Happy 4th!

Hey America!  Happy fourth of July!

I spent the weekend freaking out and researching my face off, which culminated in an epic sixteen hour yesterday, which Al and I spent locked in his room at our respective computers, occasionally stopping long enough to eat rice cakes.  This morning I turned my paper in, presented it, and then went straight to the library to spend another hour and a half in the library being all research-y for my giant presentation due on Monday.  Joy.

At this precise moment in time, I am allowing myself to take a short break.  I am maximizing this short break by cooking, typing, and watching the Glee Project all at the same time.  I'm only on the first episode, although I have the feeling the producers are more attracted to sad background stories as opposed to, you know...talent.

In other news, I got another fish.  I wanted another betta, but I was too embarrassed to call the guy giving them away, and they're too expensive to buy in-store.  So I bought a one-euro goldfish.  His name is Oscar, the Golden Usurper, False King of the West. May he live longer than the king he usurped.

My financial aid application is over before it began.  Thanks to Germany being a little bitch, Al and I (but mostly Al) spent a metric fuckton of time on my application, only to hand it in and discover the paper that says I can live and work in Germany isn't enough--the office wanted an extra form that said I also have a right to remain as a permanent resident.  Never mind that as an EU citizen, I have every right to remain a permanent resident, it's just they wanted to see it on my paper.  So I went back to the foreigners registration office, and got a new paper.  The financial aid people turned that one down again, because it was still missing the words "permanent resident."  So I called the foreign registration office and was like "Bitches, I need this word on my paper."  Only to be told that I don't qualify to have that word put on my paper because I haven't lived in Germany for five years.

So to summarize:

--I am an EU citizen, and a permanent resident

--I'm not allowed to have the word "permanent resident" on my sheet of paper until I've been a permanent resident for five years

--Because I haven't lived in Germany for five years, and don't have the word on my piece of paper, I can't get financial aid.

--Instead of putting a little addendum on there, like, "Only Foreigners Who Have Lived In Germany For Five Years Will Get Money," financial aid lets you take a bath in three weeks, a hundred hours, and approximately nine million gallons of stress hormones as you fill out the form, while they giggle and rub their hands together behind your back.

--After you triumphantly spend all that time, money, and energy gathering documents, getting shit stamped, and checking off deliberately confusing, unclear, and overly wordy boxes, financial aid smiles, pats you on the back, and says "Get the fuck out of my country, foreigner."

That was the moment when the "hate Germany" switch in my brain clicked over to "on."

I love grad school.  I love my friends.  I love the language.  I love my life.  But I hate hate hate hate HATE. Germany.

On the plus side, I never thought I'd say this, but thank God I'm American.  It means that when I go back over Christmas, I can get a student loan.

On the other plus side, I need to buckle down to my Swedish homework.  I'm going to need it in about two years.