Brenau University

Last one! The 6-week course term is coming to an end tomorrow. A number of students can’t be talked out of bringing farewell  presents, so I’m discarding boxes and wrapping pretty little porcelain tea cups in my t-shirts, to be squeezed into the suitcase. Good thing I’m leaving all the books behind that I brought.

Some colleagues told me they don’t know what that clear brandy is that the Chinese like to use for their frequent toasts?  One sip and I know it.  It’s a German Obstschnaps.  A.k.a. “Obstler”.  Available and popular just about anywhere in Southern Germany.  My grandpa used to make it in the middle of the night, right after 1945, chiefly for the occupying U.S. Army troops.  It bought him a number of badly needed favors back then.  He was about one step up from a sharecropper.  His two strawberry-blonde daughters (one of them my mother) were flirting with the GIs but ended marrying German boys, and that’s why it’s possible for me to be in Hefei, sampling Anhui liquor and finding it identical to Grandpa’s fruit Schnaps.  (What they call “Schnapps” in the USA doesn’t resemble the German or Chinese product in any way).

Regarding medical terminology (remember that one?  It’s the reason I’m here), I have moved away from the textbook for the time remaining.  It wants to catalogue every disease known to humans.  And although I’m a science geek, not nursing faculty, I’m convinced that what the students need the most are terms dealing with everyday nursing practice – not rare pathology terms and exotic endocrinological disorders.  So Friday’s worksheet deals with a more-or-less random selection of “routine” nursing vocabulary… diabetes, injections, oxygen, and the like.

Friday’s worksheet deals with a more-or-less random selection of “routine” nursing vocabulary… diabetes, injections, oxygen, and the like.

Same time, same place (the intramural fields), but the sword isn’t part of the graduation rituals. Used in Kung Fu practice. They ask me to play along, but I’m deficient in even the most elementary moves of face-kicking, 360-degree rotation with double fist impact, and mock amputations using this 24-inch blade. Just a color picture will be fine, thankyouverymuch.

Saying goodbye to Lilly and Ding Qian too (photo at left).  Ding Qian (“Flying Coach” shirt) has been a most dependable guide and helper throughout these 6 weeks. She’s a medical student, not a nursing major. If I ever get sick, I want her to be my doctor.

Incidentally, it’s impossible to find a t-shirt around here with something printed on it in Chinese. English is all the rage.