New beginning, old work

So naturally, my winter break finally came to an end: the last few days of my free time were spent mainly on watching DVDs and playing God of War. It’s a good thing that I have a PS2 here in the Netherlands. The next thing I’ll need to get in that respect would be an Xbox, and then I would be able to train myself in discipline, meaning NOT playing, but studying. But so far, I managed well – put off God of War again, naturally, because the new semester started on Monday.

Only a few days, but seriously, when I look at the workload it feels like it’s already been weeks! That was to be expected, though, and I’m kind of glad that uni finally started again because it’s good to use my brains after such a long time of doing absolutely nothing. That  doesn’t mean, however, that I am very much in favour of all the things I have to do, but it’s okay, it’s kinda fun, so I’ll manage.

Since I came back, quite a lot has happened. For instance, we had to give up the cat. Yeah, we knew we weren’t supposed to have her, and I was caught carrying her inside, so I made huuuuge puppy eyes, begged and smiled and convinced the guy that I could keep her for another two weeks until we could arrange something for her. So yesterday, I said goodbye to the cat – a very emotional goodbye -, then she was taken to Rotterdam, and today she’s  moving on to Germany, to my brother. Why my brother and not her real Dutch owner? Because she’d be more happy at our place in Germany. This cat is totally crazy about my brother, she absolutely loves him, so it’s probably better if she goes there. I’m going to miss having something warm and furry cuddle up to me at night, though.

So, uni started again on Monday, as I already pointed out. And actually I’m not supposed to write this because I specifically got up earlier than I had to just so that I could finish some homework, but I just felt like writing something, a short overview so that whoever wants to read this is updated. My classes are fun, actually. First of all, I have Stats – the horror subject for basically every student. I kinda like it so far. We have a really motivated instructor, which is a good thing, so right now I’m looking forward to it. It’s probably going to change, though, when it comes to the group project, but we’ll see. Up to now, it’s lots of fun. Then there’s Life & Travel Writing – fortunately, it’s way more demanding than the 100-level in Literature, so that’s cool, too, and really sounds very interesting. Looking forward to that! My Beginner Dutch class seems okay, too. I’ve only had one session so far (today is my second) and at the moment it still seems to be a bit slow-paced – at least to all the Germans in my class, it must appear to be very slow because we understand lots of things already. Including the alphabet, which we had to learn in the first session. But I also understand that for people who have never heard anything similar to Dutch, it must be really confusing and hard, so I’ll just have to live with that. But it’s a language, and I love languages, so I’m looking forward to it. And Wednesdays – oh, my lovely Wednesdays, I miss them!  My free ones from last semester, that is, because this semester I actually have class on Wednesday. Theatre & Media Studies. FOUR fucking hours! But it sounds really interesting and fun, I just have to get used to listening to someone for such a long time.

All in all, I do have a lot to do, once again. Lots to read, lots of work. But of course I’m not only working, that would be a pretty lousy life. Tonight, for instance, I’m having a “Friends” night with a friend of mine – really looking forward to that, the last one (last weekend) was amazing! And on Sunday, I have another DVD evening with another friend. In the meantime, though – that is, the rest of the weekend – will be totally dedicated to (mainly) Stats – and the other things I have to do as well, of course. I’m so happy that I now have this amazing coffee machine in my room, don’t know how I would survive without it!

Okay,  enough for now. Now it’s back to learning my vocabulary for Dutch, and then I can wander off to class. I have uni until 4 today, and after that, I’ll enjoy an awesome Friends night, so that’s something to look forward to!

Of dragons, elves and other clichés

Winter break. There are three things I mainly did during my break so far, and I did them very frequently: pen&paper roleplaying, reading, and occupying my brother’s X-Box 360 because he bought a new game – Dragon Age: Origins.

And that is fucking good stuff!

So the roleplaying and reading part strongly declined over the past few days and my Dragon Age consumption rapidly increased. Besides, the following may contain spoilers, so don’t read it if you don’t want to be spoiled

It is a Bioware game, just like Mass Effect which I already posted a blog entry about last year. And you definitely see similarities in the way it was created, in the way the storyline is built up, etc. In my opinion, though, it’s way better than Mass Effect (even though I loved that one, too). That’s probably just a matter of taste because I’m not into sci-fi let’s-shoot-everything scenarios, I’m much more into fantasy let’s-slay-everything scenarios, and that’s exactly what I got with Dragon Age. A very good storyline, amazing non-player characters, and many opportunities to shape things the way you want (even though there are probably more opportunities in Mass Effect, but then again, there aren’t that many interesting characters there).

My first character was a rogue, a human nobleman who is purely… evil. Well, he’s very mean, at least, and he very much likes to piss off Alistair, my first choice when it comes to laughing at characters. He actually managed to get on Alistair’s bad side in such a way that at some point, this usually so nice and calm guy yelled at him. Well, that’s life, so fuck off? I didn’t finish the game with this character, though. I’m planning to and I’m sure I will, but not right now – probably over my summer break or something, who knows. I didn’t finish it with my first character because I created a second character, a dwarf. Which I didn’t like. I played him for one or two hours, then I was so fed up with him that I created another one – an elf woman from the city. Again, rogue. And, yes indeed, a female character. I never thought I was going to play a female character, but there we go and I somehow loved her. She was different from my first character in her choices, her choices were overall good or, at least, okay and not absolutely evil. Somehow I kept playing with her and finished the game last night. I can still remember the ending very… vividly. That was fucking awesome! Seriously, I was impressed. I absolutely loved this story and the way my character influences all those things. And the dialogues were unbelievable, sometimes I just wouldn’t be able to stop laughing.

And speaking of the other characters you get in your group – I love them! They are so awesome. My standard group with my elf consisted of Zevran, Alistair and Morrigan – the other characters are nice, too, but those were by far my favourite.

Alistair is a nice guy, I realized. While I absolutely couldn’t stand him when I played my first character, I kind of liked him when I played my elf woman. And very interesting. Witty, funny, and the dialogues he inspires are just… incredibly good. Especially that one dialogue when I had to convince him to sleep with the person he totally despises. The way he freaked out and his overall reaction was just too good. But it was necessary, so, hey… All in all, a nice guy. Even though he tends to be a bit too romantic for my taste.

Morrigan, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. And of course she hates Alistair. Somehow, everyone in this game seems to hate Alistair, except for a very small handful of people. Wherever you listen to conversations, people always seem to mock Alistair. “So, you and the Gray Warden?” – “I hope you don’t speak of Alistair.” – “Alistair? Is he even interested in women?” She’s very sarcastic and evil and very down-to-earth instead of being guided by some extraordinary principles.

And then there is Zevran.

OMFG. Zevran!

I saw him for the first time and immediately clung to the screen. Now, that one was interesting! And he still is. Assassin, elf, and just amazing. With the most interesting sense of humour I’ve ever seen in a game – actually, he has a sense of humour that is very much like my own. And he’s very sarcastic. And has very interesting opinions on many things. And he is a very interesting character in general – well-developed, understandable, a real in-depth character with an amazing background story. Every time he appeared somewhere, I immediately clung to the screen and that’s how he became a permanent member of my group. Rawr. Mine. My favourite character, and surely a good reason why I spent so much time in front of the X-Box. I seem to have a tendency to like assassins in books or games. My main pen&paper character is an assassin, after all, and his personality is very much like Zevran’s, that’s why I was so stunned when I saw him.

All in all, I can just say – a very good game. Lots of blood, lots of… a very good story. And lots of Zevran. Even though I have to admit that my tactics aren’t always brilliant – for instance, my characters so far are rogues, meaning that I should be a damage dealer and have as much dps as possible, which I do. At the same time, however, I tend to just pull all the aggro towards my character, which should be the part of the tank. Now, what is there to do about it? Nothing, actually. Of course it’s not brilliant, but I managed to play the whole game and I dare say I even grew to be better at it than my brother – slaying that one dragon when my brother wasn’t even there to help me. And he wouldn’t have been of much help since he, apparently, totally failed when slaying the dragon and therefore decided not to – even though he played the game several times already and should be familiar with everything.

And I just killed that bastard dragon, no problem. It was hard, but not impossible.

With only two characters because Zevran and Alistair were dead much more quickly than I could say “dragon”. Nevertheless, I took the dragon down and my brother was… confused when he came back. And I even took the dragon down at my first try, now, beat that! XD

Of course, there are quite some cliché fantasy things in that game, too, but they are not really annoying…

I’m too much into the game to just stop now, though, and anyway, I still have a week to stay in Germany. So, the plans?

Right now, waiting for my brother to wake up and then creating a new character. And this time, someone I can rightfully call “tank”. I guess I’m much better as a damage dealer, though, but I figured I should at least try to see what it’s like to be just a tank, not a damage dealer-tank, or whatever I did there.

I know, I’m obsessed. It’s all my brother’s fault, I dare say. But hey, it’s my break, I’m not supposed to do anything reasonable. The next semester is going to be lots of stress, anyway, so I might as well slay many things with lots of blood and gore (and even a good plot) now because the next time I can do that will be during the summer.

Time Flies

It is a bit scary, how fast time flies. Only one more week, and my first semester is over – already. That basically means that I’ve lived in a foreign country for a whole semester now, and I still love it, and love it more every day.

Thinking about it, my first semester – like all the other semesters to come, probably – was incredibly busy and full of new things and people. I learned a lot, had lots of stress, developed an incredible lack of sleep, but I am generally happy. I’m sure that coming to study at Roosevelt Academy was the best decision I could have made. I’m happy that I have the chance to study here, develop as an individual, and get to know so many different and interesting people and things. I feel really comfortable here, in my house, in this town, at this university, and I feel even more comfortable because of this international environment. Speaking English all the time, I tend to forget to many things in German. Whenever I am asked about a German word, I have a hard time coming up with it. I don’t think that this is a bad thing, though. In fact, contrary to what most people experience here, the more time I spend here, the more certain I am that I never want to permanently live in Germany again. Never ever. I’ve never liked Germany anyway, and I don’t miss anything about my home country.

Now, my first semester really was interesting and I’m sure that the next semesters will be, too. I love being here. Unlike with normal universities, an incredible sense of belonging and community is created here. We do not only study here, we live here, and that makes the difference: you actually identify with RA, you really belong here, and that’s an amazing thing. It’s like RA is a small state inside a town, and it’s an incredible opportunity to be here. Of course it is lots of stress, more stress than at normal universities. During the mid-term weeks, and the final weeks, everyone seems to turn into a coffee/energy drink junkie to catch up with everything (next to your social life, of course). The strongest example of this was, in my case, last Thursday, when I had to made coffee at midnight because I had a speech, a presentation and two paper deadlines scheduled for the next day. Everyone is deprived of sleep in those final weeks, everyone’s exhausted and sometimes not too motivated, but we manage nevertheless, and that’s a pretty cool feeling. And nearly everyone becomes a Facebook addict, too, because you know so many people that it’s nice to catch up on what’s happening around here. Plus, Facebook is a very good procrastination method… And not only on the academic, but also on the personal level, the first semester has been full of experiences for me. Establishing a kind of social life I’ve never had in Germany; falling in and out of love; getting into and out of a relationship; improving my acting skills… Yes, acting skills! We’re having our TheatRA performance Thursday night, I love the psycho character  I’m playing there, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m curious what the next semester brings. My schedule for next semester is not the way it’s supposed to be; I had to drop the Philosophy course I wanted to take next semester, and I got kicked out of the 200-level Anthropology course, so I have Theatre & Media Studies and Life&Travel Writing instead. And, of course, my requirements – Stats and Dutch. I’m really looking forward to it. This university is exactly what I need to find out what I want to do.

And now, after this short update, I’m going back  to studying. I still have two exams (Anthropology tomorrow, and Linguistics next Monday), I’m quite scared of Anthropology… And next week, Wednesday, I’m going back to Germany for some weeks. Even though it’ll be nice to spend some time with my friends and family there again, I suppose I’ll miss Middelburg and the people here. I really feel at home here. Of course, you notice that Dutch people generally strongly dislike Germans, but since my friends here are Dutch, I don’t really have such problems.

So only one week to go. Keep focused! I can do this. Only one more week of sleep deprivation, and then I can sleep for six weeks straight. =D

Wind of change?

The bad thing about writing this is that I am deliberately procrastinating my homework, simply by writing this. But, ah, well, it’s going to be a long night anyway, I already realized that much, so those few extra minutes won’t kill me any more than that.

I spent the weekend in Germany, again, and for the fun part, I met quite a few people on Saturday – Sonja, first of all; I was really happy that she happened to be in our hometown that weekend, too, since she moved to Aachen (together with Plewis and Bertina). Even though we just saw each other for two hours, it was really great to see her again. I’ve missed her so much. Of course I’ve also missed the others, and I’m really dying to see Plewis and Bertina again. Having no Plewis around on a daily basis means there’s nobody to get on my nerve’s that special way, and nobody who could deal with my mood swings so “easily” – or, at least, who didn’t complain too much when confronted with just another mood swing. Even though people who see us together proabably think we absolutely hate each other, considering the amount of insults we throw at each other (and considering the fun we have doing that!), and, naturally, our perfectly matching sarcasm/cynism, we do not hate each other. (But, of course, we’d never say that. ) I took that for granted for the past few years, but now I really have to think about skyping him, just in order to have a “Plewis feeling”. There’s nobody around here who can so perfectly make me mad. And there’s nobody around here who I can deal with that way. “Are you here by car?” – “Yes.” – “Great. Thanks for offering to driving me home.” – “…” In my Christmas break, I will most definitely pay a visit to that chaos flat share, just to drive everyone crazy and have a “good old times” feeling. Maybe. We’ll see. And Bertina – well, I definitely miss our writing-together-moments. And our other moments. So much, basically.

Then it was off to my darling, my very best friend, and I had been so damn looking forward to that. ♥ Of course, we were as crazy as usually. No, I’m not going to say what kind of stupid things we did. No, I’m not going to say what kind of weird video clips we watched on youtube. But it felt so good just to be hugged again. Too bad that I had to leave just when she had started to read the beginning of a chapter to me, now I’m really eager to know what’s going on there. But I’ll find out. Hex ftw! ^___^

After that, it was a quick visit to my roleplaying group (which was roleplaying at that time, but took a break for me). At least some of my roleplaying people; I’ve seen the others last weekend, so now I’ve had a healthy amount of roleplaying atmosphere to feel good again. Which just made me realize how much I miss roleplaying, and how much I’d love to do it here, too. Roleplaying is just something very special, and, indeed, you could say that I am homesick for Aventurien. I feel like playing my major character again, Chakijian… or, which would also be cool, Seljida, just because she’s cool. Arijian would, naturally, also be a good way to distract myself. I really feel like playing or writing any of them, but – ah, I can’t, too bad. Already looking forward to Christmas break, when I will (hopefully!) be able to play at least one of them again. I remember quite well that there was to be an “interesting” meeting between Jabez, Seljida, Chakijian and Dianthis – I’ve been looking forward to that ever since it was planned, months ago, so hopefully we’ll be able to get that done in the Christmas break.

And then – Franzi came over, and considering that I haven’t seen her since prom (which was 3 or 4 months ago), and that she hadn’t been able to update me on the happenings back then, she had lots, lots of stuff to tell me; so generally, we had to update each other about the past few months in our lives, which was very interesting. Especially since we suddenly decided that we wanted to have popcorn and actually went out to buy some – just in order to have some popcorn. Never mind that it’s not healthy, we just had to do that. I still have some left and I’m enjoying it right now.

Apart from that, I noticed that, for some reason, I sleep worse at home (in Germany) than here, in Middelburg – I wouldn’t have thought that. Perhaps it’s because of that cool L-shaped room here: as I tend to be paranoid at times and don’t like to turn my back to doors or sleep with my back to them, that naturally happens quite a lot at home. But here, my bed is out of sight of the door. I’m sure that’s not the only reason, but it might be one of them.

But, still, I’m struggling to get myself up again, to get myself working again. I couldn’t work the past few weekends (because I was in Germany, and don’t have time to study there because I have to meet people!), and since my stepmom died, I couldn’t focus on homework the two following days, and that’s why I have a whole lot to catch up with and don’t know how to manage all of this without getting a crazy lack of sleep again, like sometime last week. I’ll probably find a way – if I don’t let myself get distracted by my laptop again. I tend to have a hard time to focus on stuff right now because my thoughts keep wandering, and it’s extremely strange to just go on as if nothing was wrong. But – I’ll manage even that, I’m quite confident about that. Somehow. Just need to catch a healthier amount of sleep one of these days.

And now it’s back to Literary Studies. Seriously, my fingers are itching for writing something creative right now – something Auden-ish or even Chakijian-ish. I’d like to write something with my Star Trek character, too, but I doubt I’d be very much like a Vulcan right now. I need to be able to think more if I have to write something with him. But I’m collecting ideas, and if there’s something useful at some point, I’ll definitely use it – I so much want to get into my characters again! Creative writing has always helped a lot when I cannot focus on things, so it would be definitely worth it. I’ll see what the next days bring – perhaps a few short stories, perhaps a few poems, or nothing at all? You never know.

And now it’s back to reading stuff…

Entering Week 4

Wohooo, week 4 already? My, how time flies… I mean, seriously.

I’m only writing this because I can’t focus on studying right now. In fact, I don’t even have time for writing this, since there is so much work to do, but just for those who want to be updated (I know that’s not many people), I will take the time.

What’s going on here? Apart from studying – not much, and even that isn’t something I can manage properly. The immense workload that I had to experience in the first week only increased (naturally), meaning that apart from presentations and normal homework (i.e. preparation for class), there are essays coming up, tests, exams, you name it. And since I didn’t go to university for two days due to personal problems and had to go back to Germany for the last weekend (and also for the next weekend), I didn’t get to do as much as I would have wanted to – and would have needed to, since weekends are my “study time”. So I have to catch up with a crazy amount of reading and despite working until some time at night, I am still way behind. It’s fun reading for Literary Studies and Anthropology, but it’s also a lot. And I really mean a lot. Of course there are also fun parts, non-study parts of my life here – house dinners, hanging out with my new friends, and the committees, of course, and I’m quite happy that I get this distraction. I would still like to have a 30-hours day, though. Since I hardly ever get to bed before 1am, I am constantly tired and speaking for today and yesterday, I even managed to fall asleep while doing my reading for Anthropology. I mean, seriously, Anthropology, my favourite subject? I could’ve understood it if it had been Linguistics, but falling asleep while reading Anthropology is quite bad. Not to mention that falling asleep while reading is bad anyway. I seem to have quite a huge sleep deficit and I definitely need to get some more sleep, I know that.

Apart from that, everything’s great here. I even go so far as to say that I actually like it, the workload and the challenge and everything, that’s why I’m here, after all. I simply have to get used to it. I totally fell for Anthropology, though, and I’ll definitely take that in the next semesters, too. I love it. Always look forward to it.

I have to take a test in Linguistics tomorrow, so I’ll just have a look at my notes and then I’m off to bed. Even before midnight, wohooo! Of course I should rather do some reading, but I know that unless I get more sleep, I will hardly be able to focus on that. So let’s say I just sleep for, say, 8 hours, then I still have the whole Wednesday for studying and reading. And that’s not so bad, either. I just have to get a system, determining how to work with everything, and then I’ll do fine. Getting into a rhythm and getting some more balance might definitely take some more weeks, but then I will manage quite fine, I suppose.

But I love it here. Seriously, I do. Middelburg is just amazing, the instructors are great, my tutor is awesome, and of course the other students are extremely nice as well. I feel at home here, and that’s the most important thing, even though I’m constantly stressed out, and constantly tired.

Student Life

Another week has passed, and while the first week I spent here was my introduction week, in other words, some sort of the time between being a highschool student and being a university student (some kind of the liminal phase, to speak in anthropological terms), my second week was my first week as a “real student” from the moment I’ve sat in my very first class, Literary Studies. I have four courses – Literary Studies, English Linguistics, English for Academic Purposes and Anthropology -, and of each of these courses I have two sessions à two hours per week. My schedule is quite nice (apart from Tuesdays) and generally I’m very satisfied with my courses.

However, even though I hate to say that, I think I have underestimated what’s actually going on here.

I don’t want to say that I can’t manage, because I can, but especially in this first week, I was extremely exhausted. Practically all the time. I like the way everything is organised here, with the course manual on workspaces and so on, but I seriously underestimated the workload that was coming up. I merely shook my head at the phrase “For this course, you’ll need to have at least 10 hours of preparation at home!”, but now I know that such statements are actually true. Already in the first week, there was so much reading to do that I could hardly catch up with it. Ironically, the most interesting course – Anthropology – requires an enormous amount of reading, but I do it gladly since I am really interested in it. I don’t mean to say that I am not interested in the other courses, but generally speaking, the first week was very intense, much more intense than I had imagined. I already had to do a homework that will be graded, and I already had to sign up for a presentation. Again, in Anthropology. We will have weekly presentations in Anthropology, always in groups of 2 oder 3 people, and I signed up for the presentation that is due on next Friday since I figured that I’d better get my presentation done now, at the beginning, instead of waiting with it until everything becomes much more complicated and I have even more work to do for the other courses, with exams, essays, presentations and stuff like that. Meaning that I’ll meet with Miroslav, the guy I Bulgarian I have to do the presentation with, on Sunday so that we can prepare it. I would have preferred it if my weekend was off so that I could just relax, but that won’t be possible – after all, I still have loads of stuff to read, most of which I will try to get done tomorrow. At the moment, I’m very stressed out and extremely exhausted, but at the same time I like it. This is exactly what I came here for – work hard and be rewarded for that – and in the end I know that I deserve that reward, unlike the lousy highschool attitude – not doing and not caring much and simply getting everything done as I walk on. This is “real” and I like it. I just have to get used to the challenge I signed up for. I will. And I already know now that this has been the perfect decision for me. I’ll need to get used to doing some time management, though, which seems to be a big issue for practically everyone in here. I already had to do some “night reading” (staying up until 1am to get my reading done), but I certainly can’t do that very often.

My instructors are really nice, though. Amazing people, seriously, and so very skilled! You can’t say that about most of the teachers I had at highschool. Of course some of them were highly skilled as well, but they were rather exceptions than rules. From all I’ve seen here, it’s exactly the other way round at my university and I’m happy about that.

I had planned to spend tonight reading at least one essay I have to read for my English class, but I decided to spend the evening with lovely Anna – doing some grocery shopping, cooking and, finally (thanks to her room mate who had the right cable) watching Sweeney Todd. (Oh my God, Johnny Depp!) That was exactly the thing I needed after such an exhausting, demanding week. Some distraction until I can start again tomorrow, hopefully with enough energy.

Apart from that, I’m happy that my internet finally started working last Monday, so I have continuous access to internet again and don’t have to go to the university buildings in order to check my emails. Which makes everything a lot easier.

And for something completely different: I’m totally into an old character of mine again, a woman (a killer, in fact) called Bastet. I’m so eager to write something about her again! Perhaps I will, once I have enough time and creativity left. Just a small scene, just some thoughts, just something to get that character back again. I hadn’t thought about her for quite a while and now she’s back again, all of a sudden. One of the most balanced characters I’ve ever had, in fact. I think at some point, I might go through some old stories I’ve written together with my best friend, just checking out stuff, just sensing this feeling of creativity again that I can feel every time I read one of those pieces.

But that will have to wait until at least tomorrow, since I will go to bed now. Get some sleep. Sleep in tomorrow, which is the most important thing about this weekend. And then getting some work done.

First week of my “new life”.

Last week, I moved to the Netherlands, to Middelburg, one of the most beautiful towns I’ve ever seen, seriously. It went quite smoothly, moving my stuff here – my room (I live in a 10-persons-house) is gorgeous, very spacious; however, I brought too many things, meaning there are still unpacked boxes in the corner, and I don’t have a desk, which sucks. Since I had to spend 250 euros on books for the university, and had to pay my rent, and still have to pay tuition fees, I will not have enough money to buy one, either, so I’ll just have to do without for the first few months and simply work on the bed. That’ll be quite fine, too.

My housemates are quite nice, as far as I’ve noticed, and I really feel at home here. I still have to get used to having people around all the time, though, and it’ll probably take some time until I no longer wake up just because somebody banged a door. My room is right next to the washing machine and the dryer, too, and when they’re on, my bed is shaking. That’s kind of weird, too, but I’ll have to live with that – I don’t want to move my bed because where it is now is practically the perfect place for it.

I’ve already met loads of new people during the introduction week, mostly Dutch people of course, and I’m generally simply enjoying myself. I got my schedule on Wednesday and got to know my tutor then, too; I didn’t get into any Philosophy course this semester, though, which sucks. I have two other courses which I didn’t want to have, but which sound quite cool, too (Literary Studies and English Linguistics), then, of course, I have English for Academic Purposes and Anthropology (which I wanted to have). I’m quite happy with my schedule, too. The only thing that really sucks is that I still do not have internet in my room; I don’t know why, but I alraedy contacted the IT Helpdesk yesterday and hope that they’ll be able to do something about it eventually.

In fact, so much happened last week, but I cannot tell you all of it; it’s just too much. So for the time being, let’s just say that I am having a great time here, and that I am already looking forward to starting my studies tomorrow.

Countdown

Only two weeks to go. I’m going to move to the Netherlands on August 20th, have to be there at 11:30 to receive my keys, and then I’m out of here. Only a few days to get used to the surroundings and people – then, in the week of August 24th, there will be my introduction week and after that my studies start. I’m pretty excited. The thing that is actually getting on my nerves is the fact that apart from the inventory of my room, I don’t know anything about it – not even the size. I didn’t even get it when I asked for it and that… sucks. So it’s pretty much a hit-or-miss-affair, speaking of the furniture I bought. We’ll see… I have a bed, and the house has a washing machine and a coffee machine – probably the most essential things to survive as a student

However, I started packing today. I guess you never actually realize how much (useless) crap you have until you’re moving. Speak alone of the clothes! I’m glad I won’t have to move out completely - my “first residence” is here in Germany, the apartment belongs to my dad anyway, so I keep my room here. Which is a good thing – I can’t even decide which books I am to leave here and which I am to take with me. I never realized I have so many books. Seriously. So the “most important things” have to come with me, which is practically most of the stuff. And I probably won’t have enough space for it anyway. But I’ll have to see about that.

Things are rushing, as it seems. Time goes by so fast. Friday and Saturday will be the last opportunity for my more-or-less-regular DSA roleplaying group and, hopefully, we’ll be able to at least try one plot of the Star Trek RPG next weekend. (My character is a Vulcanian diplomat and I already like him – a lot!) Then, of course, I’ll have to meet a few friends next week, too, before moving out. The next time I will be here in Germany regularly will be when the fall semester is finished, in December. But first I’ll have to go the Netherlands in the first place – and there are more things to manage than I expected. I guess I won’t have time to update the journal before the 20th, so expect to hear something from me once I’ve settled in

And, by the way, I got my tattoo on Monday. And I’m loving it! =)

Moving on

Okay, here we go, just a quick update on my life in general
So… Life is finally moving on for me: last month, I officially graduated from my school (with prom and stuff like that, which was quite fun considering that I can’t dance, but forced a friend of mine to dance with me anyway), and since then I have spent most of the time relaxing, reading, doing housework, roleplaying, having personal problems and being, at times, seriously bored. I spent a weekend learning the basics of Dutch, which is a really weird language… And I’ve been busy throwing away most of my old school stuff; I only have a few more folders to sort out, then I have so much more space…
And at the same time, there is so much to do, still. I’ll move out next month, from Germany to the Netherlands, and I still haven’t heard anything from my college concerning my room, so I haven’t been able to plan anything concerning furniture, etc. However, I already have a Dutch bank account, and every time I drive to my future hometown-for-three-years, I love it even more than the time before. I went there last time on a really sunny day and it was simply gorgeous, considering that the weather in Germany was incredibly hot and humid and in the Netherlands – at least where my college is located – it was hot, but with a nice breeze to make up for it. I’m already really curious about studying there and I’m pretty sure that it’ll be a challenging, but fun time. Of course it’s much of a change and I feel weird whenever I think about not seeing my friends every day any longer, but that will be okay, too, I guess, even though I’ll miss them like hell.

I’ve also spent the past few weeks being incredibly creative together with Annika, simply because we started to write many, many stories about our roleplay characters. I guess I haven’t been that creative in a very long time

For further notice, I still don’t have a camera, so still don’t expect any photos soon. I’d buy one, but since I’m gonna get a tattoo in a couple of weeks and have to save some money for the time in the Netherlands, that’s not an option any time soon. Sorry about that!

But all in all, life is moving on, and that’s a positive thing at least. I’ll return to the book I’m reading now, and see if anything interesting is about to happen today.

Re-discovering a passion

So it’s a week since learning was officially finished for me; a week that I spent on the balcony most of the time (yes, I do have several sunburns, but it’s quite worth it), reading; a week in which I simply enjoyed myself, and a week in which I found out how much I missed reading, since that was what I spent practically all my time with.

Reading. Reading has made up a major part of my life, a major part of my personality, my creativity. When I was younger, I spent practically all my time reading, drowning in all those books, all those words, disappearing into those strange worlds. I have to admit that I neglected reading in the past time, when I was too busy with school and personal problems. I’m not saying I didn’t have the time to read. I did have the time (seeing that I only started to actually study in the past few months), but not the strength, the motivation, to actually do so. There was constantly something else on my mind, I couldn’t really focus on the words for long (especially when they were written in German), and there was the continuous feeling that I should be doing something else than reading, and so I did. My head was so full with all sorts of things that I couldn’t concentrate on books any longer, that I didn’t have the ability to “let go” and simply read. And in the past few days, I noticed how much I had missed that “reading” feeling.

What an amazing feeling it is to let go of all the things around you, to let your imagination work, to switch into a different reality entirely, seeing, thinking from a different perspective, enjoying yourself. Those past few days actually were quite amazing, as they brought something back to me that meant so much to me. I haven’t read that much in… months, I guess, even though I wanted to. One moment, you’re in Paris (Claudine geht by Colette), the next moment you’re in Nazi Germany and look through the eyes of Death (The Book Thief, which I read this weekend and finished just half an hour ago), and then, the next second, you’re on the Discworld (Moving Pictures, which I am currently reading). All this within one week. Amazing. I love that reading feeling.

The Book Thief, however, really astonished me. I’ve read quite a few books, really, but this is one of the books that are really unputdownable. Brilliantly written, simply amazing, with so many emotions, so much meaning. I was surprised, sometimes, that I had tears in my eyes when I was reading, and I seriously couldn’t put the book down. About 250 todays, about 250 pages yesterday, and some pages on the day before that. I’m still quite overwhelmed by that beauty.

I also realized, though, that I read more slowly now; seems I’ve lost my “practice”. I still read considerably fast, but not as fast as I am used to. So I’ll go now and improve my pace, and I’ll have a great time on the Discworld.