One "Semester" Down...

The semester officially ended on Friday the 6th. Granted I have three exams and a 15 page paper still coming up, but the semester is in school terms over. And now I'm going to take a study break to give a quick update of what I've been up to for the last two weeks or so (since Amsterdam).

Okay, so the Monday after I got back was the last Stammtisch of the semester (that's the TUMi biweekly gathering that we cooked for). The rest of the week was a lot of preparing... for my Referat on Thursday for Sociology! Basically we (the class of 4) had been given four texts and told to divide them up and then present the topics to the class. I ended up with "Gender Roles in Society". I put together a 30 page powerpoint and had 90 minutes to present (two people presented each day, and this is the 3 hour block class every other week). Well, I was a little nervous about this obviously because I wanted those slides to have grammatically correct German on them and I wanted to know what I was talking about enough to fill 90 minutes... and of course it went just fine. There was a lot of discussion about the topic within the group and I had ample material to cover the time and even go slightly over. At the end she told us she was going to give everyone a "1-scale", so either a 1,0, 1,3, or 1,6 (i guess it's kinda like A+/A/A-?) not becasue she didn't want to give us all 1,0's but because that looks suspicious. After class she told me I was getting a 1,3 and she would have loved to have given me a 1,0, but I (of course) don't participate quite as much as the other three and she knows that that's becasue of the language barrier. Sadly, this is the grade that's getting combined with another class- my Religion Sociology class... the one I have a 15 page paper due for. So hoping I can pull off a 1 something on that paper too!

Anyway, that made my day. That night was the finale of the Comedy going on in the cafe. I hadn't been planning on working but they were in need of people since most people were pulling out because of finals. So I decided to go. Turned out to be a lot of fun. The comedy was great. I understood most of it. That's always a plus since a lot of them had been speaking a pretty strong dialect.

Friday was a study day. Saturday morning I took a train down to Hall. Hung out with them on Saturday and then Sunday Lisa and I went skiing. Well, she went snowboarding. I, of course, have not been on skiis since I last was in Austria... about three years ago. So I put skiis on and Lisa says, "Let's just go straight up to the top. You don't need the practice hill"... well, once would have been nice.... but then we were on the lift. Of course the steepest part of the hill was the top drop. But I survived. The first time down took about 45 minutes... the last time down I made it in 10. That was an accomplishment. Of course I got my share of homecooked meals... and two of my favorites! Spätzle and Knödel.

As for this week... Monday was uneventful. Recovery from sore muscles from skiing. Tuesday was Strike Day! The Subways/Buses/Trams decided to strike from 4 am to 3:30 pm. They told everyone a week in advance. Of course this was great for all the students (a fair amount apparently) who had exams on Tuesday and couldn't just skip class. I would have except two professors had told us to make sure we made it because it was the last week and was important. Thus I woke up an hour early, layered up, and walked the 45 minutes to class. On the bright side it was a very pretty area. I found out I face the opposite direction I thought I did... I was apparently very directionally confused up until now. The other bright side of Tuesday is that I decided to go to the LMU class I've been randomly attending since a couple of weeks into the semester. I had originally bee interested after it was recommended to me by Erika, my "mentor" here, I guess. The title translates to "What is good German? What is correct German?" and basically is a German grammar class that leads to him informing us at leat half a dozen times per class that this example is yet another reason German is so hard for non-native speakers... because even though this is technically incorrect, it's very commonly used. And even though this doesn't follow any of the rules, it's right. It's sometimes very interesting and sometimes very depressing. But anyway, it only meets an hour per week so I figured there was no point tryign to get credit for it... and then the last day he asked if anyone needed a grade for the class. I wandered up with the large mass of people to see what was going on... and the class is 2 SWS (so 1 credit in the US system) and he was giving everyone a 1,0 for the class and signing the sheets. I figured I might as well grab one... of course it doens't do anything for my graduation requirements, but it is a full 1 credit hour of A that will indeed factor into my GPA. :) I'm gonna need those, I think!

Anyway, so Tuesday night, Nicole and Amelia from New Zealand and I went out to dinner at a place Nicole and I had gone to our first week here. Wednesday was my last real day of class, followed by my last real day of dance (hence forth for semester break it's a "free training" two hour period you are invited to if you so choose), followed by a celebration of Ben's, the other one from New Zealand, birthday. Thursday I only had a review session for Econ. That was a big relief. He told us the topics of the questions (14 topics... there will be 14 questions). We have to choose two and write an essay on them. We have an hour. AP style essay writing... but the bright side is you only have to actually know 2 topics, which is good since I haven't been paying all that much attention in class since I started out thinking I only had to write a term paper on a topic of my choice and found out later I had to take the exam. I figure I'll study three areas to be safe. :)

Thursday night was a karoke night at the cafe. It was the last night it was opened this semester so it was kinda just a big party. It was a lot of fun. Most of the people I've met working there were there and I met some new people as well. Friday was more studying, followed by meeting a group of the architechts for dinner and hanging out in a cafe for a bit. Afterwards I went to the End of the Semester Exchange Student Party at the disco across from me. Very convienently located. That was also a lot of fun as I saw a lot of people I knew. Tonight is actually Nicole's going away dinner as she leaves Monday. I'm actually heading out to that in about 10 minutes so I guess I'll stop here.

First exam is Thursday from 2-3 (Econ)
Second is Friday from 11-12:30 (Bio)
Third is Monday from 9:15-10:45 (Linear)

Wish me luck!