Introduction

August 2000
September 2000
October 2000
November 2000
December 2000
January 2001
February 2001
March 2001
April 2001
May 2001
June 2001
July 2001
August 2001

April 2001

6 April 2001

13 April 2001

26 April 2001

6 April 2001
Friday

This morning I wandered into Blume 2000 (a plant-store chain) - they have little cacti decorated like bunnies. I will never cease to be amazed at the absurdities people come up with in order to make money...

Last Sunday I went to Bremen. Stephanie, a student worker at the MdA, was going to the Universum with a few friends on a Schönes Wochenende ticket (DM40 for 5 people traveling on one day) and invited me to go with them. It was much amusement; although I didn't enjoy getting up that morning, my four companions (Stephanie, her sister Christine, their friend Sandra, and another woman whose unusual name my brain can simply not grasp) were very friendly and fun. The Universum (whose name is a composite of Univers and Museum) is a very interactive science museum, somewhat like the Science Place in Dallas. It has three sections on Humanity, the Earth, and the Cosmos, and everywhere there are things to touch, feel, and play with. The kid in me loved it. But the weirdest thing about the museum is that it's shaped like a huge UFO or mussel or something.

Basically I've just been under stress this week. I went to my Amerikanistik class on Tuesday, and I'm enthusiastic about it; Rainer's course that evening was the same as last semester, basically. I've been working for those classes and making great progress, even as far as deciding what I'm going to write my paper on for Rainer.

However, I went to the Montesquieu course yesterday, and it was absolutely horrible; I decided after just a couple of minutes that I wasn't going back there. So now what? There are lots of classes I could take, but I'm not really decided. I'll go to a couple more next week and see how I feel about them. Sprachlehrforschung (literally "language-teaching-research") and Haas' Vorlesung and another linguistics seminar (on "interference concepts," whatever that means) are my options.

I went to the seminar on Rechtschreibreform today, but there turned out to be over 100 students trying to take it... After two room changes, we finally found a lecture hall big enough for us. I'm not sure whether I'll stay in there or not (it depends on whether I find something better), but in the meantime I've signed up for a Referat at the beginning of May, because after that, life is going to get extra-crazy (and time to meet with other people will be very spare indeed).

I've been scanning in some articles for Gabi's multimedia course; she's paying me DM15/hour for a task that takes at least a couple of hours per article. I've done about eight articles and spent 15 hours on this task already. It takes time, but at this point I can spare a couple of hours per day to make money...

In the middle of this week I was incredibly worried about my lack of time; however, I guess that fear has sort of disappeared. I'm worried about other things now. Classes this semester, not to mention next year. MHC preregistration is next week. I've pretty much figured out what I want to take. I'm just undecided about whether I want to take Italian or not. My rational brain says no, but I like the idea. I'm insane!

I did buy stuff to kill the spider mites on my plant, and it seems to have worked. I'll reapply it on Thursday. I really hope my plant can recover; it's not looking so hot. It's barely got any leaves left.

Okay, that's pretty much all I've got to say I guess. I'm not that exciting this week, unfortunately.

13 April 2001
Friday

I'm going to try to recap the last two weeks, since the report from last week was pretty brief.

The last two weeks have been pretty stressful, academically; the two classes I had on Tuesday (April 3) were pretty good, and I was happy about them. Montesquieu unfortunately broke the trend; the professor sat at his desk, fiddled with his pen, and didn't say an interesting word the whole hour. I was quite unimpressed by that and very quickly decided I wasn't going back. Luckily, the professor had to leave after an hour, so I didn't have to sit through two hours of boringness.

And, as I said last time, Rechtschreibreform is a huge class, a seminar bigger than many lecture courses. Some solution will have to be found; I think that in the end perhaps someone will pull names out of a hat. We'll see next week, anyway; there's no class today, because it's Good Friday, but next week either there will be fewer people, or I'll drop out. If so many people still want to take it, I'm not going to compete. I don't care that much about it.

If I don't take that class, I'm going to take Haas' lecture class this semester. Mara and Shannon are doing it for Chaucer credit, so I'll probably end up doing Chaucer too, but that's fine, because I like Chaucer. I might try to do the Nibelungenlied or something, though.

What I am sure of is that this Sprachlehrforschung class is very interesting. (Ooh, btw, Uni-Hamburg Sprachlehrforschung web page.) I think it's what I thought linguistics was before I took a course in it, but we'll see whether that's really true or not.

On Wednesday I bought the book for this class. It was DM34,80, so I gave the guy DM55,00. He handed me back 20Pf, and I expected the DM20 to follow, but he ran out the door and down the street! I was debating whether to bother someone else in the store, but eventually he did come back, whereupon I told him he owed me DM20. He was very confused; I don't know what was that hard about it, but anyway he eventually gave me my money, and I left. And then a half-hour later I got short-changed 2Pf in the grocery store. It was quite strange.

I preregistered for MHC classes this week; I'm not going to tell you what classes I chose (I don't even want to think about those, because that's next year and this one's enough trouble already), but it is noteworthy that I'm fine with respect to my majors; I've just got a few 300-levels to complete for each, and I'll be done. Whee!

I'm pretty much work-focused these days. I know I'm going to be traveling a lot soon, so I'd like to get as much possible done before it becomes a crisis.

Last note: The weather has been incredibly strange these days. Yesterday it shone, rained, snowed, and hailed. Today it's pretty sunny, but it's also cold. I took a few pictures of the Uni, so I may put some of those up soon.

26 April 2001
Thursday

Heads up, kids; this is going to be the mother of all journal entries.

The last few weeks have been unbelievably busy. I have, however, managed to figure out my classes at the Uni. A couple of weeks ago I was quavering between the Haas Vorlesung or the linguistics seminar; last Friday (20 April) I went to the second „rechtschreibreform” session and decided to go ahead with it, even though it's not ideal. It's better than Haas, anyway. This means that I have three classes on Tuesday, one Thursday, and one Friday. (Next weekend there's no class on Tuesday because it's the first of May, the Tag der Arbeit [1], so I have a five-day weekend!)

My internship has sort of been going forward; it was getting wonky because of my problems with classes, and then Dieter and I decided that I wouldn't go in at all on Wednesday the 11th because there wasn't much I could do anyway that week (people I wanted to talk to were on vacation etc.). It's just as well, really, because my cough, which I've had ever since the previous journal entry, got worse that day, so that I stayed home and didn't attend the Haas Vorlesung at all that day, even though it was the reason I wasn't going to the Museum.

On Friday I finally went to a pharmacy and bought cough syrup, and that helped over the weekend. It helped enough that I stopped taking it on Monday (the minty aftertaste wasn't enough to make it pleasurable), but then on Tuesday-Wednesday my cough got worse again and invited its friends Runny Nose, Sneeze, and Headache to join the party. Yesterday I went to see a doctor, unfortunately missing my appointment in the Museum's print workshop (which I have yet to reschedule - must do that tomorrow). The doctor prescribed some tablets to dissolve in water and drink twice a day; they're supposed to help me hack up the mucus [2] in my throat. He also told me to breathe in chamomile vapor twice a day. That's German medicine for ya. But it does seem to be working, because I've been coughing a lot less today. I guess perhaps my cold has helped to chase the cough away.

Two weeks ago (12 April) I received an email from my mother saying that if I filed a tax return I could get $240 back, so I downloaded the form, filled it out, and faxed it to her to send in. That was basically an afternoon's work; I hadn't intended to file at all because I wasn't required to, and it was too much trouble, but since Mom told me exactly what to do, I did it. I just hope that the IRS accepts the faxed copy of my signature.

On the same day I got a letter from the MHC International Affairs office containing a description of an Administrative Fellow position in that office and soliciting applications for said position. At first I assumed I didn't want it, but the more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me. Friday morning I translated my resume from German to English, and that afternoon I left a message on my father's answering machine at work to call me back about it. He did so later that evening, in full professor mode. That was very strange; I'm used to talking to Dad, not Dr. Melton. The new roles in this situation weren't wrong, just unaccustomed.

He helped me revise my resume, and then early this week I called him again for advice about the cover letter. Thankfully there wasn't too much to do to it. Yesterday I obtained the consent of the last reference, Dieter [3], and fixed a couple of appearance issues on the web version of the application. [4]. Though I also emailed the application, my hope is that reviewers will also look at it on the web, be impressed by its spiffiness, click the link to this journal, etc. What can sell my web skills better than my own web page?

My life has not been completely work-free, however. On the day before Easter (14 April) I got up early in the morning and caught a train to Duisburg, where I was picked up by Uwe and Rolf Milde, two German AFPers [5]. We then drove to the Netherlands for the first-ever Dutch AFP Gamesmeet. All I can say is, it was gosh darn fun. First we played Laserquest (I came in 10th out of 19, not too shabby), and then we retired to Eelco's house to play board games, chat, and stuff our faces with unhealthiness. I was the first to go to bed, but I woke up the next morning feeling great in spite of my cough. It was a truly awesome meet, because of fun activities but mostly because everyone was friendly and made me feel both welcome and part of the group. My photos will be here as soon as I get them scanned in, and you can also read Leo's meet report.

Arwen and I, discovering that we would both be in the vicinity of London the next weekend, proposed a meet. She organized it, and the first LaurabelleMeet happened in London on Saturday 21 April. Much fun was, again, had and shared. No meet report yet, that I know of, but Arwen posted the quote file a few days ago. In addition, my photos will eventually reside here.

Those are, I believe, the big themes of my life at the moment. You'll have to be content with that.

May 2001

[1] Literally "Day of Work," on which no one works.
[2] Schleim in German.
[3] He wanted me to explain what it meant exactly; I don't blame him, because it's not something Germans do.
[4] I thought the fruity orange background wasn't the best first impression for people who are hopefully going to hire me for my web skills. I also wanted to work on a print-media style sheet, which apparently doesn't work. Ho hum.
[5] Tall, thin, and identical. I find my most reliable method of telling them apart is their glasses.

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