In case you care...

So, this post is here to tell you all a few things: what I (we) do with all this time on our hands, give a luggage update, and introduce some changes to our blog. School starts here October 14th. I've never had such a big break from school since my mission. In case you're curious as to what we do with all this "free time," then keep reading. First of all, we have a few details to attend to before I can actually start studying. We have to open a bank account here so that our rent can be automatically stolen from it every month. We need to apply for (student) visas. We need to acquire and provide proof of health insurance (the insurance we had in Kiel just expired). We need to come up with our first month's rent and deposit, as well as money for med school application fees (more on that later). We also need to register with Heidelberg so that we're legal residents, but we can only do that once we've moved into our apartment. Once that is all out of the way, I need to sign up for classes. Signing up for classes is much less convenient than in the US. I have to go to each professor and request a seat in his/her class. Usually, I'm told, this is simply a matter of signing my name on a list. With some classes I may have to show that I've fulfilled certain prerequisites, etc. On top of that, if the class is only offered as a lecture, and not a "seminar," I need to request that the professor grade a paper or give me a test to receive a grade for the class. To get a grade for the class, I also need to have the professor sign a certificate at the end of the semester. Then, I take the certificates to the international office, where they're copied and kept on file. I have to take those home to get credit for my classes. Anyway, I'm a little off the subject, but I just wanted to let you all know how spoiled we are in the US with such user-friendly universities. Besides the more bureaucratic tasks at hand, I spend most of my time filling out medical school application materials, including writing essays for the applications. We added a list to our blog (on the left) that shows all of the medical schools I've sent a primary application to. The key at the bottom explains the rest. The list was BreAnne's idea, so that I don't have to write it all in seperate posts, and it's a neat, organized way to keep track of it for ourselves. That way, for any and all of you wondering what the latest news regarding my applications is, you can come to the blog and easily find out. The secondaries I've actually submitted, or that I'm ready to submit, are Johns Hopkins, Washington, and Dartmouth. I was really excited to hear from all of them, so we'll see how it goes from here. We got our luggage today. Everything was even in it. We're excited to be able to wear something else for the first time in a week. With the arrival of our luggage, we said goodbye to the luggage poll. But in its place is the new "Poll of the Week." Tell your friends. I'll try to have a fresh, interesting, or otherwise new poll for our faithful blog readers every week. That's about all for now. I'll post some more pictures soon.