Education begins a gentleman, conversation completes him.

Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 – 1734)

An Essay on the Life and Genius of Thomas Fuller on Amazon.de

Our 10th grade son will be leaving for a three-week summer course at St. Andrews University next week. We are doing our last bit of shopping from a seemingly never-ending list of things he needed. As he had signed up for the courses debate and golfing, we realized he needed a dinner jacket, dress shirts, pants (other than jeans), ties, a laptop (all for debate) as well as golfing shoes and chinos for the latter one.

Well, he needed clothing anyway and we hope to send him off in two years’ time (class of 2012) to embark on his career to become a future man of business. I will see this extra expense as an investment. Not to mention the tuition fee and flight expense. Should I include the new glasses he had to get and his allowance while being there? I think, not.

His choice of debate and golfing as subjects has left him with remarks from friends such as  Thinking about becoming a lawyer? His classes do sound like the prerequisite for law.

Nevertheless, St. Andrews would probably be only a little university town without its much acclaimed golfing capital. For more about St. Andrews and its (golf) history, read The New York Times recent article Storied Past Lives On at St. Andrews.

Visit The International Summer School of Scotland St. Andrews for more information about its summer programmes.

And yes, I plan on reporting about his educational experience.

Our son will be 17 soon and every once in a while he gets the typical German statement: Na, da wirst Du ja bald Deinen Führerschein machen! Reaching the legal age of 18 includes getting the driver’s license. Oh ja, das deutsche Fahrvergnügen! Well, wanting the license seems universal, but…

Germans generally do not ask about what college one intends to attend as the rate of university graduates is rather low at 14%. But most Germans hold a driver’s license, which is costly. So costly that some parents or grandparents start saving for the driver’s license as of birth –  in the same way some international parents set up a college fund for the newborn.

In Germany, the cost of a driver’s license ranges from euro 1200 – 1800, based on 18 minimum hours of attending the Fahrschule. In some cases it takes much longer, such as more lessons, another testing fee (in general, one out of three fail the driver’s license test), etc. The base price given usually applies to young and quick learners only. Older applicants usually end up taking more lessons, the rate of failing is higher and then the cost is usually between euro 2200 – 3000.

The German ADAC  offers the following savings plan:

ADAC driver’s license savings plan – a gift for the future. Why not present this on the child’s first day in first grade? You can start saving as low as euro 10 a month. Earn 4.3% interest.

(4.3 % only apply to savings plans which run 17 – 18 years. For example, on a 10-year savings plan, the rate of interest is 4.0%)

As parents of international children, we believe our children will get their driver’s license whenever they are ready. This is not a top priority. We have a college fund for them – not a driver’s license savings plan.

The number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.

Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784)

In my previous post No A/C in German hospitals, I contemplated the lack of fans and air-conditioning in German hospitals. Additionally, most private homes are only equipped with maybe one or two fans and I have never seen one with air-conditioning.

So, once more this heatwave is affecting us all. The streets are deserted, sun blinds are drawn everywhere, no moving car in sight, and silence is draped over totally still trees. Not a breeze, not a sound, but an eerie quiescence. Occasionally, I hear an ambulance going by and it is beginning to seem a bit like the summer of 2003,  which claimed the lives of 30,000 French and German citizens.

Our local paper stated 15 – 20 hospital patients around the Hochtaunus clinics collapse in the hospital bed from the heat on a daily basis. Going in with one ailment and suffering a heat stroke causing a  Kreislaufzusammenbruch on the side does not sound like the best way to get better.

On a different note: There are different opinions on this typical German malaise of Kreislaufstörungen (circulatory problems: low blood pressure, dizziness, and feeling weak). Kreislaufstörungen might be a uniquely German obsession and seem to be at the root of many health issues. But the patients I had mentioned above actually suffered a Kreislaufkollaps when main body functions just cease to function properly for a variety of reasons  such as heat stroke, dehydration, exhaustion, etc.

Spending 10-hour days to sit with my daughter at the Unfallklinik in Frankfurt in this heat (38°C or 100F) is very hard on patients and visitors alike. Passing by the nurses’ station, we can see and hear their electric fan buzzing. But no fans are allowed for patients as electric fans and cables pose danger. A/C implementation is out of the question.

I have done my share of sending the clinic an e-mail proposing the implementation of ceiling fans when the building gets modernized in 2012.

The other day I heard a patient getting chided for using some of the crushed ice, which is usually reserved only for cooling down swollen joints, in her beverage. The nurse was even concerned that the ice might not have been made from drinkable water. Well, in this heat nobody really cares.

More and more topless men ride around the ward in a wheel chair.

This über-heat is starting to take its toll.