Looking at the bright side(s)

Example:  I overslept and had no time for breakfast this morning.  Bright side:  I got some much-needed extra sleep  :)

And I wasn't even hungry afterwards  :)  In the morning, there was cake in the lobby on my way to class, and there were two kinds of cake, so I had to eat one piece of each kind (you can't put two different kinds of food in front of me and ask me to pick one); in the afternoon, there was chocolate in my Comm class (thank you Marylou!); after classes, I walked across campus to the Registrar's office to turn in my registration card for Spring, and there they had cake again!  Probably to celebrate students who go register on the first day, a.k.a. me  :)

And this is the kind of stuff that keeps happening to me every single time I have to do something like skipping breakfast, which is why I can keep looking at the bright side of everything  :)

More stuff to feel bright about that happened today:  The last two volumes of compulsory reading for my Master's thesis---"Das deutsche Drama" in two volumes by Benno von Wiese---arrived in the mail (thank you, Barbara!).  I'm hoping to finish reading them before the semester is over and get started with writing the thesis over Christmas!

And still to come today:  Poetry slam during 7--9 PM at the Moose!  And I'm feeling awake enough to go watch it.  Because I got extra sleep this morning  :)

Overdoing it now :)

And I mean it in a good way  :)  It used to be that, on most occasions when I, for whatever reason, did not finish homework on time, class would get cancelled, thus letting me off the hook, and I would be thankful, etc.  Of course, it helped that I usually do finish stuff on time, but there have been cases (such as my German class last Thursday) where I really could use the break I got, and I have forever suspected that, at least in this one matter, I get preferential treatment from life  :)

Well, today there wasn't even any homework due at all for my Journalism class, but it got cancelled anyway  :)  But I, like Alfred P. Doolittle, can always use a little bit o' luck  :)  I looked long and hard at my two bottomless lists (one of things to do and another of things I'd like to do) and I decided that I could use the free extra 75 minutes to do some stuff ahead of time, which might open up some time down the road, such as for going to watch Werner Herzog's film when the Art Department shows it next Thursday evening ...  Now it's past 5:45 PM (the time when, if we had had class, class would have ended), so I'll post this now and go on to other stuff  :)

Herr K. ist zufrieden :)

Josef K. (in Kafka's "Prozess") is doomed (he doesn't even know of what he's being accused), just like we are doomed to winter for the next 8 months or so, but right now, at the end of a classes-free warm day (probably the last classes-free warm day of the year), I'm feeling good  :)  because, for the moment, I have tobacco, canned food, drink, and both kinds of coffee (the dark roasted, coarse ground real coffee for the french press in my apartment, and the vile instant coffee I must drink at my office), and my winter coat has been dry cleaned ...  Ideally, I'd have liked to get a haircut today as well, but I can't do that in the middle of classes (it distracts my students too much), so I already got my hair cut during October Break, and I'll just let it grow until it's after Finals Week, and I'll consider it a natural hat until then  :)  The one other thing I needed before winter was new boots, but I didn't want to waste any part of today driving across town to buy boots, so I'll just do that some other day, and, for this evening, I'll just go ahead and feel good already, like Herr K. managed to do in spite of being doomed, in spite of knowing that he was doomed.

Oh and I also filled out my application to next year's (German) summer school  :)  and---now that I come to think of it---that might be a large part of why I'm feeling good  :)  try it yourself and see?

Last chance Wednesday

For example:  I am almost out of tobacco (not that I have no more tobacco, but that I have no more unopened pouches).  On Tuesdays, I'm done with classes at 2:55 PM, and my office hours are over at 4:45 PM, and Buffalo Tobacco Traders only closes at 7 PM, so I was planning to get a new box of pouches after my office hours today, but at the end of my office hours, after I made one 'phone call about my Spring semester classes (because the offices close earlier than the tobacconist's) and read my e-mail and checked Facebook, the sun had already set!  It was barely 5:30 PM ... it was also cloudy, so I decided to not walk the few blocks today after all.  It feels really lame to drive everywhere with the car, so I'm now planning to get the tobacco tomorrow instead.

And that's just one example.  I have the unsettling feeling that, all semester long, I have had no time to do anything at all on days when I have had classes; as a result, every little thing that comes up during the week has to be done on the following Wednesday; as a result, I end up being really busy on Wednesdays as well!

And tomorrow is even worse than the normal busy Wednesday:  We're into November now, and there's snow in next week's weather forecast, so there's no telling whether Wednesday next week will still be suitable for walking.

I know that driving in the middle of winter is just as certain as taxes at the beginning of spring and death at the end of summer, but tomorrow might be my actual last chance of the year to get stuff done on foot.

New titles received :)

Mondays and Thursdays are brutal:  I teach back-to-back from 9:25 AM to 1:05 PM, take a class during 1:40--2:55 PM, keep office hours during 3:05--4:20 PM, then take another class during 4:30--5:45 PM.  And yet it's all light and easy on those Mondays and Thursdays when I have something concrete that I'm looking forward to doing after all of that.  For example, today was a good Monday, partly (but only partly) because of the addition of the following new arrivals to my daily reading list:

1.  Verfuehrungen.,  Roman von Marlene Streeruwitz;
2.  Der Spaziergang von Rostock nach Syrakus, Erzaehlung von Friedrich Christian Delius;
3.  Nonverbal Concomitants of Perceived and Intended Persuasiveness, by Albert Mehrabian and Martin Williams.

So:  Have a great evening, everyone, because I sure am having a great evening  :)

Hot language, cool school :)

My German summer school, deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik (dSaP for short), just updated their website for next year!  Here's the link.

Everybody knows this much:  The German language is hot  :)  But you need to physically come to this particular summer school and see for yourself how much unbelievably hotter it gets in summer!

Back in Fall 2008, I researched summer German-language immersion programs in the USA, and this was the best one (in terms of quality, course offerings, history, etc.) by about 23.44 miles.  I came here as an undergraduate in 2009, and I liked it here so much that I have come back as a graduate student every single summer after that  :)

If you are an undergraduate, you can earn 12 quarter credits during the 5 weeks with a normal class load (and it is perfectly possible to do an overload) which will transfer to your College and count towards your German major (or German minor).  This is what I did in 2009 (I took 16 quarter credits that time).

If you already have a B.A. in German, an M.A. in German at this summer school takes 4--7 summers.  This is what I am doing now  :)

If you are a graduate student in German, you can earn 12 quarter credits with a normal class load (and it is perfectly possible to do an overload) which will transfer into and count towards the graduate program at your University.

If you work smart at the summer school, you can typically make about a whole year's worth of progress during the 5 weeks, no matter at what level you start  :)  Want to see some proof?  You'll get to prove this to yourself by taking the Goethe examinations towards the end of the 5 weeks!  Taking the exams is optional, but they encourage it by offering a huge discount (the Goethe exams are expensive) during the summer school  :)

And that's not even the half of it ...  But I'm not telling you any more!  Get here next year and see for yourself  :)

If you will have already had at least 2 years of German by next summer, apply now.  The recommendation letter doesn't need to say your German is perfect, the letter just needs to say you have the tenacity to go 5 weeks using no language other than German 24/7.

If you haven't had enough German yet, take some (more) German already.  It's worth taking those classes at your local College just so you can come to this summer school afterwards (in addition to all of the reasons you've already heard, of course).  Yes, it's that good  :)

Featherweight

So far, tomorrow's Comm 101 exam is thoroughly kicking my butt  :(  and I'm even about to give up on it and go home.  Accordingly, a really short poem is all I'm posting today, and the poem is not at all representative of my day ...  On the other hand, receiving the e-mail which contained the poem was the one highlight of my day  :)  The original poem is in Italian by Tonino Guerra, who died earlier this year, and this is a German translation:
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Die Feder

Ich erinnere mich nicht mehr den Tag und die Stunde
aber es war um Weihnachten da hab ich gesehen
wie eine Feder vom Glockenturm herabfiel:
Ich stand da und schaute in die Luft
als waere ich es, der da fliegt
und langsam langsam bin ich auf den Boden gekommen
leicht wie nie