Es gibt nicht nur Wolken im Himmel

Ugh. Today was incredibly frustrating. It all started with it just not being a good morning. I had had disturbing dreams last night about today, and I just didn’t wake up feeling good. There were various issues throughout the morning involving no mail whatsoever, the time being changed for one of my classes (to 8:30 a.m.), and issues surrounding a couple of appointments, not to mention that it was dark, rainy, and cold. The next thing was that I wasn’t in the 400-level International House class. I need stupid 400-level classes! I was originally put there, but now I’m not. AND to add insult to injury, like pouring salt on the wound, there are people from my first IH class who got worse grades than I did who are in the 400-level class. ARG! My theater class was ok, but I was in too bad of a mood to even attempt to try and enjoy it. Then I went to find a class that I might possibly take. After about 15 minutes of looking, I finally figured out where the room was. But in order to get there, I had to leave my coat and backpack behind in the lobby area unattended. Yeah, I wasn’t too keen on that idea. That along with my apprehension about the class and my frustration from the day thus far persuaded me to just leave and go home.

At home, I IMed Kalli (my German advisor at UM) to ask if there was any point in taking a Vorlesung (simply a lecture). He said yes, but his reasons weren’t reasons that really mattered to me. I need 400-level credit, and I need at least 3 at a time. This would get my probably neither. So I kind of inconspicuously complained to him about my class situation for a while. To ease my pain, I left early for my class that goes from 6-8 (could that be any worse?) and bought a Döner. Mmm, that was good. They have Döners in Italy, too. Being in the class frustrated me because the topics to be covered were all things that I had already learned multiple times. And so all the class is to me now is memorizing random words and all the random stuff that they do, which isn’t really learning. A dictionary would serve me about as well as this class. I liked the instructor and the people in the class, but I about blew an aneurism during the class because of excessive frustration and annoyance.

Then on the way back from class, I divulged some information that I wanted to keep secret. That actually made me feel less annoyed and frustrated, but I’m not entirely happy that I told it. And there are other things that are stressing me out… concrete things, philosophical problems, and oh so much more.



On a better note, I got to see fireworks from my window tonight. They had a fair and the fireworks were for the last night of it. The fireworks were better than the 4th of July ones at home.

Speaking of Independence Day, as I was watching the fireworks, I was thinking that the Germans really don’t have any special day to light off fireworks for. The USA celebrates the creation of the country. But Germany really doesn’t have anything like that. And the USA has a fairly good history and has actually been a country longer than Germany. Being in a foreign country has surprisingly made me more proud of being an American and made me appreciate certain things about the USA more, but it also has made me dislike America more. I don’t know… it’s weird.



According to the internet, the statue in the foreground from yesterday's post is called "The Rape of the Sabine Women". It was one of my favorite statues there.