Gute Nacht

Time really flies by, doesn’t it? I began writing this post in Microsoft word, which I have been using frequently for this purpose, and I always begin with the date. I type ‘Sept’ and it finishes ‘September’ for me, and then I press the space bar and it automatically puts in the date (as, I’m sure, you all have experienced). Well, I did that today and when the date ‘September 11, 2006’ popped up, I thought, “huh, September 11th.” And then I stopped and to think about that. At first I thought it had been three or four years since 9/11/01, but then I stopped again and realized that it has been five years. Five years. That’s half of a decade. It doesn’t seem that long ago. I guess life goes by fast… blink and you’ll miss it.

Speaking of September 11th, it’s Gabe and Isaac’s birthday today! Happy 6th birthday!

This morning I woke up and read another chapter of my book. I’m thoroughly enjoying it, but it’s not a book that I can’t put down. And I suppose that’s a good thing.

Around 10, I went into town and to the AYF office because I had questions for Ulli. I also checked two of my email accounts and looked at my bank account. Apparently, UM put $9,000 into my account. That’s a very good thing, but they didn’t really tell me that they had done that.

It’s annoying shopping for things when you don’t know what they’re called in German. Take white-out, for instance. It’s a product, so it wasn’t in my dictionary, and it’s more of a brand name, so it could easily be different here… and it was. After some bumbling around, I explained what I was looking for. I also bought some Pringles, butter, salt, Febreeze, and Pepsi today. Pop bottles here are made of a harder or thicker plastic… just thought you’d like to know that.

After gorging myself on pasta last night, I decided to go a little bit lighter on the food today. Lunch was an apple and dinner was a pear and some Pringles.

My class(es) started today. I don’t know how I feel about them. The one annoys me. It’s grammar. Usually grammar is something I don’t mind, but this one was just really annoying. The second one is conversation, and it seems to be more interesting. I think it’s this way because I see the conversation as more relevant to me living in Freiburg than grammar is. I mean, with a grammar book and a dictionary I can usually do fairly well when writing papers. Also I don’t feel like they’re explaining it much at all. It just feels like memorization. But, hey, this was only the first day. A few people I know are in the class: Alex, Stephanie, Robert, and Beth (from UM), Joslyn, and Beki.

After the class, I had a chance to have free steak and beer, but I decided to use the internet instead (mostly because I was lazy). I had to email the UM German advisor to confirm that the grades here would not hurt my GPA (so I wouldn’t have to worry about not doing the homework).

Then I went back to my room and called Stephane. He said he was doing something with his computer and that he would call me back when he was done so that we could go for a walk. He did and we went for a walk around 9 p.m. It was dark like it was the time before and there was lightning in the distance. Afterwards, we went back to his room, listened to music, and watched TV. I don’t know how much alcohol he put in my drink, but I was definitely feeling it. That probably had something to do with the fact that I had eaten almost nothing today. He likes to listen to American music, and I got to translate one of the songs for him. I enjoyed that. We watched some news stuff about 9/11 and talked about that a little. We also talked about Americans and what the world thinks of Americans. He said that Americans think they’re the best and that everyone else doesn’t matter. I tried to argue, but he didn’t go for it (and imagine me trying to argue a point while speaking German…). Then later he brought it up again and I said that it is only pride for their country. He said that maybe Americans have too much pride. I said that maybe the rest of the world just has too little. He agreed with my argument there. He’s mostly very mellow when we talk, but when we were watching TV, he was laughing and quite animated. He’s fun. I went back to my room around 11:45. Time for bed.