So... Munich is cold.

I know everywhere is so don't bother telling me... It's depressingly cold though because there's no desire to leave the (relative) warmth of your room to go do something in Munich. Even going out on weekends becomes a debate of "is it worth it???"

I can't wait till spring...

Anyway, life is back to normal in Munich. I've been here a full week. Classes started again. Semester is wrapping to a close... we have three full weeks left until the lectures end and the finals start. Here's the final overview for me:

My Economic History of the New World's final is on Feb 12th and requires me to write two essays on course themes in an hour.

My Biology final is on Feb 13th. It's 90 minutes.

Linear Algebra is on Feb 16th. No idea how long it is yet...

My Religion Sociology class requires me to write a "Hausarbeit" which is a maximum 15 page essay (with outline, sources and appendix) over the topic of our presentation. We have all break to do it... it's due in April.

Basic Sociology... I'm actually not sure about this one. At the beginning she said we'd write a 5 page paper and present an article one day. We're presenting the articles in the next two weeks but she hasn't mentioned the paper since... so maybe it doesn't exist?

German has no final. The grade was my presentation, which I did back in November, so as long as I show up for the next three weeks, I'll be just fine.


Anyway, other than that... not much planned for the next few weeks. People are freaking out about finals and the weather is cold, which limits planning.

I am trying to put together a trip to Amsterdam the weekend after next... will update if that works out. Also hoping to get down to Hall, Austria one more time before I go home again. We're planning on a ski weekend! Then come finals... and then in the week after finals and before I go back, I'm hoping to get a little more traveling. There's a potential trip to Cologne, which may become a trip to Prag or a trip to Venice/Milan. We'll see!

Short post, so I'll tag on the most recent "differences" I've come across.
I mentioned these first three when I was in Austria... but it's the same in Germany it turns out.

1. Looseleaf doesn't really exist here. Well... it does, but not quite like we have it. And students dont' take notes on looseleaf. They take them on graph paper. No matter what the class is. I always feel semi-self conscious pulling out my 70 page college-ruled notebooks from the US. I bought some proper graph paper notebooks for linear algebra and bio so I'd fit in.

2. Chalkboard erasing. They don't erase. They wash. Once the board is full, they take a sponge-like on a stick and wet the entire board with it (like the things for your windshield at the gas station). At this point the board is dripping wet. Then they take a squeegee (proper title? the back of the thing you use at the gas station to dry your windshield?) Then then go across the board with the squeegee and dry the board (catching the water with the sponge thing) so that the chalk shows up. (chalk will not show up on wet board...) I was helping my partner wash the board before our religion sociology presentation and I commented that we didn't do it like this. She asked how we did it. I explained we simply wiped it. That seemed inefficient, she said, as that left the board white so you couldn't see what had been written over it... this is very true. Why haven't we come up with the German concept? Granted all their rooms have sinks in them so you can wet the sponge... so there is a bit of a design problem there, but it makes a lot more sense.

3. Frische Luft. For those of you who didn't feel like translating that, "fresh air". Germans are in love with it. They feel that if the windows of a room are closed too long it gets really stuffy and is really bad for your health. Thus, they air their rooms out. Yes, even when it is 3 degrees outside, our German teacher insists we open the windows for 15 minutes when we enter the class room so we can get some "frische Luft". This concept follows me everywhere. It's somewhere between amusing and annoying. They swear by it though.

4. "Clapping". You don't clap to show appreciation. You bang your knuckles against the desk (this is in more of an informal setting). If that didn't make sense, you basically make a fist and "clap" the desk. The weirdest part of this to me, is that they "applaud" like this at the end of every lecture. Without fail... like you're applauding the professor. Which is a nice concept. They'll also do it in the middle of lecture if the professor says something they like "this won't be on the test" or makes a joke they appreciate.


Anyway, that's all for now. Back to studying for bio... more later!