Okay, Okay, I'll Write a REAL Update

So Christmas & New Year's. I don't feel like going into a ton of detail here so you basically need to know that it was a great time, Matze's family was absolutely wonderul as usual, I learned how to ski in the Czech Republic (while discovering just how much of a beating the human body can actually sustain). I (amazingly) didn't break any bones or fall into a ditch and starve. It was a good time. Now the semester is back in action.

Yesterday was a bad day. We got our second test back in medieval German. I knew that I'd failed, but somehow seeing the little "6" in the corner just made it real. Or maybe it was when the professor handed back my test, leaned in, and -- in front of the class -- said, "You failed very badly. Did you not learn the material?"

I felt my cheeks grow hot. Let's see.....judging from the look of this test, I would say that's a NO, now wouldn't you, Mr. Professor? And the only reason I didn't learn this material is because I forgot there was a test in the first place.

Said professor then proceeded to discuss the aggragated results of the foreign students in the class as a whole and remarked, somewhat puzzled, that "the exchange students seem to be having some trouble with the translation sections of the test."

Really? That's odd. I wonder why! Hmmmm... Could it be because -- and this is just a shot in the dark -- this isn't our native language?

I fail to understand the pattern I am noticing in German professors who seem to think it's perfectly okay to discuss my test results with the entire class. Whatever happened to academic privacy? Resolve to spend the remaining month before the Klausur eating, drinking, and breathing Mediavistik in order to pass with flying colors and salvage my grade. Or just not hand in the Schein. Or have said professor assassinated.

Classes today were considerably better. Although I was subjected to the utter agony of listening to Professor X discuss medieval literature for 3 hours this morning, my European Union lecture went swimmingly. Thanks to my loyal companion Mr. Coffee, I was awake and alert the entire time, understood everything, and took fabulous, highly detailed notes in German. It just clicked and it was great.

Lunch was the first Doener I've had in over two weeks with Almir, and which I cannot live without upon returning to the States. Resolve to learn how to make homemade Doeners. Bought a cookbook yesterday and will now spend some time deciding what to make for dinner tonight before I take the iPod for its first winter run.