Good news! Things are looking up!
You know what they say. When the universe closes a door, it makes a point to open a window--even if that window is framed by hideous grandma curtains and you're too short to reach it. Or something along those lines. And when I say "window," I mean "highly theoretical math dissertation you get paid to correct," which is stupidly exciting to me. It won't pay my rent, but it's a step in the right something-about-vectors-I-didn't-quite-catch. I have negative idea as to what the paper I'm correctly is about, but I do know that in between all the complicated mathematical fauna, there is enough English for me to fix commas, add hyphens, and suggest better word choices. HELLS YEAH! So pumped. Not having an income makes me nervous, since I'm pretty much the undisputed Queen of Budgeting, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed this is the beginning of what may eventually turn out to be making dollars. I mean euros.
Because I really, really need money. Not so much for studying right about now (semester's practically over), but because Claire and I booked tickets to IRELAND!! Epic bike tour, here we come! What's that you say? We've never biked for more than like, half an hour at a time? Yes, well. I'll interpret that as "You guys are brilliant and have only brilliant ideas."
Despite our brilliant ideas, I'm electing to take out travel health insurance for the month of September. Not because I don't trust our biking skills. Mostly because I'm still not entirely sure what side of the road we're supposed to bike on, and having to explain to the EMTs I'm stupid as well as health insurance-less is not my idea of an Irish adventure. That would theoretically involve a shit ton of sheep and castles.
Other good things! I turned in my paper and did my short presentation, which I mentioned in my last post. What I didn't say was I think went well, even though I threw it together an hour before I had to be in class, and ran it by Al as I was practically walking out the door. My professor said it was super interesting, so yay! I'd much rather talk than write anyway. I find if I fuck up while talking, I can play it off for charm, but if I fuck up while writing, the only thing I accomplish is making myself looking like a German twelve-year old who's been hit on the head with a brick.
Oh! In case anyone was wondering, the Is it Gay or Is it German? series is not dead. It's just that most of the people I see nowadays are in their twenties, and they know how to dress themselves.
Spent most of yesterday and today working, but took a brief break to go chill on the Kiessee with friends and grill (read: watch other people grill) things. We played a round of flunkywhisk, which is always a blast. And now I've got to go read some more, and put together my giant presentation for Monday.
Yay!
Edit: Not a sarcastic yay. My presentation is retardedly interesting to me.
06 July 2012
04 July 2012
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.
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.
28 June 2012
Agh.
Agh. An entire week without blogging.
I'm SORRY! I really, really, really am. In approximately a week and a half, my life will go from full speed ahead double turbo pirate shit to leisurely pedal-boating down the river of my life, but until then, it's all GET UP ON DECK YE BASTARDS.
Up until yesterday, the demon in my life was my Kony 2012 essay. I don't know what it was--how complicated my thesis wound up being, anxiety about turning in my first grad school essay, or maybe just the fact that I was out of practice--but my 4-6 page essay turned into four days, 10-15 hours per day, sitting in front of my computer, dragging this essay piece by screaming, crying, over-researched piece out of my brain and into Microsoft Word. Never in the history of anything has an essay taken me that long--generally I tend to start them at 11 PM and I'm done three hours later. It's not even like this essay was in German, which would at least have given me a bit of an excuse. But I'm super happy with the end result though, and, geekily enough, kind of proud of myself. I think it's a damn good essay. The only problem is that when I format it my way, it's a page over the limit. When Al reformatted it the German way it was...four pages over the limit. And apparently, there are a lot of professors in Germany who will knock giant chunks of your grade out for that. Yeah, whatevs. So be it. I've already edited it down to the bare-bones, so if coloring within the lines is more important than turning in a solid paper, then consider me the Jackson Pollock of the ethnology department, but minus the alcoholism.
Now I've got to produce yet another 4-6 page essay (research, not thesis, thank Zeus) for Wednesday, although this one has to be in German, accompanied by a ten-minute presented introduction. Then I have just five short days to come up with a forty-five minute presentation. In German. By myself.
The good news is that after, I'm more or less done. I'll have to turn my presentation into a 12-15 page paper, but that'll get done in English, and then produce another 4-6 page essay for another class. My goal is to get everything done by the end of July, so I have all of August to spend in Berlin/Poland, and all September for Ireland.
Things that are interesting! Al and I went to Hannover and Saturday, and met up with Latvian Friend in the process. It was really nice seeing her again. The three of us wandered all around the city and took fun pictures, which I will post as soon as I steal them from Al. But here, have this picture of a massive, massive, massive carp.
I'm SORRY! I really, really, really am. In approximately a week and a half, my life will go from full speed ahead double turbo pirate shit to leisurely pedal-boating down the river of my life, but until then, it's all GET UP ON DECK YE BASTARDS.
Up until yesterday, the demon in my life was my Kony 2012 essay. I don't know what it was--how complicated my thesis wound up being, anxiety about turning in my first grad school essay, or maybe just the fact that I was out of practice--but my 4-6 page essay turned into four days, 10-15 hours per day, sitting in front of my computer, dragging this essay piece by screaming, crying, over-researched piece out of my brain and into Microsoft Word. Never in the history of anything has an essay taken me that long--generally I tend to start them at 11 PM and I'm done three hours later. It's not even like this essay was in German, which would at least have given me a bit of an excuse. But I'm super happy with the end result though, and, geekily enough, kind of proud of myself. I think it's a damn good essay. The only problem is that when I format it my way, it's a page over the limit. When Al reformatted it the German way it was...four pages over the limit. And apparently, there are a lot of professors in Germany who will knock giant chunks of your grade out for that. Yeah, whatevs. So be it. I've already edited it down to the bare-bones, so if coloring within the lines is more important than turning in a solid paper, then consider me the Jackson Pollock of the ethnology department, but minus the alcoholism.
Now I've got to produce yet another 4-6 page essay (research, not thesis, thank Zeus) for Wednesday, although this one has to be in German, accompanied by a ten-minute presented introduction. Then I have just five short days to come up with a forty-five minute presentation. In German. By myself.
The good news is that after, I'm more or less done. I'll have to turn my presentation into a 12-15 page paper, but that'll get done in English, and then produce another 4-6 page essay for another class. My goal is to get everything done by the end of July, so I have all of August to spend in Berlin/Poland, and all September for Ireland.
Things that are interesting! Al and I went to Hannover and Saturday, and met up with Latvian Friend in the process. It was really nice seeing her again. The three of us wandered all around the city and took fun pictures, which I will post as soon as I steal them from Al. But here, have this picture of a massive, massive, massive carp.
You know your life is sad when the most interesting thing you have to post on your blog is a swan-eating carp.
That's not entirely true. I do have one or two good stories up my sleeve, but they're still in process, and I want them to finish so I can properly mock them And by "them," I meant the batshit psycho old people who live under us.
Fun things that happened today! I headed down to the river, because the summer gods had seen fit to bless us with the first day of good weather in like a month. There I ran into British Friend, who was apparently about to text me and invite me to come meet her. Yay for being efficient and/or psychic!
So we chilled on the river for a few hours, and talked about lots of highly entertaining things, including the advantages of adopting a baby from Africa (you can keep it's head shaved so you don't get lice). I also learned that while I told all my friends about the blog, I'd apparently forgotten to send them the link, so they had to spend a solid amount of time google searching it. However, googling my blog is hard--the search terms that eventually worked were "tina" "germany" "game of thrones," which makes me really, REALLY happy.
Then it was time for the Italy/Germany soccer game, made even more exciting by a brief confrontation with some random old dude who threatened war if the people for whom we were saving chairs didn't arrive soon. The people we saved chairs for showed up, and Germany did not win. I know this is blasphemous, but I was fine with it. It meant I didn't have to deal with people screaming.
Don't tell anybody I said that.
Yes I AM the lamest person in the world.
Tomorrow is Culture Night in Göttingen, so we're going to get together, go to random bars/concerts/see Galway perform at a local club. Three cheers for having fun even though I'm relatively certain I will not survive until next Monday!
21 June 2012
Quick Life Update
Hey all!
A really quick life update for you. Things are fun and exciting, but so so so SO busy. I'm in the middle of intensely over-researching my Kony 2012 paper, and I've finally settled on what the paper is actually going to be about. It's going to be two-fold--the first half is going to be an analysis of the discourse Invisible Children uses to further their cause/posture themselves as "global." The second half is going to be an analysis of the unintended consequences of Kony 2012's failure--namely, that it has opened the floodgates for the US to further militarize Africa. Originally I had wanted to do an intense breakdown of why Kony 2012 failed so miserably in the first place (my theory is that digital activism only translates into the real world if the content is being produced by the same people it's supposed to benefit), but that would require doing hard-core research on other digital activism campaigns/human rights and social media, and I don't have time.
I've got to get this paper done this weekend at the latest, because next week I've got to start over-researching a paper on the US's militarization of the Pacific during WWII. I think I'm going to go a linguistic route--I'm curious how the US justified blowing up people's islands. Whatever I do, I have to get that done by the end of next week, so that I have at least a week and a half to prep for my 45 minute oral presentation on American politics in relation to Indian languages.
I love grad school!
In other news, it looks like I've landed a job correcting a thesis for the month of July, and if I do it well, there's a chance the department might hire me on a permanent basis, which would be brilliant. Because I need money.
Also, I got a package from home today. It contained, among other things, pink Old Navy flip-flops, the giant college ave creamery sign my sister and her friend stole from the frozen yogurt section of the Rutgers Dining Hall, and fish food for the as-of-yet unpurchased Storsjöodjuret, Second of His Name, Supreme Lord of All That is Wet, May Death Come Swiftly to His Enemies. All of these things made my day.
Other stupidly exciting things coming up!
--Al is going to be in Berlin the month of August, and I'm debating going with him, if I can find some sort of job on short notice. But even if I only go to visit, we're going to Poland for a weekend, which will be really really fun.
--Claire and I are going to Ireland for the month of September! We're too cheap to pay for transportation though, so our new great idea is to buy bikes in Dublin, and then sell them when we make it back (if we make it back) at the end of the month. We've tried to make actual plans, but...yeah, we can't plan. I'm pretty sure we've both more or less made peace with the high probability that at some point we will sleep in a barn.
--Galway had the fun idea that the two of us should try busking in Göttingen and seeing if we can actually make any money. We've had a couple practice sessions already, and thus far have produced some pretty kickass covers of such timeless classics as "Three Little Birds," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and "All the Single Ladies." If we get video, I will put it up here, I promise. I was freaking out for a while, but now I'm kind of excited about it!
That's all I got! Sorry I haven't been particularly entertaining as of late, but I have some fun posts coming up, I swear. I just have to get this paper done first!
I'm on it.
A really quick life update for you. Things are fun and exciting, but so so so SO busy. I'm in the middle of intensely over-researching my Kony 2012 paper, and I've finally settled on what the paper is actually going to be about. It's going to be two-fold--the first half is going to be an analysis of the discourse Invisible Children uses to further their cause/posture themselves as "global." The second half is going to be an analysis of the unintended consequences of Kony 2012's failure--namely, that it has opened the floodgates for the US to further militarize Africa. Originally I had wanted to do an intense breakdown of why Kony 2012 failed so miserably in the first place (my theory is that digital activism only translates into the real world if the content is being produced by the same people it's supposed to benefit), but that would require doing hard-core research on other digital activism campaigns/human rights and social media, and I don't have time.
I've got to get this paper done this weekend at the latest, because next week I've got to start over-researching a paper on the US's militarization of the Pacific during WWII. I think I'm going to go a linguistic route--I'm curious how the US justified blowing up people's islands. Whatever I do, I have to get that done by the end of next week, so that I have at least a week and a half to prep for my 45 minute oral presentation on American politics in relation to Indian languages.
I love grad school!
In other news, it looks like I've landed a job correcting a thesis for the month of July, and if I do it well, there's a chance the department might hire me on a permanent basis, which would be brilliant. Because I need money.
Also, I got a package from home today. It contained, among other things, pink Old Navy flip-flops, the giant college ave creamery sign my sister and her friend stole from the frozen yogurt section of the Rutgers Dining Hall, and fish food for the as-of-yet unpurchased Storsjöodjuret, Second of His Name, Supreme Lord of All That is Wet, May Death Come Swiftly to His Enemies. All of these things made my day.
Other stupidly exciting things coming up!
--Al is going to be in Berlin the month of August, and I'm debating going with him, if I can find some sort of job on short notice. But even if I only go to visit, we're going to Poland for a weekend, which will be really really fun.
--Claire and I are going to Ireland for the month of September! We're too cheap to pay for transportation though, so our new great idea is to buy bikes in Dublin, and then sell them when we make it back (if we make it back) at the end of the month. We've tried to make actual plans, but...yeah, we can't plan. I'm pretty sure we've both more or less made peace with the high probability that at some point we will sleep in a barn.
--Galway had the fun idea that the two of us should try busking in Göttingen and seeing if we can actually make any money. We've had a couple practice sessions already, and thus far have produced some pretty kickass covers of such timeless classics as "Three Little Birds," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and "All the Single Ladies." If we get video, I will put it up here, I promise. I was freaking out for a while, but now I'm kind of excited about it!
That's all I got! Sorry I haven't been particularly entertaining as of late, but I have some fun posts coming up, I swear. I just have to get this paper done first!
I'm on it.
20 June 2012
Very Sad News
Today is a very, very sad day. Storsjöodjuret, First of His Name, Supreme Lord of All That is Wet, May Death Come Swiftly to His Enemies, has died, after being in my care less than a week.
In my defense, he didn't die because of me--I didn't drop him in the sink (I DIDN'T, JEAN). Nope. He got a swim bladder infection, which apparently happens a lot in the young fish because they're young and stupid and their swim bladder is half the size of their body. I did everything the internet told me to--I made sure his water was always warm, and I changed it multiple times a day, which is what you're supposed to do. No avail. He kicked it.
So now my problem is that I really want a Storsjöodjuret, Second of His Name, Supreme Lord of All That is Wet, May Death Come Swiftly to His Enemies. But I don't want to go back to the guy I got the first one from, because I'm afraid he'll ask about the fish, and I'll have to make it sound like I didn't kill it. Which I didn't.
Maybe I'll just go back in two weeks, and be like, "Hey that fish you gave me was a girl. I'd like another one so I can breed them." And by "breed," I mean, "try not to kill."
Even though I DIDN'T kill this.
In my defense, he didn't die because of me--I didn't drop him in the sink (I DIDN'T, JEAN). Nope. He got a swim bladder infection, which apparently happens a lot in the young fish because they're young and stupid and their swim bladder is half the size of their body. I did everything the internet told me to--I made sure his water was always warm, and I changed it multiple times a day, which is what you're supposed to do. No avail. He kicked it.
So now my problem is that I really want a Storsjöodjuret, Second of His Name, Supreme Lord of All That is Wet, May Death Come Swiftly to His Enemies. But I don't want to go back to the guy I got the first one from, because I'm afraid he'll ask about the fish, and I'll have to make it sound like I didn't kill it. Which I didn't.
Maybe I'll just go back in two weeks, and be like, "Hey that fish you gave me was a girl. I'd like another one so I can breed them." And by "breed," I mean, "try not to kill."
Even though I DIDN'T kill this.
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