First day of classes

I don't have much to say about today. My first lecture lasted for 2 and a half hours and it was difficult, interesting, amusing, exciting, frightening and motivating. Professor Schaffler is responsible for the course and held todays lecture. It went fast and was quite hard to follow, I had to focus extremely well, but I think I actually perceived most of it pretty good.

Professor Schaffler started the lecture with an impressive presentation of himself, apparently bones and skeleton in a biomedical engineering perspective is his true passion in life and he has done a lot of important research and progress in the area. All of the pictures presented in the PowerPoint (except the cartoon ones) were pictures he had taken himself (Cool!). At the end of introducing himself he recapped a conversation he had with his daughter where she asked him: "Dad, are you one of those annoying professors who always pick on the quiet students in class?" on what he responded "Well, sure honey, I most definitely am". My interpretation: This is a class where I have to bring my A-game, and I am well motivated to do so.
I already feel that I appreciate Professor Schaffler and his way of teaching and getting everyone involved, mixing a lot of facts with fun anecdotes of his own personal life and previous research. For example, he showed a picture of a fracture on a finger bone and he said: "This is what a finger may look like after the hand tried to catch a wall clock falling down, resulting in being hit by approximately 7 pounds right on the knuckle". Class is quiet. "The reason I know so much about this hand is because it is my hand and I took the X-ray-picture myself in the lab the day after the incident because I suspected it was fractured, I was right". Class laughing. Me too. I like him, it will be a demanding, but fun class.

Oh, also, I forgot to mention, we have a lot of articles to read before every lecture and each student will present 2 or 3 times, alone using PowerPoint. Luckily, I do not get scary nervous about these things anymore since I have already forced myself to challenge this fear of public speaking so many times. Still a challenge though, and who loves a challenge more than me?

Bring it on Professor Schaffler!



/Yan in the Apple




(Sorry about the lack of pictures, forgot to take any today. Perhaps because every braincell needed to focus on something else. I'll get back to you on that!)