My Life - So Far

"Unbounded ambition makes an obscure existence simply impossible for me"
Lucien de Rubempré

Friday, February 22, 2008

Longing For Spring VI

Last Sunday I joined Valentina and her family for a walk around the shores of Lake Constance at Stein am Rhein. The water level is that low, you can walk in for more than fifty meters without getting wet feet. The local newspaper brought a report about the low water level and as it was a beautiful and warm day there were hundreds of people out there, mainly families and amorous couples.

The beautiful weather continued and on Tuesday I had the first BBQ of the year! As the semester at uni had started, we all came together on the roof-deck of the Food Science Institute. We all brought some steaks, sausages, bread and salads! Sitting there in T-Shirts we had a cozy first BBQ!

Besides I started with my bachelor thesis in human nutrition about the validation of a food frequency questionnaire about iron status in 18-40 years old women. Right now I have to do a literature review and read many studies that already have been done, which is very interesting!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Longing For Spring V

Spring is coming! The last two weeks were always sunny and pretty warm, even though the nights still were winterly cold. During these days I had a lab course in food microbiology at uni. We could buy our own food and bring to the course to analyze the bacteria content. I found some Listeria on my Mövenpick smoked salmon, which can cause severe illness. And don't use your PET water bottles for too long, they're soon contaminated with E.coli and other gastrointestinal bacteria!

The week before the lab started, Valentina and I went to Zurich, and I walked her through the whole ETH campus, showed her the sports facilities, the libraries, the lecture rooms, the different restaurants we have there... We then met Jonathan at Starbucks and talked for a while until we started back for home.

I read quite a lot of books during the semester break. During the semester I don't really have time to read as I need to do many things for uni, especially now where I have to write my bachelor thesis. Anyway, I read two books by Haruki Murakami, "Noakos Lächeln" and "Afterdark". Then I read some classic literature such as "Wallenstein" and "Kabale und Liebe" by Schiller and "Effi Briest" by Theodor Fontane. Right now I'm reading something more up to date, "Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini.

This brings me to the movies. Marc Foster directed a stunning movie based on that book. It's now in cinemas in Schaffhausen, so I might watch it soon. Yesterday I went to see "27 Dresses" with Valentina and I bought the DVD "Monsieur Ibrahim and the flowers of the coran".