population, double the size of Ebergötzen, but a small town nonetheless. It’s about 80 km south of Budapest, but at the same time a world apart. Aba is very old-fashioned, poor looking town in my opinion. It’s still very agriculture based, with plots of crops mixed in between the houses. I’m talking about good old family farms, that you don’t really see in developed countries anymore. It was something that I’d never really seen. The houses are not so well maintained and there probably hasn’t been a new one built since forever. The streets look dusty and worn out, although there isn’t really any pot holes. They do, however, look more like dirt roads than paved ones. Budapest is completely different. It’s a big city with beautiful architecture and even a gigantic modern shopping mall that reminded me of the Circle City in Indianapolis. Next to it Aba looks rather pathetic.
But anyway, we were there because of this partnership. We did play soccer at 11am on saturday as a friendship game type thing, but other than that it was just a bunch of eating and drinking. I ate soooo much food. This one night we basically got a huge platter per 4 people with a bunch of goodies on it, and we weren’t limited to just one. Schnitzel, deep-fried mushrooms, chicken breast, flank steak, fried eggs, rice, vegetable mix, and onions. . . ‘nuff said. It was delicious. Then, after we were all stuffed full of food, they were like “dessert?” and we were like “Heck yes!” and they gave us crepes stuffed with nutella-like chocolate deliciousness and topped with whipped cream. Oh and there were sprinkles on top, just for kicks. I was so full. And then this drunk guy bought me a Weizen beer even though I insisted that I didn’t want it because I was stuffed to the brim and Weizen takes up quite a bit of room. Yeah, I had to pretty much stay put for an hour before I could actually move.
But not all of the food was that well appreciated. Ok, I’m jumping forward in time a bit now to our last dinner in Hungary: the notorious fish soup. They served us this traditional Hungarian soup in which they tood a huge fish, chopped it up perpendicular to the spine, and dropped it in. Every bowl had a chunk of fish in it shaped like a U (part of the spine and ribs with the meat being around the ribs). I honestly did not think it was that bad, but you just had to get past the way the soggy, overcooked fish looked and not be grossed out by taking out the spine and ribs. But, yeah . . . It made this one guy puke even though he hadn’t even drank anything. Other people were puking for the very opposite reason. They drank a bunch without eating anything, because the fish soup looked gross.
So, back to Saturday, we went to a big festival after the soccer game. What we did was get into the back of a horse drawn wagon and ride around the town in a parade, stopping only to drink wine, eat food, and dance some traditional Hungarian dances. I mean, we didn’t dance, rather the other people participating in the parade. Some other carts carried the dancers, who were kids dressed in traditional clothing. There was even one dance where the girls danced around with big flasks of wine on they’re heads. It was pretty cool. The wine was the focus of the festival, so I got to try all sorts of different wines that were all made right there. Actually, not all of them. That stuff take a toll on the system after three hours of parading, so I eventually stopped and switched to the tea.
And that was that. Afterwards we went to the pathetically tiny disco there and danced it up. It was a good time, especially for the sober people. Some of the people that were not so sober started relationships that they largely regretted the next morning. So it goes. I found it amusing, considering they couldn’t really communicate to each other. Oh and at the end of the night, like 3am, this guy decided to push a little too hard on the door, broke the glass, and then proceeded to run away. My host dad, being the good policeman he is, chased after him in vain before returning and instructing us to be very careful going home. It was kind of frightening, but ended up not being a big deal because there were so many witnesses and they new that we didn’t do it.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Budapest was on Sunday. Like I said, we visited the big, beautiful, touristy buildings and statues. There’s a really nice area that’s on top of a mountain looking over the Danube (I think that’s the translation for “Donau” right?”), which had a beautiful view of the whole city, including the really cool looking parliament building. There was also this gigantic church. Because no great European city is complete without a gigantic church.
Yeah, so that was it. I explained Sunday night already. Nothing else really to say there, besides that these kids drink like crazy. Sunday these two guys had drunken 13.5 liters of beer, starting at 8 in the morning. While drunk they challenged me that if they could reach 15, I would have to drink a bunch of shots or something, but I convinced them that I should just have to sing instead. So I promised to belt our National Anthem if they made it, as long as they promised to sing the German Anthem if they lost. Well, they lost and I’m still waiting on the German Anthem to be sung to me. How disappointing.
Last Week
So, last week, like I said, was my last internship week before starting at the University. This weekend was pretty fun. It was relaxing at least. It’s starting to get super cold here. It feels a lot colder than it is, too, because it’s moist and windy as well. I watched our soccer team lose on Saturday and froze my butt off while doing it. I opted to stay inside most of the rest of the weekend. On Friday night my host parents had friends over to make some Gluhwein, which was pretty cool. What you do is get a big cauldron and put it on a propane stove, and then fill it with the bottled wine. After heating it up, they took a chunk of sugar, doused it with rum, and then burned it, letting the liquid sugar drip into the wine. What resulted was a sweet, hot, delicious drink. It’s normally for Christmas time, but seeing as it was really cold, they decided to officially start the celebrating. So that was a cultural experience.
Ende
That’s about it. As I’m now well adjusted here in Ebergötzen, I’m starting to get a little homesick. It’s always a little bit depressing watching my friends facebook statuses roll by saying stuff like “Going home for fall break, woo!” or “Heading back to Carmel this weekend, anyone wanna hang out?” while I sit there thinking “Yeah. . . how about in 8 months or so?” I would also like to point out that living in a small town with only a bus that comes every hour to access the city, plus being a university student, equals awful. The bus times are terrible for getting to the lectures on time, resulting in me just having an hour to burn in the cold mornings. And afternoon classes? Forget it, it’s so pointless because they are timed perfectly so that I would either have to wait two hours or go home only to immediately take the bus back again. Grrr. . . It makes for a terrible combination and it’s really hard to get to know people only going to morning classes, not to mention the fact that they already know each other from department orientation stuff that I wasn’t invited too, because the University apparently thinks it’s ok to let me turn in my form and then ignore me. . . sigh.
I promise I’m having a good time, though. It’s just turning into a rather frustrating transition right now that I don’t really want to deal with at all. Classes are looking to be decently interesting, and at least I’ll be learning a lot.
Skez
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Two Weeks for the Price of One!
Okay, It’s about time I get to writing this blog. I really didn’t have time last sunday to write it because I was hanging out with Zac, one of the two other Americans in Göttingen, which involved playing ultimate frisbee, so I was super tired that evening. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I was really just too lazy, plus I was not in the greatest of moods. But before I get to that, I should really tell you what I should have written in last week’s blog.
Birthday! Woo!
My birthday was indeed two Wednesdays ago, although really the celebration was the previous weekend with the half of my family that could visit. I was having an excellent week so far at work and I was in a really good mood by the time my birthday rolled around. I baked some cookies to bring to work like a good German would, and they were thoroughly enjoyed by my co-workers, although I really ate a lot of them, because the weather was nice that day, which meant that almost everybody was out working rather than in the actual institute (we have about three different locations where projects are going on outside of Göttingen). I also was out that day, but was back early so it was all good. That evening I visited a birthday party that someone else threw, because it so happened to be that he had his birthday that day too, less work for me. Not only did he have his birthday on the same day as me, but he also was turning nineteen, which was a funny coincidence, considering the chances that something like that would happen in such a small town. We had great weather that day, so they grilled some sausages and chicken breast. It was tasty to say the least. Yeah, so that was pretty much it, I got a card from my work and a little breakfast personal cutting board thing (if you know what I’m talking about than you’ve lived in Germany), and from my host parents I got a bonsai plant. Pretty cool little thing.
Week 1
I’m just going to call the week that I missed week 1 for simplicity. I got to work on a different project that week. It’s located in a field that’s a little farther away than the farm that I normally work at. What they’re doing there is experiments with different ways of mowing the fields, and seeing how that affects biodiversity which in turn affects food quality. There are 72 small squares with different grasses in each one as well as different intensities of mowing. That means a but load of sample taking. Tuesday and Wednesday we mowed with this machine that has two wheels and a these teeth in the front that move back and forth, cutting the grass all the way to the ground. We would have finished it all Tuesday but the darn thing broke (Technology, psh!), plus there was a ton of traffic that day, so we had to continue on Wednesday. Oh and by the way there is this 800 year old wall that is just kinda there like it’s no big deal. It’s pretty cool looking. Monday I was counting grasshoppers, but I think I talked a bit about that in my last blog already. All three of those days had absolutely beautiful weather, so I really enjoyed myself outside. Next week is looking pretty good too, so I’m excited for my last week working with Graslandwissenshaft.
The rest of the days were really just small tasks. I did some data entering, sample drying, weighing, and sorting, and other similar things. It was relaxing; I got to listen to music or podcasts while doing the tedious work. Which was good because my weekend was rather full.
Weekend 1
On Saturday I had planned to hang out with Zac for the afternoon/evening, but since my host brother and host dad were already going to a concert that evening, they invited us to go along. It made my host dad happy because he got to speak a little English again. The band was called “Swagger,” a band that played pretty much everything. They’re a cover band and covered everything from Peter Maffay to Rammstein to Black Eyed Peas. And they played A LOT from about 10:30 to 3 am, in fact. So, since we got back late, Zac just stayed overnight in the extra bed in my room and we hung out at my place the next morning too, until it was time for frisbee. I finally managed to work it out with the frisbee thing, and it was lots of fun. It was the first time that I really got to play on a serious team, as in they had legit drills and strategies, so I was pretty darn exausted. Not to mention I didn’t really know what I was doing, considering the instructions were always in German or broken English. I wasn’t really familiar with the sport vocabulary in both languages, so I was just screwed overall. Then I missed my bus, which made me mad because the busses come only every two hours on Sundays, so my host dad came and picked me up.
But that was just the beginning of the series of unfortunate things that happened to me over the next few days.
Last Week. . . oh joy.
So, where to start, where to start. . . On Monday the weather turned into a rainy cloudy cold mess. Fall is starting up and good days are becoming scarcer and scarcer. But of course the show must go on. We had things to do before winter shows up. We needed to move the animals to the third group of fields, which involves taking grass samples from both the field that they are moving off of and the field that they are moving onto (kind of like a before/after type of deal). So despite the rain I had to work outside, sitting in tall grass cutting the sample from the ground with my bare hands and then somehow managing to label the samples with a wet piece of paper. I did this 16 times before I could go home a cold and wet mess. Luckily I didn’t get sick, it was just a miserable experience. I especially don’t like the fact that it’s so quite since I’m by myself in the middle of a field and I end of thinking about things, which soon becomes non-productive thinking. It was just not the best of circumstances. Oh well, it happens.
Tuesday I went back out to the farm. The weather was still crappy and cold, but it was only misting, so a little bit better. I got through the work at least without having to worry about writing on wet paper, although it was still really wet outside. First we moved the sheep down to the barn where they got there hooves trimmed. That was pretty funny, because they basically put them in this sheep holding rack thing and then tighten it on their bodies in order to turn them upside down and cut the hooves. Just something about a device specifically designed to flip a sheep upside down amuses me. Well, we did that with every group of sheep (four times I herded them down to the barn and then back up to their new place to graze) and then also moved the cows to their respective fields, but they didn’t need trimming. After that I got to sit in a field covered with crap in order to take the samples. Again 16 samples, didn’t take but a couple of hours, but at the end I was displeased to discover that my iPod had fallen out of my jacket pocket. So I spent about forty minutes searching the three fields that it could have been in, and I found it again. Of course it was in the very last field. Eventually I managed to get home, although a bit late.
But that’s not the worst of it. I needed this whole time to talk to Professor Isselstein, the head of the Grasslandwissenshaften section of the Agrarwissenshaften department, about my auditor form which I gave to him on Monday to sign. So I was planning to do that on Wednesday, since I came back late (the due date was Thursday) With that little teaser I’ll move on to what happened on Wednesday.
I though I was going to be staying in the institute on Wednesday, but of course the other field (the one I worked on the week before, with the 800 year old wall) needed some help. I really didn’t have the right clothing so I needed to grab my rubber boots and my rain pants. Oh and I had to buy my lunch on the way there. Luckily I had my rain jacket though. So we soon left to the field, on the way putting a hole on the back of the pickup truck. We almost got stuck in the mud driving through the pasture to get to the research fields and ended up getting stuck in the mud on the way back. After shoving it out of the mud and getting the car all dirty we had to take it somewhere nearby to get it washed. Well, when we washed it we discovered a really big oil leak coming from the underside of the car and found that we were no longer able to drive it. So I then had to wait on someone else to pick us up from Göttingen which is about a 40 minute trip one way. When I finally got back, after hitting a fox I might add, I had already missed my bus so I went up to Prof. Isselstein to talk about my registration form and was not pleased to discover that I needed the signatures and stamps from all the departments that I signed up to take classes in. Lovely considering the due date was the next day.
The cool thing was that I got to work on this giant tractor thing that day though. It was awesome. Basically this thing was a giant mower that mowed the grass onto a conveyor belt that dropped it onto a conveyor belt that wasn’t moving so it could weigh the grass and then it shot the grass out the side with the second belt. I sat in the back of the machine waiting as the part of the mowed grass was blown through a tube to me (part of the grass is separated and comes to me, while the other part drops down to be weighed). I then bagged and labeled the grass and but it in a big sack. I really had to work fast, because by the time I stapled and labeled the bag, the machine was already on the next one. It was really lots of fun. The machine looks like a mix between something you’d see in a Doctor Seuss book and a horror film.
So like I said, the beginning of this week was not so good. In fact it was pretty awful in general, but things turned up. On Thursday I got to work inside and I went into town to talk to the student secretary about my auditor form. I got the deadline extended, so everything’s good with that. Then I got to go home early. Friday was basically the same, except I collected all of the signatures and prepared them, since the office closes early on Fridays.
I found an international church that I’m going to go to, which I’m really looking forward to because I’d be nice to meet and share fellowship with some new people. It’s been really hard trying to find people that I can actually connect with and relate to since I’m in this small town with a bunch of people that are younger than me and that I just wouldn’t be able to be friends with. Not because they’re not nice or anything, but just because they’re not really my type. Hopefully at this church I’ll be able to meet some cool people, because they are all basically in a similar situation as me. They’re mostly foreigners who have come to Germany for different reasons, but want to still meet some people, which is hard to do because of the language barrier. Plus they give a bible study in German for people that are trying to learn German, like me. So I’m going to go to that if I enjoy the regular service. I haven’t been able to go yet, though, because this weekend. . .
Relaxing, fun weekend. . . aahh. . .
Friday night my host sister came. She’s really nice and I enjoyed spending time with her and my host parents this weekend. My host brother is starting to get on my nerves a little bit. The twins were okay, but they didn’t really interact at all, just were on the computer or TV all the time. Marcel is much different, but he has lately been really getting on my host mom’s nerves (and I think my dad too). I really don’t understand it, because he clearly got thrown out of his mom’s house for some reason, and now he’s living by us with his dad, and annoying the heck out of them. He’s always complaining about small things, just digging and digging until someone blows up (my host mom usually, which just makes things really awkward for me), or blows up himself. I’ll give you an example: Just the other day my host dad made a home made pizza. It was awesome. It had cheese and tuna and pineapple and spicy peppers, just amazing. In fact he always cooks really good food. Well there happened to also be a little bit of ham on it as well, a good choice if you ask me, but apparently Marcel really doesn’t like ham on pizza and specifically asked for him to leave it off. Well he complained and whined and then finally just ate bread instead of this delicious pizza, just because it had a little bit of ham on it. Now this child (actually he’s twenty which makes it worse) is living at his dad’s house for free, and getting fed delicious food every single day, and he has the nerve to complain about it. Not just about that, but a bunch of different stuff. For instance, he complains that he wants to go into town to sit in the sauna but my host dad doesn’t want to pay for it. I mean really? His life is not hard, if I were in his position I would be sucking up to my family in order to not get kicked out a second time, but he’s borderline if you ask me. Of course, I don’t really have any say in the matter, and it’s something that I will leave for them to discuss. I just wanted to vent because it’s really frustrating sometimes, the things he says.
Anyway, back to the main point of this section. Friday night we played a German game similar to “Trouble” called “Mensch ärgert mich nicht.” and then I taught them Euchre since we had four people (me, my host parents, and my host sister). It was tons of fun even though I epic failed at the first game.
Saturday I hung out a bit with Zac and Trinitie, both Americans on this program in my area, and we talked for a while. Then I went home and chilled, which was nice. I got Starcraft 2 in German, which I’m pretty excited about, although the vocab is a lot different so I’m learning a lot of new words. It’s actually kinda frustrating sometimes when I don’t understand the hints that they give me on the mission. Eventually I figure that out, but as far as the plot line goes, it’s really hard to follow. Sunday we took my host sister back to the Bahnhof in Kassel and said goodbye, but before that we walked around a park in Kassel where a giant Castle was. There’s one castle on a hill with the statue of Hercules that has a huge fountain at the bottom of the hill. It only runs for about 15 minutes every couple hours or so I think, but when it starts it really goes. It’s just one huge fountain that forces water up above the trees, which are impressively tall themselves. With the sun in the mix as well they fountain was really pretty, with a huge rainbow forming on the side. It was really cool looking, just because it was sooo much water.
Ende
So, that’s the end of that. I don’t think I’m going to proof read so if there’s any errors, just deal with it, I don’t feel like going back. Oh, I must say that Blasmusik is going really well. I have my Trombone now and we’re actually improving quite a bit. I guess all the music was new before, but now we can play it much better. It’s tons of fun! Thanks for reading, peace out.
Skez
Birthday! Woo!
My birthday was indeed two Wednesdays ago, although really the celebration was the previous weekend with the half of my family that could visit. I was having an excellent week so far at work and I was in a really good mood by the time my birthday rolled around. I baked some cookies to bring to work like a good German would, and they were thoroughly enjoyed by my co-workers, although I really ate a lot of them, because the weather was nice that day, which meant that almost everybody was out working rather than in the actual institute (we have about three different locations where projects are going on outside of Göttingen). I also was out that day, but was back early so it was all good. That evening I visited a birthday party that someone else threw, because it so happened to be that he had his birthday that day too, less work for me. Not only did he have his birthday on the same day as me, but he also was turning nineteen, which was a funny coincidence, considering the chances that something like that would happen in such a small town. We had great weather that day, so they grilled some sausages and chicken breast. It was tasty to say the least. Yeah, so that was pretty much it, I got a card from my work and a little breakfast personal cutting board thing (if you know what I’m talking about than you’ve lived in Germany), and from my host parents I got a bonsai plant. Pretty cool little thing.
Week 1
I’m just going to call the week that I missed week 1 for simplicity. I got to work on a different project that week. It’s located in a field that’s a little farther away than the farm that I normally work at. What they’re doing there is experiments with different ways of mowing the fields, and seeing how that affects biodiversity which in turn affects food quality. There are 72 small squares with different grasses in each one as well as different intensities of mowing. That means a but load of sample taking. Tuesday and Wednesday we mowed with this machine that has two wheels and a these teeth in the front that move back and forth, cutting the grass all the way to the ground. We would have finished it all Tuesday but the darn thing broke (Technology, psh!), plus there was a ton of traffic that day, so we had to continue on Wednesday. Oh and by the way there is this 800 year old wall that is just kinda there like it’s no big deal. It’s pretty cool looking. Monday I was counting grasshoppers, but I think I talked a bit about that in my last blog already. All three of those days had absolutely beautiful weather, so I really enjoyed myself outside. Next week is looking pretty good too, so I’m excited for my last week working with Graslandwissenshaft.
The rest of the days were really just small tasks. I did some data entering, sample drying, weighing, and sorting, and other similar things. It was relaxing; I got to listen to music or podcasts while doing the tedious work. Which was good because my weekend was rather full.
Weekend 1
On Saturday I had planned to hang out with Zac for the afternoon/evening, but since my host brother and host dad were already going to a concert that evening, they invited us to go along. It made my host dad happy because he got to speak a little English again. The band was called “Swagger,” a band that played pretty much everything. They’re a cover band and covered everything from Peter Maffay to Rammstein to Black Eyed Peas. And they played A LOT from about 10:30 to 3 am, in fact. So, since we got back late, Zac just stayed overnight in the extra bed in my room and we hung out at my place the next morning too, until it was time for frisbee. I finally managed to work it out with the frisbee thing, and it was lots of fun. It was the first time that I really got to play on a serious team, as in they had legit drills and strategies, so I was pretty darn exausted. Not to mention I didn’t really know what I was doing, considering the instructions were always in German or broken English. I wasn’t really familiar with the sport vocabulary in both languages, so I was just screwed overall. Then I missed my bus, which made me mad because the busses come only every two hours on Sundays, so my host dad came and picked me up.
But that was just the beginning of the series of unfortunate things that happened to me over the next few days.
Last Week. . . oh joy.
So, where to start, where to start. . . On Monday the weather turned into a rainy cloudy cold mess. Fall is starting up and good days are becoming scarcer and scarcer. But of course the show must go on. We had things to do before winter shows up. We needed to move the animals to the third group of fields, which involves taking grass samples from both the field that they are moving off of and the field that they are moving onto (kind of like a before/after type of deal). So despite the rain I had to work outside, sitting in tall grass cutting the sample from the ground with my bare hands and then somehow managing to label the samples with a wet piece of paper. I did this 16 times before I could go home a cold and wet mess. Luckily I didn’t get sick, it was just a miserable experience. I especially don’t like the fact that it’s so quite since I’m by myself in the middle of a field and I end of thinking about things, which soon becomes non-productive thinking. It was just not the best of circumstances. Oh well, it happens.
Tuesday I went back out to the farm. The weather was still crappy and cold, but it was only misting, so a little bit better. I got through the work at least without having to worry about writing on wet paper, although it was still really wet outside. First we moved the sheep down to the barn where they got there hooves trimmed. That was pretty funny, because they basically put them in this sheep holding rack thing and then tighten it on their bodies in order to turn them upside down and cut the hooves. Just something about a device specifically designed to flip a sheep upside down amuses me. Well, we did that with every group of sheep (four times I herded them down to the barn and then back up to their new place to graze) and then also moved the cows to their respective fields, but they didn’t need trimming. After that I got to sit in a field covered with crap in order to take the samples. Again 16 samples, didn’t take but a couple of hours, but at the end I was displeased to discover that my iPod had fallen out of my jacket pocket. So I spent about forty minutes searching the three fields that it could have been in, and I found it again. Of course it was in the very last field. Eventually I managed to get home, although a bit late.
But that’s not the worst of it. I needed this whole time to talk to Professor Isselstein, the head of the Grasslandwissenshaften section of the Agrarwissenshaften department, about my auditor form which I gave to him on Monday to sign. So I was planning to do that on Wednesday, since I came back late (the due date was Thursday) With that little teaser I’ll move on to what happened on Wednesday.
I though I was going to be staying in the institute on Wednesday, but of course the other field (the one I worked on the week before, with the 800 year old wall) needed some help. I really didn’t have the right clothing so I needed to grab my rubber boots and my rain pants. Oh and I had to buy my lunch on the way there. Luckily I had my rain jacket though. So we soon left to the field, on the way putting a hole on the back of the pickup truck. We almost got stuck in the mud driving through the pasture to get to the research fields and ended up getting stuck in the mud on the way back. After shoving it out of the mud and getting the car all dirty we had to take it somewhere nearby to get it washed. Well, when we washed it we discovered a really big oil leak coming from the underside of the car and found that we were no longer able to drive it. So I then had to wait on someone else to pick us up from Göttingen which is about a 40 minute trip one way. When I finally got back, after hitting a fox I might add, I had already missed my bus so I went up to Prof. Isselstein to talk about my registration form and was not pleased to discover that I needed the signatures and stamps from all the departments that I signed up to take classes in. Lovely considering the due date was the next day.
The cool thing was that I got to work on this giant tractor thing that day though. It was awesome. Basically this thing was a giant mower that mowed the grass onto a conveyor belt that dropped it onto a conveyor belt that wasn’t moving so it could weigh the grass and then it shot the grass out the side with the second belt. I sat in the back of the machine waiting as the part of the mowed grass was blown through a tube to me (part of the grass is separated and comes to me, while the other part drops down to be weighed). I then bagged and labeled the grass and but it in a big sack. I really had to work fast, because by the time I stapled and labeled the bag, the machine was already on the next one. It was really lots of fun. The machine looks like a mix between something you’d see in a Doctor Seuss book and a horror film.
So like I said, the beginning of this week was not so good. In fact it was pretty awful in general, but things turned up. On Thursday I got to work inside and I went into town to talk to the student secretary about my auditor form. I got the deadline extended, so everything’s good with that. Then I got to go home early. Friday was basically the same, except I collected all of the signatures and prepared them, since the office closes early on Fridays.
I found an international church that I’m going to go to, which I’m really looking forward to because I’d be nice to meet and share fellowship with some new people. It’s been really hard trying to find people that I can actually connect with and relate to since I’m in this small town with a bunch of people that are younger than me and that I just wouldn’t be able to be friends with. Not because they’re not nice or anything, but just because they’re not really my type. Hopefully at this church I’ll be able to meet some cool people, because they are all basically in a similar situation as me. They’re mostly foreigners who have come to Germany for different reasons, but want to still meet some people, which is hard to do because of the language barrier. Plus they give a bible study in German for people that are trying to learn German, like me. So I’m going to go to that if I enjoy the regular service. I haven’t been able to go yet, though, because this weekend. . .
Relaxing, fun weekend. . . aahh. . .
Friday night my host sister came. She’s really nice and I enjoyed spending time with her and my host parents this weekend. My host brother is starting to get on my nerves a little bit. The twins were okay, but they didn’t really interact at all, just were on the computer or TV all the time. Marcel is much different, but he has lately been really getting on my host mom’s nerves (and I think my dad too). I really don’t understand it, because he clearly got thrown out of his mom’s house for some reason, and now he’s living by us with his dad, and annoying the heck out of them. He’s always complaining about small things, just digging and digging until someone blows up (my host mom usually, which just makes things really awkward for me), or blows up himself. I’ll give you an example: Just the other day my host dad made a home made pizza. It was awesome. It had cheese and tuna and pineapple and spicy peppers, just amazing. In fact he always cooks really good food. Well there happened to also be a little bit of ham on it as well, a good choice if you ask me, but apparently Marcel really doesn’t like ham on pizza and specifically asked for him to leave it off. Well he complained and whined and then finally just ate bread instead of this delicious pizza, just because it had a little bit of ham on it. Now this child (actually he’s twenty which makes it worse) is living at his dad’s house for free, and getting fed delicious food every single day, and he has the nerve to complain about it. Not just about that, but a bunch of different stuff. For instance, he complains that he wants to go into town to sit in the sauna but my host dad doesn’t want to pay for it. I mean really? His life is not hard, if I were in his position I would be sucking up to my family in order to not get kicked out a second time, but he’s borderline if you ask me. Of course, I don’t really have any say in the matter, and it’s something that I will leave for them to discuss. I just wanted to vent because it’s really frustrating sometimes, the things he says.
Anyway, back to the main point of this section. Friday night we played a German game similar to “Trouble” called “Mensch ärgert mich nicht.” and then I taught them Euchre since we had four people (me, my host parents, and my host sister). It was tons of fun even though I epic failed at the first game.
Saturday I hung out a bit with Zac and Trinitie, both Americans on this program in my area, and we talked for a while. Then I went home and chilled, which was nice. I got Starcraft 2 in German, which I’m pretty excited about, although the vocab is a lot different so I’m learning a lot of new words. It’s actually kinda frustrating sometimes when I don’t understand the hints that they give me on the mission. Eventually I figure that out, but as far as the plot line goes, it’s really hard to follow. Sunday we took my host sister back to the Bahnhof in Kassel and said goodbye, but before that we walked around a park in Kassel where a giant Castle was. There’s one castle on a hill with the statue of Hercules that has a huge fountain at the bottom of the hill. It only runs for about 15 minutes every couple hours or so I think, but when it starts it really goes. It’s just one huge fountain that forces water up above the trees, which are impressively tall themselves. With the sun in the mix as well they fountain was really pretty, with a huge rainbow forming on the side. It was really cool looking, just because it was sooo much water.
Ende
So, that’s the end of that. I don’t think I’m going to proof read so if there’s any errors, just deal with it, I don’t feel like going back. Oh, I must say that Blasmusik is going really well. I have my Trombone now and we’re actually improving quite a bit. I guess all the music was new before, but now we can play it much better. It’s tons of fun! Thanks for reading, peace out.
Skez
Monday, September 20, 2010
A Lot of Writing for a Low Price!
Man, I keep on thinking things are going to slow down, but they never do. I’m always just sort of busy. Not too busy that I don’t have a little extra time to myself, but busy enough. To the point where I don’t really get much sleep during the week, but that’s normal. Reminds me a little of high school, in fact. Getting up at 5:30, going to work, coming back at about 5 or so, and then having something else in the evening to do. So is life.
Band
In high school, however, I was usually busy because of band. So, now that my brain is currently dwelling on the subject I’m going to explain to you just how much my thoughts have turned to high school music in the past few months. Maybe it’s music withdrawal, but I find myself really missing practice. For me, band practice was a time where I could unwind. No matter how awful I felt after school, going to practice and focusing on relatively insignificant matters such as keeping a good tone, matching my color, and playing in tune. It gave my brain a break from all the stressful thinking that I would be doing otherwise. On Monday I found myself really getting stressed out. As silly as it sounds I spent the whole day watching the sheep eat. I needed to count their bites and their steps as they grazed, timing each activity. Not exactly the most intensive activity, so I started thinking about things, worrying mostly. On top of that I was getting frustrated because the sheep were so darn lazy in the morning, and the ones that I needed to be observing were always standing around chewing cud, or just stared at me until the end of time. To make matters worse, I discovered when I came back to the office that I shouldn’t be leaving before 4:30 because of insurance reasons. I had a half hour to kill, so I asked to be put to work collecting root samples. But the problem was that my bus leaves at 4:37, and 7 minutes is not enough time to walk to the bus station. So I missed my bus, and had to wait another hour before I could get home. By the time I got home, I was so upset, stressed, and frustrated that I didn’t know what to do with myself besides hole up in my room. I wanted so bad to just be able to head on over to orchestra practice and get lost in someone else’s emotions for a while, play someone else’s music. Music to me was like a drug free way to escape. It was a means to escape whatever I was feeling earlier that day or escape whatever homework that I had hanging over my head that evening (haha). It forced me to get into the head of whatever the composer was thinking and out of my own personal mind, and every time practice was over my mind was no longer stressing out about the problems that arose during the day and I could think about them more clearly.
So if your reading this now and you’re still in high school, then I’ll say this to you: really enjoy the performing arts program we have there, because it’s something special. You’re never going to have the same experiences again, because they don’t exist anywhere else. I can tell you right now that I want to play music for the rest of my life, but I don’t want a career with music. I don’t think it’s ever going to be so fun and relaxed, but so good at the same time, like in high school. I might get to play in fun bands or orchestras still, but they will not be as good as our band or orchestra programs. And if I would want to be in bands or orchestras that are better, and get paid for it, then I don’t think I would have as fun. When I played along side the Indianapolis Symphony in the Side-by-Side program, I decided that that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I’m going to stick with it. Every practice was really so stressful, and if I didn’t play something right I got pointed out and the director demanded perfection to the point where it really wasn’t fun anymore. Plus they practice a piece very few times and didn’t really get to know it like we did in high school band or orchestra, which was the best part. If I were to become a teacher I don’t know if I would enjoy myself either. I don’t think I’m very good with kids and don’t think I would teach unless I knew that I could teach well. Since I can’t, what’s the point? Would I really be making an impact in the world or even on these hypothetical kids for that matter? I don’t think so. But it does cross my mind a lot whether I’m making the right decision.
Career?
Right now, or at least before I came to Germany it seemed that everything was working out well for the path in Biotech/food science or something similar. I got this scholarship where I can test the waters a bit, plus I’ll be able to go to IU on a scholarship afterwards to do research (what I believe I want to do as a career). I honestly think it’s the right choice for me. The work kinda seems boring in the field of Graslandwissenshaft, and I like to make fun of it, but somehow I’m not really unhappy doing the work. Sometimes it’s just not engaging enough, but I have a lot of time to think, for better or for worse. Plus, for days like today (I’m typing this now on the Monday that I posted it), that are sunny and beautiful, I really enjoy my time outside. I really should be thankful that I work outside. There’s not a better place I could call my office than the beautiful Solling region, and I’m going to miss it, but I think I want to still do something more chemistry related or with food products. Honestly that interests me a lot more, although I found that identifying grasshoppers was actually really interesting. The rest, however, is not as good. I don’t think it could keep me going as a career. So basically I still have no idea what I want to do, but I'm a little closer. I start in a couple weeks doing more lab work, so we’ll see how that goes, but I had a long time to think about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while counting grass, so I felt the need to get this little rant out of me. It’s over now.
Back to the stuff that may or may not interest you. . .
Yeah, so this past week was mostly about counting grass sprouts that are from a water stress experiment. Our department deals a lot with water stress (aka how plants react to a lack of water) and the resulting environment caused by a lack of water. This test asked the question: When grasses undergo stressed caused by dehydration is it possible for it to grow back to where it would be had it not been lacking water? In other words there was a control group and a variable group. The control group was watered normally and the variable group was not watered enough for a period of time, and then they were both watered properly for another set amount of days. It looked like the variable group was mostly able to grow back to where the control group had been, but in some types of grass the difference was greater than in others. I think they need to repeat the experiment though, because there was a great difference in temperature and light as the summer turned to fall.
As I said, I also observed the animals on two different days during the week, and today I counted and identified grasshoppers, or what was left of them. Some species had already died off for the year, which made for a smaller population of specifically a few species that would normally be there. Those assignments were a part of the bio diversity project with the cows and sheep that I talked about earlier.
Stuff that hopefully interests you if the previous sections did not. . .
Last Monday I also went to the movies with my host mom and her friends (it was ladies night, haha. No really, the kino provides cheaper movies and complimentary sekt when you go on ladies night, so why not?) We watched the American with George Clooney. Quite the odd movie, I expected it to be a little more actiony, but it was interesting enough without it. It was all in German, so I was just glad that I understood what was going on. Funny, it said that it was for people 13 years of age and up, so I thought “ok, that’s like a PG-13 movie right?” Yeah, I should have known better. (face palm) I mean it was no big deal, it’s just that I for some reason thought that the rating systems would be the same, and I was really wrong. That was definitely rated R in the states, and I felt really stupid when I realized the mistake in my thinking during the movie. Anyway, good movie if you’re into artsy ones. In my opinion it was artsy, meaning the ending was depressing and made you think a little bit as to why they ended it that way. But then again, I watched it in German.
Tuesday was Blasmusik Probe. We played a lot of jazz that day, and that’s when it hit me that I missed playing in high school. They really are not very good at playing jazz and need a few tips. I think if I mention just a few things they could sound a lot better, like playing the style correctly, or this one goes for any type of music, but just thinking about playing in tune maybe once or twice in the piece (actually not terrible, it’s just sometimes) or balancing voices. Anyway, I was less than impressed, but to be fair they were just sight reading. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid of offending someone, but I say something next time.
The next few days were fairly uneventful. . .
Weekend visit!
My brother, as you may or may not know, lives in Bonn with his wife, and my dad works for a German company, and therefore is often in Berlin for a couple weeks at a time. So, since it was the weekend between my and my brother’s birthday, we met in the middle here in Ebergötzen and I got to hang out with them for the weekend. We had a great time. My brother had his camera with, so he took some good pictures of the area that I just can’t take. We talked and I showed them my little town and we walked through the Fußgängerzone in Göttingen. It was quite lovely, I had a good time. Plus I got all sorts of goodies from the states, like Peanut Butter M&Ms and soft caramel chews for making cookies. Mmm . . . Oh and we went to see the Seeburger See nearby. It was a perfect day for doing that and I saw this cool looking diving bird that I didn’t see on the other visit. Its a bird that dives down in the water for quite some time and then resurfaces some random other place. It’s rather fun to watch.
I don’t think I mentioned this, but occasionally there is a guy or gal walking his or her goat around the town. I’ve seen it quite often and have gotten used to it by now, but when I was showing my family Ebergötzen, I realized “hey, that is kinda strange isn’t it. . . the goat doesn’t have a leash.” Well, if you ever visit the place don’t be startled, goats are harmless and can, when properly trained, behave properly in public without the need of a leash. Although I would walk my goat around with a leash despite that fact, just because it’s a little annoying when the goat wanders off to munch on somebody’s flower garden and I would have to keep it from doing so.
Ende
So, yeah. Not much new, just a lot of thinking, made me very stressed out during the week, but I had such a wonderful day at work today, that I feel ten thousand times better. I feel refreshed and ready to take the worst that life can give me at this point. Although if life is listening, I would rather it stay the way it is if you don’t mind.
Shout out do my fam. Thanks for the birthday cards and gifts and the visit by Dad, Matt and Talina, I love you guys and miss you, but not enough to come back home ;)
Band
In high school, however, I was usually busy because of band. So, now that my brain is currently dwelling on the subject I’m going to explain to you just how much my thoughts have turned to high school music in the past few months. Maybe it’s music withdrawal, but I find myself really missing practice. For me, band practice was a time where I could unwind. No matter how awful I felt after school, going to practice and focusing on relatively insignificant matters such as keeping a good tone, matching my color, and playing in tune. It gave my brain a break from all the stressful thinking that I would be doing otherwise. On Monday I found myself really getting stressed out. As silly as it sounds I spent the whole day watching the sheep eat. I needed to count their bites and their steps as they grazed, timing each activity. Not exactly the most intensive activity, so I started thinking about things, worrying mostly. On top of that I was getting frustrated because the sheep were so darn lazy in the morning, and the ones that I needed to be observing were always standing around chewing cud, or just stared at me until the end of time. To make matters worse, I discovered when I came back to the office that I shouldn’t be leaving before 4:30 because of insurance reasons. I had a half hour to kill, so I asked to be put to work collecting root samples. But the problem was that my bus leaves at 4:37, and 7 minutes is not enough time to walk to the bus station. So I missed my bus, and had to wait another hour before I could get home. By the time I got home, I was so upset, stressed, and frustrated that I didn’t know what to do with myself besides hole up in my room. I wanted so bad to just be able to head on over to orchestra practice and get lost in someone else’s emotions for a while, play someone else’s music. Music to me was like a drug free way to escape. It was a means to escape whatever I was feeling earlier that day or escape whatever homework that I had hanging over my head that evening (haha). It forced me to get into the head of whatever the composer was thinking and out of my own personal mind, and every time practice was over my mind was no longer stressing out about the problems that arose during the day and I could think about them more clearly.
So if your reading this now and you’re still in high school, then I’ll say this to you: really enjoy the performing arts program we have there, because it’s something special. You’re never going to have the same experiences again, because they don’t exist anywhere else. I can tell you right now that I want to play music for the rest of my life, but I don’t want a career with music. I don’t think it’s ever going to be so fun and relaxed, but so good at the same time, like in high school. I might get to play in fun bands or orchestras still, but they will not be as good as our band or orchestra programs. And if I would want to be in bands or orchestras that are better, and get paid for it, then I don’t think I would have as fun. When I played along side the Indianapolis Symphony in the Side-by-Side program, I decided that that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I’m going to stick with it. Every practice was really so stressful, and if I didn’t play something right I got pointed out and the director demanded perfection to the point where it really wasn’t fun anymore. Plus they practice a piece very few times and didn’t really get to know it like we did in high school band or orchestra, which was the best part. If I were to become a teacher I don’t know if I would enjoy myself either. I don’t think I’m very good with kids and don’t think I would teach unless I knew that I could teach well. Since I can’t, what’s the point? Would I really be making an impact in the world or even on these hypothetical kids for that matter? I don’t think so. But it does cross my mind a lot whether I’m making the right decision.
Career?
Right now, or at least before I came to Germany it seemed that everything was working out well for the path in Biotech/food science or something similar. I got this scholarship where I can test the waters a bit, plus I’ll be able to go to IU on a scholarship afterwards to do research (what I believe I want to do as a career). I honestly think it’s the right choice for me. The work kinda seems boring in the field of Graslandwissenshaft, and I like to make fun of it, but somehow I’m not really unhappy doing the work. Sometimes it’s just not engaging enough, but I have a lot of time to think, for better or for worse. Plus, for days like today (I’m typing this now on the Monday that I posted it), that are sunny and beautiful, I really enjoy my time outside. I really should be thankful that I work outside. There’s not a better place I could call my office than the beautiful Solling region, and I’m going to miss it, but I think I want to still do something more chemistry related or with food products. Honestly that interests me a lot more, although I found that identifying grasshoppers was actually really interesting. The rest, however, is not as good. I don’t think it could keep me going as a career. So basically I still have no idea what I want to do, but I'm a little closer. I start in a couple weeks doing more lab work, so we’ll see how that goes, but I had a long time to think about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while counting grass, so I felt the need to get this little rant out of me. It’s over now.
Back to the stuff that may or may not interest you. . .
Yeah, so this past week was mostly about counting grass sprouts that are from a water stress experiment. Our department deals a lot with water stress (aka how plants react to a lack of water) and the resulting environment caused by a lack of water. This test asked the question: When grasses undergo stressed caused by dehydration is it possible for it to grow back to where it would be had it not been lacking water? In other words there was a control group and a variable group. The control group was watered normally and the variable group was not watered enough for a period of time, and then they were both watered properly for another set amount of days. It looked like the variable group was mostly able to grow back to where the control group had been, but in some types of grass the difference was greater than in others. I think they need to repeat the experiment though, because there was a great difference in temperature and light as the summer turned to fall.
As I said, I also observed the animals on two different days during the week, and today I counted and identified grasshoppers, or what was left of them. Some species had already died off for the year, which made for a smaller population of specifically a few species that would normally be there. Those assignments were a part of the bio diversity project with the cows and sheep that I talked about earlier.
Stuff that hopefully interests you if the previous sections did not. . .
Last Monday I also went to the movies with my host mom and her friends (it was ladies night, haha. No really, the kino provides cheaper movies and complimentary sekt when you go on ladies night, so why not?) We watched the American with George Clooney. Quite the odd movie, I expected it to be a little more actiony, but it was interesting enough without it. It was all in German, so I was just glad that I understood what was going on. Funny, it said that it was for people 13 years of age and up, so I thought “ok, that’s like a PG-13 movie right?” Yeah, I should have known better. (face palm) I mean it was no big deal, it’s just that I for some reason thought that the rating systems would be the same, and I was really wrong. That was definitely rated R in the states, and I felt really stupid when I realized the mistake in my thinking during the movie. Anyway, good movie if you’re into artsy ones. In my opinion it was artsy, meaning the ending was depressing and made you think a little bit as to why they ended it that way. But then again, I watched it in German.
Tuesday was Blasmusik Probe. We played a lot of jazz that day, and that’s when it hit me that I missed playing in high school. They really are not very good at playing jazz and need a few tips. I think if I mention just a few things they could sound a lot better, like playing the style correctly, or this one goes for any type of music, but just thinking about playing in tune maybe once or twice in the piece (actually not terrible, it’s just sometimes) or balancing voices. Anyway, I was less than impressed, but to be fair they were just sight reading. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid of offending someone, but I say something next time.
The next few days were fairly uneventful. . .
Weekend visit!
My brother, as you may or may not know, lives in Bonn with his wife, and my dad works for a German company, and therefore is often in Berlin for a couple weeks at a time. So, since it was the weekend between my and my brother’s birthday, we met in the middle here in Ebergötzen and I got to hang out with them for the weekend. We had a great time. My brother had his camera with, so he took some good pictures of the area that I just can’t take. We talked and I showed them my little town and we walked through the Fußgängerzone in Göttingen. It was quite lovely, I had a good time. Plus I got all sorts of goodies from the states, like Peanut Butter M&Ms and soft caramel chews for making cookies. Mmm . . . Oh and we went to see the Seeburger See nearby. It was a perfect day for doing that and I saw this cool looking diving bird that I didn’t see on the other visit. Its a bird that dives down in the water for quite some time and then resurfaces some random other place. It’s rather fun to watch.
I don’t think I mentioned this, but occasionally there is a guy or gal walking his or her goat around the town. I’ve seen it quite often and have gotten used to it by now, but when I was showing my family Ebergötzen, I realized “hey, that is kinda strange isn’t it. . . the goat doesn’t have a leash.” Well, if you ever visit the place don’t be startled, goats are harmless and can, when properly trained, behave properly in public without the need of a leash. Although I would walk my goat around with a leash despite that fact, just because it’s a little annoying when the goat wanders off to munch on somebody’s flower garden and I would have to keep it from doing so.
Ende
So, yeah. Not much new, just a lot of thinking, made me very stressed out during the week, but I had such a wonderful day at work today, that I feel ten thousand times better. I feel refreshed and ready to take the worst that life can give me at this point. Although if life is listening, I would rather it stay the way it is if you don’t mind.
Shout out do my fam. Thanks for the birthday cards and gifts and the visit by Dad, Matt and Talina, I love you guys and miss you, but not enough to come back home ;)
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