Crazy Weekend

It is unbelievable how tiring a 4 hour lab can be! I almost fell asleep during the explanations of the lab instructor.
This weekend was all messed up! I got home early which was nice. My dad and I played some music together. I wanted to play something during church the next day and therefore we still had to go over it to make sure it would be all right. It sounded pretty good at home and when we actually played it, it was soooo bad because I didn’t tighten my bow well enough. It was too late by then. Oh well. In the afternoon my brother and Sandi came over for lunch so I could meet up with them at least for a little bit. At 2:30 I left for the rehearsal in the protestant church in Vöhringen. The atmosphere was very nice and I enjoyed participating in their service the following day. At night I initially wanted to go visit Anna Theresa and Jathavan but unfortunately this didn’t work out. Instead I went to practice my violin and really enjoyed it since I found a recording of the Mendelssohn Violin concerto and played along. Some parts I had to stop because I was too slow and other parts I was ahead because soloists just do what they want :)
Before that Sascha, Sandi and the rest of the family except for my dad played a game together. Tabea lost her temper just a bit since she was about to lose. Luckily she caught herself in time. I think this was an important lesson for her. I went to sleep late once again (as soon as I have constant internet I go to sleep much later which is why I already start considering not getting internet when I have my own room. The next day I got up at 7:30 am since I was supposed to be at the church at 9. The first thing was turning my computer on to see if anyone has written back – no one had. So I got my clothes and wanted to get dressed when my dad walked out of his room and told me: You know it is 6:45 and I simply looked at my watch where it still said 7:45. Today it changed to winter time, he added. This was so dumb because when I went back to bed I couldn’t fall asleep anymore and I only had 7 hours of sleep. By then there was nothing I could do about it.
The service was very nice and I enjoyed participating and even more I enjoyed playing with my teacher and seeing her again. All the people were so very nice and I was sad I couldn’t join them for lunch but I had to go home because there were so many things I still wanted to do ( and I basically did none of them since I decided to watch a movie… stupid me!) Now what happened was: I didn’t shower another time, I didn’t pack in time, which is why I forgot a lot of important things at home, such as my key to my grandma’s house and some medicine, my bottle and box for lunch at school to name but a few.
The concert at night went well and I felt awake the whole time which I never experienced before! This is due to the relaxed atmosphere at my grandma’s. I got a ride home by someone who lives very close to me (he is also a very fast driver, like my dad and therefore it didn’t take too long). We talked a lot about my studies in evolution theory and how the more I learn about it the less I can accept it as being possible.
Monday morning I got the train a half hour earlier and I went to bio, checked my email and listened to some music. After a while I wondered why no one else came and I checked on my schedule. I forgot I had synchronic linguistics instead. I ran all the way to the Straßenbahn and fortunately it came quickly. All in all I was “only” 8 minutes late for class. It was such a messed up morning (my friends told me that class didn’t take place anyway – I had totally forgotten about that part). I also missed the introduction for future teachers because I forgot about it and told my grandma I would be back at 7. All in all this was a very unusual weekend for me.

Update

Right now I am waiting for the end of the opening of the academic year downstairs because then I am finally back to my regular school day. I missed two classes for this tiny concert. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter since one of them is only an introduction and I don’t think they will go over very much.
Orchestra will be tough for me. Most people are excellent players and I am just good but not good for this level. I am sitting next to a boy which is just as bad or maybe even a little worse than me and this makes me feel a little better. The other boy to my right side can side read just about everything. We played through the entire Verdi Requiem without anyone having the music in advance and it sounded like music. Some parts were a little off, but still it would have been almost presentable. This is how good the orchestra is.

Last night I slept extremely well and I went to bed early, too. So today I woke up refreshed and I can feel that I am definitely getting better. The headache is still present as always but it is not as strong anymore. My first little concert with the academic orchestra went well. And I found out that one of the classes was cancelled because of the opening so I really didn’t miss much. I have already started studying (not very much, but it is a start :) ) I don’t think anyone else started but I definitely don’t want to do everything the last minute because there are so many classes and it will be easier for me to follow the lectures if I prepare or know the stuff from before. Especially chemistry is hard for me I have practically no foundation. Every now and then I find something that sounds familiar to me and we are just going over the basics from school. It is a shame and I plan to catch up on everything. Yesterday there was this boy sitting behind me and he seemed to know his stuff and therefore there were 8 people (including me) asking questions and this poor boy had to answer them all. His voice is so deep that it is loud even though he talks soft and therefore it was hard for me to concentrate while he was explaining ;) I like our instructor though he goes at an acceptable pace (for me) but some things he just doesn’t explain well enough for people like me.
I have been trying to get money from an ATM machine and the day before yesterday the machine said: Wrong PIN number. And I knew I did it right even though I don’t use my PIN very often. The next day I tried again, because I had borrowed money from my friends. The same thing happened again and this got on my nerves. So I went inside to ask them what else I could do but they couldn’t help me. All they said was: if the machine says wrong PIN number this is what it is. I went out there again and I finally got the clue why this happened. I pressed the wrong button. There is one for the local bank and one for the chain of banks and I kept trying out the local bank without noticing that there is another button. So finally I figured out the right button but then the bank had a problem and I couldn’t get my money either. So I borrowed money from my grandma to pay back my debt. Yesterday morning it finally worked and I was relieved. At night before going to sleep I inhaled a mixture of sage and camomile for 15 minutes this might have helped my getting better as well. So now I am more than half way done with my first week and I have a lot of “appointments” awaiting me this weekend. The rest of the time I have to prepare for next weeks lab. It is a 4 hour lab!
Soon I have to buy books and they will be expensive. The bio books are especially expensive and therefore I am thinking about buying them in English since they are 20€ cheaper and in three years we will do a lot of reading in English anyway. I like the university much better. There are only test at the end of each semester no tests in between!! This means we have to use our time wisely and I know I can do it :)

It Got Me!!

Yup it got me! I am sick. I have been fighting it for more than 4 days and I was not strong enough to overcome it. Last night I got home at 10 still having to eat and to call my mom so it was 11 until I finally went upstairs to go to sleep. Unfortunately I couldn’t fall asleep right away even though I only had about 7 more hours to sleep. Too many thoughts had to be thought of. During the night I woke up at least 20 times. Totally soaked by sweat and therefore freezing. I tucked myself more into my blanket but it didn’t help much. At one point (it was 3 am) I changed my pjs because I couldn’t stand the wetness anymore. Those got wet in no time as well. When it was time to get up I finally felt comfortable in bed but at that time it was too late. Now I am sitting in the train with a headache, weak (so that I can even feel the strength it takes to type :) ) and tired.
That is all for the negative part. The positive things are that I was really early for my train today. I had to WAIT for 10 mins. I get to meet my fellow students and I get to check out three new classes. I can go home in the afternoon because I have a 5 hour break until rehearsals start. Oh yeah, I haven’t mentioned that I went to the auditions for the academic orchestra and actually made it! I mean, I went there because my teacher told me I had a chance, but after listening to everybody else I was pretty certain I would not make it. They played much harder music than I did and I messed up so badly in my audition. I wasn’t satisfied with the result at all. But what I figured after thinking about it, they didn’t care so much about the tones being on pitch but about the technique one uses and the tone quality one produces and that I know how to do. It took a total of 2 hours until everyone was done and after that I went back to the KG II to chat with friends.
Being a student will be exhausting.

Prestudies

Yesterday I went to Freiburg just to have some internet in order to check my mail and get in touch with my friends. Unfortunately no one was online :( So all I did was updating my blog and send some emails. One of the emails I received was concerning a room so I went to check that one out. They didn’t want me because I play the violin. It seems rather hard for me to find a room with a violin in addition. Everyone is turned off by a practicing violin girl :) If I don’t find anything during the next month I will start looking for an apartment all for myself. This way I don’t have to deal with anyone else and can invite as many friends as I want as often as I want to. If I make it into an orchestra there might be some people having a room who do not mind practicing.
This morning I woke up at 5 and could not fall back asleep and I sweat so much. My throat started getting sore so I took the candy my mom bought for those cases. It went away after a while. At 6:43 I got up to do some exercise on the floor and I started over with acts. I think acts is a great book and one can learn a lot from it. I left the house at 8:25 and my train was leaving 8:26 so I missed it today. Since I know myself I tried to get the train before the one I definitely have to get. So it is not really bad. I still have enough time. When I sat down at the train station I thought to myself I might as well use my time wisely. I took out my violin and practiced for 25 minutes. This was so great even though it felt a little awkward practicing out in the open with people listening to me practicing. It was important to me though and I will be confident tonight when I have to go to my audition. I know I can do it.
Today is my big day: First day of college and I am eager to see how it will go. By the end of today most of my schedule will be definitely set. Only Friday will be open and I don’t want to be one of the unlucky ones who have to go to class from 3 – 4 pm. This is the latest it can be. 2 – 3 pm doesn’t matter as much, because I still get home at a decent time when I happen to go.

Weekend in Baden

Today my grandma and I went on a biking trip along the Rhine River. It was great weather outside. The sun was shining, almost no clouds in the sky and not that many people outside. We went on the French side of the Rhine on our way back and the road was in the worst shape I have ever seen. It took as over twice as long to go back than it did to get us down to the bridge. I think it was a total of 30 km. Several times we almost fell, since wild boars (Wildschweine, ich habs auch nachgeschaut) dug up the way. Other parts were so stony that you could not tell if you were going to fall or not. And then we passed by a barrier and kept going. This part of the road was really nice to ride on and we were so happy and enjoyed ever bit of that part. The Rhine on the one side of the road and a small river on the other side. After about 15 minutes we were stopped by a gate that closed off the entire road. We couldn’t pass by. We looked for an opening and illegally went inside a construction area. There we looked for another opening to leave, but there was none. We searched everywhere and it took us probably another 10 minutes, maybe even more and eventually we had to give up. This means we had to turn around anyway even though, we could see the bridge leading to the German border. We didn’t mind riding the good way back, but the one we had to take was even but filled with loose stones that we couldn’t go very fast either.
This was the bad part (besides the weather which was good). There are also very positive things to say. We got nice and fresh air, we found some walnuts along the way (on the French side, where only dummies ride). We saw a deer in the middle of the road at 2 pm! And there were tons of swans, ducks, and several other birds as well. The scenery was beautiful as always (Priscy (and Jody), when you come visit me in Germany, I have to bike-ride with you on those roads along the Rhine!) All in all, it was nice and I got to sweat a lot.
When I got home I found out that I got my period as well. I am glad, there was no train available on Sundays because then I would have had nothing with me and no stores are open on Sunday! So I am very happy it happened the way it did.

On Saturday I went to church. All the young people but three were gone but I didn’t figure out why. I was one of the three and we all were new students enrolled this semester. One girl is from south Italy and a boy which I thought was cute from Überlingen. I didn’t like the way he talked though. He moves his head too much :) So this is another “no” but I will keep looking out for potential boyfriends :D My grandma and I went walking in the afternoon since the weather was good as well. We went on a mountain and were able to see the surrounding of Breisach.
I had three rooms I was interested in and all of them are gone now, except for one and my dad said “no” on that one. The reason for his no is, I would be living with one boy and no one else and this is too dangerous. He might start liking me and then expecting more from me. I will listen to my dad, because I don’t want to hear a see-I-told-you. That way I have more time to spend with my grandma and that is nice, too. I originally thought I had to sleep in the living room, but now I have my own room, just under the roof and when the sun is shining, it is really warm up there.

News

I was a little late for the train today again. Luckily, through my well-trained fast walk (= running) I still made it. Exhausted I sat down but just to quickly get up again. The seat was wet and to be quite honest, I don’t want to know what liquid this was. It is gross, my pants are wet and I feel just a tiny bit uncomfortable.
This morning I called several people to finally get started on my room search. I have an appointment this afternoon at 4. I don’t know what to expect yet and my mom strictly forbade me to move into a stinky, dirty and mouldy room which I suppose it will be.
Today the weather is awesome: Blue sky and sunshine. It feels really good after this gray and rainy day yesterday. Hopefully I will be able to take some nice pics of Freiburg today since the weather is great.
I got all the directions for going to church tomorrow. They seem to be very nice and I hope to be able to get involved with some music there. Harald Paul, a concert violinist, goes to church there ;) We will see. I will be able to talk about that more on Sunday.
Yesterday I went to the Erstifrühstück (a breakfast for first year students) to get to know my fellow students at least for English. There will be another breakfast for Bio on Monday morning, but I doubt I want to join that one. I talked to one professor who teaches literature.
Later on I participated in a BioRalley to get acquainted with the different buildings in the bio and chemistry department. Everything is so spread out that I have to walk about 15 mins fast walk from English to the beginning of the Bio section. The good thing is I have no chance but to get to know the city as well. Gradually all the streets form a map within my head and I am actually able to orient myself. I think I am also getting better with left and right, because I figured out a way that seems to work.

Weird Dreams

Yesterday I was just a little sad and at night I had a very hard time falling asleep. This is probably because I took a little nap during the day. I won’t allow myself to nap today! A few dreams I remember and they were extremely strange. We were at the Grand Canyon (Priscy, Mari and I) and mounted a difficult mountain. And when we were all the way up, I wanted to warn Mari to be careful but it was already too late. She slipped and all I could do, was stand there in horror and watching her fall. Fortunately she could hold on something, I believe it was a grass cluster (this is a word from Lexirom, I have no idea if this is correct J ) I shouted, she should be very careful and slow in her movements but she panicked and literally ran up the mountain and – of course – slipped again when she had almost reached the top. This time she fell even further down. Somehow she managed to come back up and then her face appeared just above the edge of the top. A scared look on her face and she fell again this time it was a free fall for at least 20 meters. When she “landed” she landed on her back and rolled over her neck and I thought she was dead. I remember myself screaming “nooooooooo” and I could feel my adrenalin making me really hot in my bed. After that I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I went downstairs to go to the bathroom and when I went back up to my bed I continued imagining falling of mountains in the Grand Canyon.
When I was in Freiburg yesterday I got several things done: I went to the Bürgerhaus to make sure I don’t have to register myself in Breisach since I will be living there for quite some time. But they reassured me that up to three months my stay counts as a visit. So all I have to do now is finding a room within this period of time. Before I did that I went to the office of the Studentenwerk to see if I have a slight chance on BAföG but there is none L The advisor told me that there are two books containing scholarships in the library and I will go through them – maybe there are some that I qualify for.
The last thing I did was the tour through the library to get acquainted with the way it works. I borrowed a book on the brain. It is interesting so far and I can once again see how people have a totally different view over religion but yet see the perfection with which everything is created (in their eyes I should better say came to existence ;) ). I feel pretty comfortable around the buildings I have been this week. What I will do today is hopefully find all the rooms for my classes next week, but today is a rainy day…
SOME NEW PICS ARE ON.... (very few though ;) )

2nd Day

Yesterday I went to the biology section for the first time and I went with some students to make sure I don’t get lost again. A lot of things were said over and over again but I guess this is a good thing, so everyone knows the important things by heart by the time university starts. I am pretty confident now, that I will be able to manage everything. What I am still uncertain about is the amount of studying I have to do for each class. This semester there are only 6 classes but one of them includes a 3.5 hour lab once a week. My schedule will be definitely done by Tuesday next week, because we have to sign up for labs and practice times during class.
When I walked down the Eisenbahnstraße in Freiburg I saw this candy store and I just had to stop by to buy myself some Gummibären without gelatine.
Ever since I got here I go to bed at a decent time and I sleep an average of 10 hours. This is completely awesome. I wonder how long I can keep up with this - probably not for very long. I eat a lot, too. I am afraid I will be gaining quite a bit J But it just tastes so good and we try to finish everything after the second day.
This morning I already practiced my violin because I will go to an audition for the Academic Orchestra next week. In case I don’t make it, I will go to a non-auditioning orchestra for the first semester or I might join the Biology Choir. There are a number of possibilities for me to do something with music around here.
What I also did this morning was to go to my grandpa to get my bike fixed. My breaks are down and my light doesn’t work. This seems fairly difficult to fix, though. So I left the bike and I just hope that it gets done before Sunday because my grandma and I will go on a biking trip. We will even ride in France. I hope the sun will be shining so I can take some nice pics to post on photobucket.
I forgot to say that yesterday, when I got up to write a little bit on my laptop I felt a sharp pain and it doesn’t want to disappear. I fear a nerve got stuck and there is nothing I can do about it. I tried to massage it a little, but it didn’t get better either. Being careful in my movements fortunately helps.

New Acquaintance

Today was an interesting day. I tried to put my schedule together and I think I have done a good job. The only problem I have is that I might not get the classes I want to. If this happens, everything is messed up. I wanted to leave home around 10 or 10:30 but then I started doing little things here and there and I ended up leaving for the 11:30 train, which I found out did not exist. So I had to wait another half hour until I could get on a train. In the meantime a black guy asked me for the next train. I explained him, there is none and we started talking. His name is Murphy and he is going to call me or write me a SMS (text message). The funny thing was, he was from Nigeria and there they all speak English so we ended up talking English the whole time. Sometimes I had difficulties understanding him, because his accent is strange but we got along nicely. I still don’t know what to think of him he is advancing too fast in my opinion. He asked me lots of questions about my preferences, wants to show me his friends, cook for me etc. For me it seems like he is searching for a new girlfriend, because he got a divorce and hasn’t had one in a while, so I really don’t know what to think now. I am not used to people this outgoing but something inside me warns me, so I will think of a way to cut this contact – maybe I will invite him to church or something ;)
One of our topics was Africans treating their wives and how he learned how to do it right in Germany. He said, he NOW does everything for them and he can’t stand when his friends treat their girls or wives or whatever in a disrespectful manner, but at the end of the conversation he said, his wife loved him so much, she did everything for him and towards the end it changed. This is a contradiction to what he said before – also the way he talked about it was a make-believe way. I am not that ignorant and naïve. It is hard to describe but this was a situation I had problems dealing with. This is why I am sitting here at the train station writing to clear my thoughts about this man (after getting off too early and then getting lost).

Now I think it is time to continue my post from yesterday. The only bad thing is, I don’t remember where I left of J I got quite some things done, but I didn’t get everything done I wanted to. Wireless is working, which allows me to chat every now and then. My semester ticket is bought, so I don’t have to worry about spending extra money on public transportation. I got acquainted with some of the buildings, but that is only a very small part of the university. Today I want to figure out a way from the Bio section to the English section and this turns out to be harder than I thought it would be. Oh yeah, yesterday I also activated my student ID Card and opened an account for the library. I still haven’t figured out where to turn to to enrol in an orchestra but I will find that out ASAP.

First Day in Freiburg

I got up late. A nice start for the day... but nevertheless the day turned out ok as of now. I got lost several times, so I decided to buy myself a map. I met a girl named Verena and the two of us got our WLAN activated the same time and from then on we went to several places together. At 1:30 I got in line to get my information card. Man there were so many people. I was kind of shocked. I mean I knew there were 3000 new students this semester but I was still not prepared for the mass of people. Anyway after being in line for a half hour I got my card and then I kept walking with another girl, named Julia since our line was much faster. It is very rare that being towards the end of the alphabet has any advantages, but this was one of them :)
At 3:15 we went to the auditorium maximum. There were a lot of speeches delivered and I really had to focus to understand what they were talking about. On our informationcard was a little number that told you what group you are in. I was really lucky, because these information days are only from the linguistic department, but our group leader does Bio and English as a teacher as well. So we (there are several bio and english people in my group) have a perfect guide for our schedule.
We went to the Englisches Seminar and even though it is not soooo big I still got kind of lost. This will happen to me a few more times until I get used to everything...

First Day in Breisach

Actually I should start with the night before because most of the preparations for my move here have been made at night. I packed two suitcases full of clothes and other necessities and finally went to sleep around two in the morning.

For whoever does not know my new address:
Antonie Merettig
c/o Kerstin Schneider
Rosmann-Str. 9
79206 Breisach
Tel: 07667/6499

Anyway, we left the house a little later than initially planned. Fortunately everything fit in our good new Touran. Unpacking was quickly done, since we had additional help from my grandma. My suitcases were pretty heavy and we had to carry them all the way up to the up most story. After that we fixed my bed and that was pretty funny, because we put a mattress on top of another mattress and stuffed the holes in with blankets. So now my bed is nice, soft and high J My mom left in the early afternoon and my grandma and I decided to go biking a little bit. There is beautiful scenery all around!! The Rhine close by is absolutely magnificent and I enjoyed my tour. The only bad thing I have to tell is, when I tried to turn on gravel my shoe lace got stuck in the chain and I fell. My whole thigh is swollen and scratched, even through my jeans. It didn’t hurt for a very long time but after sitting down for dinner it got really bad. I can hardly walk and I have a long, long trip ahead of me tomorrow, since I don’t know where I have to go exactly. I must have lost my paper with all the information…