Fußball and Toilet Paper

As most of you are likely aware of, the UEFA soccer tournament is now underway in Europe. I had the pleasure of watching two of the matches over the past three days. Of course, EVERYONE in Germany tuned in to watch their beloved Nationalmannschaft  take on Portugal last Saturday night. Shivalik thought it would be cool to watch our host country’s opening game at the Schwimmbad Club, which is just down the road from the hospital. The club organized this giant outdoor public viewing venue complete with a jumbotron, standing room for hundreds of fans, and indeed beer stands dotted around the perimeter to complete the scene. After making to the front of a long line to get in, we squeezed our way through the jolly spectators to get to a spot where we could see the screen. Beer, soccer, and even free admission! What could be better than that?

The first half was pretty uneventful. Shivalik and I ran into some girls he knew through his roommate, but we lost them in the crowd soon after they said hallo to us. In the second half, however, as anyone who watched the game surely remembers, German striker Mario Gomez scored the one and only goal of the game off a header. The place went wild. Fans young and old were jumping up and down, screaming, shooting off fireworks. It was quite the scene to take in coming from a country where soccer is more synonymous with minivans than a national pastime. As one might imagine, that was only the beginning of the celebrations that night across Germany. Riding home after the game along the Neckar (sober and with a helmet so my folks back home don’t worry), I was surrounded by the sounds of car horns and people singing in the street. Needless to say, I am looking forward to the games against the Netherlands and Denmark this upcoming Wednesday and Sunday respectively.

Now, on to my story about toilet paper! What could toilet paper possibly have to do with watching a soccer game Jonathan? Other than the fact that both experiences happened last week- gar nichts! One day in the bathroom that I share with two other guys in my fraternity, I saw a new note on the wall. Lieber Klogänger! Wenn du das Klopapier das auf der Toilette liegt benutzt, solltest du auch mal dran sein welches zu kaufen! Das nur als kleine Gedankenstütze! Vielleicht denkst du ja beim nächsten Einkauf an diesen Zettel! PS: Nimm gleich das vierlagige! All right, I know I’ve been neglecting to translate throughout this post, here is a rough translation. Dear toilet goer! Since you use the toilet paper that lies here, you should also be responsible for purchasing some once in a while! Just to remind you! Perhaps think back to this note the next time you go shopping! PS- Just get the 4-layered kind! So the next day (Tues) in Aldi (cleanly wiped so my folks back home don’t worry), I bought a pack of the 4-layer toilet paper that I was fairly sure Justus, my roommate who lives down the hall, requested. I stashed it away in the bathroom cabinet once I got back and put a big checkmark through my roommate’s message on the wall. End of story, so I thought. On Saturday, I noticed that someone had scribbled a new note underneath the original. Also bitte?! 3-lagig und recycling? (Really?! 3-layer and recycled?) I looked underneath the note and noticed a pack of 3-layered, recycled toilet paper. Where did that come from I wondered? I knew that I had bought the right kind already, so I didn’t think much of it until I saw the third and final note later on Sunday night as I was getting ready to go to sleep. Mind you, all of these notes had been anonymous up to this point and I still had no idea where the other toilet paper came from. Klogänger die aufgrund übermäßigen Analverkehr eine wurde Rosette haben, seien doch angehalten sich dem Popo mit Waffetapfern zu reinigen Now this note scared the s*** out of me (excuse the pun) because there is a lot of slang in it that I still don’t fully understand. It is something like Because of the excessive anal traffic of one with an asshole, this s**** toilet paper can still be used to clean yourself. At the time though, I had only understood the very first part of the message. Excessive Analverkehr? Is my roommate accusing me of using the bathroom too often? Has he even seen the good toilet paper that I already put in the cabinet? After running back and forth between the toilet and my room several times to try to translate the message, I figured I had better just talk to one of my roommates and see what the heck was going on. I knocked on Justus’s door and timidly asked him what the new message meant. He looked at me kind of quizzically and then I showed him the new note in the bathroom. He burst out laughing. It turns out that Justus only wrote the first two notes and Florian, my roommate who lives upstairs by himself, was the one who bought the lower quality toilet paper and wrote the third angry note. I showed Justus the good toilet paper that I bought and he appreciated it, since he is the one normally supplying all of the toilet paper. He gave me the general idea of what all the slang in the note meant and that is what I tried to convey up above. Even after eight months of living here, it is interesting that I am still experiencing mildly traumatic misunderstandings from time to time with the natives. I guess the moral of the story is that you can never have too much toilet paper!     

Well hopefully you found that last story worth your time. It may have been one of those things where you had to have been there. Go Germany! Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

     

The 100.000 € videogame

(Note: 100.000 in German is 100,000 in English) After two weeks of doing nothing but studying the anatomy of the human abdominal cavity, I was quite relieved to get a new assignment from my German medical student. She told me that it was time to begin learning about specific laparoscopic procedures that are relevant to her project. First up was the good ol’ cholecystectomy or as the Germans call it Cholezystektomie. Using a website called webop.de, I managed to get a pretty good understanding of the different steps involved in surgically removing the gallbladder. What really cemented the process in my head, however, was being able to perform a cholecystectomy all on my own last Thursday! No, it wasn’t on a real person, but it felt pretty close on a simulator called the LAP Mentor. All you need to know about the LAP Mentor is that is essentially a 100.000 € videogame in which the different levels are different training modules and laparoscopic procedures, such as the cholecystectomy. Needless to say, it is definitely the coolest thing I have done during my internship so far! The module has actual graspers that you use as the controls. When you grab an organ on the screen, it feels exactly like you are grabbing an organ down below. I was able to confirm this feeling when during a workshop last Thursday, I got to try my hand at doing a cholecystectomy on a real pig liver inside of a sealed container. The other participants and I all took turns cauterizing the tissue attaching the gall bladder to the liver, putting clamps on the cystic duct and cystic artery, etc. And this was all with the same equipment that real surgeons use! At one point, the gall bladder burst open and all the lovely pig bile leaked out of it, but collectively we managed to finish the cholecystectomy, albeit a bit messily. Of course, now I have come to terms with the importance of the tedious task of learning the intricacies of human anatomy. Once you get inside the human body, nothing looks nice and neat as an anatomy atlas would have you believe. Therefore, when you’re cutting an artery, you better make sure you’re cutting the right one! Finally, the next time you experience severe pain in the right upper quadrant, give me a call. I am 100% unofficially certified to remove your gallbladder!           

I’ll end with a short anecdote that my friends from the South will appreciate, I think. It sort of depends on whether or not you consider Kansas a part of the South, but bear with me. On Wednesday night, my new German friend Niclas invited Shivalik and I to celebrate with him, since he had successfully completed an exam earlier in the day. We started off at his place and then migrated to Hauptstraße (Main Street), where Niclas’s classmate Cornelius lives. Shivalik and I introduced ourselves, and when Cornelius heard that we were both from the States, his face lit up. He immediately began explaining to us how he had studied abroad in Kansas when he was in high school. The best part was that everything came out in an almost flawless Southern accent! Cornelius told us this great story about how one night shortly after he arrived in this small town in Kansas, he and his new American friends went up to a roof on Main street. “We started throwin’ light bulbs onto the street,” he said, “’’cause, s*** man, there’s nothin’ to do in Kansas, so the kids throw light bulbs onto the street!” After a short time, the town’s sheriff arrived. Of course, he had this really thick Southern accent, so poor Cornelius had absolutely no idea what he was saying to him. After being forced to transition into life in Germany, I was definitely able empathize with him, but at the same time, everyone, including Cornelius, was laughing so hard that the experience is clearly one that Cornelius remembers fondly.

What else? I saw another operation today! This one was to correct a hiatus hernia. Gotta get up early tomorrow to observe an actual cholecystectomy. Maybe they’ll ask me to help out haha. Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

A first night and a last night

Thanks for tuning into my 30^th post! (Cue applause, I know, what a momentous moment). I will write about a first night and a last night from last week. May 19 was my new friend Shivalik’s first night in Heidelberg. After traveling the whole day from Berlin (as I had done just a week earlier), he was ready to watch the Champions League final between Bayern München and Chelsea. Once he had brought his stuff to his room, Shivalik gave me a call in the afternoon and we met up at Bismarckplatz (Bismarck square) in the center of town. Accompanying him was Anas, a German student who is subletting his room to Shivalik for the summer. Since it was Shivalik’s first time in Heidelberg, we did the mandatory hike up to the Schloss (castle) and explored a bit more of the city before it was time to head over to a bar called Belinni’s to watch the game. Normally, I wouldn’t go into the details of how we got there, but here it’s worth mentioning. Shivalik and Anas came to Bismarckplatz on bikes; I walked. Shivalik and Anas had to pick up some paint on the way to the bar, so they recommended that I take a bus and meet them at the surgical clinic, where my internship is. While I was on the bus, it suddenly started raining cats and dogs and I worried that something might happen to my two friends on their bikes. Once I arrived, I saw that Shivalik and Anas weren’t there yet, so I went inside to use the bathroom (Traveler’s tip: Hospitals are a great place to use the bathroom for free). When I came out, I was shocked to see a giant puddle of white paint on the ground with Anas standing right in the middle of it. They had made it all the way to the clinic, only to drop a can of paint after they arrived. Anas said that there wasn’t really anything we could do and recommended that Shivalik and I simply go to the bar while he found someone in the hospital to clean the paint.

We got to the bar all right and found decently good seats close to the TV where we just had to crane our heads a little to the side to see the screen. The people sitting next to us were celebrating a birthday party. Funnily enough, Shivalik and I ended up talking quite a bit with a student from the group named Niclas. I guess it wasn’t that atypical that we chatted a bit with a stranger at a bar, but what I think what was atypical, especially in Germany, was that he invited us to his friend’s birthday party that was being held nearby in a dorm. Shivalik was interested, so I decided to go too. At the party, we were able to chat with the rest of the group over some beer and surprisingly, everyone, including the birthday boy, were all really welcoming, even though we had only just met! I’m still not sure if it was pure friendliness or the fact that everyone in the birthday group weren’t exactly sober that led to this all happening. Either way, it was definitely a good time!

Okay, on to the last night. May 23 was the last night of Eckhart (I don’t know his first name) being a Fuchs at the fraternity I am living in. Fuchs literally means fox, but in this sense it means freshman. In order to become a fully-fledged member of the Corps Rhenania, one must participate in a Mensur (duel). A Fuchs from each of two different fraternities face-off in what is called “academic fencing” surrounded by the members of their respective fraternities looking on. Each Fuchs is allowed to wear protective gear up to the neck and then only goggles to protect their eyes. Each member also has two people assisting them: one looks on from the side and jumps in to end each round after a certain number of sabre clashes and the second wipes down the sword in between rounds. During the course of the Mensur, there are thirty rounds in which the two Füchse alternate between trying to strike the other on the forehead and blocking. It was frightful, yet fascinating to watch, since at any moment a Fuchs could make an error and end up with a nasty scar on his face as a result. It is fascinating to me that the students here do this voluntarily. There are a lot of benefits if you can survive the thirty rounds while remaining steadfast in place (like Eckhart and his opponent both did, neither sustaining any injuries). You become a rightful Mitglieder of the fraternity, which gives you the right to wear a special colored ribbon from your right shoulder to your left waist and boss all the Füchse around. Also, I guess because of the importance of the duel, all the onlookers (who were also all male) dressed in suits for this event, so I managed to find a cheap suit at C&A for the next Mensur. Also, don’t worry Mom and Dad, I am not a Fuchs, but a Gast (guest) of the fraternity, so I will not have anything more to do with these duels other than watching.    

You can find out more about academic fencing looking around online if you need an excuse to procrastinate. I read that Mark Twain’s book A Tramp Abroad is based in part on his own experience watching student fencing in Heidelberg. Maybe he met some members of the Corps Rhenania back in the day. Anyway, that’s it for now. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

The first week

Hallo alle! It’s hard to believe that a whole week has passed now since I arrived in Heidelberg, but indeed, I got through the first week of my internship. For those of you that are curious about the specifics, I am currently participating in the German American Exchange Service’s RISE program (Research In Science and Engineering). I was fortunate enough to get placed with a medical student here who is working on a project called “Development of a Decision Support System for Minimally Invasive Surgery with a Special Focus on the Retroperitoneum”. What does that mean in simpler terms? After a week of essentially just getting familiar with the German-version of the anatomy of the abdominal space, I’m just as confused as you are, but it’s pretty much an attempt to create a computer program that would assist surgeons as they are removing a kidney, or doing something else in the retroperitoneum (basically the area between your stomach and spine). Then, minimally invasive surgery, or laparoscopic surgery, is just like regular surgery, only with much smaller incisions. The surgeon uses a television monitor to see what he/she is doing with elongated surgical instruments that go through these incisions. It’s definitely been interesting so far, but I already miss the interactions with patients that brought me so much gratification in Berlin. I’ll definitely keep an open mind during my time here, but at the moment, my first week has revealed to me that the clinical side of healthcare really appeals to me more than research.   

Even though I had to start this past Monday, the day after I arrived, Ascension Thursday is actually a holiday down here in southern Catholic Germany, so I used the opportunity to explore the city a bit! After attending Mass at the Jesuit Church, a beautiful Baroque church that was spared with the rest of Heidelberg’s Altstadt (old city) from bombing by the Allies in WWII, I decided to head straight for the Schloss (castle), which might be Heidelberg’s biggest tourist attraction. After tackling a mountain of stairs to get to it, I could definitely see why. Onlookers are rewarded by a spectacular view of the city below cut down the middle by the Neckar River. I even managed to locate the fraternity where I live, but more on that later. Once I had finished enjoying the beautiful panorama, I decided to move on up to two other vantage points further up the mountain. The first called Molkenkur I found without too much trouble, but it wasn’t all that spectacular. I had very high expectations for Königstuhl, however, which in English translates to the “King’s Throne”. What better view could there be than that? Unfortunately, I ended up going the wrong way and ended up somewhere else, but fortunately, I ended up somewhere else! It was the Heidelberg Arboretum! I looked at the map though and when I realized the sheer size of the park, I decided it was time to call it quits and make my way down the mountain. About an hour later, I collapsed on the chair in my room, exhausted yet satisfied.      

I’ll end a little bit about the Corps Rhenania, the fraternity where I live. I never saw myself living in a fraternity, but this is where my supervisor found me a room, so hey, here I am. It’s been a nice experience so far. After seven months in Germany, I have learned that it’s really no use to try to become best friends with the other students that live here, since realistically they have no interest in being my best friend. They already have their own groups of friends and furthermore, Germans tend to be much more reserved than Americans. Something that is refreshing about German culture, however, is that on the rare occasion that a German does strike up a conversation with you, it is out of a legitimate interest and not some selfish idea of how you might be useful to them in the future. My strategy then has just been to spend a couple hours hanging out with the other students here and there without trying to be overly friendly or appear desperate. And who knows, maybe I will make a German friend or two here in Heidelberg before the summer is over.        

All right, I’m off to watch the Champions’ League final between Chelsea and Bayern with another RISE scholar who is arriving today! Right, forget to mention that there will be other Americans doing similar internships in Heidelberg- should create plenty of opportunities to have fun this summer in Europe! Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

Good Bye Berlin

Hallo! As I write this post, I am on the train on my way to Heidelberg- my last stop during my 10-month stay in Germany. After the Wintersemester with the Middlebury School Abroad in Mainz and seven weeks in Berlin, I will now spend my last twelve weeks in Germany doing a research internship with a PhD student at Heidelberg University Hospital. More on that in my next post!

When we last left Jonathan, he was on his way to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. I think I said in a previous post that the Natural History Museum in Berlin was the most technologically advanced museum I had ever visited.  I was wrong! First of all, the museum is architecturally stunning. Visitors begin on the ground floor where they visit the Garden of Exile, built in recognition of Jewish immigrants in Germany and the Holocaust Tower, a dark, towering hollow space with just a crack of daylight that breaks through the ceiling that is meant to give the visitor maybe a small glimpse of what it felt like to be trapped in a concentration camp. As one ascends to the upper levels, one can retrace the steps of the Jews in Germany, starting from the World of Ashkenaz (950-1500 AD) all the way to the present time. I’ll end with two examples of the technology I referred to earlier. The first was an automated 3D movie that gave an overview of the first Jewish settlements in Germany. 3D glasses were not required; instead images that moved back in forth in front of your eyes were projected in the space of a triangular shaped stage used for depth. Much better than the 3D that is being used now in movie theaters! Second, my friend Jim noted that the headphones located throughout the museum were top notch DJ equipment that cost 200 Euros a piece. Doesn’t seem like this museum is having financial issues!

The next day, Thursday, I went with Jim to the Medical History Museum, which is located on the campus of Charite Medical School. I really questioned whether I have what it takes to be a doctor as I walked through the halls of the museum. In the display cases, one can find virtually every organ and body part found in the human body. And they aren’t models, but the real things! The most challenging part of the museum to visit was the pathology room, where one finds the most disturbing examples of what disease and genetic disorders can do to the human body. I won’t go into too much detail, but the part that touched me the most was a section of display cases that had human fetuses with some really terrible disorders that ended their lives before they were even born. The main thing that keeps me optimistic when I think back on this experience, however, is that the vast majority of humans are born healthy. The vast majority of humans do not enter the world with terrible diseases, but instead succumb to them after a life well-lived. I still don’t know if I really have what it takes to be a doctor, but after seeing what’s out there, I’m even more motivated to do my best to become one.

On a lighter note, I went with my friend Conor on Friday to a place called Kunsthaus Tacheles. Danke Michael C. für die Empfehlung und Conor furs Mitkommen! Kunsthaus Tacheles is this abandoned building in the middle of Berlin that artists use now both to sell their works and create new ones while visitors browse around. In addition, the walls and ceilings of the building are all covered with layers of both graffiti and drawings that I’d be willing to concede are art. Conor and I agreed that this place and the people that inhabit it represent the nature of Berlin very well, but visit ASAP! The city government is currently trying to close this place down, which would really be a pity I think. Sure, I have a feeling there are a lot of illegal things surrounding the Kunsthaus, but if it was torn down, Berlin would lose an amazing example of living history in the center of the city.

I think that’s about it. WAIT A SECOND! I haven’t talked about FOOD yet! The past two nights, Jim and I had cheese fondue and hotpot- two really good yet really easy dinners to make. Vielen Dank Jim! I’ll post some new pictures on FB too. Danke fürs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!       

Hamburg and Lübeck

This past Sunday, at 15:27 Deutsche Bahn time, I arrived in Hamburg’s central train station on my way to revisit Joni’s family, who had so graciously hosted me in 2008 as part of GAPP(German American Partnership Program, Joni visited me for 4 weeks in the US, I visited him for 3 weeks in Germany). About an hour later, Joni’s father met me at Poppenbüttel train station and drove me back to their home, where I was also happy to see Joni’s mother again. Almost nothing had changed in the past four years. Sure, the parents and Joni’s younger siblings (who I would meet later at midnight when they arrived back from a trip to Taize) had gotten older and some little things were different around the house. But for the most part, I was in the same comfortable atmosphere that I remember from high school, only this time, we spoke auf Deutsch! It was really a special experience because although I got to know the family the last time by speaking in English, the most intricate parts of the family members’ personalities, or I think really anyone’s personalities, only comes out in their native tongue. At the same time, the family seemed almost honored in a way that I had continued to study German and all of this just made for a really good two days in Hamburg. Sleeping in, attending a talk given by the mother about life in former East Germany, playing Mario Cart- things don’t get much better than that! Vielen Dank Joni’s Familie!

On Tuesday afternoon, I took a small detour on my way back to Berlin to get coffee with a Midd friend named Chris, who is currently doing a Fullbright project in Lübeck. He gave me a tour of the quaint little city and we caught up on things since we had last seen each other in Middlebury. Last spring, Chris gave me a lot of really valuable advice before I embarked on my semester in Mainz, since he spent a year there during his undergraduate years, so part of the reason I wanted to visit was to let him know that everything had turned out well with the Wintersemester. More importantly though, he is just a great guy and I was sad to have to say goodbye to him to make my journey back to Berlin. Danke für einen wunderbaren Nachmittag Chris!

So, now I just have 4 days left in Berlin, INCLUDING TODAY! I’m off to the Jewish Museum now. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!

PS- This is really funny! (Thanks for sharing this on FB Talel)

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Pick German as the 'from' language; Press the 'Listen'-button

The operation

Last Monday, I had my last day of work at Charite hospital, and boy, what a last day it was! Everything started out the same as usual. The nurses and I did the morning rounds at 7 AM, entering every room after the team of doctors had finished to care for the patients. At 8 AM, I distributed breakfast to the patients (I am now really good at pouring cups of coffee with any combination of milk, sugar, artificial sweeteners, grape sugar). After I collected the breakfast trays from the rooms, however, the head nurse said that I would finally get to see an operation! She told me to report to the operation station in 15 minutes and that first I could eat some breakfast. In the break room, I sought to find a balance between eating enough that I wouldn’t get hungry during the operation and not so much that I might throw up. I had never seen an operation up to that point and I had not even been told what kind of operation I would be seeing. I decided to head downstairs a little bit early, since I didn’t want to miss the first incision, but it turned out I arrived plenty early. I entered the operation room with a new set of sterile clothes, a mouth covering and a shower cap as the nurses and doctors prepped all the equipment and instruments for the operation. The patient was lying in a bed and raised his hand slightly upward to greet me. “Hallo,” I said in reply. Once everything was ready, the procedure began by sticking a line with a camera down the patient’s throat to check for any new cancerous growths. This was actually the worst part I thought, since the patient was awake and looked like he was in a lot of pain the entire time. It was interesting to see the inside of his throat on the television screen. I only wish there could have been a more comfortable way of performing that first procedure. Next, the anesthesiologist put the patient to sleep and the head surgeon made the first incision. Once I realized that I wasn’t going to faint, I looked on with great interest as the surgeon cut deeper and found the skin tumors less than an inch under the surface of the patient’s left leg and abdomen. After the first surgeon removed a tumor, the second surgeon, who I think was doing the German equivalent of a residency, began sewing the patient back up. I was surprised by how little blood there was. The surgeons used these heated knives and prongs that immediately burned the flesh and prevented most of the bleeding. I also looked on with great interest as the anesthesiologist did his work. He recorded different readings throughout the operation and checked the patient’s pupils every once in a while to make sure that they were not too big. He told me that this was one way of measuring how much pain the patient was in. After about three hours, the surgeons used a staple gun to put the finishing touches on closing up the wounds and the anesthesiologist removed the gas tube. A few minutes later, the patient suddenly woke up and his first reaction after taking a deep breath of air was to try to get up. It took four people to hold him down before he realized what was going on and lay back down calmly. After the team of doctors and nurses used a sliding pad to transfer the patient from the operating table back to his bed, I headed back up to my station. At that point, it was 2 PM, closing time. I said my final goodbyes to the nurses and secretly left a little note for them expressing my gratitude on their bulletin board as I left.

I definitely feel a little sad that the internship is over now. There are many random things that remind me of the different patients and nurses. For example, there was one friendly diabetic patient who would always say “drücken” (push) to me in a very commanding way as I was squeezing blood out of his finger. Now, I always hear his voice in my head whenever I push a door open. I also have been frequently listening to the Berlin radio station 104.6 RTL (check it out online!), since that is the station the nurses would always have on during break. Really though, my journey toward becoming a doctor is just beginning, so I think the main part of me is really looking forward to my next internship in Heidelberg that will begin on May 14 in which I will be helping a PhD student with her project on developing laparoscopic surgery technology that focuses on an anatomical area called the retroperitoneum. Should be fun!      

In other news, there was one weird night where I couldn’t stay in my apartment, since a new person was moving in and I couldn’t begin crashing in my flatmate Frederic’s room (Danke Frederic!) until the next night. So my friend Conor was nice enough to host me for a night (Danke Conor!). We went to this Mexican restautant called Alcatraz that claims to have the best fajitas in Berlin and although I have not had fajitas anywhere else in the city, I would not dispute this claim! Finally, I checked out the Berlin Wall Documentation center one day and that was pretty cool. That’s all for now! I’ll have some traveling to report on next time. Danke furs Lesen und bis nächstes Mal!