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
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