Then school started and we sat through signals, not really knowing what was going on because the material is just so hard to grasp. Seriously, the last homework I had to do had me rereading the book like 5 times before I understood the method that they were coming from to get the answer. I'm just glad my test on Thursday is over circuits and not signals because I would not be able to relax if that were the case. After that class was lunch, but I used it to add more money to my phone and get some much needed supplies like toothpaste and a nail file. German followed with us doing "head, shoulders, knees and toes" in German and I was the one to lead them since it's an American thing and Fenja had no clue what we were talking about. We then went on to things that we like to do as hobby's, with homework due on that...tomorrow. Wow, homework is really piling up again. The finalized trip to Amsterdam isn't helping matters that much as I'll be having too much fun to be worrying about homework, and a lot of things are due the day after we come back, with the trip to Vienna starting the day after that.
And....that's it for monday. I went home and had dinner with my family and played a few games with my host sister Marie, but nothing major happened.
Now, today was a completely different story. We started out with the history of medicine class going over the Holocaust and the different ways that the Nazi's killed people and why anyone even though that this was an OK thing to do. It's actually stemmed from social Darwinism that says that anything that isn't contributing to the society (is sick, mentally deficient, comatose, old, etc.) should be gotten rid of in the most humane and painless way. It evolved into the idea that people can have negative worth, such as taking supplies but not contributing to society and should therefore be eliminated like natural selection would have done in the natural world. From there, it went to entire races having negative worth. Now through all this, if someone wished to not die, then those wishes would be respected. Then the Nazi's came and took it to the extreme. They didn't actually start the Holocaust by killing Jews, but by killing the German people who were deemed to have negative worth and had to be cut so that the whole could thrive. We moved through the war all the way to the end and I was actually nauseous at learning that doctors would have killed thousands of children unrepentantly and were actually still killing children that were mentally disabled all the way up till they were arrested, thinking that what they were doing was the right thing to do. Needless to say most of us were a little depressed after this lecture.
Our teacher Sarah came in and saw our unhappiness, before trying to cheer us up by saying "now we can focus on helping people instead of the things the Nazi's did." So our class proceeded as planned and we learned more about the requirements that our ZK systems company would have to go through to be able to sell our product in the US. It was actually quite fun and though we tend to get on tangents a little bit, we learned a lot about legal procedures. Let me just say that I have much more respect for lawyers if they have to go through so much paperwork. I got a headache just looking at all the paperwork required for a device to be accepted, and a good chunk of the warnings the FDA handed out last year was because people didn't document everything. I'm just glad all this is theoretical, if we actually had to go through the whole process, I would be very concerned about all the requirements and if I would mess anything up.
After that class was done, Kristin came in and gave us soup for lunch so that we could listen to her talk about our upcoming excursion to Vienna. There were two types, goulash and carrot soup that tasted sort of like a really sweet potato soup. Then we started in on the presentation. It's gotten me so excited for next week! We'll be taking a plane at about 6:45 am, so we're meeting at 4:40 to get to the airport on time. Then we fly to Austria and arrive in Vienna just in time for breakfast before a full day of tours and getting to know Vienna. Our stay will mostly be tours of medical places like the Freud house (so excited!) and a museum of the human body that has wax figures of people with their organs and systems the way that medieval people though it was like. There's even a tour of the museum of natural history and we're going to go to an opera or concert while we're there. I'm rooming with two of my friends for the trip, so I'm excited for that, and we'll be able to walk around and see Vienna due to the chunks of free time we're being given. It's going to be utterly exhausting, especially after Amsterdam weekend, but I'm so excited to see everything. And don't worry, there's supposed to be wi-fi available in both Amsterdam and Vienna where we're staying, so I can still post on here the exciting things that are happening and the thing's I'm seeing.
When the presentation was finished, a lot of us stayed at AIB to study for the test Thursday or to work on the ever growing homework for our signals class. After a few hours, I went back home and had a traditional German dinner called linsensuppe (lentil soup) that was delicious. Then I brought down my homework and worked on that for a while with the kids (Annette was out) while they did their own work. After a while, Marie came up and wanted to play Monopoly. It was the first time that I'd played with the new electronic card and calculator combo. It was fun, but when we switched to the traditional Monopoly game a bit later, I was relieved. When Annette came home, it was only a matter of time before bedtime, so I finished some more homework before being informed that Marie and Sophie were heading to bed. Then I went upstairs to work on homework some more and I swear this signals homework is being intentionally difficult! Hopefully I'll be able to understand it when I get it all done, but I'm more concerned with the upcoming test, though less so now that this harder material is being introduced.
Tomorrow we're going to the Bonn University Orchestra concert where we will undoubtedly listen to Beethoven as it is Bonn, and they are very proud of the famous man that was born here. I'm excited for that. Since I don't have any pictures from the last few days, here's some from before I haven't posted yet.
This was at the Vineyard, isn't it pretty?
The small church from the walk that first Saturday.
I'm really enjoying my time here with these people.
My first time on skates
Tchuss!
Erin Z
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