This week came and went.. Can you believe that it's almost November? Wasn't it just yesterday I was packing my suitcase getting prepared to fly off halfway around the world? Next week will make it 3 months I've been in Deutschland. This past week has been nothing short of amazing. I took my homie's Alex advice and Carpe Diem'd the HELL out of each and everyday this week.
Am Montag
Monday was my Einführung in die Informatik Kurs. This was my first time being back in this class since the first time I introduced myself to the teacher (the prior weekend was the Bier festival in Stuttgart and... I just couldn't make it to class that Monday). This class is literally from 8am - 1pm with a couple 10 minute short breaks inbetween. I couldn't remember whether the professor said class started at 945 or at 8 so I stood outside the classroom and just waited. and waited. and waited. Until he showed up ten minutes after 8 with a huge smile on his face. I was so relieved, I didn't have to embarrass myself by walking in the wrong class lol.
Unfortunately, the class was sooo frickin' packed that I had to sit at the BACK of the class. It didn't help that my professor has terrible handwriting and he was writing on a projector so I had to squint just to see what was being written. Of course this course is taught entirely in German so I only understood about 45-60% of what was being said, but I actually learned a lot. The topic of discussion that morning was mainly Sequenz, Auswahl (selection), und Iteration. As well as different Algorithm techniques and how you would process them accordingly. I think I learned more vocab than anything that day. My brain was in overload trying to soak it all in. There were two guys sitting in the back with me and they looked just as confused as I was trying figure out how to answer one of the sample exercises. At one point we just gave each other the "keine Ahnung" (no idea) look and just waited for the professor to solve it.
Am Dienstag
Tuesday was another early morning class. I am NOT a morning person, but I've been able to get up in time for these 8am classes. The weirdest thing to me is how DARK it is at like 7am in the morning. Does the sun not like Germany? It's been like this for the past month I've been here, I'm dreading the dark,cold,bitter winters that are in my near future. I survived this class and the workload better than last time, but I'm still having a hard time trying to grasp the concept of learning a foreign language while also learning a new programming within that foreign language. Confused yet? Good.
I sit in class with my computer translating notes as I write them. It's a hassle, but it's the only way to know what the hell we're talking about that day.
Dienstag's Beispiel war: Welchen Wert hat m nachdem der Codeabschnitt durchlaufen ist? (Tuesday's example was: What is the value m after the section of code is run?)
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| I literally guessed the answer and somehow got it right! haha, I guess my natural programming instincts kicked in. (the answer was 7 btw). |
That evening I received word from the Rent-An-American rep who I reached out to so I could finally get started on some volunteer work while I'm here. As a requirement of the program we have to complete at least 40 hours of volunteer work. More Geman interaction? BRING IT. So I will be visiting classrooms talking to younger students about different issues that are happening in America and of course my region of the U.S. I got home from class and noticed something new on the floor I live on....
My floormate Ela drew a mini-version of me with my room number on top. He even has a cool pair of TOMS on his feet and my signature sweater I always wear. So legit. Isn't it awesome?
Am Mittwoch
So Wednesday was probably one of the best days of the whole week. I went to my Deutsch Fremdsprache (foreign language) class as normal, but my school has this strange "some of the students are on fall break, but some aren't" type ordeal. Instead of 18 people in class today, we had 6.
It was so awkward because the professor would ask us questions and no one would respond, it was so quiet you could literally hear your hair growing. During our short break I talked to one of the other guys in my class, Ivan. He's Croatian studying here at Reutlingen for the semester. He's really cool and we talked about different places in Europe and travel experiences and whatnot. He's from Zagreb, which is the capital of Croatia. I mentioned that I've heard so many great things about how beautiful it is there. After informing him that I'd be on this side of the globe until July of next year rather than just for the semester, he invited me to stay with him in Croatia and he'd be my personal tour guide showing me all the cool things to do there!
After the Deutschsprache Kurs, I headed to the fitness facility we have on campus (it's mainly just aerobic/dance classes, swimming, rock-climbing, and a basketball court) with a new friend I made last weekend named Irina. She's an adorable blonde-haired girl from Russia and speaks really good German. I'm not sure how it happened, but when we first met I somehow agreed to go to the Salsa dancing classes they have every wednesday night.
Needless to say I don't know jack squat about Salsa unless I'm using it to dip my chips in. After an hour and a half of spinning, sashaying, and looking seductively into each other's eyes, we got a few moves down with not too much difficulty. Irina likes to take control, but the guy has to lead in this dance so she just had to deal with being my puppet. [insert evil laugh].
Later that night was Dawn's birthday and we celebrated it by going to a local club at a party spot called P&K, the theme was "dress like a nerd". I didn't dress up seeing that I didn't have any nerd gear on hand, but when I tell you we partied HARD.
The bass from the speakers were so loud that I was deaf for a slick 12 hours afterwards. We got back around 3 or 4am and I couldn't even make it to class that next morning.
Am Donnerstag
Thursday was the most interesting, time consuming, fun, "wtf" days I've had this week. I received a letter from German customs about my replacement iPhone my mom sent from back home. I walked all the way there just to have a 15 minute convo (in broken Deutsch) with the guy there and it ended with him saying I have to wait an additional few days for a letter saying whether or not I'm allowed to receive my OWN package. I was given two options and they both SUCK DONKEY SCROTUM.
Option #1: If customs says yes, I have to pay 85€ (or $117) in import/export fees.
Option #2: If custom says no, it gets sent back to the U.S.
My letter to Customs: Dear German Customs
I hate your stinking guts.
You make me vomit.
You are scum between my toes.
Love,
Disgruntled international student
The Computergrafik course I'm taking is going.... ok... Learning the different animation techniques is the next step in the learning process, but currently we're learning to calculate matrices and how transformations effect the movement of an object being created. The programming is done in OpenGL, I still have to figure out how to work this stuff on my Mac, because apparently Apple has this complicated "screw you" vibe they give whenever I want to program code! GET IT TOGETHER APPLE!
Later that day Dawn and I went to Tübingen for a German Meet 'n Greet hosted by the Deutsch-American Institute in collaboration with Rent-An-American. This event had a few booths from different nearby organizations including a Theatre that caught my eye. We learned about the history of the D.a.I. and then split off into groups where each group had at least ONE American. There was such a shortage of Americans that some groups were stuck with all Germans and didn't get to fully benefit from the exercise and games we had. We were given a quiz and had to do a sort of scavenger hunt as a team, solving questions from the presentation given about D.a.I.
It's funny now that I think about it, because I didn't even want to go at first even though it was MY idea to go and I was the one who mentioned the event earlier that day haha. I guess laziness had kicked in or something, nonetheless I'm so glad I went otherwise I wouldn't have met some really cool people.
My group ended up winning 2nd place which was a free 1yr access Bibliotheksmitgliedschaft (library membership) to the libraries they had at the cultural institute. You could tell that the germans there were REALLLLLYYYYY wanting some Americans to befriend and also practice their English with. The 4 girls in my group were so nice and friendly and we got along so well. Don't ask me how I did it, but I now have all 4 of them as my tandem partners. We're working out schedules as I type this and should start sometime next week.
Between having four tandem speech partners, more day-to-day interaction in classes, my German language course, and my own independent self-study, I should be on the road to being fluent in no time!
One of the girls I will be tandem partners with was born in Germany, but family is originally from Turkey and she's even agreed to teach me a little Turkish as well as German. I'm hoping to be able to utilize it when I go to Istanbul next month!
Am Freitag
No classes on fridays so I went on yet another hiking adventure with Dawn and Ashley. There's this gigantic hill in Reutlingen? I guess you could call it a hill since its not big enough to be a mountain. Either way, I was exhausted and sore from the gym combined with all the dancing from Wednesday that by the I got back to my room I just crawled in bed and was dead to the world.
Although I did go back to the gym later and worked out for like a solid hour later that night. I have to stay fit and lose all these kilos gained from Brotchen und Bratwurst!
Am Samstag
This morning was the Intercultural training with Rent-An-American and surprise surprise almost all of the PPP'ers from this region were in attendance. (Minus Jenny, miss you girl!) The 6 of us sat, chatted, and watched what led to be one of the funniest training sessions I've ever seen unfold. The first few hours were so smooth and filled with general "what is culture?" related stuff and activities (some of which we had all already experienced over the past few months being here). After lunch things just got BETTER. There were a large group of American exchange students from Cali and they were... Ugh. I can't even put it all into words. I may just end up doing a video on this because trying to be descriptive through written words would do it NO justice. After the session was over we left with a better understanding and more of what to expect out of the program, Also it was so fun seeing Chelsea, Louise, and Andrew again!
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| Dawn, Me, Chelsea, Ashley, Andrew, Louise. Team Baden-Württemberg! |
So... that was my week. Next weekend I'll be going to Saarbrücken to kick it with Alex. On the 7th of November I'm designated as DJ for the party our floor is throwing that everyone is invited too. So nervous, I hope the people like my music mixes and selections. I've kept an ear out for the type of music the people here listen to and I think I'll be fine. I just don't want to be "that" guy who plays crappy music at a club, because I'm always talking about those guys whenever I go to a weak party. The weekend after is a trip to Paris, France with another awesome PPP'er. So many exciting things in the works for the month of November. Until next time...
Bis später!
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