German Movie Theaters & Work

Another exciting week at Bochum but I did not go on too many adventures this time. I went to see Avengers: Infinity War because one of the other program participants recommended that we go to it. It was played in Union Film Theater Bochum a movie theater located in Bermudadreieck, a collection of shops and restaurants, located in the center of Bochum. Within the theater, we went to buy tickets for ourselves. One of my friends spoke German to buy the tickets for us, but the theater employee likely detected his American accent so he spoke to us in English.

Afterwards, we went to REWE, a German supermarket chain, to buy some snacks to eat in the movie theater. When we went inside to see the movie, we noticed that the movie trailers before the movie were largely in German so we were afraid that Avengers: Infinity War would be in German. Fortunately, we were relieved when we found that the movie we would watch was in English. No spoilers, but the movie was exciting and enjoyable all throughout for someone like me that rarely watches movies and did not watch the previous Avengers. I went home feeling glad that I spent time out of my day to watch that movie especially when sometimes I feel that I focus too much on school and rarely spend time taking breaks. I am personally pursuing activities like this as part of my pivot toward enjoying the other short term aspects of life rather than focusing mostly on my end goal of completing my formal education.

Additionally, another part of my decision to go to the movie theater was the fact that 01MAY18 was a German holiday marking International Workers’ Day (Labour Day). For that day, I slept at home and tried to complete as much of my work as possible which is boring but successful in my belief. In the latter half of the week, we conducted another chemical engineering lab. I worked with my five member group, including me, to finish our second lab report for a previous lab on Thursday, 03MAY18. We then completed the lab report for the third lab today, Friday, 04MAY18. I am glad that I am working with competent team members that contribute their own part to a project and can quickly finish these reports on time. Additionally, I enjoy having entertaining discussions with them as we work on these lab reports; indeed, the group aspect of engineering means that we can all enjoy our struggles and share our laughs together.

Unfortunately, I feel that I am not contributing as much as I should to these reports because I sometimes do not understand the TA’s verbal instructions given during a lab experiment. I also cannot refer to written instructions since they are mostly general tasks on what our group should do during a lab (Figure 1 shows a picture on my way from lab and the Featured Image shows a packed column we used during our third lab). Unfortunately, it is one of my faults that I poorly listen to people and subsequently forget and fail to understand what they say. I will try my best to further clarify the TA’s instructions in future experiments, and try to be much more engaged in them so I can be a more useful team member. Additionally, I am also constantly admitting that I do not understand a concept because there is no point in pretending to.


Figure 1: Random car near our lab buildings.

Next Saturday, I am hoping to travel to Berlin with some other Drexel Bochum program participants or travel with my roommate’s friends to areas around Europe. However, I am honestly unsure of what to do since I would like to see Berlin but I would also like to meet my roommate’s friends that aren’t American and are from different cultures. As I deliberate over this decision, one of the deciding factors would be over what will I remember years from now, interactions with people I know or international students I may never see again?

I am also planning to attend a five day trip with other Drexel Bochum program participants since we have a week long holiday from 21MAY18 to 27MAY18. It took me a while to decide if I wanted to stay home or go somewhere during this time but I realized I should take a break once in a while. It’s important to see the world out there and enjoy it. This is my guiding philosophy throughout the remainder of my experience here and hopefully at Drexel.




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