BAH!

I like band music. I really do. Music is general is just great. I know I've said this at least twice already on here, but I really like voices/singing. However, I will not go into it once again. Lately I've been OCD on Old Churches by Michael Colgrass. We played it in campus band last semester and I've listened to it a ton lately. I really like the feeling of it.

Blah. I sent my DAAD scholarship application today. Gosh, it was stressful. I went to German, went to the OIP office at 10 to make a nice fool of myself for the third time in a week, came back to my room at 10:30 to finish filling out the application, found out that my ink was being stupid, went up to the 9th floor to print off my paper that goes with the application, went down to the east lobby around 11:10am to see if they would make me copies (they would not), went back to my room, got my stuff, went to the basement of the Union to make copies, made copies, and then just made it to my Sound Patterns class at 11:30. Light headed, I made it through my two classes and then I went on my quest for the Office of the Registrar, where I needed to pick up my transcipt. Thankfully, they had it ready when I finally found the building (it actually didn't take me that long to find it... but, you know, dramatic effect). Then I walked to the complete opposite corner of central campus to send my application. Luckily, I found the post office easily enough, but I got a bit confused when I went in. But then everything went ok and it's sent. Phew.

In all the hurry, I did not have time to eat lunch. And so the only calorie intake I had during all of that was from the gum I chewed for maybe 5 minutes before I left for class at 8:50am. I also had water and some Pepto Bismol, but they don't really count for anything. Then again, gum doesn't really count for anything either. And the reason I had Pepto Bismol was because I was feeling "icky".

And then there's the German quiz. I got it back today... how lovely. My grade wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but in actuality I did as bad as I thought. The only reason my grade was as high as it was, was because the professor was very nice when he graded it. Seriously, there are at least 5 points that I got when I shouldn't have. Without those 5 points, my grade would have been somewhere between a D and a C-. I got a B-, by the way.

The Collective "Ooo"

Tonight I went with Jenny and some people from West Quad to the women's gymnastics meet. It was fun to watch. On the way there, some of them crawled under a fence to try and find a shortcut, but they didn't find one and so Jenny and I ended up beating them anyway. Michigan won... I think.

I failed my German quiz today. It's not an exaggeration either. If I didn't fail, then I came very close. Gosh, it was bad. I was so stressed out Thursday night because of the Baden-Württemberg Scholarship application and everything else that I simply could not concentrate on my German. I feel bad like I let the professor down. Oh well... we'll see.

Yeah, so I'm applying for two scholarships for study abroad. I was nominated for the one that I mentioned in the last paragraph and the other one is due early next week. Those things really stressed me out Wednesday through today, and it will probably continue throughout the weekend.

I had lunch with Leah and her friend Jason this afternoon. We were supposed to meet on the "M" in the diag, but I got there first and I didn't want to antagonize it.

The title refers to the gymnastics thing when someone would fall or something and everyone would go "ooooh".

Other than this stuff, everything is blah-normal. Homework... class... checking my email... watching Without A Trace... sleeping... listening to music... running frantically around the MLB... you know, the usual.

Through the flood...

Freaking ARG!

First of all, today started out well. We got our papers back in German and I did well (I think I got a 94). That was quite exciting. The instructor had written on it, "Der Aufsatz ist wunderbar klar und richtig geschrieben. Ausgezeichnete Grammatik." Yeah, I was excited. I carried it around with me everywhere.

Then as I was freaking out about the one study abroad scholarship application that's due Monday which I haven't started, I got an email saying I was nominated for another study abroad scholarship. This one is due on Friday though. Yes, in two days. I do admit that I am one to procrastinate, but I prefer to do the procrastinating myself instead of having it built into the situation. On top of that, I'm stupid enough that I don't know how to fill out the stupid applications and thus I need help and will be making a fool of myself tomorrow. This is so stressful.

Campus Band was better tonight. There's this one movement of the one song where we get to sing a lot. I really like singing. "Lu Lu Lu..." I might tell you what the songs are. We're only playing four. And, Ross, if you read this, I know you know one and have at least heard of two, but I don't know if you know of the other one.

The campus bands are split up into the Blue Band and the Maize Band. I'm in the Blue Band. Today in Campus Band, this one trombone behind me was being weird. Bersaglia had said "And at the concert you'll be amaaaaaaaaazin'" and the guy said, "No, we'll be 'a-blue-band'". I looked back at him and laughed and he very appreciably said "Thank you."

Ok, I've been flipping out the entire day. I need a rest.

Trust Yourself

Aha! Ok, no "aha".

So today I got an email which said, "You have been accepted to the study abroad program in Freiburg for the AY 2006-07. Congratulations!" Hmm. Kalli had said last night that I wouldn't get an email until Thursday or Friday and I was totally unprepared for it today. Part of me knew I was going to be rejected and part of me thought that I would probably be accepted. In a sense, being accepted is almost worse than being rejected. Because I am in the complete middle between the options and because I am incapable of making decisions, life would have been much easier if they simply would have said "No, you suck, go away." It's not that I don't want to go, it's not that at all. I just don't know if going is the best thing for my current goals and desires. Sure I want to be immersed in the language and culture and have that experience and sure I love German, but I also love language in general and really want to learn other languages besides German. What better place to do that than at college? Then again, what better time to go abroad than in college? I really don't know what to do.

No puedo entender español.

There was a lunch after church on Sunday. It was quite enjoyable and free (which is always good). Good company, good conversation... and overall good time. There were sloppy joes and salad and various other things, but I stayed with those two things.

In the evening, Kalli had the class over to his house for cake. The cake was amazingly good. The music, on the other hand... No, the music was fine, just a bit odd at times (The Legendary Pink Dots, Skinny Puppy).

I've commented on this every semester so far, so I can't break tradition now. I have only 6 instructors this semester and 2 of them are American (or so I assume): the campus band director and one of my German instructors. There are also 2 Canadians (the linguistics instructors) and 1 Austrian (the other German instructor). I don't know about the other one because that class hasn't started yet. Of the Canadians, one has a stereotypical accent (saying "aboot" instead of "about") and the other one has a French accent.

Was jetzt? I didn't say a word in my German class today. I felt bad because I had just written him an email about my lack of participation, but I just couldn't get myself to speak.

My legs are sore.

I think one of the reasons that I like German is because it feels like it's something I can continue to do better in, something that I can succeed with, something I might actually be good at. With the exception of speaking, this is generally true. But speaking doesn't really count because I'm not even good at speaking English. I think two of the biggest reasons that I chose German as my major are 1) I enjoy it and 2) I'm not bad at it or I have some ability to do well in it.

Tina and I went on a "building quest" on North Campus this afternoon. It began with lunch in Bursley. We then went to the School of Music and Baits, where we wandered around for a while. We got into some of the Baits buildings, but not all of them. Then we went to Pierpont to get Tina some batteries for her camera. While we were there, we saw an Antioch exibit. Then we wandered around the engineering buildings and tried to break our way into them. One of the buildings was really cool and all of North Campus reminded me of a college campus that's actually a campus (not like Central Campus). When we finished, we rode the bus back to South U. It was fairly full at first and so we had to stand. That was interesting.

Beth, Jenny, and I had dinner at Jimmy John's tonight. Both the food and the conversation was good.

I don't want to do my homework. In fact, I don't even know what homework I have. I think I have some reading and some writing assignment... oh, and I have a German syntax "problem set".

Without A Trace is a good show.

Kleiner Gewinn

So, today was another day. Imagine that.

Today's Events:
1. I got my German assignment paragraph thing back and it had a smiley face with a nice comment and a "+" for a grade. Also in German, I only had to say one thing and it was "Baden-Würtenburg". I tried to avoid eye contact during the entire class, but despite my most valiant efforts I was still forced to speak.
2. Lunch was eaten with Danielle my RA and Tina fron across the hall. As it turns out, there are poetry slams at Michigan and the poems don't have to be in English.
3. In my Sound Patterns class, we made some more weird noises. That's always fun. Then in Language & History, I contributed to the class by raising my hand and making a question/statement. Ooo, it was intense.
4. My afternoon was spent reading Deutsche Syntax and A Course In Phonetics and almost falling asleep. Dinner was quite good and also fun.
5. Then there was Campus Band. It started out with Alison and Erin dropping out and then the band left much to be desired. I mostly like the songs, but I just don't know about it as a whole.

Yeah, that's all from today.

Yesterday I only had one class. I did laundry and tried to catch up on my reading the rest of the day.

I'm not a nazi, I'm a narrator.

I have returned from St. Joe. I could say a lot about it, but I probably won't. There were about 28 of us there. The girls slept in Beth's basement and the guys slept at Dan's. Dan's mother is the best cook ever! She made meals for us twice and they were seriously maybe the second best meals I have ever eaten. The mashed potatoes were to die for. Sunday evening we went to the beach and watched the sunset out on the pier. It was freezing but it was definitely worth it. Beth surprised me with Danielle Coone Saturday night. I was in Jeremy's basement and I looked up and there was Danielle. I was completely shocked. It was good to see her again. Kevin, Jeremy, and Brad boxed on Sunday night in Jeremy's church basement. That was quite entertaining. Both Jeremy and Kevin got bloody noses and Brad was knocked to the floor.

I was in St. Joseph, MI, from Friday until Monday and my parents had no idea that I wasn't in Ann Arbor. I enjoyed that.

In the span of 8 days, I was offered a clementine by two different Germans. I thought that was fun.

This afternoon I dropped my environment class. It was boring and pointless and more work than it was worth... and so I dropped it and registered for "Climate and Mankind", which is only 1 credit.

Unfortunately linguists don't rule the world.

Yesterday's events:
1. My environment discussion was canceled because the professor was getting over a cold. That made me quite happy.
2. I was put into the Campus Band that I wanted to be put in (the Blue Band from 6-8pm on Wednesdays). Alison and Erin are also in that band.
3. I had to take a German placement test today similar to the one I took at orientation. On the reading part I got 300+ for my course level (the highest bracket). On the listening part I got 77% and I don't know what that means. The listening part was annoying because I kept spacing out and not hearing the questions. Oh well. When I was walking to the MLB to take the test, it felt like I was walking to my execution... kind of like I was being sucked towards the building against my will.
4. It felt like spring.

Today it's raining. I didn't have to say a word during class this morning. That was nice. I'm such an awful student.

Death by Desk Chair

Tonight I was sitting sideways in my desk chair leaning back like I always do and talking to Tina. Suddenly I lost control and was hurtling towards my inevitable death by falling chair. As I was falling, what do you suppose I was thinking? “Uh-oh, protect my head”? “Ah, this might hurt”? “Oh, crap”? No, none of those. I was thinking, “Oh no! I hope the chair doesn’t land on my sandals!” Yes, it’s true. My sandals mean more to me than life itself. The fall was followed by intense laughter. Then maybe 15 minutes later it happened again, and I didn’t do it on purpose either! Who would tip their chair with themselves in it on purpose?

I would like to drop my environment class because it’s stupid and boring and it had a lot of writing and I don’t like it. I might take a 1-credit class in it’s place, but then I’d only have 14 credits. I would feel like a slacker.

Discombobulate is a fun word. Ben used it in his post and Tina and I were discussing it tonight.

I finished my paragraph for German tomorrow. I’m not sure if I actually did what I was supposed to for the assignment, but whatever. I kind of like the paragraph so he can just shut-up if he doesn’t. Ok, I would never tell him to shut-up… I mean, you have to have respect and I do respect him.

This evening we had a surprise birthday party for my calc professor from last semester. Kevin set it all up. He had contacted Chris’s (the prof) officemate, Andy, but Andy was out of town for the week. So Andy got his girlfriend to make sure that Chris was going to be there. She set up something and so everything was good to go for us at 6pm tonight. Chris had class until 6pm, and so we all met in the East Hall lobby thing and were waiting to go to his office and surprise him. Around 6:10ish, they saw someone go into the bathroom who looked kind of like Chris, so one guy followed the guy in there. He came out and said, “I don’t think it’s him… I couldn’t see his face… he was peeing.” Then Kevin said, “Then it can’t be him; British guys don’t pee!” Ok, that comment was a little weird but it was funny. They were all sitting by the wall and I was leaning against a pillar. I looked up and saw Chris coming from the stairwell and I kind of stared at him to make sure it was him, but I tried not to make eye contact because I didn’t want to seem conspicuous. It seemed like he saw us but he didn’t say anything and just kept walking, and by that time the others were hitting each other to shut-up. So a few minutes later we went to his office with the carrot cake (Chris’s favorite) and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. He seemed surprised and it seemed like he enjoyed it. He said that he thought it was me that he saw standing there in the lobby. It was fun and I got my final exam back. It was a 60% B.

Songs from camp make me nostalgic.

Overall, today was a nice day.

Everyone has disappeared.

I had my third class on Friday and it was another German one. It was ok except for the fact that he gave us homework. Grrr. But I think I liked the class anyway. I had it again this morning... and I really don't know what we're doing in that class. All we did was talk about the meaning of a couple words and then talk about ourselves. But oh well. I had to talk twice and that was painful. I'm going to die in that class.
...
Later this afternoon I had my two linguistics classes. In Ling 313 (sound patterns) the instructor is young and French. Then I had Ling 317 (language and history). The professor for that class is a little weird. He's not young at all and he kept making little jokes. Both of those classes are 1.5 hours long, but they went fairly quickly. I could've fallen asleep during 317 though because I didn't get a large amount of sleep last night. I learned some random stuff in ling 317 today. The word "gay" used to mean "brightly colored" and the Frieze Building (which is being torn down in the summer) used to be Ann Arbor High School and that's why there's lockers in it. We got out of 313 early and I had a little time before 317, and so I went into the Honors walk-in hours. There I got some good news: both my German 326 classes count for honors, and so I don't have to convert any classes. How great is that!

Saturday my parents came with carpet, a refridgerator, and a microwave. Wouldn't it make more sense for a microwave to be a "microwaver" instead? I like my room again. It's comfy.

A family of four kids sang at church yesterday and it was really cute because they were really good.

Do you know how awful it feels to be going back to the dorm from class at 10am? It's disheartening. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have class from 9-10, but then I don't have class until 11:30 after that (except for Friday when I have no other class).
...
I took a nap this afternoon from 3-5. It was lovely. Ahhh.
...
My ankles are sore.

And so it begins again...

The first day of classes:
-German - This was the "structure of modern German" class and, well, it wasn't anything like what I expected. Mike, the instructor, was fun/weird/interesting and he wasn't German. In fact, the entire 1.5 hours was in English except for a few German phrases thrown in, including "Seelenklempner", the German word for "shrink" (as in psychologist) which was translated as "soul plumber". Erin is in the class and that was fun and unexpected. I pretty much zoned out the entire time. I don't know if I was tired or what was going on.
-Environment 160 - This class was a lot more boring than I thought it would be. The professor was old and he had a big white/gray beard and a lisp. There is an hour lecture and then I have a two hour discussion right after that. We spent half of the time in lecture and discussion getting to know each other and learning about him. Then in discussion we had to read about drilling for oil in Alaska. That was especially boring. There's going to be a ton of group work and paper writing, both of which I hate. The classroom reminded me of the room at Goshen College where I sat in on a Biology lecture and it had a nice view of the snow falling in the Diag.

It looks as though there is going to be a lot of paper writing this semester. Gross. One class fulfills the upper level writing requirement, one has many little papers, one has a a research paper, and one is bound to have writing of some sort.

Both yesterday and today I wore a Wisconsin sweatshirt over a Michigan t-shirt. It was weird.

Back Again

My room is now depressing. Arg. Until I get carpet I did the best I could, which isn't much. It's echoy and empty in here. I don't know... I kind of like it. I'm sitting here in my beanbag chair and the floor is right there for me to use... it kind of feels like I'm in my own apartment.

I bought some of my books today. It cost $300 for 7 books and 3 of them are not returnable. I managed to acquire some blisters on my book buying adventures. Yes, there were two of them this evening. First I went to Ulrich's and they had none of my books and so I went to Shaman Drum and they had most of my books. Unfortunately, I had only taken $200 with me and so I bought 5 books, went back to South Quad, got $150 more, and embarked on my second adventure to Shaman Drum.

The ride back was uneventful. I got my hair cut around 11 a.m. in Bay City and then we went to Meijer where we bought stuff. I got socks. We ate at Ponderosa, which my parents seem to think is the best thing ever. I thought it was less than great. We got to Ann Arbor sometime in the afternoon and now the corner of my nose is oozing something.

I brought my beanbag chair back with me and it's fun because it has a pocket on the side and I'm using it for remotes. It's quite nice and convenient.

Yeah, I think that's all.

"Only the beginning of the adventure."

As you've probably guessed/noticed, I haven't done much during this little vacation. Friday I watched countless hours of DVDs. Ah, it was enjoyable, but it seemed like a waste of time. But I guess if that's what is relaxing to me then I should be able to do it during my vacation... right? I would've liked to do more stuff with my friends, but I don't like being the one to initiate it. If they want to do something, then let them call.

Vanessa showed up on Thursday. Later in the evening, Ross and Ryan came over and we played games. Dutch Blitz is addicting. It's like a big, heavy ball... once it gets rolling, it's easier to just keep it rolling than try to stop it. Then Ben came over and we watched The Island. That was an ok movie. Many parts of it reminded me of other movies (Star Wars, The Matrix, and others), but I liked it anyway.

Last night I went with Ross, Isaiah, and others to see The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It was pretty good. I thought it was going to be corny, but it was definitely good. I especially liked the music in some parts... and that would be why I bought the soundtrack.

Afterwards, Ross came back to my house and we basically did nothing until midnight. Happy New Year.

Ryan and I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight. I liked it, but the book was much better. I guess the movies are just going in the same direction as the books did. I liked Voldemort in the movie. He was kind of freaky in the books, but in the movie he was a fun bad guy... like Hannibal or the killers from Scream.