Thursday 30 September 2010

almost october

things are pretty much the same here.
working on weekdays, studying german after work. then strollin around the city on weekends.
it's start to getting a little cold. feels about like fair weather. :)

my project is going really well. i pounded out a lot of it this week actually. and, at this point i can clarify the basis of my project a little better. well, my boss made it easy. here's the project description he wrote for me in german: implementation of impedance waveform generation on a NI Real Time system for use in an automated test system for functional defribrillator subsystem tests. just kidding...he wrote it in english. he's pretty much pro at english.

so my goal is to generate impedance (resistance) waveforms which simulate impedance changes between electrodes in the heart. by monitoring these impedances, the next generation of pacemaker-defibrillators will be able to react more intelligently to what's going on in the heart. so my work will form part of the new heart model which nick is working on.

Wednesday 15 September 2010

notes on work...

the morning commute to work takes about 30 minutes. we take the bus to the subway and arrive right outside our office building.

work is on a flex time system, and a typical workday is 7 hours plus 45 minutes of mandatory breaks: 15 minutes for breakfast and 30 minutes for lunch.

any extra time accumulated can be used for vacation. (oktoberfest?)

it's been rainy and cool almost all week! hopefully there'll be better weather this weekend for doing touristy stuff...

Tuesday 14 September 2010

in germany now

well: here begins the germany chapter of my blog.....and my life.
i will be in berlin, germany, doing a 10-week internship at Biotronik and returning around thanksgiving time.

last thursday, dad took me to stroudburg to catch the bus to nyc. i arrived in the city around 1030am, hung out with my friend josh, and had an amazing dinner at il buco at night. on friday, i spent a little time strolling through the city with josh. then i headed to penn station to take nj transit to the newark airport for my flight to berlin via coppenhagen.

flight was fine, but i missed my connecting flight on saturday morning in coppenhagen despite running about a kilometer through the terminal. i had a new flight around noon, and i arrived in berlin shortly thereafter. nick met me at the airport and it took about 2 hours to get to his apartment which is on the other side of the city. i was rather dazed and exhausted after so much travel and confusion, but that's no excuse for staying in and not experiencing a foreign place. so on saturday we toured the city until pretty late. then i slept for about 12 hours and felt that i could have slept a few more haha. we did mostly the same thing on sunday.

monday, i had my first day of work. here's the jist of the day: contract signing, meeting everyone on my floor, learning about my project, lunch with the guys, a little more about my project. i went home early to get moved into my new apartment. and by move in i mean i moved my backpack and my bag across the hallway from nick's apartment.

the apartments and fairly nice and fairly expensive. it's pretty much two rooms: there's the bathroom and then the living room with a sofa/bed and an attached kitchen. the kitchen is pretty much full-size except for the frig. also, it's all furnished including a tv with cable, silverware, coffee maker, water boiler, vaccuum cleaner, and even toilet paper. the sofa/bed thing pretty much sucks, but it's better than the floor.

the bus station is about a five-minute walk away, and it's about a five minute ride on the bus to the subway station. an unlimited public transport pass costs 50 € per month.

i've been studying german every night and getting a little bit better. but it's still pretty much impossible to understand germans when they speak normally, although i can understand nick fairly well (i can at least pick out all the words...).

oh yeah, here's a rough description of the project im going to be working on: Developing an electrode impedance model for implementation in heart
simulation for use in pace maker and defibrillator research and development.

pictures this weekend.