Category: Z WEP Archives

Journey to Work Experience

Today I will be flying to Buenos Aires, Argentina to take part in my Work Experience. Although I will not be working in a space today, I thought it important to share a few key details about my work experience before I begin to blog about my experiences each day. After visiting Quilmes Argentina last year for my World Language Exchange I came home knowing that my time there wasn’t done. I learned a lot about the higher education process in Argentina from my host parents and the educators around me and it differs a lot from the process here in the United States. The testing, high school education, and public information and media regarding education differ. For students seeking higher education especially if they want to attend university in the United States, the transition is daunting and misguided. After a lot of reflection on the information given to me and my time in Argentina I decided that I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to pursue in the future but it  confirmed that I did want to be an educator and that the only thing that differed from my childhood days where I would stomp around the playground saying confidently that ” I wanna be teacher when I grow up!” would be that now I would find some way that I could work in a Latin American country with fluency in Spanish so that I could effectively aid students in their education process. While I am in Argentina I will be spending most of my time in Quilmes High School with some time in two other schools by the name of Jardin De Cristo Obrero and Colegio Mancedo.

Before observing classes and professors I was asked to spend time researching different materials and topics so that I could be properly prepared to offer my insights to the class. I thought that was really cool because similar to a “real” teacher one day I will have to prepare myself with the course work I will teach. Therefore I am currently researching World War II, The Rain Horse by Ted Hughes, The Gulf War (Iran, Iraq, Saddan Hussein), and analyzing a poem ” The Kraken” by Tennyson. I am confident that this experience will teach me an abundance of things and confirm or deny the ideas of what I want to do when I am older. However, due to the fact that my experience is almost completely structured and fit to my needs of what I want to observe, I know that even if it doesn’t look the way I thought it would, this opportunity will be a chance for self-discovery.  I am excited about everything my work experience has to offer and I look forward to sharing all the incredible details through the blog!

 

Day 1 @CAAE

Welcome to the NC State Center For Applied Aquatic Ecology!

Here are some machines that I learned how to use today as well as some important processes to remember:

Testing template for silica in water and seawater

High purity water machine

quAAtro machine flushing and stabilizing before analyzing [the quAAtro machine is also referred to as the Continuous-Flow Injection Auto-Analyzer] (see attached link below)

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32 silica samples taken from falls lake for a student working on her PhD

Testing for total suspended solids from falls lake with labeled water samples and glass microfiber filters

quAAtro machine analyzing silica samples from falls lake (see attached link below)

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TSS filtering in process (see attached link below)

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Data recorded from the filtering- includes filter paper number, filter paper weight in milligrams, volume of water added, and sample name. The filter and residue weight will be measured Thursday after the filter paper is dried in the oven at 104.1°C. The samples included 3 field duplicates usually meaning they were collected using the same collecting methods and for every ten samples, we did a lab duplicate to see if our filtering methods yielded consistent results. Gathering all the data from filtering took 3 hours, which did not include weighing 30 glass microfiber filters before which took another full hour!

These are the glass microfiber filters after filtering the lake samples

Day 1

I had a great first day shadowing Dr. Mike Villareal at Cary Pediatrics. I was able to see a plethora of patients, ranging in age from a few months old to a couple years older than me, and both sick and well checks provided a wide variety of cases. Something that surprised me was the number of ADHD checkups. Kids coming in to change or replace medication was almost just as common as an annual checkup or a minor sickness. It wasn’t anything complicated, either: Dr. Villareal would ask about recent symptoms and suggest medication in chewable or liquid form, the patient and their family would make a decision, and the prescription was sent to the pharmacy. Aside from these cases, we also saw a wide range of minor sick visits, spanning rashes to breathing problems to ear infections to sleep training. It was difficult for the smaller children to sit still and remain calm through all the probing required of the checkup, but Dr. Villareal did a fantastic job both placating and efficiently evaluating them. Being a Spanish-speaking doctor, he also treated several patients in Spanish only (I picked up bits and pieces of the conversation and he explained the main points afterward). Overall, I loved seeing so many different children who were either healthy and strong or on their way to being healthy and strong.

I also had the opportunity to briefly shadow the other staff at the office. One of the highlights of the day was being able to watch Dr. Hope Seidel perform a Nexplanon (a contraceptive implant) operation, where a small tube was cut and removed from a patient’s arm and replaced with a new one. I had never seen an operation up close before, and it was incredibly kind of the patient to allow us to watch. What surprised me the most was when Dr. Seidel pulled out what looked like an exacto knife and inserted the blade straight into the patient’s arm to start cutting out the tube. We weren’t allowed to have phones in patient areas so unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures, but it was truly a unique experience I won’t forget. I’m looking forward to the rest of my time here!

 

Front door of Cary Pediatrics
A patient exam room

27.5 (Tag #1)

Effeff Gebäude

Die Kinder haben diese Mauer gemalt.
Ich bin mit der Straßenbahn nach Karlsruhe, eine Stadt, die in der Nähe von Ettlingen ist, gefahren. Dort habe ich Alina getroffen und danach das große Schloss besucht.
Das ist, wo ich mit den Kindern gespielt habe.

Ich bin gestern allein nach Deutschland geflogen und ich war glücklich, neben keinem Baby zu sitzen. Kirstin Wandelt, die Frau für sie ich arbeiten werde, und ihre Tochter, Alina, haben mich am Flughafen abgeholt. Wir haben danach Eileen (meine Austauschpartnerin) besucht, weil sie in Frankfurt wohnt und ich habe mich darauf gefreut, sie und ihre Familie zu sehen.

Heute Morgen habe ich etwas sehr wichtiges gelernt. In Deutschland muss man die Milch nicht schütteln, weil das Fett gleichmäßig verteilt ist in der Milch. Sehr interessant. Die Deutschen essen auch öfter Bio als in den USA, obwohl es teuer ist. Kirstin hat mir auch erzählt, warum die Steueren in Deutschland höher sind, weil alle versichert sind. Zum Beispiel müssen junge Leute für die Rentenversicherung der alten Leute bezahlen. Das ärgert junge Leute nicht, weil sie, wenn sie alt sind, auch Geld von der Versicherung bekommen werden (das die dann jungen Leute bezahlen). Während des Gespräches darüber habe ich Leberwurst probiert! (Ich mag keine Leberwurst und ich möchte lieber Brot mit Nutella oder Marmelade essen.)

Für die Arbeit heute habe ich im effeff Ettlinger Frauen und Familientreff gearbeitet, ein Verein, der Flüchtlingen hilft. Heute gab es die Sprachförderung für die Mütter, um Deutsch zu lernen. Während des Unterrichts habe ich mit den Kindern gespielt, die mit ihren Mütter gekommen sind. Ich habe fast die ganze Zeit mit zwei Brüdern verbracht, deren Mutter aus Nigeria gekommen ist. Der 2 Jähriger hat meine Haare mit einer Gabel gekämmt. Danach hat er ein kleines Föhnspielzeug benutzt, um meine Haare zu “trocknen.” Wir beide fanden das sehr lustig! Ich war auch sehr beeindruckt, dass er Richtungen auf Deutsch verstehen konnte, obwohl seine Mutter kein Deutsch zu Hause spricht. Das zeigt, dass man einfach eine Sprache lernen kann, wenn man diese Sprache jeden Tag in der Schule (oder, für ihn, während der Spielzeit) hört. Er sagt “Appetit!” sehr gerne und er kann wiederholen, wenn andere Leute Wörter auf Deutsch sagen. Am schönsten fand ich ein Kind in einem Autospielzeug um den Spielplatz herum zu schieben, während er die ganze Zeit gelacht hat. Das war mein Sport für den Tag.

Fachwerkhäuser (Tag #0.5)

Fachwerkhäuser sind sehr überall in Deutschland, weil der Stil ein großes Teil der Kultur ist. Ein Freund von Kirstin hat uns sein Fachwerkhaus gezeigt (Fotos 2 und 3), das im 18. Jahrhundert erbaut wurde. Der Mann, dem das Haus gehört, ist ein Architekt. Er hat die Stadtmauer und die Schlossmauer sehr schön im Haus integriert. Zum Beispiel ist eine Wand seines Arbeitszimmers Teil der Stadtmauer. Stadtmauern wurden während des Mittelalteres erbaut und haben die Städte umgeben. Die Schlossmauer (das Schloss in Ettlingen ist neben dem Haus) hat die Leute im Schloss geschützt, so dass die arme Leute nicht sehen konnten, wie reich die adeligen Leute waren.

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