It feels like we're going in circles

I think a lot about the orbiting of planets; it's a nice representation of time. Whereas a clock can be unplugged, a watch can run out of batteries, a tree can burn down and a heart can stop beating, the planets twirl, weave and dance with one another interminably.

This year we went once round the sun. That, and the Earth did 365 pirouettes. It's beautiful, yet frighteningly inexorable. As 2010 comes to a close, I find myself overwhelmed trying to integrate everything. I could really use a moment without sound to hear my thoughts and a moment without motion to catch my breath, but the globe keeps spinning ignorant to my requests. This year has been pretty important for me, so much so that for the first time in my life I feel like I need to, much like my friend Loaf does for everything, rehash the milestones.

I took the hardest test of my life and survived.

I built my first bike from spokes to saddle.

I graduated from college as a neurobiologist (and a minor league scholar of German language and culture).

I organized a directed a conference to educate and inspire high schoolers about pursuing a career in health care.

I was told on numerous occasions, at said conference, that I was Puerto Rican.

I willingly slept in a car three nights in a row.

I learned how to be single - and that being single can be really complicated.

I went on my first business trip.

I drank a whole beer (alcohol free).

I moved to Europe with little more than a backpack, a bike and a promise of a job.

I became an Emergency Medical Technician.

I rode 400 miles in four days down the sunny California coast with two of my closest friends.

I successfully completed the Cinnamon Challenge. Twice.

There is no doubt that some achievements on this list are more momentous than others - graduating from college is without question of more life-importance than being called Puerto Rican by a 17 year old Puerto Rican girl. But in those pensive moments in which I get lost in my thoughts and try to sort and organize them to achieve some order and sense, these are the things that come to mind. It is in these moments that I try and dig my heels into the Earth in the silly hope that my resistance will make it spin just a little bit slower and give must that fraction of a second longer to understand everything that goes through my head.

In the end, I have to simply own up to the fact that the Earth spins, circles the sun and is just one of a great number of stones that are accelerating away from one another. I suppose that's the beauty of it all, that within the elegant choreography of the universe, we live, love, laugh and thrive. So, let the dance go on, let us keep going in circles and let our next go around the sun be even better than that last magnificent lap that was 2010.

Übersetzung: An open letter to the St. Martin School

Even though you all surely breezed through my letter in German, here's the translation (you know, just so that you can be sure that you understood all those 46 letter words):

To my wonderful coworkers,

It's hard to believe that my time at St. Martins is already at its end; three months couldn't have flown by any faster. My internship at the school wasn't the standard for you guys: I was the American, who was spread out between all the grades, who all of a sudden showed up on crutches, which were all of a sudden decorated, who only stayed until Christmas. As a result, I didn't have the opportunity to get to know a lot of you and I often found myself on the edge of the action without a specific task to fulfill.

However, that was ok for me, because I still learned so many things in the last three months that I can use and integrate into my daily life. I would like to share a short list of these things that I learned at St. Martins, things that are now indispensable to me:

I. When Patricia doesn't eat because she's distracted, when Süsänn asks the same question for the tenth time in the past two minutes, or when Pascal just stands in the bathroom and stares at you despite the fact he's told you four times that he needs to go, then the natural reaction is to get angry. Yet you learn quite quickly that that isn't the proper solution. You have to have patience (even when you think that you're already patient, it's almost always better to be even more patient) and always keep in mind that our students have a completely different perception of the world.

II. I have never worked with children, but in the last three months through the close contact that I've had with them, I've learned to better understand children and to regard them as human beings. Handicapp here or there, children can surprise us and they do everyday. Teaching isn't a one way street, at St. Martins is no exception to this rule - St. Martin children are complex, smart in their own way, full of potential and we can learn a lot from them as our fellow humans.

III. Children help adults to re-recognize the small beautiful things in life that are often lost in the shuffle. I wouldn't say that I had a poor imagination when I came to work at St. Martins, but through the time I spent with the children I saw that the world had in fact lost some of it's magic in my eyes. Now I appreciate again that cloud movements can be spectacular, that a carpet with streets and buildings on it can be a real city, that Tolga in a foam barrel in the gym is the funniest toy in the world. Beauty is truly everywhere, in every child, in every snowflake, natural or handmade.

IV. For me, one of the biggest challenges was that everything happened in German. Just as I thought that my German had gotten strong enough, I realized that there were a lot of people at the school who spoke no German at all. Since then, I've learned a ton of Franconian. Cool, huh?

V. The last thing that I would like to share with you guys is simple: The people who work at St. Martin School are true heroes. I want to eventually become a doctor, but I saw time and time again while working at the school that you don't need a medicine license to heal somebody. Society needs organizations like St. Martins and thereby included are people like you all who give everything for the school. Sometimes the work is exhausting, sometimes the rewards and progresses are hard to see, but be sure that what you do is invaluable and appreciated. I am so happy that I got the chance to work with you all.

I thank you all very much for the opportunity I was given. Mr. Zinsmeister took a risk when he gave me the ok to do an internship at the school. I can only hope that my time here brought you all something too and that I wasn't the only one who came away with something.

I have traveled quite a bit and along the way I have seen and experienced quite a lot. However, I am more that sure that working at the St. Martin School is one of the most important experiences that I've ever had, and that's due to you all and the kids. Again, thank you!

All the best,
Reid Haflich

Ein offener Brief an die St. Martin Schule

Meine lieben Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter,

Ich kann es kaum fassen, dass meine Zeit an der St. Martin Schule schon zu Ende ist; drei Monate könnten nicht schneller vorbei fliegen. Mein Praktikum an der Schule war nicht so was Normales für euch: ich war der Amerikaner, der überall zugeteilt war, der plötzlich mit Krücken gekommen ist, die plötzlich geschmückt waren, der nur bis zu Weihnachten geblieben ist. Aufgrund dessen hatte ich nicht die Gelegenheit viele von Euch kennen zu lernen und oft fand ich mich am Rand ohne eine spezifische Aufgabe.

Aber das war für mich egal, weil ich trotzdem in den letzten drei Monaten so viel gelernt habe, Sachen die ich für den Rest meines Lebens nutzen und im täglichen Leben integrieren kann. Ich will euch kurz einige Dinge mitteilen, die ich an der St. Martin Schule gelernt habe und jetzt für mich unentbehrlich sind:

I. Wenn Patricia nicht isst, weil sie abgelenkt ist, oder wenn Süsänn die gleiche Frage zehn Mal in zwei Minuten stellt, oder wenn Pascal im Bad stehen bleibt und dich anstarrt, obwohl er dir vier Mal gesagt hat, dass er aufs Klo muss, dann ist die natürliche Reaktion sich zu ärgern. Aber man lernt sehr schnell, dass das nicht die richtige Lösung ist. Man muss einfach Geduld haben (auch wenn man denkt, dass man Geduld schon hat, es ist fast immer besser noch geduldiger zu sein) und man muss immer wieder daran denken, dass die Schuler eine komplete andere Wahrnehmung von der Welt haben.

II. Ich habe nie mit Kindern gearbeitet, aber durch die engen Kontakte in den letzen Monaten habe ich gelernt Kinder besser zu verstehen und als Menschen wahrzunehmen. Behinderung hin oder her, Kinder können uns überraschen und sie schaffen es jeden Tag. Unterrichten ist keine Einbahnstraße, und die St. Martin Schule ist keine Ausnahme – St. Martin Kinder sind komplex, klug in ihrer eigenen Art, voller Potenzial und wir können als Mitmenschen viel von ihnen lernen.

III. Kinder helfen Erwachsenen die kleinen, schönen Dinge im Leben, die zu oft übersehen werden, wiederzuerkennen. Ich würde nicht sagen, dass ich fantasielos war, als ich zur St. Martin Schule kam, aber durch die Zeit, die ich mit den Kindern verbracht habe, erkannte ich, dass in meinen Augen die Welt doch schon ein bisschen ihrer Zauberei verloren hatte. Nun schätze ich wieder, dass Wolkenbewegungen großartig sein können, dass ein Autoteppich eine echte Stadt sein kann, dass Tolga in einem Schaumstofffass in der Turnhalle das lustigste Spielzeug der Welt ist. Schönheit ist wirklich überall, in jedem Kind, in jeder gebastelten oder natürlichen Schneeflocke.

IV. Für mich war eine der größten Herausvorderungen, dass alles auf Deutsch ablief. Gerade als ich dachte, dass mein Deutsch stark genug wurde, bemerkte ich, dass viele Leute an der Schule gar kein Deutsch sprechen. Seitdem lernte ich ‘ne Menge Frängisch. Schön, gell?

V. Die letzte Sache, die ich euch mittteilen möchte ist einfach: Die Leute an der St. Martin Schule sind echten Helden. Ich will eventuell Arzt werden, aber ich habe an der Schule immer wieder gesehen, dass man keine Medizinlizenz braucht, um jemanden zu heilen. Die Gesellschaft braucht Organisationen wie die St. Martin Schule und damit verbunden sind Leute wie ihr, die für diese Schule alles geben. Manchmal ist die Arbeit anstrengend und manchmal sind die Belohnungen und Fortschritte schwierig zu sehen, aber seid sicher, dass das, was ihr macht, unbezahlbar und geschätzt ist. Ich freue mich, dass ich die Chance bekommen habe mit euch zu arbeiten.

Ich bedanke mich sehr für die Gelegenheit, die ihr mir gegeben habt. Herr Zinsmeister hat ein Risiko übernommen, als er gesagt hat, dass ich ein Praktikum bei euch machen darf. Ich hoffe nur, dass meine Zeit euch etwas gebracht hat und ich nicht der einzige war, der etwas daraus mitgenommen hat.

Ich bin ziemlich viel gereist und auf dem Weg, habe ich ganz viel gesehen und erfahren. Aber ich bin mir sicher, dass die St. Martin Schule eine von den wichtigsten Erfahrungen ist, die ich je gehabt habe und das liegt an euch und den Kindern. Nochmals vielen Dank!

Mit Besten Grüßen,

Reid Haflich

I cheated on my Doktor in Ochsenfurt

What would you do for first place? If you're competitive like me, you'd probably do a lot. But what would you do for seventh place...of twelve? Probably not all that much. I mean, at that point you have to own up to the fact that you're worse than half of the other competitors. However, while most people ease up on the gas upon seeing that a top finish isn't in the cards, what do I do for seventh place? I break my knee.

In the last minute of the last game at an indoor ultimate frisbee tournament in Leipzig, Germany I jumped to intercept a pass from an offender waiting in the endzone and landed on a locked right leg. I had caught the frisbee, we won the game (thereby securing a smooth seventh place) and I was whisked away in an ambulance to seek medical attention for my rapidly swelling knee. The EMT's in the ambulance were very nice; at least I think they were. I could only understand every third word of their accented east German which holds very little resemblance to the German I learned in college. It got to the point where I just started asking question after question - about German ambulance technology, their personal journies to becoming EMT's, the history of that bridge that we just crossed - so as to keep them rambling until we got to the hospital. Actually, in the past four months I have become an expert in pretending to understand what people say. Smiles, nods, facial expressions indicating surprise/information processing, appropriately timed exclamations (e.g. Wow! No way! Then what happened?!), or, as perfected in Leipzig, simply asking more questions are all ways to create the effect that you're catching everything when really you haven't the foggiest notion what's being said.

My hospital visit was relatively short (it could have been even shorter had the guy in the gurney behind me not pretended to be Herr Haflich when the x-ray technician called my name on the list) and smelled like sweat. It was short because Sunday evenings in the emergency room are almost always calm and it smelled like sweat because I was sweaty. They x-rayed my knee, gave me a brace which was initially advertised as being 20 euros but turned out to be 120, and offered to sell me crutches which I politely turned down given that with my American insurance I have to pay everything out of pocket. I hobbled out the doors of the emergency department to be greeted by my whole frisbee team, two of which accompanied me on the train home.

The next day back in Würzburg I went to a sports specialist, Herr Doktor Zimmer, who drained my knee with a needle the size of a pencil, sent me to get an MRI, gave me crutches and told me not to bear weight on my right leg for six weeks, all of which he managed to accomplish while wearing pants that were easily three sizes too small. Out of the whole thing, I came away with a mostly ripped outer ligament and hairline fractures in the heads of my femur and tibia.

Initially, the though was that no operation would be necessary. However, one of my coworkers sent my MRI photos to a family friend who is a Doktor, and a knee specialist at that. After he first looked at my pictures, he thought that an operation was all but inevitable and wanted to meet with me. After a long week of uncertainty, I met with him in a dark room in the Ochsenfurt Hosital, twenty minutes outside of Würzburg. As I took off my pants so that he could touch me, I couldn't help but think that I was cheating on Doktor Zimmer with another Doktor whose name I didn't even know. But it was worth it; the drive in the snowstorm, the clandestine meeting in an empty examination room, the torquing and pulling of my injured knee were all things that I would gladly go through again just to hear that everything was going heal up just fine on it's own.

Today, five weeks after the injury, I went back to Doktor Zimmer who had completely forgotten who I was. I had thought that he and I had something special, a Doktor-patient relationship that would endure the four weeks between visits. Alas, it did not. At least his sieve-like memory made me feel less guilty about cheating on him in Ochsenfurt.