Interesting, Phèdre ..

.. so now you decided to come clean and tell us what you've been doing all these days when we did, in fact, not see you in the cafeteria. It's nice to hear you were enjoying yourself.

I also feel it's time for another update from me, although it also feels like there's not much to update on. Routine does start to settle in around now, and I don't just mean IVs and patient histories. Apart from seing the first intraosseous line in ped's today, there was not really much to report. The day wasn't bad though, started out with another incredibly good lecture by Dr. G., our receiving attending, the usual Rosen's quiz and a few more way less interesting lectures. After lunch, our shifts started, mounting up to our 14h-Wednesday from 7a-9p. The day wasn't all bad, though. Skriehma was in ED1, rather busy today apparently, while I snuck into ped's before the fifth medstudent arrived there, so they did not ask me to leave this time. I did see a few patients, read on in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" that I started two days ago and am probably going to finish tonight if I don't fall asleep first. Very entertaining book. Seems to have a lot of depths, though, that I may need to read again more carefully to grasp. It can get confusing at times, especially if you were distracted while reading a chapter. In between patients I've been chatting with the other students in ped's, which has been fun. It was pretty much what I missed in Germany, namely always having something to talk about when you're from another country. Unlike back in High School though, it doesn't appear to be that big of a deal to them anymore that I'm, in fact, German, they are more surprised that they didn't notice. Some also pause, smile, then explain to me that they didn't want to know where my ancestors were from but where I went to school now when they asked me "where" I was "from". When I maintain my answer as "Germany", most people eventually get it though.

Part of the reason why I haven't been writing much either these past days was probably that I wasn't feeling so good. I suppose that had many reasons. For one I had actually been sick, a bit of fever, a bit of a cold, sore throat and apparently mild coxitis for a few days. Most of that seems to have resolved now though. Another thing was and/or is that I am in some way not that satisfied with the rotation I guess. I'm not sure what exactly is bugging me yet, maybe I expected some more bang than I've been seeing and especially doing so far. But like I said I'm not quite sure what I've been or am missing. May be some social contacts and/or activities. Not that I've been very active back in Munich these past months but I - perhaps wrongly - figured we'd be taken up into some social network at the hospital and/or among the medstudents. We haven't seen much of that yet, but one of the residents is co-hosting a party on Saturday that we're invited to, let's go from there. Perhaps my assumption draws from the fact that life in High School over here was of course strongly interwoven with people my age all around me. Medstudents and residents here are quite different. I asked today, they told me that the average med school graduate is around 30 - which seems to hold true. Some have kids, many are married or engaged. This doesn't seem like the age where you make most friends. I did read somewhere that almost all lasting friendships are made in elementary and high school.

Another thing that may have been bothering me is that as I presumed I'm probably really not made for living in a Wohngemeinschaft (can't think of an English word .. I mean sharing an apartment with people). This is nothing personal, there are probably a lot of people that I could bear much less than phèdre and skriehma, but especially to skriehma I feel attached to the hip these past weeks. This is nothing I want and/or can change and nothing that he should take any blame for. We have the same shifts 100% of the time, so we go to bed and get up at the same times, we almost always eat together - this is nothing I could keep up forever. Again, it's nothing personal, but I really am glad for the weekends, when I can detach myself and do some things like walk around town on my own.

I have also felt that whiff of homesickness that is due to come right around now, about a month into the trip, missing my family and a few people in Munich - the availability of a piano, as you no doubt have noticed - and my beautiful new apartment, that I hardly got a chance to unpack all the boxes in yet.

Then there's one more thing that actually came to my mind way earlier but I didn't want it to stick out so much, since the person concerned would probably be inclined to feel guilty for me worrying about her. Still I often think of a certain girl in Cologne who has been tested in a lot of different ways and meanings these past weeks and months - I wish her the strength to beat all these tests.

Allright people, thanks for reading. Was I melancholic? I guess that does happen when I get tired, so that's what I probably am. We do have another 15 hours before the next shift starts at 3pm tomorrow, so there's ample time to recover. Good night!