Hey everyone,
So July is almost over, and I am in wind-down stages of this internship. I am beginning my 10th of 12 weeks, and I am about midway through my final report. I have just a couple more mechanical tests to do on the material that I pressed a few weeks ago, and then I am going to go into some hardcore analysis. I am a little concerned that my results will not show a significant trend one way or another, but my supervisor said at the beginning, "even no result is a result."
I have been playing a lot of basketball recently. There is a small court right by my apartment complex, and I also play on the full court at Olympia park every once in a while. To give you an idea of the competition at these two places, I have yet to lose a game at the place by my apartment, and I have yet to win a game at Olympia park. The people who play there are serious.
I have been checking out different parts of the city. Last weekend I got to a night club for the first time since I've been here. I think that scene is a little young for me. Most of the people at the club were 17 or 18 years old. I got lost in the city after that, which was more of an adventure than a scary feeling. I left the club at 3am, and walked around for about 3 hours, before I finally figured out where I was. I finally got back to my apartment at about 7am. I slept well the next day.
I got a phone card, with which I can get a lot of minutes for a low price. I have found it very helpful talking to my brother during difficult times. He seems to have a lot of insight and analysis for problems that I am having, particularly male pattern hair loss.
I am in email contact with a few of my friends from back home, and they are keeping me updated on the things that are going on there. I am currently working on applying to grad school at the University of Missouri, which I think would be really fun, because a few of my old friends are doing grad school there, and it would be like a big reunion.
I enjoyed the Englischer Garten this last weekend. I just chilled there for about 6 hours while doing some journaling. I used to never write in a journal, because I was always afraid someone would find it and read it. That's why I invented a secret code language last week. It took me about 20 minutes to master this language, and now I do pretty much all writing of any kind in this code. It's pretty cool.
Well, that's about it for now. I'll have another post in about two weeks, when I am near the end.
Ramsey
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
On July 10th
Hey everyone,
I am officially past the midway point of my internship, and the job itself is not bad. I got to use a band saw yesterday to cut up the car parts that I am going to be testing, and I usually have plenty of time at the end of the day to surf the internet. I can't get over how cool the Olympia park is. I go there and relax by the lake nearly every weekend.
Getting the visa was a real hassle. I went to the municipal office with Ryan McKown, a fellow CDS intern at BMW. I don't know where I'd be without him. He always seems to know where he's going, while I aimlessly wander around. Anyway, there was a glitch in the computer system, so even after being there for four hours, I had to come back the next day to get the visa. It turned out okay though. I ended up getting a sizable discount. The normal visa fee is 50 Euros, and I only had to pay 15. At first, I thought they were just being nice, because I had struggled so much the day before, but I was told later that's not really the German way. So now I think they might have just messed up. Either way, I was happy to have that over with.
I have been reading a lot of novels over the past few weeks. Before coming here, I had not read a novel in about a year, and I've read maybe 5 here. If there is anything good to come out of the fact that my voltage converter messed up my laptop and my Ipod, that's it.
I have been studying Sheet Molding Compound, which is the material that the hatches of cars are made of. I have learned plenty, and I can see the experience being useful.
I've made a few friends among the others in my living complex, so that's good. I play soccer on Sundays. Even though I'm not very good, it's fun to go out there and make an effort. Last weekend there were a bunch of ten-year-olds playing, and we joined in their game. I was almost as good as the ten-year-olds.
One of these weekends, I will be going to a city called Wels, Austria. I think I'll probably do that on my last weekend here. I was an exchange student there when I was a junior in high school, and I'd like to visit my host family again.
I'm going to go to a guitar shop this weekend. Not to buy of course, but to try out every guitar there and then say, "hmm, I'm not sure which one I want, I'll have to come back later." I played about 3 hours a day during the first few weeks of this summer, so I've kind of been having a withdrawal effect.
Anyway, that's good for now. Expect another post in a week or two.
Ramsey
I am officially past the midway point of my internship, and the job itself is not bad. I got to use a band saw yesterday to cut up the car parts that I am going to be testing, and I usually have plenty of time at the end of the day to surf the internet. I can't get over how cool the Olympia park is. I go there and relax by the lake nearly every weekend.
Getting the visa was a real hassle. I went to the municipal office with Ryan McKown, a fellow CDS intern at BMW. I don't know where I'd be without him. He always seems to know where he's going, while I aimlessly wander around. Anyway, there was a glitch in the computer system, so even after being there for four hours, I had to come back the next day to get the visa. It turned out okay though. I ended up getting a sizable discount. The normal visa fee is 50 Euros, and I only had to pay 15. At first, I thought they were just being nice, because I had struggled so much the day before, but I was told later that's not really the German way. So now I think they might have just messed up. Either way, I was happy to have that over with.
I have been reading a lot of novels over the past few weeks. Before coming here, I had not read a novel in about a year, and I've read maybe 5 here. If there is anything good to come out of the fact that my voltage converter messed up my laptop and my Ipod, that's it.
I have been studying Sheet Molding Compound, which is the material that the hatches of cars are made of. I have learned plenty, and I can see the experience being useful.
I've made a few friends among the others in my living complex, so that's good. I play soccer on Sundays. Even though I'm not very good, it's fun to go out there and make an effort. Last weekend there were a bunch of ten-year-olds playing, and we joined in their game. I was almost as good as the ten-year-olds.
One of these weekends, I will be going to a city called Wels, Austria. I think I'll probably do that on my last weekend here. I was an exchange student there when I was a junior in high school, and I'd like to visit my host family again.
I'm going to go to a guitar shop this weekend. Not to buy of course, but to try out every guitar there and then say, "hmm, I'm not sure which one I want, I'll have to come back later." I played about 3 hours a day during the first few weeks of this summer, so I've kind of been having a withdrawal effect.
Anyway, that's good for now. Expect another post in a week or two.
Ramsey
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