It's true! I have not died!

Okay, so I wasn't exactly brilliant, but neither did I suck a whole lot. Anna's a little more fluid in her speech than I am, but that's okay, because I went before her. Hehe. And the professor didn't tell us that we'd missed anything really big--he just told us areas to concentrate on a little more when we write our semester papers (my next hurdle--a 15 page paper on the same topic) and to use secondary sources in German instead of English. ::guilty grin:: I say he's being picky. At least one or two of my secondary sources were in German, so only 2 or 3 were English, and honestly, more academic work is done in English than in German. I don't think that it makes the analysis of the text any less valid. I mean, the authors of the analyses read the stuff in the original and quote it in the original, so you have to know both languages anyway. And it is not completely unheard of that I use a German source to write something for an Econ paper when I'm in Kansas.... Anyway, small diatribe.

Quite honestly, we presented way more information than the German guy who gave one last week. Maybe not quite as eloquently, because, again, it is not our mother tongue... but people understood us, and one girl even saw us later at the library and told us that we'd done really well. I thought that was nice. Vincenzo told us we were good, too, but he's required to say that because he's our friend.

I will be out of radio contact again for a while, because there's yet another religious freakin' holiday... Pfingsten! [Pentecost] We have Monday and Tuesday off, and I'm going on the International Student Excursion to Heidelberg tomorrow. Aieee, no internet for 4 days.... frightening. We may go somewhere on Tuesday, also. Regensberg, Nürmberg... the possibilities are endless!

We're having small dinner party... some people have already left for Prague, which I am still incredibly jealous about. However, I think I might do eastern Europe at the end of July since it'd be cheaper than Italy and I can speak some Polish now. A very limited amount of Polish, but an amount nonetheless. We'll see.

 
T minus 1.5 hours to Referat.

My handout is done. Now I must go to the copy store and most importantly CALM DOWN.

I have irrefutable evidence that one does not die from giving a referat. Anna survived hers in one piece. Even if I suck, I probably don't even have to drop out of school. I'm going to be fine.

Last night, we didn't end up making dinner because no one on our floor was going to come, so now I have 40 euros worth of crap and no idea what to do with it. Throw a dinner party of my own, I suppose.

We went out to the Irish Pub because we haven't been out in a full week and we needed to relaaaaaaax....

Okay, I'm going to go make copies and drink coffee. Or drink copies and make coffee, I don't know.

 
"Das Englische ist eine einfache, aber schwere Sprache. Es besteht aus lauter Fremdwörtern, die falsch ausgesprochen werden." Kurt Tucholsky, 1931

[English is a simple, but difficult language. It consists only of foreign words that are pronounced incorrectly.]

 
That last bit from Jack Johnson may or may not be a song totally about me. I'm not sure.

I borrowed Kay's CD player because I hadn't listened to music on purpose in... well, months.... and i was dying. And she's got really excellent taste. Or her friend Becky who made her some mix CDs has excellent taste.

It's raining. That'll either make it cool off, or make it disgustingly hot *and* humid!

Off to Polish. Mowie po polsku! Merde.

 
She's got it all figured out
She knows what everything's about
And when anybody doubts her
Or sings songs about her
She's just so mmm

She's the one that stumbles when she talks about it
So maybe we shouldn't talk about
Such a fortunate fool
She's just too good to be true
She's such a fortunate fool
She's just so mmm

 
Wow, that's incredibly bizarre. The computer died just as I posted yesterday, and when I checked later, the post wasn't there. But now it is. And probably terribly misspelled, but what do you want from me, really?

I am FREAKING OUT. I'm actually doing pretty well on the 'being nearly done with my Referat' front. That doesn't mean I'm any less nervous, though. And to top it all off, Kay and I signed up to cook dinner tonight before we realized that we both have referats tomorrow.

Oh, thank God, a breeze. It's been freaky hot the past few days.

I love... everything. And I'm in serious need of a drink.

Tomorrow, tomorrow.... Tomorrow I start to live again. ::wink::

 
Ory ory, szabadabada amore!
Hej, amore, szabadabada
O bruzgiaty, o srzogiaty
Hejze, troika, nie mienia!

 
Yipes, head hurts. Too much number theory!

Okay, what was I just thinking?

I'm wearing a new crocheted sweater thing, and I was thinking how funny it would be if I got sunburned through it.

I may have made some breakthroughs on my referat during the several hours I spent in the library yesterday. Y'see, Tucholsky primarily saw himself as a critic, and nothing was safe from his acid tongue, or pen, or whatever. So people called him Anti-semitic (though he himself was Jewish), because he didn't spare Judaism just like he didn't spare anything from criticism. Brilliant! Also, I speak good German, but i have AMAZING capability to read it. Seriously. I was reading some heavy academic stuff, and feeling like a hardass.

Crap, I had something insightful to say, and I can't recall what it was. Trust me, my friends, it was interesting *and* deep. I just... ran out of room in the margin. Heh, sorry, just learned Fermat's little theorem, math jokes may appear unwilled.

Must finish homework....

 
I totally just farted loudly in a public internet cafe. I am soooooo pretty.

Well, our place with the nuns was not extremely cheap, but it did include a nice breakfast, and some of the nuns were indeed merry, though not all. Some were nigh on to sour. It wasn´t nearly as friendly as most hostel places I´ve stayed in my ever-so-vast experience as a European traveller... ::small eye roll at my own semi-mock snottiness::

Today, museums, and a late afternoon train home. Then really really really doing schoolwork. Luckily, if I do well at school this week, most of my work will be out of the way, because ostensibly, my referat and hausarbeit (i.e. semester paper) are supposed to be the same thing-ish, or the one an introduction to the other. So, if my research is well done for my referat, all I have to do is magically write a 15 page paper about it. Damn, I even whine about 15 pages in my own damn language. What was I thinking? Yeah, direct exchange is a great idea, Becky... and I´m going to quickly lose all the progress I´ve made in the language anyway because I´m not taking German this semester. Brilliant.

Yesterday I distinctly missed Lawrence and Lawrence-related people. Yipes, only halfway through this semester and I´m raring to go on the next one. Best to gear down, big shifter.