neveralarch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
neveralarch) wrote2011-04-01 04:51 pm
neveralarch) wrote2011-04-01 04:51 pm
Life: Finally Pulling Myself Together
Let it not be a surprise that I never get around to posting as often as I think I will.
Brief recap for those who I haven't babbled to yet - I flew over to Germany almost three weeks ago to do a semester at a university here. It's pretty exciting! I'm going to do one big post about Germany and then I'll shut up about if you don't want to read this stuff (although I'm totally willing to go on and on about it if anyone's interested. I just don't like throwing things into a void.)
I've been kind of wandering around in a nice sleep-deprived haze most of the time. I mean, let's be clear here, it's not because of jet lag or unfamiliar places or what have you. I powered right through the jet lag, and I've slept in so many hotels that I think any inability to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings died off a long long time ago. This is just one of my run-of-the-mill, too much stuff to do, sleeping is boring deals. I took a nap yesterday and it was awesome, but I'm pretty sure it knocked off my sleeping patterns even more, so I'm just going for actually getting some rest tonight.
But Germany is cool - I both speak German a lot better and a lot worse than I thought, which is... predictable. I've been getting along, even if I'm easily thrown by new accents and phrases. There's hardly a shortage of people willing to speak English with me, though I do put in a lot of effort trying to keep things in German. I've worked out the bus system, made friends, and gotten a cellphone. It's basically exactly the same as when I was starting school the first time - I was going to say something about being older and wiser now, but only one of those things is true.
Not really representative of my new town, I just like this picture.
On Sunday there was a big regional election here, which was pretty cool to watch. I went out with this German guy I know and we watched the results come in and he explained to me what they meant. I can't believe how lucky I was to meet this guy on my second day here - on the one hand, he's a vegetarian economics-major who's with Die Linke (ie, the far-left socialists). We kind of disagree about a lot of things. On the other hand, he's about as much of a politics geek as I am, and he knows a ton of people from the different parties. I now have a semi-working knowledge of German politics, which, let's be honest, is basically what I've always wanted.
Also, I have another picture! There were some awesome placards up here, mostly from the Pirate Party. I didn't manage to get a picture of my favorite before it went down - it was one of their candidate, but graffitied with an eyepatch and a parrot. But I did get a shot of the board outside my building:
"Don't trust placards - inform yourself!" A good piece of contradictory advice.
I've also started fencing this week at the university's Sportinstitut. Reason number one I'm so tired: the practices are from nine to eleven at night, and then the bus connections take me another hour to get back to way out where I live. But it's a great group of people so far, though I haven't met any of the other sabre fencers yet. I did get a lesson from the fencing master - this awesome Hungarian guy who doesn't speak English, but who does speak German really clearly and carefully and who said that my form was really nice. He also showed me yet another way to do parry five (overhead block). Every time I meet a new coach, they tell me the last coach had me doing parry five wrong. But the point is, I'm not happy except for when I'm fencing some of the time, and finding a new group has gone really fast from being extremely stressful to being really comfortable. This is because fencers are apparently the same everywhere - one of the guys even has the exact same Dresden Codak sweatshirt that a foilist back at home has.
I finished my language class this morning, and then regular classes don't start for another week. I'm taking a bus to London on Monday in order to do a whole touristy thing before my life gets eaten up by classes and fencing. I also need to get a move on with my remix assignment - I went through a brief panic, then a long period of denial and rereading Highlander fic, and now I think I'm ready to confront the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'll work it out. I mean, I really hope I do, because I don't think I could stand defaulting on this particular assignment.
And that has been way more than you wanted to know! I'm kind of talkative when I'm tired.
Brief recap for those who I haven't babbled to yet - I flew over to Germany almost three weeks ago to do a semester at a university here. It's pretty exciting! I'm going to do one big post about Germany and then I'll shut up about if you don't want to read this stuff (although I'm totally willing to go on and on about it if anyone's interested. I just don't like throwing things into a void.)
I've been kind of wandering around in a nice sleep-deprived haze most of the time. I mean, let's be clear here, it's not because of jet lag or unfamiliar places or what have you. I powered right through the jet lag, and I've slept in so many hotels that I think any inability to sleep in unfamiliar surroundings died off a long long time ago. This is just one of my run-of-the-mill, too much stuff to do, sleeping is boring deals. I took a nap yesterday and it was awesome, but I'm pretty sure it knocked off my sleeping patterns even more, so I'm just going for actually getting some rest tonight.
But Germany is cool - I both speak German a lot better and a lot worse than I thought, which is... predictable. I've been getting along, even if I'm easily thrown by new accents and phrases. There's hardly a shortage of people willing to speak English with me, though I do put in a lot of effort trying to keep things in German. I've worked out the bus system, made friends, and gotten a cellphone. It's basically exactly the same as when I was starting school the first time - I was going to say something about being older and wiser now, but only one of those things is true.
Not really representative of my new town, I just like this picture.
On Sunday there was a big regional election here, which was pretty cool to watch. I went out with this German guy I know and we watched the results come in and he explained to me what they meant. I can't believe how lucky I was to meet this guy on my second day here - on the one hand, he's a vegetarian economics-major who's with Die Linke (ie, the far-left socialists). We kind of disagree about a lot of things. On the other hand, he's about as much of a politics geek as I am, and he knows a ton of people from the different parties. I now have a semi-working knowledge of German politics, which, let's be honest, is basically what I've always wanted.
Also, I have another picture! There were some awesome placards up here, mostly from the Pirate Party. I didn't manage to get a picture of my favorite before it went down - it was one of their candidate, but graffitied with an eyepatch and a parrot. But I did get a shot of the board outside my building:
"Don't trust placards - inform yourself!" A good piece of contradictory advice.
I've also started fencing this week at the university's Sportinstitut. Reason number one I'm so tired: the practices are from nine to eleven at night, and then the bus connections take me another hour to get back to way out where I live. But it's a great group of people so far, though I haven't met any of the other sabre fencers yet. I did get a lesson from the fencing master - this awesome Hungarian guy who doesn't speak English, but who does speak German really clearly and carefully and who said that my form was really nice. He also showed me yet another way to do parry five (overhead block). Every time I meet a new coach, they tell me the last coach had me doing parry five wrong. But the point is, I'm not happy except for when I'm fencing some of the time, and finding a new group has gone really fast from being extremely stressful to being really comfortable. This is because fencers are apparently the same everywhere - one of the guys even has the exact same Dresden Codak sweatshirt that a foilist back at home has.
I finished my language class this morning, and then regular classes don't start for another week. I'm taking a bus to London on Monday in order to do a whole touristy thing before my life gets eaten up by classes and fencing. I also need to get a move on with my remix assignment - I went through a brief panic, then a long period of denial and rereading Highlander fic, and now I think I'm ready to confront the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'll work it out. I mean, I really hope I do, because I don't think I could stand defaulting on this particular assignment.
And that has been way more than you wanted to know! I'm kind of talkative when I'm tired.