So.. I dont know that thats a positive start.. but well.. thats basically waht the last week focused on.. As many of you know I just had a week in Daramstad (Daram-shtad), Germany, at the International Summer Science Camp, with the topic being 'The responsibility of Science'. And suffice to say this made us think somewhat.. so for an attempt at simplicity and organisation this blog is in two parts.. the events of the camp, and then some of the debates we had.. feel free not to read the latter.. i just need to write this all up somewhere..
As you all know i dropped my glasses in the lake at the beginning of the camp.. but thats not quite the beginning of the story..
I, like many of you were led to believe that the germans are effiecient.. my first expereince of germany was rather.. well.. not efficient.. It was the moving our luggage belt 4 times that led to this breakdown of my earlier trust in steroetypes.. and the fact that no one knew what was going on.. or that i was actually in the country.. (imagine that! i didnt actually need ID to travel..mad) but yeah.. nothing seemed to really actually work..we managed to get a train into the city.. (Frankfurt) and then explored a bit, found our way to a supermarket.. and had our first experience of the germans not speaking english (the french are well known for this.. i wsnt expecting a lack of english from the germans though.. that was a surprise).. we spent (we being salomé and myself) the next day exploring frankfurt.. this mainly involved finding the coolest playground in the world and running around.. and being photographed by a random asian tourist.. weird..
The first day of ISSC wasnt taht exciting.. i had the joy of meeting 65 new people while not wearing glasses and as such not being able to see them.. but i did meet a guy (well.. not just any guy.. hes actually the head of an entire european organisation) who has the power to sponsor practially any science-youth related project.. so that was amazing.. so see how differntly science can be treated.. and that it can actualy be a feild for opportunities..
That night we had the 'introductions'.. funnily enough i ws the only aussie so i got to stand up infront of everyoe and intriduce myself.. and Australia.. it was along the lines of.. 'well.. ummm.. everyone knows we have kangaroos..and other stuff' people then helped me out by listing off a million other aussie animanls.. and i just siad some general things about australia.. then that i had lost my glasses and this is NOT a common australian thing to do.. but it had people laughing so thats all good.. i was also techincally the only native speaker.. kinda (there was a norwegain who had an american mother.. and his english was probably better than mine.. he also spoke ALOT faster than me.. i was rather amazed that anyone else could keep up.. and pretty much no one could follow when it was just us talking to each other.. which is always fun).. but yes.. there were lots of differnet countries.. ages rangimg from 14 (one of the coolest chicks in the world) to 28 i think.. there were people with PhDs, people jsut starting high school.. non students like me.. ecomonists, biochemists, physicists (lots of us) entrepenurees (people who had invented a new type of flying machine and built companies based on it..), members of Mensa, a guy who developed a binary watch when he was 14.. and me.. the austrailian..amazing group..
It was during this week that i was once again reminded of the first time i discovered i was 'foreign' and special.. and novel.. when i went to ESC 06 got off the plane and one of the Team came up to the group of us and said 'which one of you is the ausrtralian?' good question i thought to myself.. theres an australian? there was then a nice pause where it sunk in that i was the individual in question.. and after a suitably awkward time i managed to react.. but that was actually i think an important turning point.. when i realised you can be special just for coming a long way. And horrible though it is.. I think i have been capatilising on this rather..
But yes.. we introduced our countries.. drew flags of the countries represented (australia was a kangaroo saying 'ive lost my glasses') then we wandered back to our lodging (quite a nice youth hostel).
On the sunday we were split into groups and given treasure hunts around the city of daramstad.. quite fun.. of course they gave the map and navigation responsobility to me.. sooo logical.. we had to write pomes.. count bells and octaves of siad bells.. fish for lollies in a bowl of water and identify allsorts of weird plants.. and cound cycamore trees (i didnt know waht a sycamore tree was).. this was also the day that i got sunburtn -never occured to me you could get burnt in germany-.
The rest of the week is not goingto be written up in order.. but we visited some uber cool places..
ESOC (Euro Space Operations Centre)- basically werhe ESC runs all their launches from.. very cool to see.. its like the NASA launch control basically.. and its actually the room taht one ofthe rooms in VSSEC is modelled off.. It was here I got interrogated by the press, adn ahd alot of fun hehehe (what do uyou hope to get out of this week? 'I hope to have fun of course, but also to meet and work with differnet nationalieite s in a very unique environment, we will be working in a Global market and to do this effectively it is important to ahve a good understanding of the cultures that you will be working with, a camp like this is a fantastic opportunity to gain that understanding and insight. And also to see facilities taht we dont ahve at home') .
Hmm.. we also saw a place where they are truly developing state of the art computer programme tech.. it was amazing they had a programme that could take a 3D scan of a person, then a pattern for clotes and fit that to ther pserson..see how it would look, fit, where it would pinch, howit would flow in wind, and how it wopuld look wiht differnt fabrics.. all in real time..
they had also developed amazing VR.. we wnet into a 5sided cube with special 3D glasses taht wold make the room react.. ie. you turn left.. the image follows you.. awesomeness..
we saw the little soccer playing robots that actually communicate with each other when they play..we saw an ion accelerator that ahs led to one particular cancer therapy taht has 100% success with certain tumors..
We also went to MERCK, a chemical and pharmaseurtical company, wherewe had a tour of various plants, looked at the conveyor belts and final products.. and of everyone they did feed us the best.. the most amazing smogas board with salomn (for kids?!) and cream filled puffs.. and cool stuff..
And we had lots of other tours.. we also had a few lectures.. one on the responsibility of science, one on Corporate responsibility.. and on a few bio realted things..
That was the more sciency stuff..
We also ahd a trip to Heidleburg.. where you will see some awesome pics of the castle.. a group of the guys and i (reps from Denmark, Germany, Norway x2 and Aus) spent the day wandering aroudn in the rain.. we visited the castle and spent much time coming up with theories abdout how the castle was destroyed in the 2nd world war.. turns out it was actually destroyed longer agothan that.. but hey.. we had fun with allies bombing nazis..we also were really unimaginitive and ahd lunch at the HardRock Cafe..
The best part of the day, and you can see pics of this.. was playing 'I am' i the foyer of the university library.. we sat down in the middle and took up a nic e amount of space..basically 'I am' is a game to make you laugh.. I lost every single game.. -apparently i laugh too much- you go round i a circle and say 'i am' the first person to laugh gets a name to follow the 'i am' (the one that really got me was when soemone sai 'I was') and this goes up to five names..
my original one ended up being alone the lines of 'I am a hairy cholcolate bushtucker shoelace with eyes'.. we also had 'i am spider pig' it helps to see the video.. when its up on you tube ill tell you all.. but it was halarious.. and soo mcuh fun to be rediculose and not care and just laugh.. and the boys were awesome actors.. it was better when id lost cause you are allowed to laugh whenever.. adn then you can pick on certain people to make them laugh.. hehe
what else? i ahd some interesting questions relating to australia.. the most confusing one ws that one girl thought austrlia was like the god father.. iwas interrogated about the med edu system (sooo not qualified forthat) and also asked if i watch mcClouds daughters.. and if we are going ot start driving on the right any time soon..
the languag thing came up again.. its ahrd being in a room with 70 people and being the only person restricted to one langauge.. no one has ANY idea how frustrating it is.. you consistantly reach for soemthihng that isnt there.. knowledge that is just that little far away..
one evening we were in Frankfurt again.. and we were origianly going to go to the highest towere.. but it was a bit too foggy (ie. if we went upit would have been a lovely view of fog) so we ended up going o a train and a bus and other things to the suburbs to a church wehre they were having music recitals with a chello and a special kind of piano..it was again at this point that i wondered about my life.. and how in gods name i end upin such strange, yet awesome scenarios. the music was really lovely.. and id say we brough dwn the average age of the audiesnc eby about 20 years..
oh yes.. and we had, like so many camps, to build a contraption that woul dlset an egg survive a fall from a second sotrey window.. that was fun.. we made egg-spick and it survivedthe first floor.. not the second though..
and then we had the debates.. and thats where ill being the second blog.. so they can be nice and seperate..
This was really a fantstic camp.. better than the ones in aus mainly cause we wernt as restircted.. we were treated like adults.. we coul dmostly do waht we wanted.. and everyone was friendly and welcoming..
take care all
and take every opportunity that comes your way,smile and talk to everyone.. and remember not tojudge on appearaces..
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