Days 89, 90, & 91 - Scedules and homework and Festivals...Oh my!

So....I forgot to write yesterday. Sorry. I was just so excited to have a night free to do whatever I wanted that I just...forgot. Anyway, it's been three days since my last post (which I never want to do again) and a little bit has happened within that time period. First on the list is the fact that I have signed up for both my fall and summer classes. In addition to the 13 required hours for my major, I need to take organic chemistry and decided to get some fun in at some point, so I'm taking skiing classes as well. It will be quite the semester. I also decided to take my Differential equations class at ATM because of reasons. It's just easier in the long run to take this class (a pre-rec) at the same school I'll be getting a degree from. Also, when I forgot to sign up for the summer session first, they wouldn't let me sign up for one of my classes until I either had proof of passing or was signed up through ATM to take it. Thursday was basically relaxing, doing homework, and frantic scheduling, so there's really not much to say about it. That night I went back to my host family and had a great dinner with them and we talked about our Easter plans. See, Germans get 2 weeks off of school/work for Easter, so my host mom was going to Holland over the weekend. Don't worry though, they're coming back in time for Monday so Sophie can get surgery on her knee before leaving for a large chunk of vacation again.

Friday wasn't bad at all. For once, class was something that I could understand in all it's entirety. The quiz wasn't that good though, and I'm certain that I only got maybe 6-7 points out of the full 10 because I forgot to study one of the three skills that was being tested. It's alright though because the lesson we had after the quiz made everything that we were learning so much easier to understand because we were working with things that we had a background in and could grasp rather easily. We also started Sarah in on her research in her optics lab and she gave us practical applications for why this was important to learn. It was really interesting to listen to which is basically shooting a laser at different substances and using the equations we're learning to get only the section we want to look at instead of all the noise or the original input. She also started in on their ideal for what their research will ultimately come to, which is creating red blood cells that would contain a fluorescent die that would be released upon bursting (a natural process, don't worry). This die could have a light source shown on it that would show the glucose levels in the blood depending on the light that's reflected. It was really awesome to listen to and for the first time in a long time, we were all spellbound by her explanations.

Sarah looks so excited to tell us about her research

I went out with some people for a quick and easy lunch before coming back. When we arrived back at AIB, I was expecting to go right back to work, but instead we decided that we would rather watch Frozen instead. Man, I love that movie. The music is just stellar and the animation (at least on the focus) is awesome. I hear the Viz kids went through and tore apart the background animation and showed some of us how and why it was shoddy work at best, but I was still enraptured by how complicated everything must have been. Also, I absolutely love Idina Menzel's voice. Her ballad is...I have no words. If you haven't heard the song "Let it go," please go listen to it, or better yet, watch it so you can see the awesome animation and hear the amazingness of her voice and how perfectly the instrumental goes with both of them. I have really strong feelings about this song if you haven't noticed.

Anyway, after movie time was over, I went with two other friends to confession at the Muenster. Luckily the priest spoke rather good English and we didn't have to try and fumble through mispronounced German words or long stretches of silence as we tried to come up with what to say. After that, I went home and watched a movie because no one was home as my host family had left that morning. I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted, and I was so relaxed that I completely forgot to write up this blog and went right to sleep after the movie.

This morning I woke up and got ready for the day before heading to AIB to meet up with some friends to go to the festival. See, there was a cherry blossom festival today that I really wanted to see. Instead, everyone else was really late because they were even lazier than I was or woke up late or couldn't get away. I spent a long time all by myself and started to work on the schematics for my homemade Catan game. I can't wait to get started on it, it'll be really fun to make! Finally, some people came in, but we didn't leave until about an hour later. We finally left to go to the festival, which turned out to be a huge flea-market type set-up that was punctuated by the sight of falling cherry blossoms that made the area look like snow. We met up with Frederique who just so happened to be in the same spot that we were looking at, and she palled around with us for the rest of the day because her friends ditched her.

 Reid with his new shirt, and you can even see the petals behind him

We are excited to see the "festival"

After a while, Frederique took us to go to a Brauhaus where we had a sort of lunch-ish type thing. What do you call a late lunch where you only drink beer and don't eat food? Tea time? No, there's no tea. Hmm, grabbing a drink? Yeah. We grabbed a drink and sat around outside under some gorgeous blooming Cherry trees for about 2 hours. Eventually we all noticed how cold it was getting and decided to go home or back to AIB to work for a little bit. We left, and I went with a friend to go get dinner that I would eat back at the house. When I got back, I started to do homework before getting bored and started writing this. Then I remembered that I wanted to watch Catch Me If You Can because even though I've seen the musical and know the music by heart, I've never seen the movie or even read the book. Well, one's down, just one more to go. Though I should probably finish Emma first before starting another book. It's a great story based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr. who was one of the most infamous imposters/check forgers, traveling worldwide and escaping custody twice...all before he was 21! He's actually still alive and runs a financial fraud consulting agency and helps out the FBI from time to time.

At the Brauhaus

Tomorrow I'm going to the Botanical Gardens here in Bonn, even if I have to go alone. Though I don't think that will be necessary as a lot of people have expressed an interest in going. It's the perfect time to go as all the flowers are in full bloom and the day is supposed to be relatively warm. Sorry again about not writing yesterday, but I promise to write for tomorrow.

Till then,
Erin Z