i'm a bad updater....

Okay well the semester has officially started! I have gone to all of my classes except two. One is later this evening, and one was canceled today because there was some ceremony thing going on. But so far I have had my Monday class on Oscar Wilde, which went really well. We're reading The Importance of Being Earnest first, and then An Ideal Husband, and then Picture of Dorian Gray, and a few shorter stories and pieces worked in there as well. The professor seems really nice, and the class is in English, which makes life easier. Tuesdays I have German LIterature of the 19th and 20th centuries. It's in German, but it's taught at the international office and only open to exchange students, so they at least recognize that German is not our first language...

Ok well I'm picking this post back up later to finish writing it...which means I've gone to my German history class now. It's actually looking like it might be one of my favorites. The teacher is guy with a lot of energy, and you can tell he's very knowledgeable about his subject, and excited to teach it. He actually invited a couple of us to come visit his class (roughly the equivalent of seniors) in the high school where he teachers to come talk about the impact of Sept. 11th on life in the U.S. They're talking about it in his classes right now, and he knows that it's had a much different impact on us than his students necessarily understand, having only seen it on TV and such. So he thought it would be a really good experience for them to hear it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. And hey, I don't mind being a horse for a day. I look at it as an awesome learning experience, as well as something else to add to my grad school resume! :)

This coming weekend I have a few plans. Tomorrow (Friday) I'm going to a basketball game in Cologne. Saturday I was going to visit Caitlin in Koblenz, but it turns out that due to a serious mixup at Sparkasse....I currently have no money. They seem to have misplaced my $5,000 that I deposited there. So tomorrow I'm bringing a German friend of mine to the bank with me to make sure I know exactly what's happened to it. I got a notice in the mail today saying my rent hadn't been paid since I didn't have sufficient funds in my account. Yay. *sigh*

Other than that, though, I have some homework already that needs to get done before next week. I have an article I have to read for my German Lit class and a writing exercise to do for it. I have a few questions I have to answer for a short text I have to read for my German history class. I have to read The Importance of Being Earnest. I'm not sure how much of it we need to have done for the first class period, but I really enjoy it and it's short, so I figured I'd just have it all read by the next class on Monday. Then I have to read a handful of poems for my American Poets class. The only class I don't have to do anything for was my Text Production class since we wrote two things in class already. (I think I omitted talking about how this class went previously...but it went really well. The teacher was excited to hear that I enjoyed creative writing and was studying it in school, since a portion of what she wants to do with us in the course is a good amount of creative writing.)

I'm currently trying to solidify plans to go to London to hang out with Sarah for Thanksgiving, and then Paris the first weekend in December with a couple of the girls here. Then I want to head to Vienna in January hopefully to see the Spanish Riding School and the Lipizzaners! Okay well I'll try to stay better updated as the weeks go on. I only have another two months here! Weird, huh? Over a month is already gone by. Crazy! Much love to everyone!