New video!

Hello!

I'm back in Mainz (ski trip was canceled due to sickness, but now we have lots of time to catch up on work and relaxation here!) and just finished a video about my everyday student life here. I've been working on it for a while and am very proud of the result. Go and have a look!

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Please listen to this song.

Movie Reviews!

Alright. I've been thoroughly enjoying my first few days of vacation. After a long, looong time, I finally feel healthy again - I visited the doctor in Mainz the day before we left for break and got some antibiotics against my sinus infection/vicious cold. I think the combination of sleeping more than 6 hours a night and not having to walk around the campus in the rain made these antibiotics much more effective than the ones I took a week and a half ago, and praise goodness, I feel so much better now! I'm done with being sick. Yaaaay!

Along with copying old homework assignments and making long lists of theorems, lemmas, and corollaries for all of my classes, I've also got down to some serious movie watching since break began. The second night we were here, C and her mother and I all sat down to watch the Muppets Christmas Carol. It was the second time I've seen that movie, and I really think I need to start watching it every Christmas. :)

The day after that, C and I snuggled into our bed rather late at night and watched The Fugitive, which I had never seen. To be honest, the only connection I had with the movie is that in an episode of Scrubs, my favorite TV show, one of the characters finds out that another character (The Janitor :D ) was in The Fugitive. He's only in the movie for about thirty seconds (very close to the end) as a policeman who gets shot and dies, but still! I wanted to watch the movie for those thirty seconds, but then, of course, I got hooked! I thought it was a really well made, fantastically understated movie. Definitely a lot of fun!

Then, two days ago, Claudia and I decided to drive to a nearby city here and treat ourselves to a double feature - Jane Eyre and (I know how weird this sounds) Carnage. Now, I think Jane Eyre is a rather well known book to the audience of this blog, so I won't say too much about it. I was impressed with that film as well - impressed that it didn't fall into the nice, all organized and pretty box we have lately for films like Pride and Prejudice. It was also understated and intuitive and engaging - way more than I had expected. The story itself isn't as much of a "happy ending" story as Pride and Prejudice and I haven't read it recently enough to be able to compare it critically to the movie, but from my non-expert point of view, it was well done.

Now to the last movie - Carnage. In German, the movie was called "Der Gott des Gemetzels", but it had nothing to do with Carnage or Gemetzel! The movie premise is thus: two boys are arguing with each other at a playground, one shoves the other, the other shoves back, one insults the other, the other responds by hitting him with a stick that he had in his hand. Now, the parents of each of those boys decide they need to meet and discuss what happened and whether their sons need to apologize, etc. The cast: parents of the boy who was hit with the stick: Jodi Foster and John C. Reilly (you may remember him as Mr. Cellophane in Chicago) - she's an author and very much into art, he's a household supplies salesman. The parents of the boy who hit the other: Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet - the lawyer (currently trying to deny charges about a faulty drug from a pharmaceutical company) and the investment banker.

That's the entire cast. What starts as the most uncomfortable and tense cup of coffee in the world at the beginning of the film eventually dissolves into name calling, swearing, destroying cell phones, and all other kinds of childish behavior as their own issues with themselves, their husbands/wives come rocketing to the surface. About 40% of the time, I wanted to leave the theater because it was so uncomfortable with all the tension, and the rest of the rest of the time I thought the movie was absolutely brilliant. Definitely worth seeing.

I'm gonna go back to enjoying my vacation now. See you all again soon!

For you English-only people, this last one says: "Well, that's not a good sign!!" :)

Zoo Pictures

Frankfurt Zoo

So, last weekend, the lovely Josi came to visit Claudia and me in Mainz, and on Saturday when Claudia had to go to one of her classes in Germersheim (Haahaa...) Josi and I went the other direction to Frankfurt and spent a lovely morning and early afternoon at the zoo, and then found a French Bakery for lunch!

I wouldn't call myself a zoo-connoisseur, but I have been to my fair share of them (Pittsburgh, Oakland, San Diego) and so has Josi. The zoo in Frankfurt didn't look like much on the outside, but it had lots of really neat exhibits inside buildings. The coolest thing that we found right at the beginning was the "Night House" , or a building where on the inside, they kept it completely dark except for lighted plaques on the walls which told what animals were inside the exhibits. The building had an amazing collection of nocturnal animals that you would normally not be able to see in a zoo. Certain parts of the building had big clocks that told you what time it supposedly was for the animals that were in there -- it was really neat!

But I actually skipped the first thing we saw -- we were rounding a corner and trying to find out exactly which direction to go when in front of us, in the middle of the lovely fall foliage and in front of the Frankfurt skyline, there was a lion! He did some fantastic posing for us and then went back into the building (probably to sleep), but it was a great start to our day!

We also saw some amazing desert lizards, an impatient rhino, a massive hedgehog, adorable miniature monkeys, an entire otter family, and some very calm camels a the end of our visit. Pictures will follow!

They both hugged me!

So, C and I just arrived back at her parents' home in Ostfriesland in northwestern Germany. Last night was a fabulous dinner with two of our friends from the Mainz area (and I was praised to no end for some twice-cooked sting beans (with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, scallions, etc. -Thank you for the recipe, D!) and some Thai-Lemon Chicken (though I didn't make that marinade. :) ) and we all sat around and had a fantastic time with the two and watched Tim Minchin videos on youtube. Dessert was vanilla ice cream with raspberries. Awesome.

Anyways, last night is relevant because we were having such a fun time, we completely avoided packing our suitcases for this trip. So, with our 8:20 train from Mainz this morning, it was a bit rushed! Still, we made it to the train station in time, I slept quite a bit during the journey, and ten minutes ago we arrived at C's parents' house.

And as I walked in the door, I got two hugs - two actual hugs - from her two younger brothers. Oh my goodness, it made me so happy! I think I was kind of a scary-not-part-of-the-family person who only showed up maybe once a year and speaks a strange language, but apparently, I'm not so scary anymore. :D I'm so happy!

I'm watching Claudia help the older of her two younger brothers to play songs on the recorder. It's so sweet to see them working together, and in a few minutes, we're going to walk next door to her grandfather's birthday party. So far, pretty great day!

I need at least one more pair of arms and legs - and possibly another head!

Ah!

I can't shave my legs and do my programming homework at the same time.

I can't watch Lost with C and go running at the same time.

I can't be in one of my lectures and do my homework for that lecture. (well... :D)

And going to the store, writing Christmas cards, going rock climbing, practicing juggling and eating meals can't happen gleichzeitig either!

The worst part of it all is that now the people I'm getting to know here keep inviting me to do things with them outside of homework. !!! How can I find the time??

You might be wondering: If I don't have time for all the stuff I actually NEED to do, why do I have the time to write a blog entry?

Good question.

I don't!

See you later!

Concert and all-around fantastic weekend!

Hey!

The people up there are the ones Claudia and I went to see in concert in Frankfurt! The band is called 'Dota und die Stadtpiraten' (Dota and the City Pirates) and we saw them in a really fun bar in downtown Frankfurt on Friday. After a wonderfully fancy and amazingly authentic meal at a Thai restaurant (:D) we headed over to the bar and then got to hear this woman and her band perform. I posted a link to one of her songs on youtube here a while back. If you didn't listen to it, then - I suggest you look her up on youtube! The band plays lots of kinds of songs- some very jazzy, some more in the reggae direction, and I think on their newest album they went more in the rock direction. It was just fantastic!

After the concert, C and I walked around the city a bit and checked out all the enormous, important buildings there. It really is a business city. It made me feel like Mainz was a tiny village in the country in comparison! Still, somehow walking around in it made me feel important, too. :) We were in a jungle of huge buildings with hundreds of offices and as we were standing next to a particularly imposing one, we saw a glass elevator gliding down the outside of the building, lit up on the inside but it was night outside -- so cool!

Then we got back and proceeded to ignore lots of stuff we need to do and continue instead to feed our addiction to the show Lost. We're in the last season - four episodes left! If you haven't watched the show, you probably think I'm crazy, but hey - it was a fun way to spend a weekend and I actually don't think we got too behind at work.

Class is gonna be over soon and then I've got to go pick up some packages from the post office, run to the grocery store, and then attack the Christmas Card demon once again. Wish me luck!

Writing Christmas cards..

Hello!

So, I spent some quality time with my new complex analysis book. I'm not sure if the two of us will be best friends, but -- certainly more likely than me being best friends with my Stochastics TA! I know I left that story sort of hanging earlier, and I won't go into much detail now. Basically, I find him arrogant, intimidating, and really not adept at teaching. And rather petty. But who knows what I would think of him if were better at Stochastics. :P

I think that blogs make it very easy to let go of the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" rule that we all learned as kids. Sure, ranting is really fun and sometimes rather important, but I don't think I'll spout my venom about that workshop here. Especially because now, I'm over it! If I write about it, it'll just come back!

Right now I'm flopped on the couch and trying to convince myself to write some Christmas cards. It's not that I don't want to write them or don't want to be in contact with the people to whom I will send the cards -- it's just that I would so much rather sit down with them and have a cup of coffee, show them around the apartment and the city - or just hug them (a lot of them I haven't seen in four months or more) - and because of that, it's so hard for me to bring myself to write a tiny card. But alas, I want to send something! And I do miss the people, and want to hear from them, so -- los geht's!

(Note: It's becoming harder and harder to think in English. Really.)

(Note 2: I'm gonna have serious German language withdrawal back in California. Help.)

A cozy afternoon...

My girl is in Germersheim until tomorrow, and I made it through Stochastics lecture and workshop today, went to the library, and trudged all the way up the five flights of stairs with my overflowing backpack today with one thought sustaining me:

I now get to sit in a big comfy chair, a hot water bottle for my back (stupid backpack), a cup of tea (or coffee- haven't decided yet), and two math books IN ENGLISH that I found in the Math library today. Did I suddenly turn 60 overnight? Perhaps. Does that make this any less blissful? No. :)

Heads up - I may write later ranting about my Stochastics TA. I have to wait a few more hours before I write that, though, or I'll just end up punching the keyboard.

But other than that, it's a beautiful day, and I'm gonna go flirt with some integrals now! Ciao!

!

This is hilarious.

One of the best things about my generation:

Hey.

Writing this message is part of a long series of procrastination attempts, but let's ignore that for a second.

I'm writing right now because today I have just been overpowered by the initiative and creativity of my generation, specifically the Nerdfighteria movement. Some of the people who read this are already familiar with Nerdfighters and are smiling right now as they read it -- others have never heard of it and think it sounds pretty darn silly. Let me give you a brief background of Nerdfighteria and then I can tell you the specifics of it that have so impressed me today.

A while ago, two brothers named Hank and John Green started a youtube channel called 'vlogbrothers' and made videos three times a week, addressed to one another. They talked about all sorts of things from music to video games to strife in other countries or relevant pieces of the news. These days, a community has grown around their videos. It's often referred to as 'Nerdfighteria', and its fans refer to themselves as 'Nerdfighters' and use the motto/slogan "DFTBA" meaning: Don't Forget To Be Awesome. John is an author and has written more than three novels, and Hank is an entrepreneur and founder of organizations such as EcoGeek.org and DFTBA records, a music producing company that has allowed many youtube musicians who otherwise don't have the means to get record deals be able to produce their own music.

One of the most recent interests of the Nerdfighters has been the website Kiva. This website enables people who are NOT investment bankers or large corporations to loan small amounts of money to people around the world who are trying to start/better their businesses. The Vlogbrothers mentioned this website in their videos a short while ago and encouraged their viewers to go and join the Nerdfighter group on Kiva. Since those videos went up a few weeks ago, the Nerdfighter group on Kiva has collectively loaned more than $110,000.

I went to Kiva myself today and loaned money to a man in Tajikistan who is trying to buy a milking cow. And I thought about all of the other Nerdfighters my age around the world who have joined this movement, and I was so proud to be a part of them. I often have rather grumpy thoughts about my generation (or at least the stereotypes of it) and was so overjoyed today, I thought I would share that with you.

I realize this entry is a bit more of a public service announcement than most of what I write here is, but I really think that this is something non-Nerdfighters should hear.

I'm going to get back to Complex Analysis, but in comments, please let me know what you think. Nerdfighter readers (:D), let me know if you've gone to Kiva!

Have a lovely rest of your Saturday, everyone.

I'm back!

Whew!!

I'm sorry I was gone for so long, but that cold/flu/yuckyness really got me last week. Being sick while you're a student is always hard, because first you suffer from the awfulness of being sick and then after you have to suffer the painful 'catching-up-with-work' process. I actually listened to Claudia and didn't go to class for a few days, and I'm sure that made my sickness much shorter than it would have been if I had just forced myself to go. Luckily, I had someone I could count on in the classes that I missed, I've copied down all the notes that I missed from each one and have been to each of the lectures once since I wasn't there, and it's not completely over my head, so I think I'll be okay!

Just for a class update, let me tell you what's going on in each of them right now. In Complex Analysis, we looked at lots of complicated integrals the week before last and went from there to look at logarithms, etc. Now we're into Laurent Series - a special kind of power series, for you math people out there. Very exciting. Power series make sense to me, so I'm looking forward to this chapter!

In Stochastics, we had a brief (and lovely) interlude for the last four classes in which we talked about the classic probability problems - you have 'n' different balls in a bag, pull out one, write down which one it is and either put it back or don't (two different stochastic models) - what is the probability that a certain number of balls come out in a specific order, etc. [I just got back from juggling class, and as I took my juggling balls one by one out of my bag when I got to the university, all I could think of was the stochastics problem!] I say that this was a lovely interlude because before that, we were talking about extremely abstract kinds of distribution functions and I just didn't have quite a solid enough picture of those kinds of functions in my head to be able to wrap my mind around the problems we were supposed to be doing.

The metaphor I tend to use for that class is: When you read the notes from the lecture or the solutions to the homework problems, it's like reading a language that you can understand, but you do not know how to write. Then, of course, you have to DO the homework problems, which IS writing that language - it's almost like writing poetry in that language! (I'm not saying that the problems are particularly beautiful*, but just that poetry is hard to write and these proofs are pretty damn hard, too!). Afterwards, it all seems so simple, but when you're sitting there with your brain and your pencil, it seems kind of impossible to get right! I think we're diving back into the theory next week, but the last four lectures have made a lot more sense to me than the others, and that's AWESOME.

In computer programming, the main lesson I have learned is this. We have to hand in our homework in groups of four, and I could spend an hour and then some explaining to all of you the fantastic, frustrating, and often hilarious dynamics of my group. BUT - all in all, that is my favorite class right now. In that class, it is very clear to see when you are learning something because you can WRITE A PROGRAM AND MAKE A COMPUTER DO SOMETHING! I'm very, very proud of how much I've figured out so far, and I think it can only get better. I wasn't expecting to like programming this much, but I really do. :) Awesome surprise!

In non-school news, Mainz is coming alive with Christmas now. We have several Christmas markets in the city, including one right on the square in front of the train station, so I see it every time I go to class. :) My juggling is also coming along, and last week I couldn't go to rock climbing (sickness- bah!) but I will go tomorrow and hope I haven't forgotten everything! I don't think I have. ;)

I hope this is a good catch-up for everyone, and I hope all of you are avoiding the colds that are flying around every country at this time of year. Let me know how you're doing and I'll write something here again soon!

:-)

*There are, in fact, many things in math that I find beautiful. Stochastics proofs (so far) are not one of them.

Sick today...

Sick today, but all's well if your girlfriend brings you a teddy bear, a teddy hippo, lots of blankets and a cup of tea. I really need someone to convince me to just stay in bed when I actually am sick, and thank goodness I have C. I will be recuperating today, but I thought the teddy bear and hippo were too cute to be missed, so enjoy.

:-)

Internationaler Abend

A fantastic weekend and pictures to prove it!

Last Friday night, I went to Germersheim for the college's International Evening. I got to hang out with a lot of people that I hadn't seen in ages, and we had dinner together and then went to the party at the university and had an amazing time. There was a band playing, silly pictures were taken, lots of languages were thrown around, and there was yummy food!

It was wonderful to get that chance to relax on Friday since last week was a rather tiring week for me. As a matter of fact, just being a student again seems to be tiring! I guess I had such a long summer vacation this year I kind of got out of the studying rhythm. I'm getting back into it as I write, denying myself a cup of tea until I've worked at least an hour on my computer programming homework.. it's amazing how slow time goes by without tea!

Anyways, our new friend David took during the Friday night shenanigans. I'll put them up in the next post!

In other news, not much is new. I keep putting new dates into my planner for when I'm visiting people or people are visiting me, and the weekends just seem to be getting more and more crowded! The train station has big model Christmas trees next to it now and I'm listening to the first Harry Potter movie soundtrack and thinking about Christmas and making lists of potential presents for people. Now, with all that to do, who would think about computer programming homework?

I've got to run and apply myself now, but you'll get another update soon, and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

A few pictures from Weimar

Josi, you take such wonderful pictures!!! :D

I'm in the middle of a day that started at 8 at the university with Complex Analysis and will end at 8 at the university with rock climbing, and in between, TONS of homework! So unfortunately I can't write much now, but I thought you might like these pictures. :)

I spent six hours in a row in the math building today.

8:00-10:00 Differenzialgleichungen und Funktionentheorie

10:00-12:00 (Homework for the above class)

12:00-14:00 Übung for the above class.

That was a long morning! I walked out of the building just now and wondered at how it was still light out and everything! I felt I'd spent the whole day in there. But some good progress was made!

I'm feeling much more at home on campus now. I know everywhere that I need to go and how to get there (I almost even know which ways are the fastest). Right now, I'm sitting in one of the workrooms upstairs in the library, waiting for my computer programming group to get here so we can do our homework. There's something so thrilling and terrifying about having your own grade on homework be determined by a group... Each group of four people turns in only one assignment. Yikes! I mean, that's also really nice since you don't have to do the entire thing alone (unlike in my other classes!). We'll just see how well we work together!

While I'm waiting for them to show up, I'll just sit here and enjoy some cold water, think about the Thai food I'll be eating tonight (I'm so excited!) and about how I'll get to see Josi tomorrow.

:) I'll put up some pictures from Weimar soon. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday, all!

Hello, everyone!

I realize I haven't posted anything in a few days, but I've been a bit busy with classes and weekend plans, but I wanted to take the time now to check in. In short, I had my second week of classes, though still not a proper week. Starting next week, I will finally have ALL my classes with ALL of the workshops and things that go along with them. This week, I turned in my first two homework assignments and had my first Stochastics workshop, but next week, I will actually have workshops for Programming and Complex Analysis as well. This week, I also had my second rock climbing class and I was AWESOME. I was basically just taking a stroll up and down the walls. It was amazing. I'll try to sneak my camera in there next week!

This week was a bit stressful, to say the least, which is kind of upsetting because I only had a four-day week, since Tuesday was a holiday! But this weekend, some fun things are planned. Today, C and I are going to a friends house for lunch, one of the other Middlebury students. Tonight, there's a fair-like thing going on in a small town near here and we're thinking of going there tonight with one of Claudia's friends and that friend's friends. :) Tomorrow, I will be getting together with a classmate to work on Stochastic homework - that might not sound like some fantastically fun plan, but I am so thrilled to be making a connection with another student that I really am over the moon about it. I hope it goes well.

Another exciting thing - Josi will be coming to visit us briefly next week, and next Friday is the International Evening party in Germersheim, so I will be heading there on Friday evening. Also, a little bit more in the future, Claudia and I have bought tickets for a concert in Frankfurt! A friend of Claudia's gave her some amazing music this week, and we've been listening to it ever since and decided almost immediately to buy tickets for this concert on December 2. I'm thrilled already! Here - have a listen:

Alles Du - Kleingeldprinzessin

English speaking friends, if you want to know what she's singing, just ask me!

Also, lastly, I've posted a picture of my lovely, lovely dog Abby here. Okay, so she's not strictly speaking "MY" dog, but rather my family's, and she's still back in Pennsylvania. She is a terrier mix that we got from the pound, probably around 10 years old by now (or a little older), and she's someone that I've been missing a great deal lately! I hope you all find her as adorable as I do.

Alright, as much as I'd love to keep writing here, I should probably get started on my new homework. I'll check in again soon. :)

Second Mainz Video up!

Go ahead and watch it!

Back from Weimar!

Hey, all!

This weekend was a lot of fun! The four Middlebury exchange students who are studying in Mainz (I'm an honorary Middlebury student now) met up with the fifteen or so exchange students who are studying in Berlin on Friday night in Weimar, and we all had way too much food and stayed up way too late and had a blast. On Saturday, our group leader Heike gave us a tour of the city (for those of you who don't know much about Weimar, among other things, it's the city in which both Goethe and Schiller lived for a time) and in the afternoon we could do whatever we liked in the city (there are a plethora of museums and parks there). That afternoon, though, I hopped on a train for fifteen minutes and went to Jena where Claudia was already waiting with Josi, who lives there! We had a lovely afternoon drinking coffee and eating cake and walking through the botanical garden there where not only do they have massive impressive trees outside and lovely flowers, but also greenhouses with banana trees and cacti (obviously not in the same greenhouse!) and things, and I found that incredible! We sat under a banana tree for a while and I just looked up and remembered Thailand. It was awesome. :)

Then next day, I got together with the two of them again and we walked for a long time through the park in Weimar that follows the Ilm River, where they say you can walk for three hours without taking the same path twice. It was so peaceful and meditative to walk through the crunchy leaves and hear the trickling of the small river and watch the birds overhead. After the stress of the first week, it was purely sublime to walk and just talk with two good friends and let the afternoon drift lazily by. I'm so glad I went!

Josi was again an angel and took lots of pictures of Claudia and I in the park - I won't bore all of you readers by constantly posting pictures of just my girlfriend and me instead of the nice things that we see on our travels, but this time I really was a dork and forgot my camera at home! You'll definitely see some of the pictures (thank you SO much, Josi!) and tomorrow during our day off (hooray for Catholic holidays!), I will put the last touches on the (by now) ancient video about Mainz and get that up on youtube!

(Below is just a picture of me with my new BahnCard that finally came in the mail - this will make future trips with the Deutsche Bahn much nicer! :) )

Minor Breakthrough - Major Happiness

Hey!

Right now, I'm sitting at a table with a bottle of Apfelschorle (friends in the states -- you know how I always mix apple juice and Seltzer water when I get the chance? Here, they do that for you and sell it to you in bottles! Also, they have vanilla coke in almost every vending machine. How cool is that??), a tomato-mozzarella sandwich, and a bag of walnuts. I just had another Analysis class and it went FANTASTICALLY. I mean, there were even moments when I knew what the professor was going to say (in German, mind you!) before she said it. Yes, there were moments where my main thought was just "huh??", but those are things I can look up. I'm just so thrilled right now.

Last night, I also went to the juggling class, and MAN was that fun! Next time, I'll take a camera so you all can see the huge gymnasium area with thirty people standing at various places in side it throwing balls, rings, or pins into the air and all sorts of other craziness! It was fantastic. I'm going to buy myself some juggling materials tomorrow. :)

I actually ought to get to doing some of my homework, but I wanted to just write this little bit. This weekend, I'll be going with the other Middlebury students staying in Mainz and also the ones from Berlin to Weimar. As far as I know, Friday night is mostly just the train ride and then dinner at a restaurant that is so good Middlebury brings the folks there every year, and on Saturday we have a tour of the city and then in the afternoon, I'll be hanging out with Claudia and the lovely Josi, who lives not too far away from Weimar. On the Middlebury group will be going to Buchenwald, and I'm not sure if I'll be going with them. I was there before with my German class from high school, and I'm not sure if I want to go back again. I do think it's an important thing for anyone to do at least once in their life, but - like I said, I'm not sure what I'll be doing.

Right now, I think I'll use some of the AMAZING marker pens from Claudia to write down some translations of my math homework and then maybe get started on that. This day is turning out to be so much better than I expected. And the actual rock climbing class is tonight (I had the date wrong - did I mention that?). And then, Friday!

About Yesterday and Today

Hey.

So, I first wanted to apologize for parts of yesterday's entry. I was quite grumpy when I wrote it, and I don't want any of you reading this to think that I'm having a horrible time! Yesterday I was just hoping and hoping that my second day wasn't going to be like my first one, and it wasn't! After I wrote that entry, I had a fantastic time in class. All the things that were written on the board seemed familiar enough not to be scary but also weren't things that I can do without thinking. It'll be the perfect difficulty level, I think. And I'm really glad.

The other reason I wanted to apologize for yesterday's entry was because I know I have a few people reading whose mother tongue is not English, and quite honestly, yesterday's post was just all over the place grammatically. I'm sorry for any difficulty that caused!

Right now, it's 9:43 and I'm in the classroom that I had such trouble finding on Monday. True, I clearly still have to work on understanding the bus schedule and getting an idea of how long it takes me to walk from the bus stop to the classroom so I don't end up in every classroom half an hour early.

This will be my second Stochastics class. Tomorrow I have Differential Equations and Analysis again (again at 8 - oy. :P), and I'm kind of looking forward to it! But this afternoon, I also have my first Ancient Egypt History course. Right now, I'm more concerned with getting to the classroom on time (my Stochastic professor teaches to the very last minute of the hour, and the next class isn't in this building -- but don't worry, I DO know where the Egypt class is. :) ) than about what will actually happen in the course. If I do like it and decide to take that course, then I'll get the opportunity to write a 10-12 page research paper in German. Oh my goodness. I'll let you know how that goes once it starts!

Tonight, I also have my first JUGGLING CLASS! Yes, they offer Juggling as a sport thing here, and I think at least one of the other Middlebury students (and possibly Claudia, if I can drag her along) will be coming with me to the class tonight. We tried to go to a rock climbing class last night, but I had read the date wrong on the schedule, and it's actually on Thursdays, so tomorrow I'll try again.

I think I'll leave this entry here and go and put my schedule into my new fancy planner that I bought yesterday... Yes, these 'Moleskine' notebooks are incredibly expensive, but they're SO nice... If you didn't know it about me already, I have a real attachment to office supplies. I could spend hours in a stationary store, and you won't believe how much fun I am about to have writing in where my classes are and when in this planner. Oh, and I can't WAIT until tonight when I can go and color code them with the lovely marker-pens that Claudia said she would get for me today!

I'm such a geek, and I love it!

Give Me Something to Sing About

(For those of you who have never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, insert a meaningful line from some music that you like as the title for this post instead. :P)

So, the first week of classes has begun. I'm sitting right now at 7:42 a.m. in a room on the fifth floor of the math building here, waiting for 'Differential Equations and Analysis' to start. Yesterday I had Intro to Stochastic, and Number Theory. Last night, I really just had to align my hopes for this week with the actual events that occurred. It's not that I hoped for good things and no good things happened -- rather I hoped for specific good things (finding the classroom, maybe chatting with some other students, feeling like I fit in the class) and not all of those happened, but there were some good things I hadn't been expecting that did happen (like the lovely CS major who walked me from the building I was in to the proper building for my class even though he had a class starting at the same time - something that would not have happened if I had gone to the correct classroom in the first place!).

In general, the day was good. Stochastic was not particularly thrilling nor was it particularly terrifying, and I will put a check mark in the 'good' column for that. Number Theory was indeed terrifying, but I was expecting not being able to take that course - I'm not quite advanced enough yet. For any of my math friends who are reading this, I really needed to have an Abstract Algebra class behind me to be able to understand that course, and the professor wanted proof (haha) that we'd had that by this Friday, so - yeah. Not quite for me yet, but I look forward to when I will actually be prepared to take a Number Theory course.

Oddly enough, this class that I'm waiting for right now is at the same time as two other potential classes for me, but I decided this would be my best bet. I certainly hope it turns out to be a manageable difficulty level, because - well, I'm counting on it, really. It turns out that even Mills, the college that I do hold very dear, can be a real ass about having courses that weren't taken at Mills count for "a Mills credit" (something I experienced last year - I took an upper-division German course at UC Berkeley ((quite the reputable school!)) and only got .67 of a Mills credit for it because it didn't meet enough hours in the week to count for a Mills credit. HOURS IN THE WEEK that the class meets?? What kind of way is that to judge the worth of a course? I could sleep during every hour of the week that a Mills course meets and it would still count for "a Mills credit"! If you couldn't tell, this business has miffed me just a little.).

In other news, the weather is still nice in Mainz - not actual winter yet by any means. This morning at the bus stop it was cool enough for me to stuff my hands in my pockets and shiver just a bit, but the air still tasted like fall. Last week, I also went out with Claudia and we finally bought me a proper winter coat (which I wasn't wearing this morning - I still feel like I have to "save" it, like if I wear it each day, it'll go away!) and I'm SO happy with it. I'm sure it'll appear in pictures soon.

The classroom is starting to fill up now - yeah, 7:55 is a much more normal time for students to show up than 7:30! I guess we will have class soon. This entry was a bit all over the place, but I wanted to give you a brief update. Now I'm going to dive back into math - wish me luck!

Triumphant at the top of the hill!



Just some crazy whirling birds in the air on our way to get a well-deserved hot chocolate after the climbing excursion. Edinburgh is just an amazingly photogenic place.

Arthur's Seat Pictures!

So, if you've watched my video by now, you know that Erin, Claudia and I had a fun time hiking up Arthur's Seat, the main peak in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. It's more of a hill than a mountain, but we still had an exciting time climbing up the many steps and slopes in the seriously intense Scottish wind!

It was probably the most beautiful day of our trip when we did that walk, and that made for some lovely pictures. I hope you like them! This is the first installment. :)

Catching Up

Hello!

So, there've been a few hectic days here. I'm not quite sure how far back I need to go to explain!

I suppose I'll start with right after we got back from Scotland. During the days after Edinburgh, I began my Orientation Week with the Middlebury people here at the university. It all started rather sheepishly at a bus stop last Monday morning (the bus stop is called Friedrich-von-Pfeiffer-Weg, and for all my German readers, I now think "Pfeiffer mit 3 F!" each time I'm there thanks to Claudia! Finally saw Feuerzangenbowle. Fun film! :) ) with all of the students from Middlebury (and me from Mills) milling around sheepishly at the bus stop, not knowing who within the bustling crowd of students was actually ALSO with Middlebury and who was just on their way to the university. Eventually, we found each other, though, and then everything went well.

As it turns out, there are only three other students here for the Middlebury program. THREE! I thought it was going to be a massive group! But actually, I'm starting to like it being just the four of us in all. I'm also the only girl, which happens to be fun sometimes. Two of the boys are in my year at Middlebury, and the other one is already done with his BA and is now in the program to get his MA at the university. They are all charming and fun to hang out with, as are our tutors. This program is very well designed for incoming foreign students, especially those who are going to have to write lots of papers (Hausarbeiten) while they are here.

We spent the week working together through lots of activities that either helped us understand some of the main cultural differences that might cause us some heartache if we weren't prepared for them this year OR helped us to prepare for our classes. There were role plays (an essential to any Orientation Week), games, cookies, laughter, note-taking, and lots of listening, but it was also a really great experience linguistically. As many of you know, I'm fairly proficient at German, but when I'm hanging out with my lovely girlfriend here, we don't always make a point to speak solely in German. We mostly speak in the language that comes to us, and while I've been here, it's been almost totally 50-50. However, at these 6-hour per day Orientation things, it was solely German, and I haven't had that in -- well, ever. It's just a different experience to only be in a classroom with 7 other people (3 students, 3 tutors, 1 professor) for 6 hours a day and be having discussions the entire time in the new language. It's hard to get that in Germany since almost everyone speaks English! Anyways, I noticed an improvement already in my speech, which was pretty exciting, not to mention learning several interesting things about German culture and American culture that I hadn't thought about before!

In addition to getting to know the Middlebury folks, Claudia and I also went up to Ostfriesland (East Frisia - look it up on a map if you don't know where it is!) for this past weekend to visit her friends and family. While we were there, the Gallimarkt was going on - a fair that happens annually and has been happening annually for over 500 years! We went with a big group of friends one night, saw some fireworks, ate fried food, and rode a HUGE ferris wheel and several other crazy rides. Then we went back the next day with Claudia's two younger brothers (ages 8 and 11) and watched them do all those things, which was almost just as fun. Claudia and I also managed to get some work done while we were at her house during the day (she's doing research about Scotland for a professor, I'm working on a "Cultural Presentation" to present to the Middlebury folks this week) and had a lovely dinner out together on the last night. We also had tea with her grandparents (a favorite tradition of mine in Ostfriesland) and talked about all sorts of things, from our studies to Erin in Scotland to the intricacies of language and to some stories both from my father and those that Claudia's grandparents had about growing up. It was a lovely afternoon!

Now we're back in Mainz and I've done some good work on my presentation, Claudia's helping the first year students in Germersheim get all sorted out, and we're both awaiting real classes starting next Monday. Ah!

As I mentioned before, the Scotland video is on youtube, and the next video about Mainz is almost complete. It'll be up soon!

I hope you enjoy both of them, and when I get the time over the next few days, I'll post some more pictures of Scotland, and (I've recently decided) of my dog Abby and some other pictures from home, because it has recently occurred to me that not everyone reading this blog has necessarily ever seen my home!

Alright. I'm off to watch a bit of Love Actually before bed. :-) See you soon!

Finally, a video about Scotland!

Hey!!

So, the Scotland video is done and ready to be watched! For those of you who are youtube-savvy, do not turn off the comments on the video, please. For those of you who are not as up to speed, no worries. Just play the video and everything will be fine!

I'll be writing later tonight about the beginnings of my studies here, and I hope the video keeps you entertained until then!

Here!

Second Day in Scotland (part 2)

Here is another one of the dramatic churches in Edinburgh with the also dark foreboding sky in the background - the rain followed us on the second day, but we did have

Later in the second day we walked around a lot before we went with Erin to her Scottish Studies class, where we learned that the idea of tartan representing specific clans in Scotland isn't necessarily historically correct. In general, we talked about traditions: what makes a tradition, how quickly can something become a tradition, and when is something actually a tradition versus a "bricolage" (the taking of pieces of various traditions and giving them new meaning and different context) versus something completely fabricated. It was quite an interesting discussion!

Below is a lovely square near a bakery and coffee shop where we sat for a bit and had our lunch in the brief break from the rain.
Here Claudia models the traditional (haha) Scottish soft drink, Irn Bru (pronounced Iron Brew). This drink is SO sickeningly sweet that I have no idea how anyone can drink more than one sip in a sitting, yet they do! It smells and tastes almost exactly like liquid sugary bubble gum, though you get a bit of the manufactured orange color taste as well somehow! Definitely an experience. I barely managed one sip!

(Wikipedia says: "Irn Bru was first produced in 1901...Irn-Bru is known for its bright orange colour. As of 1999 it contained 0.002% of ammonium ferric citrate, sugar, 32 flavouring agents (including caffeine...) and two controversial colourings.")Here is Erin peeking out from behind a tree in the park when I was trying to get a picture of her, and then below are Claudia and I also in the park. We had a lovely afternoon together that day and then we went to Erin's flat and Claudia and I cooked dinner for her - she requested Searle-White spaghetti, which we then made and had with delicious garlic bread. :)

Second Day in Scotland (part 1)

Here we get a lovely view of the Edinburgh campus! I caught the young man there in mid-step, which I found cool. The rain that day made our feet cold and our hair wet, but it also made everything glisten in a wonderfully photogenic way. I miss the campus already.

Here you can see the sign for the campus library, which looked amazing but which we couldn't go into without student IDs. Oh, well!
Then later we went to the National Museum, and saw several amazing things, including this statue of a bird that is actually a lectern (which is hard to see from the front). There were SO many other parts of this museum, from natural history to Scottish history (did you know the Scots were the first to use a guillotine??) to exhibits about space and everything, and we could have stayed in there a week and not seen everything. As it was, we were there for maybe two hours and had a fantastic time, though I did have to drag Claudia out of the Scottish history section so that we could see a bit of the other stuff, too!
They also had a model Formula 1 car that we could sit in! In front of the car there was a screen, and you could take the car through a test run on this screen, seeing how it was to try and control a car going at nearly 200 mph (320 km/h)! There's a short video of Claudia attempting this, and just attempting to get into the car. That'll be up soon! :)
Here's our little room in the hostel, just so you have an idea of where we stayed! It was a lovely youth hostel and quite affordable, as well as very near Erin's flat, so everything worked out perfectly! It was called Argyle Backpackers and the staff were very charming, and they have amazing kitchens available for guests staying there. If you ever go to Edinburgh, I would recommend them!

First Day in Scotland Recounted (Part 2)

This was the last gorgeous view of the cemetery that we saw as we were leaving. I really felt like autumn had started when I heard the crunching of the leaves under my feet. It was a very neat transition of seasons while we were there. When we left Mainz, it was still very summery - 26 Degrees for my Celsius readers, definitely the 70s for my Fahrenheit ones. Absolutely lovely. But the wind and rain and leaves littering the ground in Scotland made me feel that summer really was leaving, and now that we're back in Germany, the change has caught on here, too.
This is a fantastically imposing church on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh into which we did not venture, but I still found it cool!

Above here we see Claudia in her 'model-pose', keeping the hair out of her eyes in the strong Edinburgh wind. I really like it! :)

And this last photo is of the remains of our dessert the first night - we ate at a Sudanese restaurant and it was DELICIOUS, and the dessert was coconut ice cream, served inside the coconut shell. I thought about taking a picture before I had eaten it, but then I couldn't resist, so all you can see here is the aftermath!
And that was our first day, for the most part. When the video about Scotland is up on youtube, you'll see a bit more about the cemetery and the city, but for now, I'll move on to day two!

First Day in Scotland Recounted (part 1)

On our first day (as I mentioned in my last post) we visited the Grey Friar's Graveyard. This first picture is of a grave I found particularly beautiful, and then you can see also the skull-and-crossbones emblem that was popular on lots of the gravestones there.
Here are my fellow travelers - Claudia on the left (for the few of you who do not know her) and Erin on the right -- fantastic people to hang out with, both of them. Their laughter in this picture was directed at me, and my inability to get a picture of them where they were both smiling and neither of them blinking. I still like this one!
This gravestone is the reason we were in this cemetery to begin with. Though the name is spelled a little differently, I still find it FANTASTIC. My fellow nerds can rejoice!
This was just a shot of me in the sunlight which my friends thought would look nice! :)
Part two of the day is coming soon!