Days 76 & 77 - Presenting and Relaxation

I am so sorry. I know I said I would try to update daily again and not do this two day post thing as often, but when I go home yesterday, I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep. So as you may have read yesterday, I stayed over at AIB that night. It wasn't bad as far as nights go considering I was working for most of it and got a lot of work done in the morning. I even got a 3 hour nap in at some point, which was nice. I was woken up by two of my classmates as they left at 5:45 so I wouldn't freak out if I woke up and no one was around when there should be, which was really nice of them. After that, I couldn't and didn't want to go back to sleep so I finished up the blog of Aachen and did some more work that was due that day. People started coming in at around 7:45 to finish up their work or to take quizzes early. My first class that day was signals, so with a sleep-deprived brain, that made even less sense than normal. However, I powered through it and was able to actually grasp some of the concepts that were put in front of me to learn. After that class was over, we had to work on our powerpoints for Otto Bock that we'll be presenting at the end of next week. It was actually really productive, and we figured out the layout that we wanted to present in and the colors that would need to be shown at what point. Jane was there as well, and I'm not going to lie, I had a ton of fun with her when she helped with our aesthetics of the power point. It really helped that I could throw back different ideas for how things will be placed and where pieces should go to bring the eye to where we want it. I guess when your mom is a faux painter for the majority of your childhood, you tend to pick up on how things should look and which colors or pictures go together.

What was really impressive was that at the same time we were working on our presentation, some other members of our group were working on the DHF that was due at noon that day. Our professors came over a few times and they were a little impressed at the look of our presentation, and made us present to them so they could help us with the content and points that we would have to make as well as the segue's we would have to create. That part lasted about an hour and a half because we would present, they would ask questions, we would answer, they would incorporate it into our presentation, we would take notes, rinse wash and repeat until finished. Finally, we were done for the day and although there were still some things to go over and fix, for the most part we were done. What really boggles my mind is the fact that I was as tired as I was and still put together a coherent presentation because I was kinda pushed into that position.

After the presentaton, I returned my bike and went out to lunch with two other girls. It was nice having lunch and talking with them out in the sunny 70 degree (Fahrenheit) weather. After lunch, I made my way back home, where I noticed that there was someone in the main house. I went upstairs to drop my stuff off and decided I would only take a small nap before heading downstairs to hang out with whoever was home. I guess I either slept through my alarm or fell asleep before I was fully able to set it because I laid down for a 45 min nap and woke up 3 hours later. I made my way downstairs and found out that Maus was back! She had a few days off of work, and decided to visit her mom and sisters for the weekend. I had dinner and hung out for a little bit, but soon went back upstairs to sleep for as long as possible.

When I woke up this morning, I felt so much better from a good 10 hour night's sleep. I got ready for the day, and was surprised when Annette's mom came in. She saw me and started talking to me in German, but a strange thing happened when I was actually able to answer her questions and tell her everything was good, my German was getting better, and I was leaving on May 6th. It was pretty cool to talk to a fluent Deutsch speaker and hold my own even if it was for only a few minutes. We ate lunch and talked for a long time. Well, they did. I just kind of sat back and absorbed the words that were flowing around me. Soon, I left to go to AIB to work on the project some more. When I was walking around Bonn, I was soaking up the sunshine of another gorgeous day. At AIB, I knocked on the window to whoever was inside so they could let me in, but no one came and got me, so I went to get gelato before returning and knocking again. This time, I was let in. I started to work on the project, but it quickly devolved into typing this blog and listening to music.

I left to go back home and ate dinner before heading up to work a little bit. Tomorrow is a rather chill day, but I'm sure something will happen that I can write about.

Bye!
Erin Z.

Ps: no pictures today