19 Mai - Conversations

My day was off to a great start when I got to talk to mein Liebling on Skype.  It's hard to coordinate when to make that thing work with the time differences, but we'll figure it out.

Then I spent the day straightening up and doing more laundry.  No, it's still not done.  It was kind of nice to have practically the whole day without having to run from this place to that to get paperwork done.  I haven't heard anything back from the International office, so I can't complete my registration.  Once she finds out about my insurance, I can continue with the paperwork process and get registered at the school.  Then back to the town hall to get registered with the town.

This afternoon, I met with my adviser who I will mostly be working with on my project and it went very well.  My first project is to write an overview of the German Health Care System to be part of a chapter in a book.  It's great because it will give me focus to learn as much about the system as I can and thoroughly understand it, so that I can write about it.  This should take me one to two weeks and then I can move on to my bigger project.  I have a few options and all of them look really interesting.  There are project management, analysis, and quality improvement directions on a very impressive wiki for disease management cost analysis that he has been working on.  I could also construct my own design of research and create a model of infrastructure comparison to the US.  Yay!  His research is very in line with my interests.  It was a very promising meeting.  So tomorrow, I will set up in my new office and begin.  It makes me feel so much better to get started on something.

After my meeting, I went to the grocery store and I have a few more questions... why is some milk not refrigerated and why aren't the eggs refrigerated at all?  It's nice that they sell beer in the grocery store, but don't they have regular liqueur stores with possibly a bigger and better selection than pilsner?

Then on to pick up Skylar who had another "ok" day at school.  He said the kids in his class are "annoying and impossible to understand."  I am just hoping he will adjust to this opportunity and it doesn't turn out to be just a bad a experience for him.  I just want him to have fun and be happy.  It is summer after all.

In my wandering yesterday, I found a health food store that had a variety of fake meats, but not just any fake meats, German fake meats!  So I got Vegetarich Leberkäse, which I think is probably some kind of lamb liver or something.  So tonight, I sauteed some veggies, added them to the Leberkäse and covered it in cheese - yum!  German chocolate for dessert and we are all set :)