I just returned from 2 days seminar with my nursing class in the German Eifel. Well what was the topic of the seminar? We all expected a pair days filled with boredom and some classes about terminal care() and chronic diseases. But I have to say my expectations were not fulfilled.
Tuesday, 8:00
First think I have to mention is the drive to Steinfeld. I did a car share with André (alias guitar hero), Ewi (alias ÄFFFIIII!) and Samanta (alias Party-Samanta). The weather was shitty and the rain lowered our moral standards. The drive to Steinfeld is easy because:
A52 –> A61 Koblenz –> A1 Trier –> Exit Kall
Also the drive from the Exit Kall to the village Steinfeld is easy because of two reasons:
- In this rural area, there ain’t much town man!
- There is only one roundabout and one big intersection, so you obiously have no real choice
You drive approximately one hour from Mönchengladbach to Steinfeld and as I sad it is easy.
Tuesday, 9:15
We expected at least one McDonalds or Burger King along our journey, but we were wrong. There is only ONE motorway station and three parking places along the autobahn. I ate some cereals at 7:00 o’clock and I wasn’t saturated by this but we were too late to join the breakfast (which was from 8:00 - 9:00) so we had to wait until 12!
The worst point was the weather….it was FUCKING cold around 6-8°Celsius and it was very windy up there. I was prepared well for this but our ladies weren’t. Also it was raining and most of the nurses ladies were freezing. As you can see, Steinfeld has two “Pubs” which were….aahh you might guess it: Closed!!! I discovered a third café along the forest, and guess what…CLOSED!!! A fellow from the monastery steinfeld told me, that they only open on certain weekdays and sometimes they don’t open at all! Whats the fucking point of having a tavern, but close it for the majority of the year?
The monastery steinfeld is kind of an adventure farm without a farm for families with their children. The monastery itself is seperated from the guesthouse were we resided. The guesthouse is pretty basic, but you know it’s functional. You got clean floors, an old construction and “lounges” or “social rooms” with TV’s and some comfortable chairs on allmost any floor and you got the sanitary arrangements on the floor. So it’s kind of a hostel. Many “old” people, classes, seminars and families with little children can use this guesthouse as a cheap opportunity for shelter. Also you got three dinners per day which are served in the old dining hall. Very good opportunity if you don’t have the desire of staying around this place which most of the hoilday-takers do. One thing you should know about this kind of buildings is the smell of old people and old books around, commonly referred as the SMELL OF DEATH
After pushing my bag in my room, we had class one level upstairs in the seminar room. The motto of the seminar was:
“On the route with all senses” and the concept was to kidnap us in a world of sensual sensations. The first thing was some meditation and concentration execercises with a lot of breath-exercise and real deep meditation status (It’s like beeing asleep with the little difference that you percept everything around you). Then we had to draw a picture about how we feel, and I won’t put this online because I draw on the level of a 4 year old. The reason for this was, that I drawed my picture with wax-crayons and I’m not good with them, never have! Then we did another concentration exercise and then it was lunch time!
Tuesday, 12:00
If you tell me, you are not an addict no matter what you are a liar! Everybody is addicted to food cooked by yourself or in the major cases at home by one of your parents. Food around seminar places is a hot topic, because everybody has different tastes and you know what blabla… I had two choices:
1. Käsespätzle
2. Chicken Schnitzel
I choosed both which wasn’t a problem for the kitchen staff. The Chicken Schnitzel was…not amazing but it was eatable. The Käsespätzle lacked condiment and the salad was just salad and nothing special. The worst thing that was set up on the table was the undefined dessert!
We don’t know exactly what this “mass” exactly was supposed to be. Samanta tasted it and her facial expression made everybody laugh so hard (This girl was hillarious, she made me laugh all the time !) I also tasted a little bit with my finger and it tasted like something with fruit but very bitter and undefinable aroma…the aftertaste was SO horrible that the shit was right were it belonged…in this bowl.
After the lunch we had a guided tour through the whole monastery. Our tourist guide was a friar, a member of the order of the salvatorian, the community of the holy redeemer. He told us some historical facts about the whole building and about the order of the salvatorian. Some interesting facts and it was not too dry. Especially the explanation of the churches architecture was interesting and funny. He also explained several holy guys in the bible and after one hour the tour was over.
Then we had to walk…and do a promenade along the landscape:
This was an exercise, at a certain point everybody had to shut up and to listen to the nature. Percept everything, listen, smell feel and after 15minutes the quiet walk was over. But it was good to just hear to the nature
The hardest thing around this promenade was a cliffy way we had to climb up. It was not easy to get those 400m up there and I had Samanta in front of me complaining about the dirt, the mudd and the “VIEESCHEEEER!” and I had someone of my class with cardiac problems. The problems resolved after some oral rehydration and a break as we got up the hill.
Tuesday, 17:00
The next thing we did were GYPSUM MASKS. As you can see there, I’m rubbing my face with vaseline to reduce the sticky factor from the gypsum to my face. Then two ladies, who did a decent job put some gypsum cast bandages in my face and it was a weird feeling having to people sticking their fingers on my face. The worst thing was pulling off the mask because I hadn’t shaved for some days and the gypsum got stuck at stubbles. In deep agony and with the help of the great future nurses I was able to pull it off. The next victim Ewi (ÄFFFIII ! because of the high pitched voice Samanta used all the time she was annoyed) and I messed up her (gypsum) nose and also some of her hair was stuck in the gypsum.()
Tuesday, 18:00
SUPPER TIME. Nothing particulary special because it was a usual supper with some tea and we enjoyed our last meal. After the supper we met in our lounge and guess what, I started emptying my first beer 
I was the startoff for all my classmates to start the drinking. We arranged a meeting in the “Stube” at 20:15 (because our ladies had to watch “Alles was zählt” and “GZSZ”
Tuesday, 20:00
THE BAR IS OPEN
The “bar” hours were great. Everybody was in a good mood at all, we talked and laughed a lot. At some point of the evening we went up and got out the hard stuff. Everybody donated a little bit of alcohol and we all were kind of wasted. We played some drunkard games and finally as we all were wasted we played bottlespinning with games, truth or dare. As we explored everybodys sexual activities and knew anything, the ladies were kind of pissed off because I was in turn 5 times in the first hour and then for over one hour I wasn’t on turn. As somebody picked me up, the most unfair and fucked up question came up:
“Well, tell me the person in the course you wanted or at least can imagine to have sexual intercourse with!”
MOST FUCKING UNFAIR QUESTION and I’m still complaining about this because this was part of many discussions in the sleeping rooms thereafter and I hate this question because it is the exitus for any professional relationship for the rest of the remaining two years!
At 1:30 everybody was wasted expect me and André…We watched some TV and at 2:30 I went to bed and I was WASTED!
WEDNESDAY , 6:20
Getting up, swallowing my ready to go Ibuprofen 400mg()
One of the worst things in a monastery is the fucking bell which rings every 15minutes from 5 o’clock onwards and this was disturbing like hell.
WEDNESDAY, 7:40
Our chief commander said, as long as you sit at the breakfast table at 8 o’clock I don’t care about you drinking sessions. Also I was amazed that our chief commander was so nice and funny during the evening. She even considered starting to get drunk with us. She put so much effort in this whole seminar and she taught us so many things without really teaching us. But more later…
WEDNESDAY 8:00
I have to say the breakfast was very good, we also had a buffet and we had the choice between several breads and cereals. But my stomach was not yet fit enough to eat more than a roll and a bowl of cereals but we started to laugh at 8:00 because of Samantas expressions and tellings from the night. At 9:00 we met again in the seminar room.
WEDNESDAY 9:00
Back to the seminar room we saw that our chief commander did a labyrinth on the ground with some tape. It was amazing, I mean try to do draw a labyrinth from your mind…why a labyrinth well we had to draw our future goals and what we want to archieve on a card. Everybody had to lay their goals in the middle of the labyrinth and then had to find the way. It was hard but the message behind was easy to understand. We all have our goals and you just have to run forward to find the way, no matter what just do it. We all were amazed by the simplicity of this exercise, but it was great!
The next exercise was to balance a big ruler on the back of your hand in a group which was alinged in a line. The whole group had to bring the ruler down to the ground without anybody loosing contact which sounds easy but we had to try it out for about 20minutes because it was very difficult to coordinate the whole process. Our group wasn’t able to manage this whole thing but it wasn’t that bad.
WEDNESDAY 12:00
Lunchtime you had the choice between:
Stew and sausages (which I preferred, it was great !)
Or Potato Gratin (Grateehng!)
The Aftershow was not exactly my thing:
After the lunchtime, We did another walk in the landscape and experience the quietness again. It was hillarious again because of Samantas entertainment. I have to honor this text passage to Samanta. If you ever read this and understand what I write here, you entertained me for two days and despite your good ability of beeing a witty bitch sometimes..I know that I will miss your stories about your brother, your boyfriend, your family and your clashes with the world someday and your character with such great honesty and humor. Thank you for entertaining me and beeing who you are!()
After the walk we did our own church service which was for saying goodbye and returning to our reality. We sang some songs (Nobody liked it, but our Sister Klara wanted us to do and we owe her much!) and I was amazed by by the intercession() of our chief:
“Holy father, please protect the members of my course GuK KN 07-10 during their rocky passage through their hard way of becoming full registered nurses and protect them from unfair things they don’t deserve because of the great work they do everyday to help patients with every lasting drop of passion and power!”
I really enjoyed hearing this, because this was a feedback which came right in place and it was very honest from her. Now we know that an experienced Certified Intenstive Care Nurse with 10+ years experience in Intensive Care Nursing showed us respect for what we do. It is something you can be proud of.
Also very great was Andrés play of “Nothing else matters” on acoustic guitar
WEDNESDAY 14:30
We all now had to say goodbye. The journey back was nothing special except me because I was fucking tired and I had to stay awake because of the VERY NARROW trace during an Autobahn-Baustelle .
You may ask me, what I learned during my seminar…Well I learned a lot of things which I can’t describe well because it was all about trust, knowing each other better, getting known of everybodys weaknesses and strenghts. Also it was good to review our whole process of learning and take a look forward on golas we have to archieve. I think for the course it was very good to be locked up in a monastery and to learn from each other.
Much fun, only two days and I fell asleep now!
Stephan
["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]
July 30th, 2008 von 
Stephan 
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