Day 5 - Physiology Fun

Today was a great day: I was able to sleep in a little bit, had time to leisurely go through my morning routine, didn't get lost, and got a lot done. Today I had late classes (around 11:45) and so I was able to get up after the sun had fully risen. No one was up and about when I went down for my normal breakfast (Mmm, Nuttella, peanut butter, and bread), but I had a nice time getting ready all the same. As I was just about to walk out the door and was putting on my warm boots, Sophie poked her head out and said goodbye, as she didn't go to school since she hasn't been feeling well lately. I got to the train, and made my way to AIB for classes to start. Since I got there a little early, I went down to the computer lab to do some of the homework that's already been assigned until class.

My first class today was signals and systems, but we mostly focused on reviewing the math that makes up the background that we should already know. Notice the should in there. In reality, it does have a lot of calculus, which is fine, but it also draws quite a bit of it's theory from DiffEQ (differential equations) which neither I nor about 60% of the class has taken yet. Of course this means that we were all hopelessly confused and spent a lot of time asking the teacher how exactly she made the jump from one equation to another. In the end, we didn't finish the power point, but we asked Sarah (our teacher) to come back after our classes were done so she could go review the content some more and finish up the power point.

Then came lunch. Although we split up into two groups, somehow we all made our way to the same restaurant and ate together. Except it wasn't really a restaurant, more like a small shop that didn't have enough space to fit all of us in to eat, so after getting our food we went outside to one of the small benches built into the part of the castle wall they have here in Bonn (I know! I love this town!). Most of us ordered either a felafel sandwich or wrap, and though it was a great experience to try, I don't think I'll be ordering it again.

Isn't this city adorable?

After lunch, we all trekked back to AIB for our next class: Physiology II. I have to say, I'm absolutely loving this class. Not only are there only 12 people in it, but Dr. Wasser can be a bit more informal in the way that he teaches and there's no room to hide if you do something silly. But that's not all, the whole atmosphere is really informal and welcoming. I mean, at one point I realized that almost everyone had a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate on their desks during the lecture...and we weren't afraid to just get up and go to the kitchenette that's in our classroom to go make some more. We even got Dr. Wasser to go off on a tangent about Giraffe's and how he's much better at drawing turtles than Giraffes...and then drew one on the whiteboard in between all the notes! I took a few pictures, and the first time I did (the teacups), everyone looked at me strangely, but once they realized that the sheer hilariousness of the situation warranted a memory, they let it go. When I took the one about the notes, no one even blinked. I'm very excited to see where this class goes, because even though we all have a lot of fun, we're also learning a lot, and that's pretty awesome.

 See the cups? They're also on desks not shown too

It's just so amazing how cool this class is

Once Phys was all cleaned up, Sarah came back and taught us the rest of her lecture. Let me tell you, I'm a little afraid of the workload that we have for this project already, and the complex mathematics that go with it doesn't help my fear. Then again, we start looking at the structure of circuits next class, and that's something that I already know pretty well, so hopefully the class isn't that bad.

By this point, I was pretty tired (though less tired than the ones that went out last night!) and I was ready to go home. It was 4:45. Hey, keep in mind that all of the BMEN kids had basically gotten almost 5 hours of straight lecture in the same room. We go out late for lunch, had about 45 minutes to eat, 20 of which was spent walking to where we were going, and then went right back to class, all of us where pretty tired. Kelsey and I left to go home, and I went right upstairs to do some of the mountain of homework that's busy being built. I hope I can get it all done without sacrificing anything...I really like putting down my thoughts about the day in this blog.

Dinner was good, nothing too fancy, but I did get to try noodles and eggs, and even added some ketchup when I saw that my two sisters were eating it that way. It's good, I recommend at least trying it, but to do it with any other kind of pasta but regular spaghetti pasta. I don't think it would go as well as what I had for some reason. Anyway, I know it's about 1 back at my home in the states, but it's 7 hours ahead here. And I've been getting more and more tired at the end of each day. I think it's because we hit the ground running and we haven't had much time to de-stress from traveling before the stress of school started. I also have early classes again tomorrow (goodbye sun!) so sleep is a must have now, but I still need to get some homework done before I turn in.

Until next time,
Erin Z