I found that are a variety of really pretty emblem sites out there today. There's a project they're doing in Glasgow. Why, why did I leave? There's also a really pretty educational site hosted by the project they're doing in Utrecht with explanations and quizzes in English and in Dutch, it's really good and worth a visit - it's a kind of introductory course on Dutch love emblems.
One project is hosted by Wolfenbüttel, which I will get to visit in May, then, there's the Munich emblem data base, and a site on the Memorial University of Newfoundland who have digitalised the emblems of Andrea Alciato (1492-1550), who is probably my favourite.

Here are a few examples:

( Silentium (Silence) )

( Reverentiam in matrimonio requiri (Respect is to be sought in marriage) )

Submovendam ignorantiam (Ignorance must be banished)

Quod monstrum id? Sphinx est. Cur candida virginis ora,
Et volucrum pennas, crura leonis habet?
Hanc faciem assumpsit rerum ignorantia: tanti
Scilicet est triplex caussa et origo mali.
Sunt quos ingenium leve, sunt quos blanda voluptas,
Sunt et quos faciunt corda superba rudes.
At quibus est notum, quid Delphica littera possit,
Praecipitis monstri guttura dira secant.
Namque vir ipse bipesque tripesque et quadrupes idem est,
Primaque prudentis laurea, nosse virum.

What monster is that? It is the Sphinx.
Why does it have the bright face of a virgin, the feathers of a bird, and the limbs of a lion?
Ignorance of things has taken on this appearance: which is to say that the root cause of so much evil is threefold. Some men are made ignorant by levity of mind, some by seductive pleasure, and some by arrogance of spirit. But they who know the power of the Delphic message slit the relentless monster's terrible throat. For man himself is also a two-footed, three-footed, four-footed thing, and the first victory of the prudent man is to know what man is.

It's a fascinating genre, and it's a pity it's been banalised so much. What was most interesting for me was reading the Dutch pages - I hardly know anything at all about the period in Netherlands, it was a fascinating read.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Hamburg
Current Music: Schelmish - Das Moor

So they introduced tuition fees this semester: €500.

So there is the additional fee for the ticket, etc. That used to be around €156, in the good old days, does anyone remember those?
A few years ago, those were raised (and we had to pay an additional €50. This was of course greeted with an outcry and a threat that anyone not able to pay would not be readmitted for the next semester.).The reason they gave for the introduction of the raise was that it was an added administrative fee. (To be fair, they could really do with the money. Most of the people working there are complete idiots, maybe more money would attract people who can actually read).

In addition to that, those additional fee has been raised gradually, always for a few euros, and next semester we'll have to pay another ten Euroes, which gives us €242 additional fees PLUS €500 tuition fees = €742.

So, when I started my course it used to be €156, and now it's €742.

Slight difference, no?

That they raised the bloody additional fees the semester we've got to pay tuition fees is absolutely LUDICROUS.

It's obvious that they're going to raise them until we've got to pay €1000 per semester, but even with the €500 there are so many students who have to end their course of studies, and there are no ways of really funding your course of studies. The credits they planned to introduce don't really work for everybody, and our state student support system which never really work that well in the first place doesn't even take the fees into account as far as I know.

In Glasgow, I wouldn't even have MINDED paying the fees because everything was just ... better, and I didn't even have to.
It is also an open secret that close to NOTHING will change after these fees have been paid because they don't go to the department but are used God only knows were.

This place just SUCKS.

Current Mood: enraged
Current Location: Capital of Fools

The Skinhead Hamlet

Shakespeare's play translated into modern English.

[Our hope was to achieve something like the effect of the New English Bible. --Eds.]

( The curtain rises, silence falls... )

Two of our professors actually performed this for the benefit of Lit 1A back in Glasgow. I wish our German profs had done this for us over here, it was both very, very disturbing and hilarious in a wrong way. ... Well, still not as hilarious as one of those two Glaswegian professors doing his impression of Mel Gibson as Hamlet. I never quite got why he jumped on the table to get his message across there, but I daresay it had something to do with the physicality of the role. Sigh. I loved that man.

Anyway.

Current Mood: hyper
Current Location: Still not Hanover!

No more Russian!

No more translations to hand in by Friday, 4pm.
No more last-minute printing in the library and running into people up in the Hetherington Building who had been handing in their homework just on time, as well.
No more racking my brain and online dictionaries in search for obscure phrases and words no one apparently ever uses apart from the people writing learner's text books.
No more leafing through the back pages of my coffee-stained Russian book, battered and old-looking as no book in my possession does, in search for a word.
No more sitting in the back row with the three guys and the four guyettes which made this course as great, no more running into Kirsi.
No more hanging around in front of the Hetherington Building for hours on end after the course with my two favourite smokers in this place.
No more stupid assignment which are actually doing the opposite from what they are supposed to do from a didactic point of view.
No more attempts at motivating us from our darling teacher.
No more grammar lessons!
No more lessons with Ms Terijezo.
No more progress tests "with a little help".
No more getting our work back.
No more reading Russian texts in a group.

No more Russian.

I am not quite sure about how I feel about that.

Sad, sure, but after this horrible exam, I am also partly glad.
Well, more than just partly, I can tell you. Our darling teacher (that is no sarcasm, she is really awesome) had told us we would get a sheet with the words we don't know yet in the text. Well, there were plenty of words I for my part had never seen before, so either they were all in that one translation I did not submit (unlikely), or we just hadn't, which sounds far more likely, since the others did not seem to know any of those, either.

It was really sad to see my wonderful Russian class for the last time, I had really come to love these guys. Most of them are going home for summer, sadly, and I didn't think about taking pictures of the guys until after the exam, when everybody was already gone.

Boy, that was hard. The mock exams we had were absolutely nothing compared to this on, they were all fairly easy, this one had had least two constructions in them I was quite convinced we are not even supposed to know yet. Not sure I got them all right... Ah, well, can't be changed, now. I didn't quite finish with writing in ink the answers I had not been quite so sure about. Stupid as I am, I had them in pencil, and I guess that means I will not receive any marks for those answers. Which sucks. But then, maybe it's better, because who knows what kind of nonsense I came up with in those parts?

There was a whole passage which looked somewhat like this in my first version: "Being the son of a _______ (fisherman??), he was not ____________ (with) to (?) hard work and thus ___________ so that he could (?!) ____________ with ________________. He went to Moscow and during that time he was able to __________ with lots of ____________ ."

Terrible, I can tell you. And I know I would have known the words, had we had them. I mean, yes, there were words I keep and keep forgetting, but these were none of those. Ah, well, we'll see.

There is still the remote possibility that we were supposed to get a sheet with extra vocabulary but accidentally just weren't given. Or something. Well, not that likely, I know.

And now?

University over and the gigantic emptiness of two month ahead. Holidays as yet free of any preparations and obligations, except for seeing as much of this lovely island as possible while I still have the chance and time.
And then?
Applications for courses, again, online and offline, facing the uni life at home, again, missing so many of the people and teachers here, missing Crocky, academic half-life in the daze which hangs over our faculty at home... I want to stay heeeeeeeeeeeere.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: Glasgow University, Main Library
Current Music: Crocky typing

No problem there, I can't even transfer the credit for this one, anyway (grrr) and thus am doing it just for fun, but... Sigh. It's one close reading task and one essay question. Close reading should be fine as last year's exam papers have all been fairly easy.

The only downside is my huge flu, huge headache. I can't concentrate to save my life and my eyes hurt. Well, another downside is the fact that I do not seem to get to grips with any of the set texts better than with darling Donne and Herbert. Ugh.

So... It looks as though I need a custom-tailored question tailored to suit those two authors and their idea about identity and selves. Well, or one about the American self, Roth and Gilman's wallpaper. Everybody would be doing that, it's the easiest question by far, so I'd better stick with Herbert and Donne. Sigh. Head. Aches.

Great.

One huge up is that Crocky's feeling better. Two GPs assured her that cancer was very unlikely. Phew. Not that it was realistic or sounded realistic to any of us, but ... you never know until you know.

Hugs to all!

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Location: Glasgow University, Student Information Desk
Current Music: Crocky typing

This is my final day at this university. That is SUCH an odd feeling! I will never again have lessons here, in these rooms, with these professors.

A week, then four exams, and then I will never be a student again at this university.

And then back to Germany.

I do not know whether it is good or bad. The University at home is absolutely terrible. They are unorganised, they are going to instate study fees, but the quality of teaching at this university does not merit these fees at all. It is strange, but with the possibly sole exception of our very own rather excellent cafeteria at home, everything at this university is better than at home. Everything.

I am definitely planning to go back for a Post Grad course to one of the British Unis if it's possible.... Maybe I should do a Bachelor's degree after all? Nahhh. Whatever I do in Hamburg internationally counts as a Bachelor, even though the level equals a Master.

Even first year students at this uni know much more about English literature than we learn at home - but then, is that true? Our system is just so different from this here.

At home, you can chose what you want to learn something about, here, you have to attend lectures with a preset syllabus. But then, neither here nor at home you are forced to familiarise yourself with everything there is on the syllabus, you can choose and write your essay on texts of your choice. Of course, if I see courses like the one we did at home on Postmodern Literature and Gothic novels, they worked much better than any lecture might, but then, the person teaching them is the best Professor we have. The others are very rambling and full of idiots, on both sides of the desk. Seriously!

Most people in those courses have no intention of reading the pre-set texts for the course, because they can choose what to answer on in their paper. Bad. On the other hand, the same happens here, but this phenomenon is not as wide-spread. You have more lessons here in one course, but you only take a maximum of four courses here.

At home, most people have 20 hours of lessons per semester - the same amount you have here if you take four courses - but these courses at home only have two hours per lesson. This means that the amount of reading is FAR higher at home. I found it quite easy here, to be honest, to read everything on the lists. At home? Last semester, I had amounts of a thousand pages per week. Manageable, but it also meant I could not really prepare them as thoroughly. Here, it is down to… maybe a couple of hundred and a poem.

Wow, obscene masses. It does not really seem to get more for the higher levels, and this means you have plenty of time to really immerse yourself in the texts you are reading when at home, in the GoNo course, we very often had to speed read the texts because we learnt it was going to be the first five hundred pages of the Mysteries of Udolpho next week or something.

And at home? Magister paper. Finding a topic, that is. Terrible. But then, there are bright sides to everything. Friends, Family, Home internet connection, TV, my books and, most important of all, my cat. Still... No Crocky, no beautiful uni, no great professors, no seminars with about ten people in them, max. Sigh.

Current Mood: gloomy
Current Location: Glasgow University, Main Library
Current Music: People typing

The talk in my literature course went fine, I really shouldn't have worried about it at all.

Due to the crammed reading list, the topic for today's session was "Modernity and the Irish". Crammed, I tell you... anyway. I was told I should "compare two poems or something". Hm. Well, alright. Since I did not want to make the same mistakes the girl whose talk was on "Goblin Market" and "Kubla Khan" and didn't get through because, obviously, it is absolutly impossible to cram both poems into 45 minutes, I wanted to go for something shorter, but I also was also dying to do "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock".

Well... Wednesday came, the Eliot session... and which poem did we discuss...? Thanks, professor. New poem, since what's the use of discussing a poem with them they already have talked about at length?

So I went for "Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden because he is not on the syllabus (crime!!!) and "The Second Coming". I thought maybe we could compare the whole thing to Prufrock after my talk. I did feel they might be a bit too simple for this kind of discussion, but went for it, anyway.

What did my darling tutor have in mind?
'I thought that since our session is on the Irish self and Modernity, we could compare "The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock" to "The Second Coming".' Great minds... Since we were so in sync, all went exceptionally well. Since only four people were there out of our 10 people seminar, I have tons of hand outs left. Grrr. I took the opportunity to further Gerard's and Mirko's education in Russian Media.

Tehe. I love presentations.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Glasgow University, Main Library

Thank you so much for the card, Rocky!

Wow, I did not even realise it was so late already. There were the holidays, and then there was this Essay, and then, suddenly, there was this huge parcel my parents sent us.

I really ought to move out or go abroad for a year more often. Especially my father is much nicer since I left. They put in Easter bunnies, some Easter decoration, some Cheese, some Cappuccino (yummm...), some bread, some chocolate eggs - so lovely!

And a picture of my cat - I miss him terribly. Once I'm home, he will become the most documentated cat in the world. He is so sweet I just HAVE to take pictures of him.

Handed in the worst Essay ever written - well, by me, at any rate - for Literature today. A comparison of the Role of the Poet and Poetic Identity in Coleridge's, Wordsworth's and Shelley's writing - as though it was possible to do that in 1,500 words...! It was so much fun reading their texts I somehow had difficulties with writing the actual essay and found myself sitting there lost in one or the other lecture by Coleridge (or other things quite often instead of going quote-hunting for my essay. I guess it's good when things have that effect, but somehow, I would have preferred being able to compile a reasonable amount of good examples, pick out the things I need, then sleep over it and then write a well-structured essay instead of trying to crush in all I find interesting on the spur of the moment. I guess they will tell me it lacks structure. Soddit, it was so much fun writing it that doesn't even matter.

Apart from that, the AUT are on strike here, which means that some of our examiners will be banned from doing any correction. In some departments, that is. I am not sure whether the Literature people are part of that, but I have definitely had enough of industrial actions. In Russian, our teacher is banned from giving back or correcting our work until the end of a period whose end nobody has agreed on yet. Great.

I guess I'll toddle off home now and read that article I have found in my search for secondary literature - although it had nothing to do with them (it's on Heidegger). Well, and then I have to find something yummy to put into the salad and something else to go with the salad.

Then, I guess I take some time off to do some work on a short story I have started around eight years ago and which has turned out a novel rather than a short story, is terrible but has too much of myself in it to throw it away, too many characters I love and too many places I love. Story? Plot? Pshaw.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: University of Glasgow, Boyd Orr Building
Current Music: Crocky on the other side of the table, typing

... on a break.

We all love JRK, but

agatha_s's journal reminded me once more why we do today. On Thinness

Apart from that, we're paying a visit to the Uni today to have a look at the Hunterian Art Gallery. Can't wait to see it, although I might stay here to work on my uni stuff for a while. Well, and to eat something. I'm starving. I really should be working on my Essay for Literature, but... It doesn't count. That sure is a killer for my currently already limited ambitions. Long live happy mediocricy!

I have started already, but I did not get past the stage of hunting down and evaluating secondary literature. Which virtually does not exist, strangely. Sigh. Not that I care.

I can remember the good old days in which I cared for the stuff I was doing, before I lost interest. Well, the good old days in which I maybe wasn't foolish enough to go to those professors who never give As and then fail to work hard enough to get one, anyway, like I used to at school, because somehow, my priorities have shifted. But still... Who cares if I am among the best in somebody's class if I get a friggin' B in the end because that is all the professor ever gives a student who does not range somewhere between himself and god? I want my good marks back.

And I want the desire back which filled me back in my last year at school, the desire to actually give everything to achieve a goal. Goals? Yes, I must have had them once. And now....?

Sigh.

And I really ought to work on my stuff for the Creative Writing Society, I guess we'll have a meeting on Monday and I missed the last one already, don't want to miss another one.

On a happier note - spring's upon us! The weather is great, the cherries start blooming, everything looks pretty.

What isn't so good - hayfever season is, too, which means that Crocky is not so happy. Ah, well.

Off to the Art Gallery now. :)

Current Mood: hungry
Current Location: Glasgow University, Student Information Desk
Current Music: Library sounds

Last day of the second term. The only lesson I had today is Russian. Apart from me, there were eleven people there. Eleven! Out of thirty!! Well, now I at least know who the most responsible people in this course are.
Did I mention we really have semesters? The university does not seem to know that, so everybody is still talking of the third term. Which is only three weeks long, after that, there's a break, then, there are the exams, and then, we're off.

The thing about that is that after these three weeks, in which everybody seems to be home, growl, we're already nearly home again. And we are nearly here one year... one year! I know it's the most clichéd of all questions under the circumstances, but where has the time gone?

Somehow, I want to go back home, I am looking forward to doing something again that is related to my studies, that brings me closer to my degree although this year has been a lot of fun.
At the same time, however, I am desperate to stay here, because the university is so much better organised, because the people in the courses are so nice, because it means living together with the person I love in a city I love in a country I love.

Tomorrow, we'll get visitors.
Two of my best friends form Germany are coming over! I am so exited! Well, and scared that everything will go horribly wrong. I doubt that'll happen.
The visit of Crocky's dear sister had us two in holiday spirits for two weeks now, and now, they're finally there.
Holidays! Well deserved, I might add. We've both managed to hand in our three essays last week. Far from perfect, but in this case, that doesn't matter since I cannot transfer any credit from here to Germany anyway. Well, at least I tell myself it does not matter. I'll be very upset if they turn out badly, I know myself.

Curiously, nobody around here seems to be in holiday spirits. Well, except for Crocky, my busy bee, who is busily typing a FOUR PAGE application for various roles for an RPG site. Good luck. Mine's only about half a page. Should I be worried? Well, but then, mine's also getting longer already.

I want to stay heeeeeeeeeere! Well, better make the best of it. There are still some corners of Glasgow I don't know, like Necropolis and Strathclyde Loch.
For the holidays, we- well, at least I have - planned a visit to Glencoe and maybe some other highlights further up north. I want to see Inverness, but maybe I ought to save such plans and money for the summer... . I'd love to see the beautiful Shin Falls

count_tygath shows in his bugbitten account, but I guess they are hard to visit for someone without a car and no intention to try out the Scottish roads.

What the-?
Ah.
Crocky has discovered that her e-pet can make noises. This has not been possible before because naturally, the computers in the library do not have earphones, but today, she brought hers and is now rejoicing at the sound of online purring. You ought to see her!
She can be so incredibly cute... it is so sad that she is allergic to everything that has feathers or hair. She loves animals. Well, at least she is not that allergic to Dax, our doggie, anymore. Dax absolutely loves her and she loves him, as well...

... I don't want to go back. Dax or no Dax, and even the thought of my poor kitten and my friends in Hamburg do not make me want to leave. I love Glasgow and our flat and our teachers and this university just too much. Where was I? Ah, yes, plans. Sigh. I want a car with a never-ending supply of petrol and a map. Well, and a tent.

And more time. But everybody, always, wants more time.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Squeeing to my right

...are just going to be two of those weeks.

Yesterday is a prime example of that. Getting up, I found that the thing sticking to my palate was actually my tongue - our electrical heaters had become so hot over night that the climate in our room was desert-like. So, got up bright and early, off to Uni with Crocky, nice Psy tutorial - all fine so far.

Rushed off to check mails, found that my application for a deadline extension had been refused because it's department policy to be mean, not care for overlapping deadlines with other departments and just refuse anything. Fine, three things on the same day.
Not a problem for me, the deadline master.

So, the next ten days looks like this:

11.3. Concert: Mozart's Mass in C Minor, featuring the Kelvin Ensemble (Squee!! Best third trombone in the world!), the Chapel Choir (aka the important choir) and the Choral society (aka us. The unimportant, underappreciated masses who just like singing).
13.3. Deadline for a Psychology Essay
16.3. Apparently deadline for some dumb tutorial assignment in ELit - my thoughts about a poem by Sylvia Plath in 1,500 words. I hate these.
16.3. Deadline for an English Language Essay. Easy, only about Sapir-Whorf.
16.3. Deadline for the Russian Writing Project No.2 - 800 words about Putin. AHHH!!!
16.3. Progress Test No.3 in Russian about all the Grammer we've covered this year. AHHHHHHH!!!

Does anyone else notice a certain tendency there?
I am not going to survive this week. But then - these still don't count for me at all, which is good because it takes away a lot of pressure (and motiviation... oh, heck) - and they're only essays, the Psy one mustn't be longer than 1,500 words - which is hard for me, the rambler, the Linguistic one is only laughable 800 words long. But Russian! Ahhh!! And I am not supposed to plagiarise - a short biography... What was I thinking?

After taking Crocky's sister back to Glasgow Central (managing to buy the wrong tickets for Crocky and me on the way...) and seeing her off we had to run after a bus to be on time for the rehearsal session with Choirs and Ensemble - and I fell FLAT ON MY FACE.

I even slid along a couple of inches. Must have been a funny sight. This hasn't happened to me in YEARS and of course had to happen now in front of a thousand people waiting for the bus.
It didn't hurt much, but it did leave ugly marks on my brand new trousers. ARGH!

The rehearsal in the evening went reasonably well, but it didn't help that even though she DOES, in contrast to James, remember that Altos exist, because Marjorie has done something which made me positively furious her in spite of her good conducting skills.
It shouldn't bother me too much because it is not really about me... but it's about Crocky and that makes me even angrier. Crocky did not get an e-mail about a rehearsal which had been organised at really short notice and therefore wasn't there. Not her fault, apparently the secretary of the Kelvin Ensemble messed something up. Now that doesn't even sound like that much of a big deal, but Marjorie completely overreacted - and to such an extend that even James said it was way over the top. She likes singling people out and putting them down - and Crocky! When Michael's the one who has missed most rehearsals last term and was even late for the final rehearsal! Grrrrrrrrr!

I am going to kill her.

But only after finishing and handing in the final draft of my Russian Writing thing. GAH!

Current Mood: annoyed

Today, I am being good. I am trying very hard NOT to kill everybody...

Who walks slower than I do. Which, in Glasgow, is pretty much everyone.

Who bumps into me.

Who cannot make their own decisions. GRRR! Stop pestering ME!!

Who bothers me with stuff I have no interest in, like some friggin' election at the Uni. I am going to vote for the person whose ugly face has NOT been thrust into my face five hundred times in a row.

Whose face I see next to the message "Vote for NAME!"

Who thrusts some useless flyer in my face.

Who pesters me with stuff I have no interest in.

Who tries to teach me stuff I already know.

Who uses "already" in that weird new usage. BWAH! Just use "endlich", which is German and means what you want to express! Alright, alright, not my decision. It just sounds so... Sigh.

Who is under 18. That should be outlawed in general.

Who keeps me from being at home in bed with a book, a hot tea, some painkiller and a warm blanket. Being a student sucks. Having a cold sucks.

... off to Russian now. Garrr.

On a happier note: Rebecca's choir has pictures online!! SQUEEE!!! Crocky in robes!!!

Current Mood: bitchy

The Lab Report. I am absolutely fed up with writing this useless stuff about an experiment which thousands of people have been doing, it just does not make any sense.

MOTHWING
05.06.1983 - 21.2.2006
Killed by a Lab Report
RIP

Well, back to playing "How many secondary references and quotes can I squeeze into an introduction?", because that is the only thing they are apparently looking for.

Whiny? Sigh. I know I am.

Current Mood: moodiest

The concert on Saturday was really a highlight!
It was also sold out, so I had been a little anxious about getting a seat at all. Well, that was no problem, I was the first one there. I got a great seat, but somehow I was too shy to take pictures, I wasn't too sure whether it was inappropriate or not, so in the end I only took three pictures. Shame, orchestras are so pretty! I felt so much like a proud Mum at a school concert I somehow didn't want to act it, too. It was all I could do not to give Crocky a little wave when I saw her.

The Kelvin Ensamble are very good, as I said, and the pieces they had selected were awesome.
Well, Tchaikovsky generally is. They played his fifth, which is, in want of impressive technical jargon, absolutely beautiful (although I felt somehow around the middle that yes, thank you, Tchaik, we know your favourite theme. You can stop repeating it over and over again now).

The other piece they did was the Grieg piano concerto... Hm. It's embarrassing to admit it and speaks volumes about my musical understanding, but somehow, the piano part annoyed me. Sometimes, I couldn't help feeling that I would have liked some parts more without the piano.
And I love pianos! Ignore me. I am ignorant. Why am I rambling on about the pieces? I have nothing intelligent to say about them, anyway. So.
The pianist was really perfect, though, and it was one of the few instances where the soloist actually played WITH the orchestra and listened to what they were doing. That was really impressive and I wouldn't have expeted it of such an orchestra. But then, they are just sooo good.

Somehow, such occasions always make me sad for not having learnt to play an instrument. Even my hated recorder would be at least something, and the Cellos made me especially wistful (say what? What is that word doing there? Bah, thanks, Charlotte Bronte. Assimilation can suck, too). I want to learn how to play Cello!
... Well, no. Actually, I want to wake up one morning, spontaneously being able to play Cello, without the painstaking process involving all thsoe wrong notes and strange, catty sounds.

I guess anything would be better than being condemned to be in the brass section.
Tehehe. Not that I don't love and adore trombones (better had), but the sight of the three of them sitting there was really funny at times. All the orchestra busy, fiddlesticks flourishing, the conductor ready to take off, his arms flailing, face contorted in the extasy of conducting great music... and three trombones sitting at the back, immobile, all dressed up with nowhere to go, looking supremely bored.
Well, actually, they were counting.
45 bars later, what a surprise! The first and third trombone, the only ones who are actually reliable at counting, lift up their instruments, waking up the second trombone - suddenly they all actually seem to be getting ready to play something - AND - one note. How exciting.
The second trombone, by the way, is only second trombone because he does not have a plug, apparently. He never comes to rehearsals, when he comes, he's drunk - and even at the concert he looked ready to slide of the chair and fall asleep there and then.
Pause. 80 bars. Three notes.
90 bars. Thrilling. Poor Crocky. But she was really good. Well, she always is, so no news.

On Sunday I've just been doing some severe spring cleaning, but that was fun. It meant that I could put off doing some actual work, like this sodding lab report. And now, it's editing. Revising. Lab Reports suck. The Working Memory sucks. Things entitled "The retention of three randomised consonants over 5 different periods of time with a diversionary subtraction task" suck.

It's absolutely great weather outside. Absolutely beautiful. The sky is blue, I have even seen a finch around, the flowers are opening, I bet the countryside is absolutely beautiful... and I have to be here until four. I want a train ticket, free time, Crocky, my camera, my trainers, and some lonely, rolling hills. Sigh. Back to retention.

Current Mood: moody

Caution, rant ahead, indicated by tags.
Caution, dangerous mood swing to frightfully good mood just below that.
Subject may be in an emotionally unstable mood today, probably due to too much Psy labs and dangerous levels of caffeine intake. And due to exposal to the Russian language.

[rant]
I am used to such things. If I come up with something, some idea which is halfway decent, there is always, always, ALWAYS someone who has researched the exact thing two years ago. Some even got prizes.
Yes, I am so uncreative I can only come up with thoughts someone else has had before. That is good in some cases, when I can be absolutely certain about finding confirmation of an idea I had because someone, somewhere, certainly has done something on the very topic, but sometimes it just DRIVES ME NUTS.
For example when my Professor holds a lecture about - well, what used to be my essay plan. Until today. That was MY. ESSAY.
Great. Now I can look for a new topic. Wonderful. Thanks Professor Cronin. Did you even have to use ALL the material I planned to use?
[/rant]

Sigh. I'll have to take a deep breath and just find something new. It's not as though there wasn't anything else to discuss. Still... Grrrr.

And then, there is the upcoming Lab Report for a Lab on short term memory. Boring, ghastly stuff.

Apart from these issues, everything is just lovely. Lovely, lovely Crocky. Lovely new haircut of said spouse. Lovely, lovely weather. Lovely university. Lovely courses. Lovely family. Lovely books.
Wow, I am beginning to sound like a child in the two word stage.
Where was I?
Books. Apart from Jane Eyre, the Horror. Lovely subscription to Blockbuster - I love movies. Lovely Russian course.
Well, not really.

Russian has become more and more difficult, but not really due to the course content, but due to the frequent changes of location and the increasing confusion of our Professor as to what we have covered already and what we have not.
She really ought to think about something as revolutionary as - dun dun DUN - a plan of the course content, possibly even with a timetable.
She is really lovely, but somehow, she is a wee bit disorganised at the moment. And she has been tempted to the Dark Side of the force by Dr. Dunn, meaning that she also has started making us chorus out the vocabulary.
We have not covered all the cases yet, but already we are learning useful phrases after which we have to insert said cases.
Not that cases are anything to be scared of, but for most people in the course, these seem to be quite hard and an explanation might be nice. She could just cover them before she teaches us how to say "This question was triggered by...", "In our time..." or "I order to answer this question...".
Not that these expressions are not very useful, but they will probably seem rather pasted in in an essay of someone who has to look up most of the endings for the cases and has a vocabulary of about 500 words. Max.

Alright, I guess I ought to move away from this pointless display of the content of my head - which is confused - and go back to my wonderful Lab Report. Working memory. Blegh.

Current Mood: bitchy

Since we arrived in Glasgow, I wanted to show off my University. So, here are some pictures. Some of those suck a wee bit because the light did not what I wanted it to, but here you are, anyway. Oh, and here you find these and other pics of the uni, just a bit smaller. I hope you like them!

The Eastern Quadrangle in it's full glory. The tower, from the Eastern Quadrangle.

( More slightly touristy picture of my gorgeous uni! )

So much for the touristy goodness. I should be working, since I am in that Library (points up to picture behind cut) anyway, so - off to find something on "the role of the poet" until Crocky returns from her trombone practice in the concert hall.

*hugs* to all!

Current Mood: happy

Stolen from a lot of people:

ENFJ- The Teacher
You scored 63% I to E, 42% N to S, 42% F to T, and 42% J to P!

Your type is known as the teacher, or the educating mentor. You also belong to the larger group, called idealists. You tend to bring out the best in other people. You lead without seeming to do so. People are naturally drawn to you. You expect the very best from people which takes the form of enthusiastic encouragement which is so charming that people try their best not to disappoint you. You share your personality type with 3% of the population.
You need to feel a deep and meaningful connection to your romantic partners, and go to great lengths to understand and please your mate. Harmony is vitally important to you, and you often put others' needs before your own. You have a pretty thin skin and are easily hurt. Although you strive for harmony, when your values or ethics are violated, you can be very emotional, confrontational, and even punishing. However, you are very insightful about the underlying cause of conflicts, and an excellent communicator, so you have the tools to bring about a quick and peaceful resolution as long as you can keep control of your facilities. You want to be appreciated for your thoughtfulness and compassion. You need your partner to make a real effort to get to know you. Above all, you need to be able to express your feelings and have them taken seriously.
Your group summary: idealists (NF)
Your type summary: ENFJ

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 75% on I to E

You scored higher than 51% on N to S

You scored higher than 41% on F to T

You scored higher than 35% on J to P

Link: The LONG Scientific Personality Test written by unpretentious2 on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I used to be an INTP! What happened to me? Well, but some of those decisions are hard to make, they depend largely on mood, maybe?

Well, I'm in a good mood. We have just had the first progress test in Russian of the year and instead of getting the promised 15 sentences with gaps for words in the right case we got last year's end of year exam... which consists of a translation of a short text ONLY. Whee!! There will be another grammar exam and another oral exam at the end of the year.

Funnily enough our darling teacher Margaret Tejerizo gave us lots of help, we went through the text together, reading it out loud and got plenty of help with the words we didn't know... in the end we practically translated the whole text together. Not hard, it was actually fun.

So, another quiet weekend. There is a concert on Sunday with the Chapel Choir (with one of the best second sopranos in the whole wide world *hearts*) and the University Chapel's shiny new organ, I'm looking forward a lot to that.

Special wishes to Count_Tygath who's doing his Essay Test today!

Lots of hugs to all of you. Enjoy your well-deserved weekend!

Current Mood: happy

I love Crocky. I love this university. I love this accent. I love my subject. I love authors. I love books. I love life. I love thinking. I love reading. I love writing. I love breathing. I love being. I love everyone and everything on the face of earth.

Let's hope this enthusiasm lasts as long as it takes to finish my work for the semester.

Thanks for the questions, Frankie, I'll answer them as soon as possible!

I have been on the tower of the main building of the university today!! Wow, what an experience! The view!! Woooow. There just isn't a more coherent comment I can make. Woooow. That really was worth climbing those 252 steps in that narrowest of all narrow staircases which fits into a tower which is maybe 1,5 m in diameter and is ALL staircase. My poor knees! My legs were shaking when I finally reached the top. But the view... Woooow. You can see the mountains from up there. Well, what I, coming from the northern German lowlands call "mountains". You'd probably call them "wee hills", but they were just awesome. So was the city in spite of it's rather uniform architecture, and the university and the Clyde and Kelvinside and the clouds and the parks and and and. Wooow. It made even me forget my fear of heights.

This is the tower, by the way. Pretty, no? I wish we'd had had that kind of weather today. I hope the picture is not too big for anyone!

Ah, well. Off to Middle English, and then choir in the afternoon. Mozart's Mass in C Minor. Promising title, no? Crocky told me that it was harder than the Dohnányi, but was also more fun. Great. I still suck at reading sheet music and the concert is already on the eleventh of March! Ah, well. I am good at guessing and also good at just pretending to sing when I don't know what I'm doing. James, our conductor, on the other hand, is good at putting the poor altos somewhere where they are surrounded by dangerous other voices.

Off to meet Crocky at the French Department now!

Lots of hugs!

Current Mood: happy

Just about to write the last exam this year. Have already received my ELang results. 34/40. Not too good, but also not bad with the amount of guesswork going on there!

Seriously, I hate exams in which you just have to understand NOTHING at all and just have to regurgitate either slides or what the professors said. And it was just about that. Only MCQs. Gah. Ah, well, but then, it was at least easy. And probably much better than the Psy one. Or than the ELit one is going to be if I fail to remember the interpretation of the texts fed to us by our professors. :)

I am not sure whether I want Germany to have exams the same way they are here. In some ways, it can only get better. Writing exams in rooms which are so full that you are unable NOT to read what the six people around you are writing is hell, but I am not sure if this is better:

That, my friends, is Hunter Hall East, the hall in which we are sitting our exams. Looks friendly, no? And between those rows, the lecturers and janitors patrol. Maybe that's the reason why no one is trying to copy things here. There is always a chance for the tons of people who are patrolling to see it... but somehow, apart from the guy who copied my essay, there is just no one who tries... Hmm.

So... off to two hours spent with Much Ado, The Homecoming or The Turn of the Screw, and a random poet.

Hugs to all, especially to lukalew and lordhellebore !

Current Mood: anxious

Crocky is sitting her French Exam at the moment, so keep your fingers crossed!!

For me, there's only one exam to go, then the lectures start again on Monday. Phew, I'm glad that psy is over! MCQ papers suck! My reward centre is in my medulla, and not in my medial forebrain bundle, for me, being rewarded is an autonomic function! Sigh. Teh stoopid.

Well, for most people, it was worse, I guess. At least the beginning.

After having been shooed to our seats by the less-than-friendly janitor (who approaches the waiting students standing in front of the Hunter Halls, takes a deep breath, and keeps yelling: "QUIET please if you have a mobile phone please switch 'i orf and hurry along ter yer seats as queckley as ye can!!!" as he marches in. Friendly, no?), we were told to start.
There were two parts, one essay, and a section of 80 nasty MCQs. The essay questions were nice enough, though. I was still reading the essay questions, gasps and laments arose all around me.
I took a look at the MCQs and behold -

Questions on behaviour. Fine. We have covered behaviour, so at first I didn't notice what caused the dismay, but... reading on... there were just fewer and fewer things I knew - and what I knew I knew from my classes in Germany. We did cover behaviour. But not group behaviour. Nor social learning. Nor... any of the other things.
There was just nothing on Biology and Experiments, which was our topic, but there were loads of questions on theories of Rogers, Piaget, Ellis, Beck, or on mood disorders...
In short, things which we officially had never heard before, at least not in the lectures. I have never seen so many white faces.

After a while, luckily, Prof. O'Donnel noticed what was wrong.
"Uh, may I have your attention, please, it seems that we have the wrong MCQ paper... this is the one for semester two."

I thought that only ever happened in daydreams of ill-prepared students! What a good start!
Well, it could only get better, and it did. I have never had so many questions in a test in which I simply didn't know. Well, the fact that I won't need the mark and that the credit I get for this course is more or less just for fun did not help my work ethos... but seriously! There were questions in there dealing with things I have not ever heard of even once! Ah, well.

Apart from that, British students never fail to amaze me. After the debacle with the papers, our examiners left the room for a few minutes.
I know how German students react to that. They engage in team work and group-based problem solving.

Here?

Not a word. The guy next to Crocky behind me kept busily copying my essay plan, but there was just. no. talk.

Nobody ever even tried to ask the others what they were doing there. Maybe I have been spoilt by my school, but still... weird.

Well, only Friday to go. Pinter, Shakespeare, James and random poet, here I come.

Current Mood: accomplished

Managed to get through my Russian Oral Exam alive and well. Whee!

It lasted only for about what, ten minutes? And was a lot less hard than I had anticipated.
I did mess up some of the cases, and once more it became more than plain to me how limited my vocabulary is, but that did not matter. Seriously, I fear for the final oral I'll have to take for my degree. I was so befuddled that I managed to mispronounce some of easiest words in the beginning and I think I might have mixed up some of the words. Which would be more than embarassing.

"Why do you live in Glasgow? Do you like Glasgow?"
"Да, я очень люблю Глазго. Глазго - краснaя город!"
("Yes, I love Glasgow a lot. Glasgow is a red lady-city!")

красный = red. красйвый = beautiful. And if you are sad and stupid and are reading the text with one eye while answering, you read the description of the flat (квартира, f.) instead of describing the city (город, m.).
Sigh. But hey, maybe I was talking highly meaningful political symnolism here, who knows...

I was more lucky than Barbara, however.
"Do you have friends in Glasgow?"
"I have a flat. It is big and cozy and has a window."

I wonder what kind of impression the portrayal of Russians in our class would make on native speakers. In our eyes, Russians permanently seem either to eat borsh or caviar, or to converse about the weather or the course of study people have taken, or, due to our very peculiar book, about whether or not they believe someone to be a millionaire (Have an example: book: "Well, having met him now for the first time and having seen him only for five minutes, what do you think about Peter?" - "I think he's a millionaire." - "Why?" - "He has just come in from London and he comes form Saransk. That's a big city. He's a millionaire.").

Another highlight of the day was finding out once more how confounding it can be to love a musician.
We are in the library. Occasionally, mobiles ring. One did, rather close to us, with one of those Nokia standard ring tones.
Suddenly, Crocky starts laughing and laughing and does not stop. After a while, my enquiring showed effekt:
"Did you hear that? There was a ritardando in that ring tone!!"
Musician's jokes... I was quite proud when I understood that one.

So, am in the library, busily studying for my three exams next week. Or ought to be.
16.01.2006 English Language.
18.01.2006 Psychology.
20.01.2006 English Literature.

And there's a house warming party tonight, one of the people in Crocky's choir has moved house and invited the whole choir plus significant others around.
We'll see.

Anyway, have a nice weekend! *hugs*

Current Mood: bouncy

As every year, there has been an annual sonnet competition hosted by Professor Newell, one of the best professors for English Literature I have ever seen.

To be able to say that I tried, I submitted two sonnets. I never knew it was so much fun to write sonnets! The great thing is, I spent hours on the idea and realisation of one of those, and round about ten minutes on the other, which is kind of written for Crocky, because I wanted to write something to make her smile.

The first one turned out to be awkward and something was wrong with the rhythm, the metre would not do what I wanted it to, and somehow it doesn't… work. I showed it to Crocky and she agreed about the rhythm.

They have both been through a process of editing and re-editing, and here they are. They not the prize sonnet, which, should it get mailed around, I will definitely post because it is really amazing, but here they are, anyway.

( Sonnet 1: Lines Composed... )

( Sonnet 2: Suburbia )

I know, nothing special, but certainly the best I could do within two days.
They are special to me, because these are, I seem to remember, the first sonnets I've ever written. (Is that the first dangerous sign of embracing the own mediocrity?) I do believe I could have fixed the first one, if I had had more time.

Moral: she who puts off stuff until the last minute is in danger of writing mediocre poetry!

And although they are not first prize sonnets, Composed upon Glasgow Bridge was under the runners up and was mentioned as the seventh mentionable poem which was considered. I was pretty proud about that, I absolutely wouldn't have expected it.

Professor Newell even awarded me a prize for it. I think I'll go and take picture of it. He is sooo sweet. Behold, my prize:

About the second poem, he told me later, that it was very interesting, but that there was something wrong with the rhythm, wherefore it did not work "as good as your Lines Composed with apologies to Wordsworth". I love the man.

Current Mood: happy

Essay: B3.

Reason: too little text evidence (I didn't know it was required in the introduction, in which I just gave an outline of what I was going to do) and too much use of "unnecessary jargon". She meant terms like "character constellation" and "focalizor". And she thought my sentences were too complex (Crocky agreed. Fine, maybe 5 liners are a wee bit too long, but trust me, that is half the length my German sentences would have when I am not paying attention).

What's a girl to do? I was talking about the character-focalizor. And the constellation of characters. How, pray tell, should I call them?
"The people in the novel, which are organised by the author in a specific way..."
No, wait, there goes another technical term. Alright.
"The people in the book, which the person who has written it has organised in a specific way..."
No, wait, that sentence is getting way too complex. Fine. Next time, SPOs all the way, and no subordination at all.

Her comments read as though she was telling me that I cramped too much content into an essay with too little text evidence. I HAVE given text evidence, damnit. What I had done - and never will do again - is try and focus on a specific aspect of a topic hundreds of people must have taken:
"'Writers like to explore and refine character by creating doubling figures. A main character will frequently see himself or herself reflected in the mirror of someone else’. To what effect might this be used? Discuss in relation to TWO of the set novels."
Fine. With a word limit of 1,500 words and taking into account her comments on my essay, this would have boilt down to some close reading, some very generic statements and regurgitating what our lecturers told us.
In other words, a writing exercise which says: "Yes! I have attended the lecture, am able to recall what we were told and alas, I have read both books!"

And still... I feel sooooo dumb. If I was at home in the moment, I would be working on my Magister thesis.
It was a soddin' first year essay.
I will certainly not draw attention to anything beside the exact content of the question in 1B.

... Well. On second thought, it might have helped to read Emma once more before writing the Essay and not just trusting myself to remember everything from my real first year.

... Still!! First year essay!! Gah!

Current Mood: shocked

I have the very evil I swore myself in my childish, idealistic days of lazy feminism I was never to become:

Dun-dun-DUN:

A housewife.

A housewife who does not only darn clothes and do other needlework not only for herself but also for others, but also a housewife who enjoys cooking and goes to church, taking her girl lunch boxes when she is at choir rehearsals on Sundays.

Where is my life?
I could have sworn I had it just a second ago. I could have sworn I once had hobbies and actually... DID things. I can't possibly always have been sitting at home, going: "Now, I have three hours, what do I do? ... ... I know. I can do the washing up. ... ... What next? ... ... That bathroom could do with cleaning. ... ... And I can mend Crocky's sweater."

When other girlfriends of over people behaved like that, I always thought they were being absolutely pathetic and let their boyfriends treat them like servants and all that. Maybe it wasn't like that at all and they had just lost their lives somewhere in spite of a lovely, loving spouse.

Well, and then, there is that other issue.
For Scottish terms I am antisocial - I am anti-alcoholic.
Well, not really, but somehow I don't go out and get drunk every night. Everyone here is going out ALL the time. And I... well, don't.
I've never been much of a going-out person, there are memorable occasions on which I tried to go out with Jaywalker23 which ended with us not even finding the place we wanted to go to and eating fish and chips on the Reeperbahn, the most famously infamous area in Hamburg. Which was deserted at the time and a bit boring.

And thus I have become something else I wouldn't have ever thought possible: a responsible grown-up.
There just is no comparison between the things I do and what my peers are up to on weekends:

"So, how was your weekend?"
"Yeah, we went to this great party, had the full boozing session with the guys - I have never been so drunk in my entire life! I vomited all over the place! I have no clue about <i>how</I> on earth I got home, but I woke up in the kitchen of our flat, next to this big guy who was tattooed all over, good that the Queen Margaret's Union's handing out all those free condoms! It was great! And you?"
"Well, I stayed home and read a book. Oh, and on Sunday I went to service and took my girlfriend, who sings in the choir, a lunch box. Then I went home and did the washing up. Then I made dinner. Then I read some more."

Sounds somewhat - boring, no?

On a happier note - I have found a charity. Well, the charity has found me. A guy in my Russian class, from Berlin, incidentally, was one of the people who founded it. They want to coordinate and organise charities on campus, do some good work themselves while not restricting themselves to one highly specific, very local aim as the others tend to.
Best example: the Glasgow student AIDS committee or what they're called. They wanted to inform students about AIDS and HIV. How do you get students to turn up somewhere? Yip, that's right, free alcohol. So they threw a party against AIDS and informed people about AIDS and HIV - on that party. I wonder how they managed, everybody told me afterwards about how much fun they had with the free booze they handed out.
We're trying to take a different approach to do some good work, but it's hard. At the moment, we're doing some stuff for Unicef. Part of our wee organisation is devoted to Unicef work.
Well, we'll see how everything works out. At the moment everyone is busy fighting over mailservers and logos and that kind of stuff.

Well, and I have joined a Creative Writing Society. They are frightfully good at their stuff. Really great, talented guys. I was quite ashamed of the text I took along and read to this bunch of native speakers. But they were kind and some even seemed to like it. It was a great feeling to discuss things I had written with others again, I had missed it during the time in which I just did not write at all. Now I have started and produce immense loads of bad, half-baked ideas for novels which will always stay unwritten. It's great fun.

Life with Crocky is every bit as wonderful as it had promised to be. I never would have thought that being able to live together with the person you love makes such a difference. There are no words to describe how happy it makes me that she is here with me, no words for the knowledge that when I go home, I go home together with her, that it is our flat we are returning to, that we can spend most of the day with each other and that we even are seeing each other at the uni most of the day. Everything is so perfect it makes me anxious to find the cracks in this bubble of perfection I have stumbled into.

Off to an extra choir rehearsal now, without Crocky supporting me, though. All alone with the other Altos! Ah, well. I hope there are a few people who actually know what's going on. Or ought to be going on.

Love and hugs to all!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Library Sounds

..seriously sucks.

My week

A series of 7 deadlines

17/11/05 Oral report for Psychology, 10-15 min. Between the three of us. About behaviour. Ah, well.
18/11/05 Feared hand-in date for the Essay. I wonder why I ever complained about not having set questions, these are even more crappy than anything I could come up with.
18/11/05 Deadline for Psychology Lab 2.
18/11/05 Deadline for Psychology lab quiz 2. Kinda logical, since it will be about Lab 2.
18/11/05 Deadline for the English Language assignment on Old English and runes. Whee.
18/11/05 Deadline for Phonetic Transcription No.2. Have you ever had the pleasure to transcribe a string of Scottish placenames? Kyle of Lochalsh is all I'm saying.
18/11/05 Hand-in date for Russian translation no.1

Not that I'm complaining about it or anything, but am I the only one who notices a trend there?

And Crocky has taken to calling me "Mopewing". Sob.

Apart from the noticeable increase in work towards the middle of the semester and my increasing inability to come up with amazing new things nobody has ever said before about Emma and The Magic Toyshop. (Which, incidentally, is a really good book. As you probably all know.)

I am so turning into Miss Bates.

Must get a life.

Any more boring trivia? Oh, yes. Yesterday, we ran into the most glaswegian of all native speakers of Glaswegian: the two hairdressers from "Hair at Hart" (that is not a typo). It was hi-larious, listening to them. ("An Ah thought abood her, 'Ye're not a wee lassie, ye're a wee betch. Prancing abood li' tha'!" - "Ye ken, she's a typ'al heehrdress'r, she likes tae do a bet of a shoh, dancin aroond in the middle oh' the studio, crackin' johks all the teyme.")

Current Mood: rushed
Current Music: Library sounds

Life sucks. Fine, only the weather sucks. It is pouring.

POURING!

I hate rain. Well, this kind of rain, anyway. My fault. I wanted to go to Scotland. But it makes the buildings look even more beautiful, somehow.

And then, there are the deadlines.

07/11/05 Psy Lab 1 Report hand-in

18/11/05 Complete Psychology Lab 2

18/11/05 Literature Essay hand-in (which sucks)

05/12/05 Psychology Essay hand-in (which sucks even more. Ah, well. At least the topics rock)

And then, there are various progress tests in Russian. And a transcript for German. And I have to revise the Latin I learnt when I was still at school and duly forgot as soon as I had finished school.

At least I have a long and lonely Sunday to catch up with some work. Sigh.

Current Mood: pessimistic

You fit in with:
Humanism

Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations.

0% scientific.
60% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

I can live with that, I guess.

Any other news? Да, my Russian class has reached a new level of pointlessness.
We are reading dialogues.
Which is good.
In Russian.
Which is good.
After hearing the tape version, read by natives.
Which is good.
After having a read through the new vocabulary, which is always rather a lot and would impede direct acquisition, I'd say. Not sure if Stephen Krashen would share my opinion.
Which is also good.
In chorus.
Which is ridiculous.

And those dialogues are a wee bit artifical. They tend to go like: "Your passport, please." "My passport... Oh, no, where is my passport...? Ah. Here is my passport. There you go." - "Thank you. Are you Ivan Koslov?" - (No. It just says so in my passport.) "Yes, I am Ivan Koslov." - "Here is your passport." - "Thank you. I'd better put my passport back into my bag."

Ok. We got it, alright? Паспорт (which, in Latin script, would read: "pasport"). We are not entirely stupid.

We have also had a brief overview over the wonderful world of the cases.
Now, that was something of a confidence bost. Most of my fellow students were blanching at the idea of cases, as they had done the week before when we talked about the parts of speech. I thought I knew everything about cases. Hey, I am a German who has done a Latin course, right? No problem for me, case expert that I am.
Full of newfound confidence, I started discussing cases with my neighbour, and how scary the instrumental case looked. I did feel a wee bit intimidated when Kristi, who is from Finnland, told me that they have 14 cases in Finnish.

Right. Kristi = case expert.

Current Mood: happy

... beware. Never let yourself be taught a foreign language in Glasgow. It is great fun, that is true, but that is due to the language rather than the efforts of our teachers, really.
Remember everything they teach us at the university about how to convey the mysteries of a foreign language to another human being?

Everything you ever heard about comprehensible input, and second-language acquisition, the natural order hypothesis, the affective filter, grammar teaching methods, everything Krashen ever said, in fact?

Forget about it all and become a language teacher for Russian at this university!

Today, we have continued our work on the Russian alphabet and sound system and did so by:
1.) listening to our teacher introduce us to the individual letters, ("Oh, yes, the next letter is pronounced like this: 'ya!' The next one as 'zzzs', the next one..."),
2.) listening to him reading it out loud ("Once again, "Ivaaan", that means "John".),
3.) listening to him reading a list of words with the new letters in them,
4.) listening to him reading them out loud again, repeating the words after he said them.

Furthermore, we are using the "New Penguin Course of Russian" - if you ever want to learn Russian, be sure not ever to buy this book.

It makes me have an IPA consonant chart craving, and that kind of thing is surely not a sign of mental health. It made me even want a vowel chart.

Those were the longest 45 minutes at this university so far. Our teacher may be a very renown professor of Slavonic studies, but he clearly is not really a language teacher at heart.

So, da sveedanya and love to all! Got to go over to hear the best lecturer at this university, Katie Lowe, on Old English. Whee!

Current Mood: amused

Honestly, our neighbours scare me.

Areet, the guy who lives in the flat across seems really nice and has a dog - and pets instantly win my heart whoever is concerned.
I have never seen the woman and the man who live next to us, but we have heard them quite often, especially their alarm clocks and their TV set, so I cannot say that I am all too fond of them.

There is a scary-looking, very unkempt and unwashed guy who lives above us who always gets up at 8 a.m. and who likes to jump around in his flat a lot, apparently. He also does not know how to turn the sound on his TV set down, but it never bothered us so much we felt any need to complain. I rather like his taste in music, too.

Now yesterday, all was quiet, all was peaceful - when suddenly someone started crying and shouting and raving in the flat next door, and not only for a few minutes, but for a quarter of an hour which was when we grew really worried.
What to do? Should we just ignore it?
Call the police, tell them what we heard and leave them to deal with it? But we could not simply call the police because we had heard something next door, surely?

And what was it that we were hearing, anyway?
I have to admit that I grew so worried, and, heck, curious that I went and listened, ear pressed to the wall to find out what was going on, because it sounded like someone was being beaten up. What I heard did not calm me down a bit:
"No! Please, no, god, no! You cannot do that, god, please no, no!" - and a voice, crying and crying.

Scary. Very scary.
But then, the benefits of thin walls are that even without much sneaking around and listening we soon were treated to the information that she had cheated on him with the unkempt guy from above. I do hope they will be alright.

Honestly, what scares me most about that is that I never figured I was the kind of person who listens at walls to find out what the neighbours are doing, I thought only pathetic, obsessed people would do that, and now I have joined the forces of evil.
Call me ~~Ishmael~~ Petunia.

And still, what to do if something like that happens again in the future? I am sure that I will not listen at any walls again, but if things sound dangerous, should I toddle over and ring the bell and ask people who are as yet complete strangers to me whether everything is alright, or should I/we just wait and see what happens and eventually call the police in case there is anything serious going on?
Or am I just over-anxious and should leave them to it and keep my nose out of other people's business altogether? I honestly don't know.
But I would not want anything truly bad to happen next door without me calling the police if necessary. Mabye I am overly panicky because it's only because this is my first flat, well, ours, but my first time away from home.

Apart from the interlude yesterday, we are having a stressful, but good time. Yesterday, we have matriculated and now finally have access to the main Library - which is a dream. They even have most of the things we have in their German department, which is depressing. Lots of things are depressing here.
Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht
Bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht...

It depressess me beyond words how much BETTER ORGANISED this university is compared to my university in Germany. Virtually everything seems better so far, but I don't doubt it really is.
The equipment, especially as far as media and computers are concerned, the buildings - which are old, older than the Hamburg ones, but in an excellent condition, the organisation of classes as far as I can see, the organisation of Departments and teaching matters in general... ARGH! I envy, envy SnapeRulez who gets to finish her course here because she receives a scholarship. I wish I was elegible for one of those.

If only we had their beautiful old buildings and their funding. And the SAAS. That last point is the most important one, and I wonder how Scotland organised that and how we can get that programme to Germany. Probably not at all.

Today we enrolled for our courses and have just been bombarded with all kinds of information - which was great and very tiring at the same time. It turned out that the vast majority of Literature students seem the same as at home (certain party queens which generally look bored and as though they were just doing this because they do not know how else to spend their time and their parent's money) and that Linguistics people are the same as in Hamburg, too. Which is good.

We have also got the letter we need to activate our bank account. When we first tried to get it, it all sounded sooo easy.
Bank Guy: "Oh, and we'll need some verification of your address."
We: "Uh, sure. Verification. And... where do we get that?"
Bank Guy: "Oh, just run along to your adviser of studies, the university people will know what to do.")

Yesterday, upon receiving a letter by my slightly confused adviser of studies, back to the bank we toddled. And were told that the letter apparently was not good enough for them because it did not say "To the Manager..." above, now Crockster's adviser has kindly printed out another letter addressed indeed to the manager. Hopefully they will be more happy with that, I dare them not to be, those idiots.

When we told Crocky's adviser that the "university people" in the eyes of the Clydesdale Bank would know what to do, he went all: "Hu? The university doesn't have a bloody clue. Bank idiots."

I hope for the sake of our nerves and theirs that they will not send us away again to get what Crocky's adivser referred to as "the Stamp of God" from the Registry. If we will be shood off again and have to go and bother the registry people with that, I will throw a screaming fit.

What else?
Classes start next week on Tuesday. I already love my Russian class and already hate the guts of Jane Austen for writing Emma and am looking forward tremendously to the Psy classes.

So, I do not intend to clutter your "Friends" page even more, have a nice week, wherever you are!
Lots of hugs.

Current Mood: muddled
Current Music: general library background noises

She is the nicest person in the world, my adviser of study.

Even though she did not like my course choices.

At all.

I wanted to do English Literature, Psychology, Gaelic and Russian, if possible Comparative Literature, which looked great.
Yep, it is rather a lot, but not thaaat much.
My adviser listened to my choice, then shook her head and said that choice was suicidal and if she advised me to take that, she would have the Chief Adviser come knocking at her door asking her angry questions because it was so utterly inadvisable. So, three courses maximum. Why? Whywhywhy? Last year I have done... 11 courses, I think. Areet, that was too much, but it is possible.

After some discussion she told me that she had another German advisee who did four courses and did alright, and that she knew it was not much of a problem for some people - and lo and behold, who was that advisee? Julez or SnapeRulez!! Such a coincidence. Now I get to do four courses, although my choice was altered to English Literature, English Language, Psychology and Russian. Without ELang I technically would not be allowed to do my Single Honours in English Literature (IF I stayed for more than one year, which I won't), thusly she advised me strongly to do Language as well. Now I am stuck with another Linguistics course, gah. I tried to swap it against Scottish Literature or Comparative Literature, which I really wanted to do as well... and failed.

Crocky is doing Psy, ELang and a Music course, I think. I bet it'll be great to be at the same university and in the same courses as she is again!

Today we're going to matriculate, courses apparently do not start until the 27th of September. Some more free time and then, finally, the courses. Russian!! Whee!
My brother is going to visit us some time at the beginning of October, I am really looking forward to that already, too.

So, have a nice week,everyone! Hugs to all.

Current Mood: happy

So, ten more minutes at my friend, the library computer with the slowest internet connection in the whole world.

The last two weeks have been absolutely great. A lot of time with Crocky, a lot of time spent exploring the city - well, the parts of the city at least which we did not know yet, enjoying the lovely accent people have, the language, going shopping, cooking, discovering that we really, really do not suck at all at cooking - the turkey leg was the prime example for that, the absolutely delicious mushrooms we had yesterday another. Yum yum.

I'll see my adviser of studies on Monday and then University will start. I am not too sure whether to be glad about it or not. I am looking forward to it a great deal, especially to Gaelic which I still want to learn and to Russian, which I'd really like to take up because it could really help me being a teacher in a country with such a lot of Russian immigrants. I would have liked taking up Turkish instead, but the uni does not offer that, sadly.

What I am also looking forward to is seeing more of Julez, or SnapeRulez, our friend who studies here, too. She is already one of the big, bad second years, so we won't see that much of her, I guess. Well, and of course to meeting new people.

Boy, I really hope we do not have to go out again today, it's raining, raining. And not any rain, no sir, the special brand of British drizzle which comes from all sides and attacks you like... really, really wet fog.

So, gotta go now, the kind people at the library will undoubtedly come soon to chase me away.

Oh- and I adored the new GOF trailer, btw. In spite of the strange masks the DEs wear...

Many hugs to all!

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Rain

Friends seen: 90%
Room tydied: 70%
Things organised: 10%
Things packed: 2%
Time table for Glasgow: 0%
Uni things I'll need: 0%
Organisation of the term paper I'll have to take: 0%
Things copied for aforementioned paper: 60%
Books borrowed: 24
Books taken back: 0
Items washed I'll take: 5
Items I'll need to wash: ?
Items mysteriously disappeared I had planned to take: 5
Things borrowed I need to give back: 3
Things actually given back: 0

Hairdresser: nope
New glasses: check
Paid mobile: nope

Am I ready to leave? I think not. I am sooo organised.

Current Mood: chaotic

Yes! Finally heard of the SAAS (Student Award Agency for Scotland) people. They are going to pay my fees. Not a big surprise, seeing as they generally do, but it is still very reassuring. My year in Scotland is financially a little unsound, I'd say, and this would have been another blow in what could be the money-saving and job-hunting-marathon of the decade.

Now it'll be alright even if I do not arrive and start job-hunting directly at the airport. It means that I can concentrate mainly on my courses without permanently having to worry about money. That is a big relief, because so many things need to be fixed and payed. Our roof needs to be fixed, our drainage needs to be fixed, Mum's car had to be repaired, the list goes on and on.
Even without being a huge financial blow, relying on my parent's college savings, a job would make things easier and make me feel better, though. Let's see.

Now the only thing we are waiting for is an E-mail from our landlord telling us our deposit has arrived safely. The Bank of Scotland is taking ages, the money has left my account more than what, three weeks ago? And still, nothing. But it hasn't come back, either. This is the first time I have made such a transaction, so I'm a bit worried. I had hoped that those banks knew what they were doing. I hope it'll arrive soon, I don't want to make a bad impression on our landlord... And I daresay that late payers are frowned upon everywhere...

Anyway, apart from the financial indecencies mentioned above, everything is simply wonderful at the moment. No starting the second paper until... well, say, the middle of the week, nothing, just holidays and Crocky. Happiness!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Rain on the roof

I love Scots. Especially Scots NOT talking as fast as I do.
This one, a landlord from Glasgow, did not. He was generally charming and helpful and I feet that my English can be sooo inadequate. Yes, of course, I can communicate, and I can also express complex ideas and whatnot, but for some subtleties it is just not subtle and quick enough. But all the same, I was able to express what I wanted and he described me the flats, sounds good so far, only that I am 'a bet errly to luik fa' a flat if ye want tae meeve in in September.'

Strangely, he apparently felt compelled to remark on how well he does get along with German students and that the last German tenant he had was a charming, nice and wonderful person he never had any troubles with and how he prefers students from abroad to English students and that if we are as nice as his tenant used to be he would be pleased to have us.

He was being kind, but it once more reminded me of the fact that I am going to be a foreigner from September on. Is it easy to be German abroad? I somehow do not think so, but then, the Scots are so charming that maybe it won't be bad at all.

Especially Scots spelling things out are cute.
"And the last part of the E-mail address is "prudential", that's p-r-u, d like dentist, e like... elephant, n like... nine, t like teeth, i like... icon, eh like eepple, l like... like."

I hope I have been polite enough - it is easy to make typically German mistakes even as an advanced learner which make the speaker sound totally impolite and even rude. And I am not sure I am trained enough to think of these little polite phrases quick enough when I speak, German and English structures battling in my head - I am never sure what I'll say until I've said it, and then, it is too late. Ah, well. All a matter of training.

Will stop now, I have to read 30 papers my Psychology class has written. The teacher has offered me to have a look at them because I have taught that class the two week before the test. I am curious what they have got to say on the topic, a few of them have been really good... and some more than only mildly disorganised.

Some of them wrote me letters to give me some feedback! They are so adorable. All in all they liked my classes and thought I am a good teacher because I talked to them a lot and let them talk among themselves about the things we were dealing with most of the time. Apparently, they liked that. Not that that is what people generally do in 11th year or anything... They also like the way I explain things, and that is what makes me really, really happy. Gave my ego a real boost, that did.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: The phone ringing

Why is the British educational system SO much better than the German one? It is truly embarrassing.

After my application had arrived on probably the 15. of January, the University of Glasgow decided to make me, a German who hadn't taken any kind of language test yet to prove her skills (looking at the clumsy language I keep using they probably shouldn't have) an unconditional offer on the 21. of January. It was on the net the same day, UCAS be blessed, and the info letter arrived only two days later as well.

When I, a student from Hamburg, decided to study - surprise, surprise - in the same city, I had to apply until the 7. of July. Which I did. There was a receipt postcard pinned to the application form they said would send back once they received the application. I didn't even post my application, I put it directly into their letter box.

A week passed. No postcard. Another week passed. I started to wait hopefully for the postman every morning. He started to think I had a crush on him. At the end of the third week, there was still no postcard. At the end of the month, it hadn't arrived either and I was starting to get decidedly worried about the whole affair. My grades hat not been bad, in fact I had been among the best students of my year, so I hadn't really worried about getting a place. I was starting to worry now. The courses were to begin at the beginning of October. In the middle of August, I phoned my Uni and asked what could have happened to my postcard - or even to my application.

The bored voice at the other end told me they had not really had the time to send all postcards back, because they received a total of around 10,000 applications this semester. The UCAS page told me that Glasgow receives 27,144 applications per year. They get all the applications Hamburg receives in one go and are still a lot quicker with the decisions.

In the middle of September, I finally received the desired letter from my Alma Mater.

Today, I received another unconditional offer from the University of Aberdeen. One month after posting the application. Again, it was one the net on monday, and I received the info letter today. Looking at the homepages of German universities, at least I found them rather unstructured and on the whole confusing. Example: http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ - a truly wonderful example. Well, the English version is much better than the German one.

When I asked an English friend of mine which University she would apply to if she was me, she asked me why I didn't talk to my tutor or career adviser. My... what? My friend looked as though she thought Germany was a developing country. "You don't have career advisers at schools?" Er.. no? "But at Universities, right?" Uhm... not that I know of... ? "You know... just come over as soon as you can, Andi."

When I asked one of my professors to write the reference for me, he reacted as follows:

"UCAS? What is UCAS?" He is a professor for English.

Somehow I feel glad knowing I will be in Scotland in '05...

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Phil Coulter, Over The Sea To Skye

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