Lecture Week 2

Here is a brief summary of the most important things this week:

On Monday, I had my physical examination. This is a health check that we have to do in order to apply for our residence permit. Sophie and Thomas already did the check in the first week and applied for the permit this week.
So on Monday morning at 7 o'clock, I took a taxi with Vitali and René to the center during rush hour. I wouldn't want to drive here, as it gets quite chaotic and everyone tries to sneak in everywhere.
The hospital was quite crowded as it was a group appointment, but the whole thing went quite quickly once we were in. We had to undergo a blood test, an x-ray of the upper body, a blood pressure measurement, an ECG, an eye test, and an abdominal ultrasound examination. We went from room to room and in the end, we made a little race out of who would finish first. By the way, René won that. While waiting, we could chat with each other or with French and American people. After that, we went home to not miss the last session of the day. Unfortunately, we have to go back to the city to pick up the results, which will take another 3 hours...

On Tuesday, we booked our trip for the Golden Week. It is a national holiday here and there is a week off. We are going to Wuxi from Tuesday to Saturday. The city is about 1 hour by train from Shanghai, located on a large lake. It is more of an emergency solution, as everything else was basically fully booked, but I think we will experience and discover a lot.

On Wednesday, I met Jialin Xie. He approached me on the bus and asked if I would like to do a language tandem with him. That means he teaches me some Chinese and I teach him German. We had lunch together and talked a bit. I'm curious to see how it goes, he's definitely a nice guy.

On Thursday, we started our mechatronics project. I have to develop a system together with Matthias, René, Thomas, and Zhang that can detect and automatically remove snow from the roof. It's up to us how we implement it. Guided by Matthias and René, we have tried to structure the project sensibly and manage it according to a VDI guideline. In the evening, we had dinner with Zhang and he brought us moon cake. They eat it here traditionally during the Mid-Autumn Festival. We exchanged some experiences and told him about Germany. He would like to travel to Germany sometime, but he didn't pass his test with just one point, so he is not allowed to. You could tell that he was really sad about it.
Around 10 pm, Sophie and I went to the city to Fusion. I had already been there once with Thomas to party, and since Will Sparks was playing that night, it was a good opportunity to show Sophie the nightlife in Shanghai for the first time. We had a lot of fun and the party was really great. We met Chris at the club, a really nice American guy, with whom we definitely want to do something in Shanghai again. And another funny thing happened in the restroom: Somehow I got into a conversation with 3 people. A Dutch, a German, and a Chinese, and they were all speaking German. It was a bit surreal for the time and place. We were back home around half past 4 and had about 4 hours of sleep before leaving for Wenzhou the next day. But I'll write a separate article about that.

On Friday, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhōngqiū Jié) in China. On this day, traditionally, families get together and watch the full moon together.

Greetings also go out to everyone who was at Jakob's on Saturday. It was definitely worth getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning to talk to you and it was nice to see all of you, even though I would have loved to be there in person. Jakob, I wish you all the best on your future path.

I will also take care of a description of the campus, the rooms, and the study routine, as we are here mainly for that. And I will also go into more detail about the subjects, as Prof. Voß indirectly asked for it. I just need to find the time for it, as things are really starting to get busy for us now and we usually have lectures from early morning to evening.

Written by Friedemann