Well, it is official - I've hit the doldrums, and it looks like I'll be there until mid March, when the Berlin conference takes place. It also doesn't help that the end of the month has its challenges...specifically that I have to wait until the last day of the month to get paid for the upcoming month.
Tomorrow marks the end of a four-day weekend...one which I wasn't expecting to be quite honest. Last week I was informed that this Tuesday would be a conference day for the teachers, and that I'd have the day off. Since I already don't go in on Mondays, that means a four day weekend. Which, since I hadn't been given earlier notice about my time off, would be spent sitting in my apartment doing two things - 1. Starting, and nearly finishing, the TV series "How I Met your Mother", and 2. Watching all four of the movies in the X-men series. Never in my life have I cursed a four day weekend, but when you're already struggling to keep yourself busy in the first palce, having extra time off isn't exactly a blessing.
Luckily I have a couple things to look forward to in the near future. Next weekend should be spent with a friend of mine who is a student teacher, because she's finished an important step in her student teaching work (Unterrichtsbesuch, or U.B.). She's requested to have a night out on the town, in Duelmen...hah, and I was definitely excited about the chance to do anything social in my town. Then the weekend after that, the American TAs are getting together to have an "American party," complete with beer pong, flip cup, and various card games. The superbowl is the following day, so we're working on how to watch that as well.
Step by step I'm getting closer - 5 months to go! (To be quite honest though, I'm starting to realize that I'll end up missing stuff when I leave here as well - specifically people I've met) Hoping that I'll hear something back from Georgetown or Madison soon regarding graduate study, and will keep you updated on that. Hope you are all surviving January and the post-holidays slow-down. Wishing you the best and missing you all!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Back in the swing of things
Well, about a week after I had arrived back in Germany, I finally got over my initial intense period of homesickness and jet-lag (complete with waking up at 3.30 in the morning and not being able to go to sleep until I was actually supposed to wake up). Needless to say, a big relief to be rid of both of them. The first weekend I was back, I actually got off of my butt and went to visit a friend of mine in nearby Muenster, which was a great distraction. Definitely was in better shape after a weekend out of the apartment and some company.
Another distraction which has been keeping me busy back at the apartment, has been planning for the up and coming Spring Break 2010 bonanza! As you might know, my cousin Andie and two of my best friends from high school, Nikki and Kelsey, are coming to Europe during the second week of my spring break - ie the first week of April. We'll be visiting Munich, Stockholm, and Paris together in that order. They don't have any experience with dealing with trains, hostels, budget airlines, etc, so that responsibility has fallen upon me. Luckily, I suffer from a lack of things to do. Needless to say, I've created a spreadsheet and as of today have finished all necessary travel and accommodation reservations (Including a hostel in Paris that overlooks Sacre Coeur...).
I only have one class hour on Thursdays, so today was the perfect day to get all of that organizing done. Now I've moved on to looking up entrance fees to different attractions, tour times, etc. We only get about 1.5 days in each city (because of travel time), so I want to make sure we get to see what we want to see. After class the day quickly became a "me day," which I must admit was pretty good for my mental health as well. I went walking around the city center because I had decided to allow myself to buy a new pair of shoes (comfy shoes for spring break, of course) because there would most likely be sales...and I was right. Sales EVERYWHERE! It took a lot of self-control not to spend some serious money, but I did treat myself to a "Nussecke" from the bakery on the way back to my apartment since I had saved 30% on my new sporty Esprit kicks (And no, Esprit didn't die at the end of the 80s in Europe like it did in the US...it's still thriving and popular). Fresh air, new shoes and a treat - YAY!
Another distraction which has been keeping me busy back at the apartment, has been planning for the up and coming Spring Break 2010 bonanza! As you might know, my cousin Andie and two of my best friends from high school, Nikki and Kelsey, are coming to Europe during the second week of my spring break - ie the first week of April. We'll be visiting Munich, Stockholm, and Paris together in that order. They don't have any experience with dealing with trains, hostels, budget airlines, etc, so that responsibility has fallen upon me. Luckily, I suffer from a lack of things to do. Needless to say, I've created a spreadsheet and as of today have finished all necessary travel and accommodation reservations (Including a hostel in Paris that overlooks Sacre Coeur...).
I only have one class hour on Thursdays, so today was the perfect day to get all of that organizing done. Now I've moved on to looking up entrance fees to different attractions, tour times, etc. We only get about 1.5 days in each city (because of travel time), so I want to make sure we get to see what we want to see. After class the day quickly became a "me day," which I must admit was pretty good for my mental health as well. I went walking around the city center because I had decided to allow myself to buy a new pair of shoes (comfy shoes for spring break, of course) because there would most likely be sales...and I was right. Sales EVERYWHERE! It took a lot of self-control not to spend some serious money, but I did treat myself to a "Nussecke" from the bakery on the way back to my apartment since I had saved 30% on my new sporty Esprit kicks (And no, Esprit didn't die at the end of the 80s in Europe like it did in the US...it's still thriving and popular). Fresh air, new shoes and a treat - YAY!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
6 months to go...
Well, after a hellish few days (yes, days) of traveling in order to get back to my apartment in Deutschland, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. No more big-time traveling to deal with...at least for another six months.
At first this seemed like a pretty daunting amount of time to be spent here...and a large amount of that time being spent alone in my apartment, catching up with American TV series. I've been here four months so far, but for some reason "six months" seems like such a longer amount of time...
However, after sitting down to think about it, the time should pass pretty quickly. I have not only ONE group of buds coming to visit in April for a week (Kelsey, Nikki and Andie), but also I have Kate and Durst who are planning to come sometime in May. So that leaves January, February and March as the doldrums which I need to get through. The cold, dark months during which seemingly nothing is supposed to be happening.
I know some of you want to remind me that yes, I do have friends, so this shouldn't be too bad. This is true, but my budget can only afford a certain amount of visits to Muenster and other cities, so these will have to be planned wisely to make the time fly by.
Anyway, enough of my debbie-downer talk. I've decided that this is merely a negative side-effect of having been home for two weeks and constantly being surrounded by people and always having something to do. If I had actually stayed home, this would have inevitably happened in good ole Galesburg as well!
Will do my best to be better about blogging during this second half of my time in Germany. I'll be taking any suggestions for topics, because I seem to have trouble coming up with ideas...
Liebe Gruesse,
Mary
At first this seemed like a pretty daunting amount of time to be spent here...and a large amount of that time being spent alone in my apartment, catching up with American TV series. I've been here four months so far, but for some reason "six months" seems like such a longer amount of time...
However, after sitting down to think about it, the time should pass pretty quickly. I have not only ONE group of buds coming to visit in April for a week (Kelsey, Nikki and Andie), but also I have Kate and Durst who are planning to come sometime in May. So that leaves January, February and March as the doldrums which I need to get through. The cold, dark months during which seemingly nothing is supposed to be happening.
I know some of you want to remind me that yes, I do have friends, so this shouldn't be too bad. This is true, but my budget can only afford a certain amount of visits to Muenster and other cities, so these will have to be planned wisely to make the time fly by.
Anyway, enough of my debbie-downer talk. I've decided that this is merely a negative side-effect of having been home for two weeks and constantly being surrounded by people and always having something to do. If I had actually stayed home, this would have inevitably happened in good ole Galesburg as well!
Will do my best to be better about blogging during this second half of my time in Germany. I'll be taking any suggestions for topics, because I seem to have trouble coming up with ideas...
Liebe Gruesse,
Mary
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