On Tuesday I realized that after going to four classes, 1 sounded good, another one had a professor that didn't show, and the last two were too complicated for me to stay in. Great... not. The other realization I had was that the contact ours would not add up to what I needed. So Tuesday afternoon was a mad dash at home to figure out what other courses I could take.... I settled for a course focusing on 2 witness accounts of life in the concentration camp in Oranienburg and another that is in English and focuses on the Jewish Talmudic culture. So early on Wednesday morning I was once again in a class taught by the lady who shares her name with my mother. This class is harder than the one on monday and will require me to write between 15 and 20 pages. But it was very interesting!!! She had me tell the class a little bit about my research too! After this class I headed to the cafeteria to meet with another Ole Miss student where we got our frustrations out about the difference in expectations that we need to live up to (from our University back home and from our classes here). There is a lot of discrepancy... the students studying abroad here are mostly European. All they need is a certain amount of ECTS points, which means they do not need grades. This also means that they can take as many classes as needed, do minimal work, and meet the requirements. That goes for a lot of the German students as well. The American's however, need a grade. Actually it is just the Ole Miss crowd. It is really hard to get that thought through the professor's head, because they are not used to worrying about grades... they just want to know how many ECTS points we need. Another rule of thumb that I learned this week is that when they do give grades, a "1" grade is unheard of. The grades here go from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest. 1 would be equivalent to an A in the states, but... professors don't give a "1" here... most will tell you they've never given a one. So our issue now is that we have to make sure we keep our grade point average at home while using two sets of expectations that don't agree with each other on any level. I've heard so many generations of students complaining about this issue when returning to Ole Miss after studying abroad, but until now, I didn't really understand the true issues... Oh well... just like all the other students before us, I guess we will just have to deal.
After a quick rant session, I headed to my second course in English. And again... the professor didn't show!!! UGH! I later read the small print online and found out that she did not plan to teach the first class... well then.... I had a class at 2, but I didn't really want to go anywhere that would require me to walk. So I just waited around, had coffee with some students and then at 12:30 headed to the Mensa to meet Christiane, who was there with the group of Welsh students that she brought to Berlin for the week. It was lovely to see her and we got to talk for about 45 minutes until she left with her students. Their next stop was a tour of campus! I would have joined in, but I decided to sit and rest my foot. At 2 I headed to class... Grammar! Finally I class I was super excited about!! It was great to see familiar faces in there, and I am thrilled to be re-learning German grammar. I legitimately don't remember hardly any rules!!! And that is really not acceptable now that I'm going to be speaking in front of other Germans...
After class a group of us headed to the Mensa and had an early dinner together. It is really great to have already made all of these friends! After dinner I headed to Aldi to buy some food to fill up my fridge! I hadn't been prepared for some foot rest, and I wanted to have enough so that I can recover in peace in my apartment without having to walk anywhere to eat. Nothing extreme happened to my foot, I am not now tied to my bed... but since you HAVE to walk everywhere from where I live, in order to let my foot heal, I need to stay in for a few days.
On Thursday morning I spent most of the morning calling doctors, until I hit the jackpot through an email and the doctor called me to set up an appointment. After the visit (which I described already) I went to my German class. This was a bit complicated, because since there was not a bus stop, I had to speed walk for 2 kilometers.... Not a big deal, unless you are trying to get your foot better! But I can't do much about that, because since Potsdam is a bit small, there isn't public transportation covering every kilometer here. Once in class, there were a few familiar faces there too! And a lot of different nationalities (even a girl from Argentina and a guy from Chile!). That class is going to be easy (I think) but it is going to help me so much with vocabulary and sentence structuring. After class I made my trip to the hospital for X-Rays and then I made a short walk to a Kaisers. I know, I know... I had just been to the supermarket... but once I get close to Kaisers I have to go buy my favorite things. The other supermarkets, like : Kaufland and Aldi, don't carry the things I like! So I bought enough salad, cream cheese, and organic pasta/pesto to last me a good while! When I got home, my foot was incredibly happy to rest and my mouth was soooo pleased with my visit to Kaisers. I had the most delicious dinner!!! The pesto I bought is really to die for! And the ravioli were too!!! Since it is all natural, the pesto has to be used within 5 days, but I will not be having any issues doing that ! It is soooo good!!!
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| Deliciousness! |
Friday morning I woke up at 7:30, because I had to go back to the doctor and he was only open between 8-10. Once my foot was wrapped up and I had gotten my appointment set for next Thursday, I returned to my dorm to grab my documents and head to campus.
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| My awesome wrap!! |
Between 10-11 I was supposed to report to an assigned room with my passport, a copy of my proof of registering with the city, proof of payment of semester fees, proof of validated health insurance, and my matriculation number. All of that to get my student ID!!! This card will now serve as my semester ticket (making trains, buses, trams, etc free within this state (Brandenburg) -- not really free since I paid 200 Euros for it). I can also use this card to check out books at the library, pay for lunch (after loading money on it), and pay to make copies or print on campus.... Now.... I had all the documents ready, except for the COPY of my proof of registering with the city. Why not? Because I don't have an ID to make copies on campus. Once at the room, a lady sent me to another building where there is ONE copier that takes coins. Once I got to the other building, I looked for the machine for a few minutes and was then joined by one of the Australian students who was also looking for the machine. After about 3 minutes, I gave in and asked someone... She told us it was on another wing of the building and pointed us in the right direction. Once there, we waited for our turn and were told (at printing services) that they no longer had that copier, but that the library now had one. Well... the library was way closer to the original room we were in...UGH! Oh well, on the way to the library we crossed a Czech and a Portuguese student, who were also headed to printing services to make that copy! We informed them about the library and all headed there together. Once at the library we were told that we had to first take our stuff downstairs and leave our backpacks in the lockers there.... Ok... Great.... Once back upstairs we climbed the stairs to the second floor and found the copier. 1 euro made 20 copies... all together we just needed 3!!! We all laughed about our situation and headed back to our original assigned room to pick up our cards.
Once I had my card in hand I stopped by the cafeteria to buy some water for my room, and then I headed home! I felt very accomplished! For my first week, I did pretty well! Once back in my resting position, I talked to Colby and we decided that it was a perfect day to cook! So my sweet friend came to join me in the middle of nowhere to cook! First he went to Kaiser's and bought all the necessary ingredients. OOOOOOHHHH!!! I forgot to mention one important thing, it was raining Friday morning!! Which is good and bad... Good, because it means it isn't cold enough to snow, and bad... because I got wet! Hahha. By the time Colby got here with the ingredients, the sun had come out ! Yes, you read that right! The clouds were gone!! I had my window open and the birds were chirping! It was so lovely!!! My window faces the playground/sports ground for a Montessori school, so anytime I get home during the day and open the window, all I hear is kids talking, laughing, screaming, and playing! Yes it is absolutely delightful! All Colby and I could think was... "man, if I didn't need to take it easy on my foot, now would be the perfect time to explore the trails across from my dorm!!!"
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Oh well! Instead, we moved my desk by the window, put on some Mozart, made some tea, and ate some cookies and chocolate!
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| My own little cafe! |
At some point we got up and began our cooking adventure!
Colby isn't used to cooking... As he says "I don't know how to cook." But I love to cook!!! I think it is where I use my artistic energy! Hahaha. I love the challenge of finding substitutes for what I don't have, and when living in an apartment that has no oven and is equipped only by the purchases of ONE trip to IKEA... finding substitutes is a must. Our goal --- quesadillas, which quickly turned into burritos! First things first, we cut the mushrooms, the peppers, and the onions. This was a little tricky because I only have serrated butter knives... but, hey! We got everything chopped up and no one got hurt!! Then we made our simple version of guacamole: 1 mashed avocado, half a squeezed lemon, and some salt! Next step, while the veggies were cooking on a sauté pan with a little bit of olive oil, I chopped up 2 chicken breasts and mixed in some of the delicious pesto!!!! I let it sit for a few minutes, and then I cooked it in the pan! The next step was making some cous cous, which we then also dumped into the pan that used to cook the chicken, so it would get some of that flavor. Whoooo!! Cooking process complete! We set up our table by the window and took out some olives, goat cheese, cheese, sour cream, some wine, the tortillas and some brie cheese, which we never even touched!
It was soooooooo goood!!! We could not stop eating! Well... we didn't !!! The good part was that my bed was waiting for us when we fell over, because we were so full!!! After washing the dishes we watched Mean Girls and then.... we ate some ice cream! Hey! You can't skip dessert!!!!!
At around 11 Colby headed home and I headed back to bed!
This morning I got to sleep in and then proceeded to look at my to do list. I say "look," because I'm not in the right mind to start doing things and checking stuff off.... I am too lazy right now! I have no excuses, just not feeling it! Tomorrow, I will get more done, but for today... I read the first pages of my book about the concentration camps. It is going to be sooo hard, because it takes me soooo long to comprehend what I'm reading (you know... since it's in German and all). It took me about an hour to get through the introduction, but it is a wonderful day outside, so I had my window open and could hear the birds chirping as I read and listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons! I did also look at my assignments for my German class and my grammar class, so I kind of know what I need to get done for this week. But for now, I am choosing to have a movie marathon instead! Not much to tell there, except that I finally watched "The Breakfast Club." Well, I'm off to watch some more movies! Hope to update more often this week, but for now... y'all are all caught up!
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