christmas steps
So, I haven't written in two weeks. This could mean two things: that I am been ridiculously busy, or that my Internet got shut off. In actuality both are true, though apparently I haven't been as busy as I should have, for I have a tremendous amount of work to accomplish in all too short of a time. Its generally been forcing me into the comfort of my sweet bed, where I can escape it and the rest of the world for a golden hour or two.
Today I woke up feeling surprisingly alert for only having gotten a few hours of sleep. This was due in part to my procrastination with reading last week's Thomas Mann "short" stories, and part thanks to my next door neighbor, in whose world its apparently acceptable to play video games at 2:30 in the morning at full volume. I don't remember the last time I could actually feel my ears ringing.
Around 8:10 this morning I left my room and braced a cold bike ride to campus. The past few days have seriously been freezing. There was talk of snow, but then it started raining yesterday, so I guess thats out... for now. Once on campus I endured Most Exciting Lecture Ever #3 in Most Random Class to Take at a German University. I skipped this class last week because I was just too sleep deprived to drag myself out of bed (which is saying a lot, because its not all that uncommon to see my eyes red and bleary, looking miserable in a class full of Germans), but thank the lord the class ended up being cancelled anyway, or else I think I would have been sorry. Professor (Doktor?) Wellenreuther is an amazing old German man, whose British-accent-when-he-reads-quotes-in-English is so touching that upon hearing it, us Americans look at one another with fond smiles, but I don't think he could have picked a drier topic to talk about for an entire semester. Rita and Steven are also in this course, so we all went to his office hours after class to talk to him about our term paper proposals. I formulated mine during lecture this morning when a topic came to me that didn't seem like it'd be entirely impossible to squeeze a decent enough, your-entire-grade-for-this-class-is-resting-on-this sort of paper. So, Der Adel und die Natur (the Aristocracy and Nature) it is. I plan on bringing in art, sport, and something about a reflection of politics in the architecture of the upper class... yeah. I spend my early Wednesday mornings sitting in the hard wooden chairs, not even able to rest my head back because of how the seating in the lecture halls is organized, and wonder what I am doing with my life.
The meeting with Professor Wellenreuther went better than expected, and to kill time before our next class, Steven, Rita and I got "coffee" at the cafe. After some good old fashioned louder-than-necessary American humor, Steven and I trekked off to Waldweg. My Wednesdays are kind of silly, because my first and third class are in the same area (Zentralhoersaalgebaeude, which is basically main campus), and my second and fourth are in the same area (Waldweg, close by where ILP was held), only a couple of streets away from location of classes 1 and 3. So its just back and forth, back and forth.
Next lecture went well, apart from the fact that the entire presentation was about Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, which I haven't read and probably won't, at least for a good amount of time. So I sort of went in and out of that one. Then it was back to the ZHG to meet with Zuneun (June) for lunch. We ended up eating with Steven too, and there is a lot more backstory to this, but it was sort of awkward and unsatisfying (the food, too). Then it was to tutorium, where we talked the entire time about the story I didn't read (Tristan), and ran out of time before we could get to the one I did read (Waelsungenblut). We also started our group presentations today. Mine is next week, and I need to start researching. I think the topic is really interesting (Thomas Mann und die Homosexualitaet), but I have another Referat the same day (next Wednesday, a week from today), two term papers to be starting, two smaller-scale papers to be doing, etc etc etc. Save me.
I wrapped up the day with one more class, a trip to the grocery store on the way home with Jacky, and since then I've been revelling in having Internet again. Now, for those of you who are interested, my academic schedule:
Monday:
11:15-12:45 Schreiben fuer Uni (University Writing)
4:15-5:45 Wortschatzuebungen (Vocabulary Class)
8:30-10:00 Jazz- Fortgeschrittende (Advanced Jazz Dance)
Tuesday:
9:15-10:45 Kreatives Schreiben (Creative Writing)
5:00-6:30 Kick-Box Karate (though we haven't gone in a couple of weeks...)
Wednesday:
8:30-10:00 Englische Aristokratie im 18. Jahrhundert
11:15-12:45 Thomas Mann
2:00-3:45 Thomas Mann Tutorium
4:15-5:45 Wortschatzuebungen
And then my week is done. Thursdays are usually recovering days, spent between my bed and my computer, but I think its getting far enough into the semester that I need to start getting out and doing work those days. Especially tomorrow, yeesh.
A little more logistical stuff. I live on the second floor of a four/five floored building (depending on if you come in the back or front entrance). There are fourteen people in my hall. There's the lone American, a Spanish girl across from me, a Pakistani, a Hungarian girl, and the other ten are German. Not surprisingly, I really barely know anyone.
Its disappointing, but for as long as I've lived here, I still don't know that many Germans. Well, I guess I've met a lot, and I say 'hallo' to a good amount, but I am not really in the place with any of them that we'd consider one another friends. In German you don't call someone your friend unless you are REALLY their friend- very different from English. And Germans are notoriously hard to get to know... sigh. More on this later, mayhaps.
As aforementioned, my Internet got shut off for a week. Luckily, that was the week that Colina came to visit! She arrived late last Wednesday night, and stayed until Sunday morning. It was so so so nice to have her here, though because of our schedule I felt like I was too tired the whole time to be as good of a host as I would have liked. But it was a lot of fun, and I am hoping she can come back again, a bit later in the year.
Having her here made me realize just what I am lacking as far as close personal relationships. She also happened to arrive at a time where I was finally feeling adequately disillusioned with groups of friends here, so that probably added to it, but all the same. It was so nice to have someone that was always up for going out and doing things, even if it cost a little bit of money (don't worry Denise, we didn't go crazy by any account), and who was having a good time, and who can RELATE to my situation, even if ours are somewhat different. But maybe the nicest thing was that it was Colina, one of the few people I can stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking to and not really mind that that it means we will be tired the whole next day. We could talk about things from home and understand one another, and not have to try to explain the past ten years of our lives to one another in order to understand our lives now. I am missing that now, and ever so slightly bemoaning the fact that there aren't people here like some of the ones that I left at home. But, I know, thats one of the reasons you go away, and it really has only been three (and a half) months... I still have eight and a half before I uproot again. It frustrates me, though, because I thought at this point I would know so many more people. And its not that we haven't tried. A part of it is that we are exchange students, so people know we are only here for a limited amount of time. Another part is the language barrier, and the fact that our group of Americans is somewhat large enough to be self contained, so it is sort of an effort to go out of that and try to bring in someone new (hasn't worked yet). And then lastly, there is the fact that it is just hard to get to know people here. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone to some country where the population gesticulates a lot and offers you tapatas as you stroll down the humid streets. But then I wouldn't be in Germany, and I wouldn't be struggling with remembering when to use apostrophes and commas in English. I wouldn't be riding in the rain and wondering how my bike will handle itself in snow. I wouldn't have felt that little tinge of pride in myself for being able to show off a little bit while Colina was here, and if I hadn't come to Germany, I wouldn't now be starting the research to find where I want to live next. Its only Germany that has given me the experiences that will cause me to forever think back on rolling green countryside, cobblestone streets and white and brown thatched buildings with fondness.
Before I end this weepfest I should detail some of Colina's visit. I left Paulaner's Wednesday evening around 11 to go and meet Colina at the train station by 11:20. We walked back to my place and put down her stuff, and then walked to the ZHG to meet some of the folks at the "Tequilaparty." The foyer of one of the main buildings of campus was crowded with students talking, dancing, and enjoying the effects of 1 Euro Tequila shots. One of the more amusing moments of the night was when I was standing with Kai on a balcony trying to find Steven and Ben so Kai could get her jacket, and these two German guys came up to Colina and started ratteling off something in German to her. She used the trusty "kein Deutsch" phrase that she came to know so well, and then I ran over and found out they wanted to take a picture of us for some project or something. It all sounded pretty shady, but it was a funny enough situation that now we have some badly lit picture with these two zealous looking Germans.
The next day I showed Colina around Goettingen, which on foot takes a LOT longer than on a bike. I guess I haven't really walked around Goettingen since I've first been here, before I had a bike, but it was pretty tiring. Really the only big amounts of walking I've done since early August were always in other cities or other countries, where we didn't have our bikes handy. Anyhow, that was fun, we did some shopping and Colina got a sense for the Innenstadt. That night was probably the most enjoyable of her stay here. No one was up for doing anything, and I was getting frustrated just when Sean texted me back. We ended up riding into town with Sean (with Colina on the back of his bike), to a bar called Nautilus. The three of us went "deep sea diving" with, well, I guess you'd have to be there to understand. Sam joined us a little later, and then another patch of time later we found ourselves downstairs with Shawn, Emily, Rita, Steven and Tim. Needless to say it was probably one of my best nights in Goettingen.
Friday Colina and I sort of bummed around and tried to recover our wits after a long night. Friday night ended up sort of being a sham, as we didn't leave the Dorf (where we hung out at the Dorfkrug, the bar there, with a bunch of Amis until we all relocated to somebody's roommate's houseparty, which was way too many people in way too small of a space) until all the clubs we had planned on checking out were pretty dead. So the group I had painstakingly forced to go dancing with us ended our evening with some Doener (an unbelievably popular type of Turkish fast food). Then a long, cold, long walk home.
I had wanted Colina to see a bit more of Germany than just Luebeck, where she flew into, and Goettingen, so Saturday we joined some folks on a one hour train ride to a little town called Goslar. Goslar is situated at the foot of the Harz Mountains, and was really a beautiful little place. We only spent about four hours there, but that was enough, since there really wasn't all that much to do. We walked around and saw what I am assuming is the majority of the town, and I took a lot of pictures. Saturday night we decided to take easy because Colina had a relatively early train out of Goettingen, so we joined some of the other Americans to go to Kai's German friend's place, where he cooked a really, really good dinner. Then it was back home for one last bout of late night chatting.
And now, your reward for reading this whole entry. These pictures start the Sunday before Colina came, with the trip Jacky and I made to Koeln (Cologne) to see Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band, play at the Palladium. The concert was amazing, but what was not amazing was the full day on a train to get there, and then arriving back in Goettingen at 7:30am, with just enough time for two hours of sleep before I had to drag myself to my first class. But, of course, it was worth it. We didn't get to see much of Koeln because the train took so long. The train shouldn't have taken that long, but I let Jacky get the tickets, and instead of going for a normal route, she asked for the cheapest tickets (of course this is a bad idea), which we later had to amend when we realized that they would have left us stranded in Koeln. As it was, the bit of Koeln we got to see was the train station, the subway/bus route to where the concert venue was, and a bit of the city at night as we walked around with two kids we met after the concert.
We had been sort of in the dark about where the venue actually lay, so we had just followed the mass of people there, and then the mass of people back to the subway stop. On the way back after the concert, we heard two people in front of us speaking English, so Jacky asked them where they were from. The girl shocked us both by telling us she was Greek, but had been raised in Australia. This was shocking because she had the most Californian accent you could imagine, it was insane. The boy was Swedish, and both were studying German at the Goethe Institute (a language school) in Bonn. We ended up spending the next couple of hours with them, first on the way back, and then later when we ran into them again in the train station. Before their train left, we went and sat at a little bar with them and chatted about Germans, language, and Los Angeles. Then it was one more glimpse at the stunningly beautiful Koelner Dom before retreating to a 24-hour Burger King in the train station. Watching bad music videos at 2am in a dirty fast food place has never seemed so much more like living.
Today I woke up feeling surprisingly alert for only having gotten a few hours of sleep. This was due in part to my procrastination with reading last week's Thomas Mann "short" stories, and part thanks to my next door neighbor, in whose world its apparently acceptable to play video games at 2:30 in the morning at full volume. I don't remember the last time I could actually feel my ears ringing.
Around 8:10 this morning I left my room and braced a cold bike ride to campus. The past few days have seriously been freezing. There was talk of snow, but then it started raining yesterday, so I guess thats out... for now. Once on campus I endured Most Exciting Lecture Ever #3 in Most Random Class to Take at a German University. I skipped this class last week because I was just too sleep deprived to drag myself out of bed (which is saying a lot, because its not all that uncommon to see my eyes red and bleary, looking miserable in a class full of Germans), but thank the lord the class ended up being cancelled anyway, or else I think I would have been sorry. Professor (Doktor?) Wellenreuther is an amazing old German man, whose British-accent-when-he-reads-quotes-in-English is so touching that upon hearing it, us Americans look at one another with fond smiles, but I don't think he could have picked a drier topic to talk about for an entire semester. Rita and Steven are also in this course, so we all went to his office hours after class to talk to him about our term paper proposals. I formulated mine during lecture this morning when a topic came to me that didn't seem like it'd be entirely impossible to squeeze a decent enough, your-entire-grade-for-this-class-is-resting-on-this sort of paper. So, Der Adel und die Natur (the Aristocracy and Nature) it is. I plan on bringing in art, sport, and something about a reflection of politics in the architecture of the upper class... yeah. I spend my early Wednesday mornings sitting in the hard wooden chairs, not even able to rest my head back because of how the seating in the lecture halls is organized, and wonder what I am doing with my life.
The meeting with Professor Wellenreuther went better than expected, and to kill time before our next class, Steven, Rita and I got "coffee" at the cafe. After some good old fashioned louder-than-necessary American humor, Steven and I trekked off to Waldweg. My Wednesdays are kind of silly, because my first and third class are in the same area (Zentralhoersaalgebaeude, which is basically main campus), and my second and fourth are in the same area (Waldweg, close by where ILP was held), only a couple of streets away from location of classes 1 and 3. So its just back and forth, back and forth.
Next lecture went well, apart from the fact that the entire presentation was about Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, which I haven't read and probably won't, at least for a good amount of time. So I sort of went in and out of that one. Then it was back to the ZHG to meet with Zuneun (June) for lunch. We ended up eating with Steven too, and there is a lot more backstory to this, but it was sort of awkward and unsatisfying (the food, too). Then it was to tutorium, where we talked the entire time about the story I didn't read (Tristan), and ran out of time before we could get to the one I did read (Waelsungenblut). We also started our group presentations today. Mine is next week, and I need to start researching. I think the topic is really interesting (Thomas Mann und die Homosexualitaet), but I have another Referat the same day (next Wednesday, a week from today), two term papers to be starting, two smaller-scale papers to be doing, etc etc etc. Save me.
I wrapped up the day with one more class, a trip to the grocery store on the way home with Jacky, and since then I've been revelling in having Internet again. Now, for those of you who are interested, my academic schedule:
Monday:
11:15-12:45 Schreiben fuer Uni (University Writing)
4:15-5:45 Wortschatzuebungen (Vocabulary Class)
8:30-10:00 Jazz- Fortgeschrittende (Advanced Jazz Dance)
Tuesday:
9:15-10:45 Kreatives Schreiben (Creative Writing)
5:00-6:30 Kick-Box Karate (though we haven't gone in a couple of weeks...)
Wednesday:
8:30-10:00 Englische Aristokratie im 18. Jahrhundert
11:15-12:45 Thomas Mann
2:00-3:45 Thomas Mann Tutorium
4:15-5:45 Wortschatzuebungen
And then my week is done. Thursdays are usually recovering days, spent between my bed and my computer, but I think its getting far enough into the semester that I need to start getting out and doing work those days. Especially tomorrow, yeesh.
A little more logistical stuff. I live on the second floor of a four/five floored building (depending on if you come in the back or front entrance). There are fourteen people in my hall. There's the lone American, a Spanish girl across from me, a Pakistani, a Hungarian girl, and the other ten are German. Not surprisingly, I really barely know anyone.
Its disappointing, but for as long as I've lived here, I still don't know that many Germans. Well, I guess I've met a lot, and I say 'hallo' to a good amount, but I am not really in the place with any of them that we'd consider one another friends. In German you don't call someone your friend unless you are REALLY their friend- very different from English. And Germans are notoriously hard to get to know... sigh. More on this later, mayhaps.
As aforementioned, my Internet got shut off for a week. Luckily, that was the week that Colina came to visit! She arrived late last Wednesday night, and stayed until Sunday morning. It was so so so nice to have her here, though because of our schedule I felt like I was too tired the whole time to be as good of a host as I would have liked. But it was a lot of fun, and I am hoping she can come back again, a bit later in the year.
Having her here made me realize just what I am lacking as far as close personal relationships. She also happened to arrive at a time where I was finally feeling adequately disillusioned with groups of friends here, so that probably added to it, but all the same. It was so nice to have someone that was always up for going out and doing things, even if it cost a little bit of money (don't worry Denise, we didn't go crazy by any account), and who was having a good time, and who can RELATE to my situation, even if ours are somewhat different. But maybe the nicest thing was that it was Colina, one of the few people I can stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking to and not really mind that that it means we will be tired the whole next day. We could talk about things from home and understand one another, and not have to try to explain the past ten years of our lives to one another in order to understand our lives now. I am missing that now, and ever so slightly bemoaning the fact that there aren't people here like some of the ones that I left at home. But, I know, thats one of the reasons you go away, and it really has only been three (and a half) months... I still have eight and a half before I uproot again. It frustrates me, though, because I thought at this point I would know so many more people. And its not that we haven't tried. A part of it is that we are exchange students, so people know we are only here for a limited amount of time. Another part is the language barrier, and the fact that our group of Americans is somewhat large enough to be self contained, so it is sort of an effort to go out of that and try to bring in someone new (hasn't worked yet). And then lastly, there is the fact that it is just hard to get to know people here. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone to some country where the population gesticulates a lot and offers you tapatas as you stroll down the humid streets. But then I wouldn't be in Germany, and I wouldn't be struggling with remembering when to use apostrophes and commas in English. I wouldn't be riding in the rain and wondering how my bike will handle itself in snow. I wouldn't have felt that little tinge of pride in myself for being able to show off a little bit while Colina was here, and if I hadn't come to Germany, I wouldn't now be starting the research to find where I want to live next. Its only Germany that has given me the experiences that will cause me to forever think back on rolling green countryside, cobblestone streets and white and brown thatched buildings with fondness.
Before I end this weepfest I should detail some of Colina's visit. I left Paulaner's Wednesday evening around 11 to go and meet Colina at the train station by 11:20. We walked back to my place and put down her stuff, and then walked to the ZHG to meet some of the folks at the "Tequilaparty." The foyer of one of the main buildings of campus was crowded with students talking, dancing, and enjoying the effects of 1 Euro Tequila shots. One of the more amusing moments of the night was when I was standing with Kai on a balcony trying to find Steven and Ben so Kai could get her jacket, and these two German guys came up to Colina and started ratteling off something in German to her. She used the trusty "kein Deutsch" phrase that she came to know so well, and then I ran over and found out they wanted to take a picture of us for some project or something. It all sounded pretty shady, but it was a funny enough situation that now we have some badly lit picture with these two zealous looking Germans.
The next day I showed Colina around Goettingen, which on foot takes a LOT longer than on a bike. I guess I haven't really walked around Goettingen since I've first been here, before I had a bike, but it was pretty tiring. Really the only big amounts of walking I've done since early August were always in other cities or other countries, where we didn't have our bikes handy. Anyhow, that was fun, we did some shopping and Colina got a sense for the Innenstadt. That night was probably the most enjoyable of her stay here. No one was up for doing anything, and I was getting frustrated just when Sean texted me back. We ended up riding into town with Sean (with Colina on the back of his bike), to a bar called Nautilus. The three of us went "deep sea diving" with, well, I guess you'd have to be there to understand. Sam joined us a little later, and then another patch of time later we found ourselves downstairs with Shawn, Emily, Rita, Steven and Tim. Needless to say it was probably one of my best nights in Goettingen.
Friday Colina and I sort of bummed around and tried to recover our wits after a long night. Friday night ended up sort of being a sham, as we didn't leave the Dorf (where we hung out at the Dorfkrug, the bar there, with a bunch of Amis until we all relocated to somebody's roommate's houseparty, which was way too many people in way too small of a space) until all the clubs we had planned on checking out were pretty dead. So the group I had painstakingly forced to go dancing with us ended our evening with some Doener (an unbelievably popular type of Turkish fast food). Then a long, cold, long walk home.
I had wanted Colina to see a bit more of Germany than just Luebeck, where she flew into, and Goettingen, so Saturday we joined some folks on a one hour train ride to a little town called Goslar. Goslar is situated at the foot of the Harz Mountains, and was really a beautiful little place. We only spent about four hours there, but that was enough, since there really wasn't all that much to do. We walked around and saw what I am assuming is the majority of the town, and I took a lot of pictures. Saturday night we decided to take easy because Colina had a relatively early train out of Goettingen, so we joined some of the other Americans to go to Kai's German friend's place, where he cooked a really, really good dinner. Then it was back home for one last bout of late night chatting.
And now, your reward for reading this whole entry. These pictures start the Sunday before Colina came, with the trip Jacky and I made to Koeln (Cologne) to see Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band, play at the Palladium. The concert was amazing, but what was not amazing was the full day on a train to get there, and then arriving back in Goettingen at 7:30am, with just enough time for two hours of sleep before I had to drag myself to my first class. But, of course, it was worth it. We didn't get to see much of Koeln because the train took so long. The train shouldn't have taken that long, but I let Jacky get the tickets, and instead of going for a normal route, she asked for the cheapest tickets (of course this is a bad idea), which we later had to amend when we realized that they would have left us stranded in Koeln. As it was, the bit of Koeln we got to see was the train station, the subway/bus route to where the concert venue was, and a bit of the city at night as we walked around with two kids we met after the concert.
We had been sort of in the dark about where the venue actually lay, so we had just followed the mass of people there, and then the mass of people back to the subway stop. On the way back after the concert, we heard two people in front of us speaking English, so Jacky asked them where they were from. The girl shocked us both by telling us she was Greek, but had been raised in Australia. This was shocking because she had the most Californian accent you could imagine, it was insane. The boy was Swedish, and both were studying German at the Goethe Institute (a language school) in Bonn. We ended up spending the next couple of hours with them, first on the way back, and then later when we ran into them again in the train station. Before their train left, we went and sat at a little bar with them and chatted about Germans, language, and Los Angeles. Then it was one more glimpse at the stunningly beautiful Koelner Dom before retreating to a 24-hour Burger King in the train station. Watching bad music videos at 2am in a dirty fast food place has never seemed so much more like living.
posted by Meredesu at 11:36 PM
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