And then there was one. 12/6/07

Well, I'm down to one final and one class. Yesterday I had a Jewish Life presentation, which I think went relatively well. There were a few questions that I didn't know the answers to at the end, but I was reporting on International Jewish Organizations that are assisting with the Jewish Revival in Former Soviet Countries. There's not actually a ton of literature on that. Oh well.

Then this morning I had an Economic Policy final. My first ever oral exam. That was stressful. I think it went pretty well, except that I mixed up common goods and public goods at the end. He didn't even ask me about my favorite method for internalizing technological effects (it's tradable rights to damage through certificates, by the way... it's the best one). He asked me about negotiations, which isn't as interesting and only works on a small scale anyway.

Later on today I have my Finance final. We shall see. So in and amongst all these lovely finals, I've had to do fun things like de-matriculate and whatnot. One of the things I have yet to do is have my house mother check my room so that I can go and get my deposit back. And guess what? After she checks my room, I can't live in it anymore. And guess what else? I leave Marburg at 7:00 AM on Monday, and she only works on the weekdays. I am effectively homeless (i.e. will be sleeping on Amanda's floor). Later on, when I do lists of things that I will and will not miss, reslife policies will be going on the latter. Oh well, off to study for finance.

Exchange Rates:

.67 Euro = $1

1 Euro = $1.46.

Sweet. I get to change my money tomorrow!

Off Again 11/27/07

I am down to thirteen days left in Europe. In addition to a three day trip to Ireland (everyone get your fingers crossed and keep them crossed for the next week) I have a day trip to Nuremburg and a day trip to Frankfurt planned. Plus you know, 11 hours of Economic Policy, 10 hours of Jewish Life and four hours of Finance and their respective exams/40 minute presentations. And packing. And deregistering with the city. And meeting with the people in charge of my program. And ResLife. And the House mother. Excuse me while I go bury my head under a pillow and go to sleep for the next thirteen days. Haha, just kidding. it will be fun. Much better than the 17.5 (!!!) hours that I have to spend in transit between Marburg and Richmond. On the way over they showed House on the plane... I hope that it's not the same episodes. Wish us luck on getting to Ireland!!!

Happy Halloween/Birthday!

Happy birthday Ben! (Ben is my brother) Actually, today is my culture class professors' birthday as well. So.

Zum Geburtstag viel Gluck! Zum Geburtstag viel Gluck! Zum Geburtstag Ben and Klaas! Zum Geburtstag viel Gluck!

Halloween isn't very big in Germany. I saw maybe three small children in costume, and I've only heard of one party. A few stores had decorations for sale, but that's about it. One wonders where children trick-or-treat. Not a terribly exciting night. Except for the fact that my Dad will be here tomorrow! That's very exciting. We're going to do lots of fun stuff, and he's bringing me American gourmet (Ritz and Goldfish). Apparently Germans haven't discovered the tasty snack that smiles back until you bite its head off. It's quite sad.

Today was my eight hour day. Going into this semester, it looked like I was just going to have one day of classes. Well I thought that would be boring, so I added a Jewish Life in Eastern Europe class. Then we figured out that my schedule was wrong, and Finance meets on Monday and Tuesday. Couple that with my German conversation course and the English tutorials and all of a sudden I have class four days a week. And eight hours today.

I must say, I did have the best class today that I've had since we started real classes. In Jewish Life I got to explain the predator-prey cycle to Germans. I was relating it to soviet repression of Jewish pride. Then we got to illustrate it. It was quite fun. Alas, I must go do homework. For some reason if I write blogs from my computer they don't seem to post with several paragraphs. I don't care for that. Anyway.

Exchange rates 1 Euro=$1.45 $1=.67

The Great Library Adventure 10/18/07

Now I know that this is a topic that is important to everyone. Is the Dewy Decimal System universal? I still have no idea. The library system... not so easy here. Each faculty has it's own library. If you want to check out a book, you have to go to the main library and tell a computer that you want it. Then you have to wait a few days while someone goes and finds it and reserves it for you. Students aren't allowed near the actual stacks. Only very special mole-people on skateboards are (or so I've been told). If you just want to look at a book, you can go to whichever faculty library has it.

I am now taking a Jewish Life in Eastern Europe class, and I have some reading to do before next week, so I went to the appropriate library (located on the 7th floor of a building that is charitably 30 minutes away from me) and had no idea what to do. So I talked to the nice guy at the desk, who told me that the book was not in the library. I think that he was spelling something wrong, because when I went and looked up the author and brought it back to him, he found it. So he wrote down the call number for me and told me that the book was one floor up. T-RU 135/1499. So I went to the T section. 10 minutes later, I had determined with relative certainty that the book was not there.

So I went downstairs and asked him what the deal was. Apparently T stands for Territories, and RU means Russian. So look in the Russian section. Okay, fine. I looked in the Russian section. Still a nope. Turns out that Russian and Russian Territories are actually in different parts of the floor. Sheesh. After I finally found the book, I read for a little while and got hungry (well at least I can find the book again) so Amanda and I went for about the best pizza ever. It was excellent. A good day, all around. And tomorrow is the ball!!!!! Yay!!!!!

Exchange rates: I'm too depressed to type it again.

My first day of classes! 10/16/07

Well, sorta. Let's consider that. After I finished my last blog and played around for a few more minutes (ate a pretzel and whatnot) I walked to class. It's really pretty here. Brisk, with the leaves changing and everything. Anyway, I get to class pretty early (especially since classes here that say that they start and end on the hour i.e. 2:00-4:00, actually go from quarter past to quarter to) and I wait around outside for a few minutes. And they're handing out free bags to all the econ people. The bags had business magazines and pens and paper in them. Gotta say, I like free stuff.

Anyway, I finally go into the lecture hall, which I think could fit all of Macon pretty comfortably, and find a seat. Well, half an hour or so later, people start walking out. Yes, the professor had ditched the first class of the semester. Apparently, that's pretty normal here, though, if I were teaching a class that met for six hours a day, I would probably try not to skip the first one. But that's just me. So I went home for an hour or so and came back out for my Economic Policy class, which was in the same room. This time the professor did show up, and even came up to me and talked to me before class. I asked him if he spoke English, and he figured out that I'm the "special" one in his class. He seemed like a pretty nice guy.

I was in over my head in that class. Somehow in nine weeks of intensive German I missed the crucial words for Economic Policy. Almost seems a little bit predictable. I was supposed to find my tutor somehow yesterday, so I waited around for a little bit, but none of the 150 or so other students looked particularly likely, and no one came up to me, so I left. Hopefully, tomorrow I can get his/her email address from Klaas, who is the academic director of the IUSP program.

Exchange Rates:

1 Euro = $1.42

$1.00 = .69 Euro

This is depressing.

I Passed! I Passed! 8/31/10

Hello my (hopefully) loyal readers. Today was the big day. We got our grades for the German Language class I've been taking for the last three weeks. I got an A- (or in Germany, a 1-). It's broken down into five parts, and the only one I got a B on was the grammar. I'm sure that's not particularly important for language though. Still pretty good, considering that I missed the first week. I got a certificate and everything. Everyone in the class passed, which was good.

Minor change of plans for this weekend. As of yesterday, we were planning to go to Nuremburg, which is roughly four hours away by train. Upon looking at the train schedules, however, we determined that we could either start at midnight and get there at nine, or we could leave at seven, get there at noon and pay €115 for the round trip tickets. Neither of these options seemed ideal. After careful consideration, we decided to wait on Nuremburg until we have matriculated as students. That way, the train fares will be greatly reduced. So instead... I'm moving!

Amanda lives in an apartment that is all of a three minute walk away. She lives on the second floor as opposed to the fourth, and it's a pretty sweet situation in general. This week, one of her apartment mates moved out, so I swooped in and snagged the room (assisted heavily by Amanda, who did most of the actual swooping). So for the rest of today and possibly some of tomorrow, I'll be lugging stuff up and down stairs. I'm excitied about it, particularly considering what an efficient mover I am. Hmm... Anyone want to fly over and help? I'll buy you lunch...

P.S. The picture is the view from my first room