So what has happened in my world this school week?
Well, Monday I spent the morning working on my paper before heading to class early to take advantage of the free wireless in all the academic buildings. We had more presentations, then I met with my professor after class to talk about mine. She gave me a few ideas for things to round it out. That afternoon I worked on my paper for many more hours, and I got almost done! I have to add a conclusion, fix my citations (which are always wrong), and add in the few points she talked to me about. I am relatively pleased with my work, at least enough to put it on the back burner for a week or two. We get a day in tutorial on December 1 to use as a writing workshop, so I will leave most things until then. That night I stayed up late and cranked out the powerpoint to go along with my presentation. Yeehaw.
On Tuesday, I again got to class early for internet usage. I worked on some applications for summer internships, and got two finished! One I submitted but one I have to mail in. None of the others I want to apply for are open yet, but I am keeping an eye on their websites. Fortunately, most of them just want the same information in different combinations, which makes the application process a little easier. Class that day was boring. The German students were doing presentations, which were really difficult to follow. I was also very hungry, which did not help my concentration. I hadn’t eaten a lot of lunch because I knew we were getting Indian food in tutorial. Which we did. The cheaper restaurant was closed, so we had to go to the pricier one. It was the most expensive meal I’ve had while I’ve been here, but my delicious Lamb Patak was very worth it. When given the option, I will always splurge for lamb. It wasn’t very spicy, but the waiter brought us some spice that we could use to liven it up. We talked about our article (Ethnic Cuisine in West Germany) and enjoyed the plentiful food. That night, I was too fat and lazy to do any work.
Wednesday I had to get up early to get to my 8 am class. First we watched a documentary on reproductive health policy in South Africa and Poland. It was interesting learning about the two countries but I didn’t think the documentary was well-made. It had issues such as white captions that you could almost never read because they blended in with the background. We were all really tired today and it was a struggle to get through class. For lunch, Lizzie and I got more delicious pizza. I think next time I will just get a slice, because it’s as big as a personal pizza at most places. The pizza at Bazzo’s is so good, with a thin layer of sauce, thin crunchy crust, and gouda instead of mozzarella. They make it while you wait, so it’s always hot and fresh. But enough of that. I’m making myself hungry again. In the break between classes, I tried to do some planning. On Saturday I am going to Dachau with some people in the group. Tuesday is my first Thanksgiving dinner, at which we will be eating pork instead of turkey. Not that I particularly care for turkey. That’s the small dinner—maybe only 20 people. On Thursday we’re having a big IUSP-and-friends Thanksgiving dinner, and there could easily be over 50 people there. I want to make scalloped potatoes for at least one of the meals, because I’ve been craving them recently! I might look up a recipe online, or I might just play it by ear, which is mainly what I’ve been doing here.
Conversation class was pretty fun this week. We talked about stereotypes: first we divided into groups and talked about stereotypes of men and women, and then we talked about stereotypes of students of different majors. I was sad to learn that evidently science students don’t shower enough. I feel like “enough” is a pretty subjective word… After class I did some research for my paper on the history of rice in Indonesia. Ugh. I am not looking forward to it, and I’m no longer sure why I thought it was a good idea to choose this topic. My paper (again, 10+ pages at 1.5 spacing) is due two weeks from today, so I know I need to get working, but I really don’t want to. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to, but it’s horribly slow and boring.
Today (Thursday), I got up and went to the grocery store (always fun). I want to make enchiladas if I can find affordable tortillas. It is 3 Euros for 8 small or 4 large flour tortillas, and that is just ridiculous. I think I know some places to look, though, so I will keep trying. This afternoon I made some chicken meatballs and cooked some ground chicken for the enchiladas. Ground chicken has been on markdown lately, so that’s what I’ve been getting. It’s normally 9 Euros a kilo! Around 3 I went to Wehrda (a neighboring town/suburb, where another set of dorms are) and hung out with Lizzie. We watched a movie, and then Bizz, Kayte (NJ), and Beth (MN) joined us for dinner. We had noodles with tomato-cream-wine sauce (my invention) and cheese and veggies. We also made some gluten-free peanut-butter cookies that were really good! It’s just peanut-butter, eggs, and sugar, so they are richer than normal. I am being lazy tonight and will probably not read more about rice in Indonesia. I’m just not motivated to work on this paper, although I’m trying. I made it through another few sources today. Part of the problem is I’m not really sure what to write about in a history paper, or even how to set one up! If I can get enough info together for an outline this weekend, I will email it to my tutor and I am sure he will help.
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