JET Program

Not much new to report, other than I've been busy with finals and filling out forms for the JET Program. I had a physical yesterday that went well, so JET can be well-assured that they are not sending a reanimated corpse to teach English in Japan.

Hope to find out where I'll be placed soon!

日本に行きます！きのう日本国大使館からメールをもらいました。今日は母と父と家族に電話をかけました。

I got my letter (or rather, e-mail) of acceptance last night for the JET Programme! I have a few more forms to fill out and such, but the deal is pretty much sealed! More later.

Another long absence!

What can I say? Life is busy, but not so busy that I have no time to blog. Well, fear not, faithful readers, for soon there will be blog-worthy material. Maybe I'll post about volunteering with the DNR or the possibility of seeing the Dalai Lama in Ann Arbor in the near future. Once spring hits maybe I'll look at bike culture in East Lansing.

In other news, a bit over a month ago I found out my application was accepted by the JET Programme and I was eligible for an interview, which was two weeks ago. It seems to have gone well. I'll find out by the end of March if not the beginning of April if I've gotten the job. Here's hoping!

Rebirth? Whoops

So, the blog was sacrificed to pay more attention to my actual life.

Plans to explore more of the Lansing area were smothered when my bike was stolen. I did, however, manage to bike out to Oldtown Lansing to volunteer at the Oktoberfest celebration. That was it.

The semester, 18 credit hours and a part-time job, flew by. I applied to the JET Programme and am anxiously awaiting their reply. I'm looking at a similar semester for the spring.

We'll see what I come up with to post here.

Rebirth of the Blog

So I figured I should still use this blog to document my surroundings and life, but this time in the East Lansing area. After all, it's not as if I do absolutely nothing here! There are tons of sites to see and place to go to. The many gardens and several wooded lots, stores and restaurants, events, the campus itself...

Und falls jemand aus der deutschsprachigen Welt diesen Blog liest, wird es eine gute Einfuehrung an East Lansing sein. Falls Sie Interesse darauf haben. Ich bin aber der Ueberzeugung, dass niemand meinen Blog liest.

Current Music: Getaway ( February ) by Jen Trynin on pandora.com
Current Book: Zonen Kinder von Jana Hensel
Current Mood: laid back, just getting out of zombie mode.

Well, it's been almost two months since my last post. I've been meaning to write since I got back and indeed, that's what I've been doing, but I dropped the ball and there's a huge entry sitting around, not having been published yet.

So, to keep it short:

-stayed in Chicago for no more than 24 hours.

-was whisked away to Mackinac Island

-then to Ludington

-worked for a week at Teacher's Discovery, which was enough to cover some of my books for first semester.

-moved back to campus. This was were I had my only instance of culture shock and it wasn't even that so much. It was odd to be back, but not be in the room I had my freshmen and sophomore years. It seemed like a weird step-back.

-luckily, I didn't and still don't have a roommate. She just never moved in. So that's been nice.

-I'm taking 18 credits and I have a part time job, which is 8 to 18 hours each week.

-This is the first semester that I absolutely love all of my classes:

+Plant Botany 218 Plants of Michigan with Lab
+Plant Botany 441 Plant Ecology
+German 455 German Cultural History
+German 491 Special Topics in German Culture
+German 492 Capstone Project
+Japanese 101 Introduction to Japanese

So, I'm in love with Michigan again, or at least the landscape. However, starting tomorrow the state will be shutting down. I'm not so in love with that. Many people seem to be making escape plans and I'm one of them. At least, for graduate school. If Michigan's not going to support me as a student, then I don't know why I should support the state with my tax dollars. Sorry Michigan, I love you baby, but I think it's time we saw other people.

Photos of the past months to come in a few weeks.

To do list

Today's been ... productive to say the least. It's 12:26 and I'm already a bit worn out.

It began around 6:30AM when I woke up, moved everything of mine out of my dorm room, cleaned everything four times over ( I had already cleaned most of it once yesterday ) so that the Hausmeister ( landlord ) wouldn't have anything to complain about. I don't think I've explained it yet, but there's a BED BUG INFESTATION in my room that's been there at least two years. Because the Hausmeister can'T charge me for that, I was afraid he'd charge me for other things ( spots on window, dust on shelves ) until it added up to the exterminator bill. 8:15 he came by to check everything and surprisingly he found no Beschädigungen to charge me for!

I took some stuff over to Alex's, with whom I'll be living for the next week until I fly out. Then I headed into town to do some errands. Find a bit of info to polish off my works cited/bibliography for my term paper, copy some illustrations, go to the Studentenwerk to get my security deposit back ( €€€€ !!!! ) and then I managed to get a dentist appointment on the morning I leave Freiburg. YES!

So, in general, today's been a Very Good Day In Deed.

Which means that tomorrow can only be horrible. Oh well.

::yaaaaawn:: Okay, I'm off to do more stuff. I'll write more later.

If you're wondering...

In case you were wondering why I haven't posted, it's because I'm writing papers. I have 2.5 more pages to go on this one. Then I have to start and finish one in about 10 days. We'll see how that goes.

Why don't they sell Monster energy drink in Germany? I mean, besides the fact that I though I was going to die after drinking it, it came in handy when I was writing papers.

The weather is rainy; a pigeon is taking refuge on our floor. A community dinner was sorta planned ( but poorly ), but even then the electricity in the kitchen is dead.

I'm glad I'm moving out of UZH soon. If there are any future AYFers reading this, usually UZH isn't too bad. It's nothing fancy. But then when it's bad, it's bad.

Back to term papers.