time for an update

Okay so it's been awhile since I updated last. I feel like I say that every time... But I have a lot to fill everyone in on. So I guess I'll just jump in.

-I applied to the English Education MAED program. I had several excellent recommendations from my professors that worked in my favor, and I received an invitation to come interview. The interview was last Thursday and it went really well. The two women interviewing me talked as if I was already accepted to the program. I just need to get back to the program director about some details I need to work out with my English MA advisor. Doing two Masters degrees at the same time will definitely up my classload, but I think it will still be manageable. Then, when I graduate, I'll have a Masters of Arts in English, a Masters of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction with a postgraduate professional license for English (grades 6-12). Not too shabby. We'll see how well the theory gets put into practice next semester!

-I've been playing some flag football with girls from Cru (Campus Crusade) and we ended our 'season' strong with 2 wins and 2 ties, so technically undefeated! We had our first playoffs game this past Sunday and we won 39-0! Our team name is the Punishers and it was defintely fitting :p We have our next game this coming Saturday, if we win that one we'll move to the championship game on Sunday. Pretty exciting. It's given me an opportunity to meet some girls outside of my program and grad school. Autumn, one of my friends from my program, and I both have enjoyed a respite from the same people we see all day every day in all of our classes.

-I'm helping out with the German Club here on campus. I think I'm officially the Publications Officer or something like that, but I'm not sure. We've been organizing an info session that will be tomorrow night on study abroad opportunities to Germany (sadly none of them apply to me). But it's been great to interact with some of the professors in the German department and other students with similar interests.

-I've also been volunteering to work with the Cranwell International Center on campus at Tech. They handle all incoming international students and have events like movie nights and a community outreach program that has families sponsoring students, showing them local traditions and just regular American family life. We just had an event the other week, a social where we invited international students and their community member sponsors to come to an evening of Appalachain specialties. There was a potluck of all kinds of chili, breads, pies, and sweet tea, and we even had a caller for some square and line dances, and a band to play music. It was a lot of fun. At the movie nights I've learned how to operate the big popcorn machine (reminiscent of the even bigger ones at the movie theaters with the red and white striped awnings/roof). I burned my first batch but after that I got the hang of it. This coming Friday we're putting on a Dance of Nations where representatives of a good number of countries are performing traditional dances and whatnot with traditional music. As always, there will be yummy food, a potluck I think with specialty dishes from all sorts of countries that we have students studying here from.

-I should be working on all sorts of papers as well. I have a draft of my 25 page research paper on German children's literature due next week (I have a total of 3 pages at the moment...). I think I'm in this phase of denial about it all, but I need to get in gear so I'm not spending my whole Thanksgiving break on papers. I'm finalizing my syllabus though, so I'm getting a good feel for the class of Freshman Composition that I'll be teaching next semester. I even have my time slot! Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 1:25 to 2:15 (sadly only 50 mintue class periods...so useless).

-Next semester's schedule is looking kind of busy thus far. Here's a run down of the tentative course list: Composition Pedagogy, Digital Humanities, Practicum (this is a once a week meeting with my teaching advisor about my comp class), Topics in Language: Language and Gender Constructions, Literature for Adolescents, and Psychological Foundations of Education. The first two are required for my English MA, the last two for the Education. And I'll be teaching one section of Composition.

Well I think that's all that is new with me. I'm headed up to DC over Thanksgiving to see my parents for the first time since August! I'm looking forward to that. I think I'll be working on Pumpkin Pie and Apple Pie recipes... Don't look now but occasionally I do have domestic tendencies.
Much love to all!!

up to my neck....

Well...the semester is getting harder. I'm sitting at Panera trying to get through the massive load of reading I have for this week: 4 essays by Gretel Ehrlich (who I totally recommend reading, she's great), 8 more sources for my German Children's Lit paper so I can write up an annotated bibliography by Thursday (so far I've read 2 articles, I have 4 books and another article found, still need to find 3 more sources), and a hefty excerpt from Orientalism by theorist Edward Said.

I spent all day yesterday at a conference on the teaching of composition called the Spilman Symposium at VMI (Virginia Military Institute). It was actually a really great experience. The conference draws English faculty and administration from a lot of surrounding universities and public school systems. This year's topic focused on bridging the gap between expectations of students in high school versus college English classrooms. I got in contact with the English Dept Chair from Blacksburg High and I might look into doing an internship there next semester working in an English classroom. I'm excited by the possibility of getting experience in the classroom in general next semester. I begin teaching my first class, a section of ENG 1106 Writing From Research, the second half to the 2 course sequence most entering freshman are required to take at Tech. I've said for a really long time that I might want to end up teaching high school English, so this will be a great way to see if I really like it. It also turns out that several of the teaching practice and theory courses I'm taking for my GTA position also qualify for required courses needed to gain Virginia state teacher's licensure. So there's a good chance by the end of my Masters I might be able to get certified to teach 6-12th grades.

I'm also continually adding to my skills set. This past Thursday night I learned how to operate one of those big popcorn machines like they have at movie theaters with the red and white striped roof and popcord basket that all the popcorn springs from. I did manage to severly burn the first batch and bleed on a later batch after cutting my finger...but I have no blood-communicable diseases, so I think we're all safe. This was for a movie night hosted by the Cranwell International Center on campus. We watched Curse of the Golden Flower, a pretty big budget Chinese film that I really enjoyed (although it was soooooooo depressing). The scenery and costumes were extravagant and absolutley beautiful. It gets a bit bloody at points, but overall not bad if you don't mind subtitles.

This coming Thursday I'm helping to put on an Oktoberfest with the German Club. I'm in charge of baking something yummy and dessert-like (they obviously don't know me very well). I had originally wanted to do an Apfelstrudel but I've looked into multiple recipes and they seem pretty intricate. I might resort to cookies of some kind.

Friday I'm working for the international center again helping them with a Fall Social for the exchange student friendship program that Tech has. Tech draws a TON of international students, a large number of them for graduate study, and a large number of those students bring spouses and children. So Tech has a friendship program where Blacksburg residents and other Tech students can sign up to kind of sponsor an international student or their family. Basically they befriend them, show them around town, maybe invite them to celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving which many international students have never done before. I briefly debated doing this but I just don't have the time.

I do have an English conversation partner though, young person from South Korea. I think we'll be meeting this coming week some time. This is another Int'l center program where Tech students sign up to meet once a week or so with international students to help them practice their English in a very informal, friendly environment. So who knows, I might learn a few words of Korean as well.

Well this has been a fun exercise in procrastination. I should get back to all my reading and subsequent responses to my reading. I can't wait to see family up in DC for Thanksgiving and then the other side of the fam over Christmas break. I miss Florida warm weather already! The high today was only 54F :(
Much love to you all!!

hip deep in it now

Well, I forget what week this is, but the semester is well under way. Each week I start thinking earlier and earlier how long the week feels. Last week my first Monday class hadn't even started yet and already at 9am that morning I was thinking "Man, this feels like a long week." I've got quite a lot going on this week, a lot going on with life in general.

Tomorrow I have to meet with my Lit Research professor to discuss my research topic for the 25pg paper due at the end of the semester. I believe I want to do something with German Children's Literature with hopes that it will combine all of my interests. And with any luck I'll remember enough of my German so I'll be able to read some kids' books! Tomorrow I also have to turn in my paperwork in order to attend a symposium at VMI (Virginia Military Institute) on teaching composition. That will be the third weekend in October. I've also got football practice for the powder puff team that I joined through Campus Crusade. Our first match is Sunday some time, so I'll update on how that goes.

Tuesday I have my second meeting of the conference planning committee for the English conference we're putting on in the spring some time. I get to start observing a class of freshman composition this week as well. We enjoy being relieved of one class period of my practicum class in order to balance out the fact that we have to observe a class "preferably" three days a week (according to my practicum professor). I really see how that time comittment is evened out...

This past Saturday I attended a leadership seminar that really had nothing to do with leadership and more to do with how to get a job after you graduate with an English degree. But I received a lovely certificate of completion for this leadership seminar that will certainly go on my CV. It was sort of useful, though, at the very least a chance to network with some alum who also all graduated with English degrees. We even had a 'business etiquette' luncheon (at which I did fabulously, something I'm sure my grandmothers will be thrilled to hear).

To keep you all updated on the latest with my volunteering at the International Center: I signed up to be matched with a conversation partner. This is someone you take under your wing a bit and show around, teach the ways of US and Blacksburg to, along with practicing English conversational skills. There exists the option for me to hold a once weekly English conversation group which would be a much more formal time commitment. I would have to set up a specific time each week, an hour, and supply a mini-lesson plan on local culture or customs. I think I might wait til next semester to take that on, though, since I don't want to over-commit myself. I also signed up to help out with a bunch of events they have going on this semester, so I'll let you all know how those go.

I need to head to bed to rest up for the week. Love and hugs to all!

International students and German certificates

Well it's almost the start of my fourth week of this grad school adventure and already I'm reorganizing life plans! I met with my advisor Thursday to discuss the possibility of adding a certificate in German to my degree. It would consist of two classes in German literature and history and then 3 credits of writing a paper that will be larger than an average class paper but much smaller than the scope of a thesis. I'm also trying to find a way to get back to Europe over the summer. The English Department hosts a short summer program in England which would be cool. It's a bit expensive, but you definitely get your money's worth out of it. I'm currently browsing ways to have a work permit for the UK to possible stay on in England and work for the rest of summer at some kind of PR or publishing place. Something to do with English that would earn me enough money to cover my expenses and maybe have a weekend or two to visit Germany! It's quite difficult to earn money in Germany as a non-EU citizen. There are internship opportunities but rarely paid since there are tons of laws against non-EU citizens taking potential jobs from EU citizens. Particularly US citizens. But I'm still on the look-out.

More immediately I'm saving my pennies to visit my friend Sophie in Bonn, Germany over New Years. I'm hoping the flight costs me less than $600. We'll see what I can save from TA paycheck and savings I have from graduation. However I'm not ashamed to solicit help for my travel expenses as Christmas presents!

Classes are going well. We're getting into actual assignment creation and teaching techniques in my Practicum class. We're designing lesson plans for certain chapters of our textbooks, etc. Literary Research has me researching topics for my project that will take the course of the semester for the class and be a large part of my grade. I'm thinking something to do with grammar, English, and German language history. Not sure what yet. My Library Research class has been a big assist to this end. Last week we worked with some software called EndNote. NEVER will I have to look up MLA citation again. Thank goodness!!! It's a program where you can save all your research data and citations, and it's interactive with Word and can automatically insert citations and works cited pages for you! I love it already. Many thanks to VTech for buying that software for us poor grad students.

I need to start drafting my first essay for my Genre Studies class (on the Essay). Our first workshop is the beginning of October and I'm anticipating some struggle with this genre. We'll see. My tenative subject matter is what has been infamously nicknamed "the German Stare." The theory is that eye contact in social contexts varies between cultures, and in Germany it is not uncommon to exchange eye contact (and plenty of it) in contexts like the bus or train. It can be disconcerting as an American to sit in the bus or train and have people staring at you. But you can feel free to stare right back. The people-watcher in me came out tenfold. :)

My apartment and roommate situation is working out wonderfully. It feels like home already. I put up some curtains yesterday which helped a lot too. Daisy, the puppy, and I get along quite well. I see Uncle Steve and Dusty quite frequently which is nice. He's always there to provide dinner to a poor grad student! I visited Sarah and Josh in DC last weekend. The drive back and forth was not as long and boring as I had anticipated. I think my tolerance for lengthy car trips is increasing.

Other news... My parents are wonderful and bought me a fancy new phone to go with our new Verizon cell plan. Any and all who have Verizon, feel free to call us now, it's free! And I was able to keep my same phone number which had been my only stipulation for changing cell providers. I have a horrible memory for remember phone numbers and after having the same number since I was 16, I have no clue how I would memorize a new one.

Okay well I have to get to some studying. I've procrastinated all weekend by playing around downtown yesterday during the gootball game, and going to the gym today. Sadly I worked out too long and now I'm tired and sore. I thought it would make up for the fact that I slept til noon...*sigh* oh well! Much love to all!

P.S. I published and noticed I failed to clarify the Intl Students bit of the title... I went Thursday night to the International Center to watch the movie Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). If you can stand to watch subtitles, this is an EXCELLENT movie and I recommend it to anyone. It's about the intertwining lives of a few members of the Stasi and East Berlin citizens in the years during the lovely DDR. I met a few international students there which was exciting. Some of them speak German yay! haha And I'm looking into signing up to take part in a conversation practice program for international students who want to practice their English with other students. Should be fun. The atmosphere at the intl center made me homesick for Bonn!

A long first week...and it's only Wednesday

Well I've almost made it through my whole first week of graduate school. I only have one class tomorrow and then there's a lovely 3 day weekend. (Would be 4 day if schools in the state of Virginia recognized Labor Day as a holiday. I think they should considering the guys in Congress who are our neighbors in DC made it a national holiday. Go figure.) But I digress. Let me recap my first encounters of graduate class for you.

Monday began bright and early considering I left the house at 7am in search of parking. I was assuming the first day would be bustling with people who didn't quite know how everything worked (myself included) so I left plenty of time to make a few errors. (Me? Never!) I arrived at the English Department building by 8am after browsing two parking lots to finally find a space. I was able to get my keys for both my mailbox and office, as well as chat up our very nice English Dept secretary who I'm sure makes the world go round for us. I spent the next hour or so getting settled in my office and taking stock of what was provided for me: an iMac which I share with my officemate Melissa, a desk and chair - office furniture that must be more than 20 years old, two large bookcases which actually still contained some interesting books, two floor lamps - yay we don't have to use icky overhead lighting! - a minifridge, a very old and used coffe pot, and a mini-microwave. Melissa and I consider ourselves quite lucky that we have a minifridge and microwave considering no one else in our vicinity does. Our neighbors to one side do have a couch, but I think that would encourage me to relax and eventually nap. Which may or may not have positive results on my performance. I have recently purchased an air freshener and some clorox wipes which I feel will make all the difference in helping us to settle in.

I made it to my first class which began at 9:30, a class simply entitled Practicum. This is a pass/fail class that all first year Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are required to take. The goal of the course is to help us prepare our lesson plans and syllabus for teaching freshman composition in the spring. We had a reading and short response due that first class. Somehow (and I still haven't figured out how) I read the wrong book! I'd like to point out that I spend quite some time ensuring I read the assigned chapters quite thoroughly and writing a detailed response. I didn't want to start this program off with some of the reading (read: skimming) skills I had honed in the course of my undergraduate degree. Sadly, I discovered in the first few moments of class when everyone else pulled out a different text that I had been mistaken. Thus, I borrowed someone's copy and skimmed before I was able to participate in the discussion. I explained the mistake to the professor and she just smiled and said no worries. Thankfully! Although it was a rather upsetting start to the day, I took a deep breath and moved on.

On Mondays I have this horrendous 5 hour break between my first class of the morning and two later afternoon/evening courses. I decided to stay on campus during it (which I later regretted) in order to be productive rather than going home and napping (which is what I really should have done). I went and ate in the Squires Student Center which has a Sbarro pizza place and an Au Bon Pain (kinda like Panera Bread) place. It's crazy expensive though, so I foresee packing my lunch for the most part. I later wandered halls of my department building to get familiar. I discovered one staircase takes you directly to the 3rd floor, don't pass Go, don't collect $100. Since my office is on the 2nd floor, I shall stay away from this staircase. I even later felt super important as I directed a young freshman girl to a correct staircase which would take her to the 2nd floor and comforted her with the knowledge that even I had initially made that mistake.

I spent quite a bit of time goofing around on the internet and with my fellow students that afternoon. It was rather boring to spend so much time in my office. But my 4pm class finally rolled around. This one was Critical Theory. It's one of the handful required for first year English MA students. It seems like it will be a pretty decent course. Theory is always tough stuff to get through since so much of it is just this dense, complicated, stuff. But the professor is really laid back and he makes the class enjoyable. I had this class again today and we sat around talking about how to justify our existence in the field of English for most of the class. Why do people study English and why should they continue to? We tendered a few answers but didn't come up with anything we thought would convince the university to give us more funding.

My class after that at 6pm is one that is just Monday nights and it ran until 9pm. This course is called Contemporary Pedagody (pedagogy being the study of teaching and consequently learning). This is another one required for all English first year GTA students. It is also part of a certificate program we can earn in addition to our MA which is called "The Future Professoriate" certificate. This is my largest class since it has students from all disciplines (although the English dept is the only one that requires it of their GTAs, anyone else takes it just from interest). The professor to this class is a hoot. She was one of the presenters during the workshop last week and I loved her there. So I'm hoping our class is going to be good. Although by the end of class Monday I was already exhausted considering I left the house at 7am and did not return until 9:30pm that night. I ate dinner and did some reading and finally gave up and crawled into bed by 10:30pm, an early evening compared to the summer!

Tuesday was a lighter load of classes with only two, and the first doesn't start until 11am. Although I again arrived a good 2 hours ahead of time on campus. Thankfully so, since it took me nearly an hour to find a parking space. I spent the rest of the time doing some required reading for the class meetings I had that day as well as catching up on the reading I needed to do for the previous morning's Practicum class which I had done wrongly. The 11am course is Genre Studies, for this semester the subject is the Essay. This was the one and only elective course I was allowed to take this semester. Everything else is a requirement of one kind or another. The professor for this Essay class is the kind I enjoy the most. He's personable and he really cares about his students, but he sets the bar extremely high in terms of what he expects from us and the sheer workload we'll have going on. We have to write 2,000 words (at least) to bring to class each time it meets (thankfully just once a week) on the reading that we did for that day (usually about 50 pages). We'll be learning a bit of the history of the essay and how it has developed along with some contemporary essayists, and composing two of our own essays. It's sort of a creative writing class in the sense that there will be workshops for our essays in class. I'm excited about that portion of it. I'm a bit intimidated by the workload though, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

The second class on Tuesdays (and the only course I have Thursdays) is Literary Research. This course covers a history of English and American literature as well as works with ways of researching. We'll have to write a lengthy research paper for this course as well as do several projects on the research process, but the professor said he wants us to use this class to start work on our areas of interest for our thesis. Apparently most students end up using this preliminary research in their final project and thesis. This course goes hand in hand with another one we're enrolled in that I have on Wednesdays at 12:30, Library Research. The librarian who runs that is really nice and knows EVERYTHING about the library. This course is just for first year English graduate students. She'll be helping us conduct our research for the Literary Research class, as well as figure out how to navigate the library as a grad student, where to go, and how to get into our thesis topics.

So that's my six classes. Other than that, I've just been running around trying to get unpacked and organized. The weather has been dismal the past two days. It poured down rain all morning and is FREEZING! Granted, it's above 60 degrees outside, so it's just my thin Florida blood trying to cope. But I had a sweatshirt and a coat and was still cold. I also spent half the day soaking wet which didn't help. I did get the chance to sit in my office and put my shoes on my heater to try and dry them out in between classes. I was almost tempted to put my pants on there too, but didn't feel confident my officemate wasn't going to walk in and be weirded out. Besides, we have a window that looks out into the atrium of the building and people could see in if they really wanted to. I don't want to start a reputation as the GTA without pants on in her office.

Okay, well that's all I have the energy for tonight. Many thanks to those of you who stayed with me this long. This post turned out to be a novel in the making. Much love to you all!

a new adventure

Well this one might not involve a foreign language, but I'm in a new place again and starting a new school again. It's kind of like being back in Bonn, but I understand everyone! :) I just finished up my Teaching Assistantship orientation workshop stuff for the week. It's been pretty boring, although there were some pretty good tips about teaching and how to connect with students. I never realized the syllabus was such an important piece of paper... I now have more respect for my professors, it's an intense job to get ready to teach a class. All I have to do as a student is show up. But I'm really excited about class starting. I've had the chance to socialize a bit, but this orientation had close to 600 people in it, so hard to make any lasting acquaintances. However, I did manage to sit down in the middle of a group of chemistry PhD students, and once they found out I was an English major they asked me what every other word in the presentation meant. (For example, pedagogy, and ombudsperson.)

Tomorrow I will be moving into my apartment in Foxridge. Well, my second apartment. The one I was originally going to move into turned out to be a dump. The place was pretty gross and there was an outstanding balance on the previous lease of the apartment, so I was unable to sign a new lease with the remaining girls living there. So that was sad. I moved all my furniture in only to move out a few days later. But now I've found an apartment with a fellow grad student, a 24yr old female, Becky, who is a vet student. We have a 2 bedroom place. I've already met her parents and they seem like really nice people. She seems to want the same exact stuff I do from a roommate, so I'm thinking it's going to work out great.

Friday I have my English Department orientation stuff, so I will be able to report on meeting my fellow English MA students and GTAs. That's the day I'm most looking forward to. We'll all have most of the same classes this first semester, so I'm thinking this will most likely be my core group of friends. I went today and filled out my tax paperwork and had my picture taken for the department website. The building just happens to be in the middle of the ROTC dorms and buildings, so as I was walking to and from, there were plenty of uniformed ROTC members marching drills on the lawn in all directions. We'll see how that goes!

I've quite enjoyed living with Uncle Steve, Tucker, and Dusty this past week or so. I got to send Dusty off to his first day of high school today. And we get to pack Tucker up and help him move into college this weekend. I'm pretty excited, I loved moving in as a college freshman. It's like the whole world is open to you and lying at your feet. And you get lots of free t-shirts.

Well I'm headed for bed. I've had to wake up at 6am for the past two days! And I'll do it again tomorrow to pack Dusty a lunch and send him off to school for his second day! :) I love school...

Update on Life

Well....not sure if anyone ever checks this anymore, but here's the update on what I'm up to. I've been working at Victoria's Secret in Jacksonville ever since I got back from Germany (or around there). I found an apartment here through Craigslist with two nice girls. Michala and her roommates aren't all that far away, although our schedules tend to be so totally opposite that I haven't been able to see them as much as I had thought when I initially moved up here. And that's pretty much been life.

I graduated (well walked across the stage anyway) from UCF the first weekend in May. That was not quite as life-changing as I had thought it would be, but it feels good to be done. Not having to do homework is an odd feeling. I sit around every evening thinking, man did I get my homework done yet? The actual paper stating that I've earned my degree has been a whole other story. When my credits transferred back from Bonn to UF (since I did the semester exchange through them and not UCF) somehow my Poetic Identities class showed up as an Incomplete rather than an Audit. Turns out Germany records an Audit as a class with "No Grade" which somehow translated into Incomplete. Since the state cannot award a degree when the transcript reflects an incomplete anywhere, I've had to wait until Summer semester to have my degree awarded. Unfortunately I had to enroll in this pointless class simply to fulfill the requirement that a student has to be enrolled in credits in the term of graduation (stupid rule that gets them $100 in pointless credit fees). However, my transcript from UF was just updated today so I should be on my way to no longer having any issues with getting my degree. I'm skeptical though, there's always issues, especially when it comes to the bureaucracies of universities.

In other news, I decided to accept Virginia Tech's offer of a teaching assistantship that will pay for me to go there for my Masters degree. I move up there the beginning of August into a complex called Foxridge. I'm a little worried about the workload I might have because I have to take 18 credit hours my first semester. Apparently there's some rule that GTA's (Graduate Teaching Assistants) have to have taken 18 hours before they can teach, and in an effort to let us teach in our second semester rather than having to wait for our second year. I guess we'll just see how it goes.

So that's my life right now. I'm missing Germany, but I'm looking into options for teaching over there when I get done with my Masters or more immediately maybe an internship next summer.

Prague...an adventure

So I went to Prague this past Sunday through Wednesday, and it's been one of my favorite cities so far! I love the streets and the buildings, and the castle is beautiful. Since it had minimal destruction during the World Wars, all of the original buildings are still standing and the streets are mostly still cobblestone, very cool. We got in Sunday afternoon and by the time we got checked into our hostel is was just about dinner time. We got directions to a good pizza place down the street from the guy at the hostel desk, but unfortunately never found it. However, we did find this amazing Tex Mex place called something like Billy Bob's. And they surprisingly had great food! So for all of use who hadn't seen American(ish) food in months, it was great. We also visited the Irish pub that is advertised all over the city, but it's not as great as you might think given all the hype.

The next day we walked EVERYWHERE. We went into this one natural history-type museum that I couldn't spell the name of much less pronounce. But they had an interesting exhibition about feet and shoes. They had shoes from first known civilizations to today, including a boot from Shaq. After they we wandered around the city, over to the Charles bridge, and then up the massive mountain that the castle stands on. Everyone else tried to convince me it was only a hill and that I had no room to talk because I was from Florida, but I swear it was a mountain.

That night we found a tasty Czech restaurant to eat at. I had some kind of bread dumpling things and pork steak with a creamy sauce that was delicious. They even put cranberries and whipped cream on it! We also sampled some Czech beer which I thought was good. I had no idea that Budweiser came from the Czech Republic! I looked at the sign and though, what are they doing importing American beer here when there's is so much better?? Silly me. Apparently there's a city called Budweis in the Czech Republic where it comes from. Go figure.

On our third day we visited a couple of other museums, one of them this kind of cool torture museum. Normally I'm a bit squeamish about that kind of thing, but this was more informative and interesting than about people getting mashed up. They had a decent amount of history along with it. Other exciting things included attempting to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the Czech version. Couldn't really understand it, but it was amusing. Also watched The X Factor which is like American Idol a bit. It made me feel better that people in other countries also look like idiots on their respective national televisions. It's not just Americans.

In other news, I packed one of my suitcases today. I have to be all packed up by Monday morning so I can have my room inspection, and then I leave first thing Tuesday morning. I can't believe almost six months has flown by!!!

Koelle Alaaaaf!

Well this past weekend was the culmination of Karneval the peak of celebrating in the Rheinland, and it was a whole lot of fun! It kicked off Thursday with Weiberfastnacht where the tradition of women storming the city hall and cutting off all the men's ties was carried out. Then there was much partying in the streets (I was home doing homework). The celebrating carried on throughout the weekend. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing people dressed up in crazy costumes running around. I sat next to a guy dressed up like a huge chicken on the bus, felt like I was commuting with Big Bird.

Then Monday, which is called Rosenmontag, was the largest parade and party of all. I travelled to Cologne with a handful of friends to go watch the parade. We had to leave hours ahead of time to get a train there and waited an hour and a half or more in our spot before the parade started, but it was all necessary in order to be standing at the front of the crowds! We were all dressed up, of course. I took an 80s theme with leggings under a miniskirt, legwarmers, and the neck cut out of a sweatshirt, then topped it all off with a side ponytail. If nothing else, I looked quite silly which was all that was required to fit in! Some other great costumes displayed by my friends were Kermit the Frog, a giant flower complete with petals that detached via Velcro and said He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not on them (adorable!), a giant broccoli (my favorite), and a pair of Bavarian twins in appropriate Dirndl attire. The funniest part was that Sophie was one of the girls wearing a Dirndl, and she is actually a German girl from Bavaria...so it was fitting.

Sadly the weekend was not a respite from homework. I am currently working on two papers, one for an online class in Literature of the South examining the role of upper-class men in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and how they are incapable of fulfilling their women. Another is for my 19th Cent. American Poets class here in Germany comparing the styles of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

The fun part though, is that I'm going to Prague! Whoooo! I leave Sunday the 10th and return Wednesday the 13th. We found an incredible deal with Easy Jet airline and a cool looking hostel so that all travel and lodging expenses for the trip are only about 50 Euro.

Other than that, I took my first step in going home today. I had to fill out paperwork to un-register myself from the city of Bonn. (I swear unregister is a word in German, I have no clue what the English equivalent would be.) I figure I need to start packing by the end of the week since I need to have a room inspection only a day or two after I get home from Prague in order to fulfill move-out duties of my dorm. I leave on a Tuesday quite early so Monday is the last administrative day and my dorm admin don't like Mondays. Hence why I have to do the above on Thursday or Friday beforehand. I don't have to be entirely packed up, but they recommended I have all of my things off the walls and most of my things out of the desk/wardrobe. We'll see how that's going to work...

Okay much love to all! I'll be home just two weeks from today!


Check out the new picture album!

An Update on Life

Well nothing too exciting has been going on here. In fact I spend a large majority of my time doing homework these days. No travel plans in the immediate future. I had been contemplating a trip to Scotland or London or both, but it's looking like that'll be a bit too expensive to handle for right now. My feeling at first was that I had to travel a million places before I went home, but now I'm thinking this isn't necessarily going to be my last time in Europe, so I don't need to cram it all in right now. All of the graduate programs I've applied to have graduate semester abroad opportunities in places like London for English study. And I'm still considering applying to grad school here in Bonn if grad school back home falls through. So we'll see. Just another 3 1/2 weeks before I'm home for good!

down to the wire

Well Christmas break was lovely, I got to spend some time with my family and friends, and spend a whole two weeks not speaking German (for which I am paying now...haha). But I am now back in Bonn and set to get started on a new semester of classes online through UCF and finish up my classes here in Bonn. There's a good chance I've bitten off more than I can chew with being enrolled in 21 credit hours total with both the Bonn and UCF classes...but it's only for the next 6 weeks. So I'm hoping I can just knuckle down (or whatever it is that Dad always says) and get it done. I'm still working on adjusting to the time change. I slept too much yesterday and was up until 6am this morning, then finally fell asleep until almost 2pm this afternoon. Good thing my class at 10am was cancelled! But tomorrow morning classes resume as normal at 9am so I better be ready.

Travel interests for my last six weeks include Amsterdam, Vienna, London, Prague, and anywhere really in Italy. Not sure how much time and money I will have to devote towards these goals. I'm hoping to make 3 of them come true. Not sure which 3 yet, but I'll keep you all posted. Okay well I better start on the massive amounts of homework I need to get done by Friday... much love to all!