{"id":113,"date":"2021-02-25T16:49:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T16:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/?p=113"},"modified":"2021-02-25T17:54:34","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T17:54:34","slug":"kathleen-ellsbury-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/2021\/02\/25\/kathleen-ellsbury-73\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathleen Ellsbury ’73"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Kathleen Ellsbury ’73<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was one of the one-third or so students at CC who came from Colorado when I arrived there in 1969, during the last year of the semester plan. I had lived in many locations in the US, including small towns in southern Colorado, and at one point considered a career in the Foreign Service or as an anthropologist, but decided on medicine when I was in high school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swear I didn\u2019t know about the block plan until after I had decided to enroll. No matter. It was all a wonderful adventure. As a pre-med, I had to take chemistry, which I decided to major in, and thus had to take Russian or German. I chose the latter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the traditional semester plan I would have focused my efforts on science classes, at the cost of my other courses. Under the block plan, I could immerse myself in my non-science courses like German. It ended up adding an important dimension to my life that endures to this day. I took a two-block intermediate German course in Munich with Professor Fred Oppenheimer. and 17 other students. I am still in touch with several of those students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After our daily morning German classes at Munich\u2019s YMCA, it was a feast of art, music, plays, parks, museums, and beer halls. A recent CC graduate named Sonni Schwoerer ’70, then living in Munich, helped Dr. Oppenheimer with some logistics for our class. After our course Sonni offered me a summer position in the kitchen of a kinderkurheim (a small rehabilitation facility for children with respiratory diseases) that her family ran in Germany\u2019s Black Forest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept in touch with Sonni over the next 50 years. Over the years, my house in Seattle has become a sort of way station for German visitors: Sonni, her siblings, children, friends, and work associates have all stayed with me, for as much as five months at a time. I attracted some German-speaking patients in my practice at the University of Washington, where I served on the Family Medicine faculty for 25 years. Some of my main diversions now are German: classes at the University of Washington, informal discussion groups, podcasts, poetry, media, and films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since retiring I\u2019ve traveled every couple years to German-speaking countries, including visits to Sonni and family. I don\u2019t think my interest in German would have been as deep, had I not been part of the two-block experience overseas. It was all possible because the block plan allowed me to dive deeply into a subject not part of my pre-med program, but of equal interest to me personally. It took me overseas for an intense experience in a small group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For that door-opening experience, I am deeply grateful to CC and the block plan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was one of the one-third or so students at CC who came from Colorado when I arrived there in 1969, during the last year of the semester plan. I had lived in many locations in the US, including small towns in southern Colorado, and at one point considered a career in the Foreign Service … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Kathleen Ellsbury ’73”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-stories","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockplanstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}