16 Juni - Research frustrations

Today involved mostly reading.  Reading about retinopathy, laser coagulation, alternative therapies, and so on.  I read until my eyes were burning and information started leaking out of my ears.  My project seems to have taken this drastic change of direction that has nothing to do with my original study interests.  I am not sure what to do about that though.  I really wanted to do a comparison of sorts so that part of my research is done in the US, but this new project is entirely Germany related.. even doing the same project in the US wouldn't really make any sense for a comparison.  I know I have to ensure there is a significant informatics portion of my project and a comparison might have trouble covering that.  It seems just as sensible though to do a comparison of costs related to a disease or treatment of disease based on the structure of the systems.  The US has ridiculously high medical cost expenditure and so much of it is due to the fragmented care.  Germany has introduced legislature to improve disease management as part of their nationalized system to bring down costs and improve research with accessibility and collection of data.  Anyway, I meet with Wendelin tomorrow and maybe I can discuss this further with him.

Nora called the bank for me and got my bank card straightened out.  Seems the letter they sent was returned, so they will send it again.  She also reviewed my bank statement with me and confirmed that only a fraction of the amount from my stipend was paid to me.  So tomorrow, I will return to the International office and inquire why I was paid so little.  Nora is also helping me figure out summer plans for Skylar.  She called a day camp that is close by that looks quite fun.

Then I was to meet Michele at the Kletterarena, but Skylar didn't want to go.  At first I thought about just not going because I drag him with me everywhere and we did get to bed late the night before, so I couldn't blame him for being tired.  However, I didn't want to stand Michele up in case he didn't have anyone else to climb with.  So I let Skylar stay at the flat while I went to the gym and promised to be home by dark.  I was a little late getting there, but I am glad I went. Michele was bouldering because he didn't know anyone else there to climb with, so I felt terrible about even being late, but of course he said it was no problem. Climbing always helps get out frustrations, so I felt better.  Slipped a few times and got a little shaken up, but I need that so I can get ok with the thought of falling and stop using so much energy in fear.  Stayed for a couple hours and returned by 21:00 (before dark) as promised.