I AM NO MAN!

The presession is over - here are my thoughts:

The organization I’m working with is called IES, and their Freiburg branch only deals with students from IU and Minnesota. The language institute I’m studying at, however, has students from all over the world. I’ve met people from Spain, France, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Russia, Australia, Canada, Japan, Finland, and Estonia - there are a few more but you get the idea: it’s a very international environment. The American students are from all over the United States, too, which means their accents and slang are as different from mine as they are from the Japanese students. I have to add that I’m also somewhat surprised by how similar we all are no matter where we’re from - I expected problems with communicative or behavioral compatibility, but I haven’t had any reason to explain something I’ve said or done. I guess a shared pop culture makes us more alike than I thought it could. 

The concept of a globe-spanning student body is awesome in and of itself, but the best part of this environment is that these people are interesting. They’re intelligent and fun, and they engage themselves in a wide variety of talents and pastimes, from dancing to making music to playing sports. It’s a very diverse mix of people but regardless of who we are we can relate to each other because right now, we’re all in the same situation, and German is a common thread. 

…

You already know about my trips out of Freiburg, but there have been all kinds of institute-organized activities that allow the students to get together in bowling alleys, bars, and discotheques without having to worry about organizing it themselves.  

Since Freiburg is such a small city there’s a much better chance of serendipitous meetings. For instance, I was exploring Freiburg alone and stopped into an Irish pub to honor Guinness Day, and I ran into a group of students who were also there to celebrate the poorly diluted tar that’s somehow legally sold as a beverage.

The difference between this and any other German day: balloons. 

On the academic front, I took a language class which consisted nearly entirely of summarizing summaries of summarizations and attended a lecture about intercultural communication that never left the ground because it was bogged down by extravagant theory describing embarrassingly simple ideas.  

The whole three-week session almost fell apart, too. I had a weird exchange with SLI (the language institute) that essentially went like this: 

 

SLI: “You’re getting credit for attending the lecture.”
   

Jared: “Okay.” 
   

SLI: “You’re not getting credit for anything you’ve done.”
 

Jared: “What?” 
   

SLI: “You’re getting credit.”
   

Jared: “. . . ” 

Academic disaster narrowly averted!

 

…

On a personal note, I’ve learned that no matter how much you want to convince yourself that pastries and coffee are essential to a good education, you have to take control, be a man, and buy cereal. 

…

Some of you know that the biggest German festival of our lifetime is underway. Those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about might want to sit down or hold onto something. 

It’s the 200^th anniversary of Oktoberfest. 

Now pick yourself up off the floor and keep reading because I promise you will be very impressed with me in about twenty seconds. I actually found a hostel in Munich with available beds, an insanely difficult thing to find, and it’s between 10.50 and 21.50 Euros a night. 21.50! Let’s put this in perspective: the biggest, cheapest hostel in the downtown area is 47 Euros a night – that’s not per room, that’s per person; therefore, I found an absolutely incredible deal.  I’m excited. Are you excited? Of course you’re excited, because you know I’m going to do a video entry on this. 

You have no idea how incredible that post is going to be.

I leave for Munich – and my destiny – on Tuesday, and I don’t have any plans between now and then. It’s already been a long wait. I hope I can keep myself occupied. 

Update:  If you are wondering exactly how I’ve been keeping myself occupied, here is today’s project of the evening, and yes, it is an animated image of me stabbing a Nazgul in the face. 

Bis bald, 

-Jared Boze