Realm: Craziness Subrealm: Semesteranfang
Oct. 19th, 2005 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_frosh“Die erste Woche ist immer Chaos.”
This was reassuring to hear, as I stood in Elke Scham’s office on level 8 of building V. (1) Elke is the director, or close enough, of the International Office, and super-nice. I’d come there in desperation late on Monday morning, after I showed up at what I thought was going to be the first meeting of a medieval german class that I’m (probably) taking. I sat there for twenty minutes, and it was only after the TA got up and started writing on the board that I began to suspect that I was, in fact, about to attend a lecture in Clinical Psychology. After that, of course, I went outside and wondered what the hell to do next…eventually deciding to go see Frau Scham, pour my troubles into a sympathetic ear, and perhaps even find out where my class was ACTUALLY meeting.
I’d had plenty of troubles already that morning. I got up at a hideous hour, though later than Grace, who had a train to catch to the farm where she’s learning to milk cows this week. I caught a bus--very crowded--up to the Uni, where I was hoping to actually get a Studententausweis, and thus be able to check out books, access the campus Funk-LAN (wireless network), and ride the buses without having to produce my letter of admission. Upon arrival in the designated part of the building, I found a line. “Ah,” I thought, “clearly I’m not the only one.”
The line was very long, stretching out the door, through the lounge at the bottom of the stairs, and up to the doors of the library. After I’d been waiting there for a quarter of an hour or so, I started to reflect on the Murphy’s Law dictum that “The longer you stand in line, the greater the chances that you are standing in the wrong line.” Thoughts like this are dangerous. So it was very fortunate that at this point Grace’s friend Nadine happened by and informed that, in point of fact, I was in line to get a locker key.
I fought my way through the press (query: who decided that it would be to have lines for THREE different things in essentially the same place?), and eventually obtained the card and the necessary information to connect my computer to wireless. Unfortunately, when I attempted to do this, I got stuck while working my way through chapter 3 of the instructions. And the only help desk hours appeared to be from 6-7:30 that evening, when I planned to be a) eating and then b) attending Uni-Chor practice. Fortunately, I was taken pity on successively by a) someone in the subterranean levels of the Rechenzentrum, who told me that in fact there were regular helpdesk hours that afternoon at 2, and b) a mac support person that afternoon, who told me that said help hours were supposed to be for PCs only on Mondays, but then walked me through the process anyway. So THEN, give or take a panic attack and a fast email to my Mom for some necessary information, I installed the software and got online, to download about fifty Fulbright circulars and, after many false starts and several moments of despair, locate the registration number of my copy of Adobe and send same to my Mom. (3)
Tuesday was distinguished mainly by a total failure to get anything done. Well, aside from taking out the Gelber Sack(4) going to the Bauernmarkt and cleaning out my inbox and doing laundry and baking. And getting a few essential items at Kaufland (5). But I pottered around the house til after nine this morning, fell asleep reading about fifteenth-century testamentary practice in the afternoon (6), and spent much of the evening cooking. And then exascerbated the sutuation by writing a LiveJournal entry.
“Die erste Woche ist immer Chaos”. For everyone, or so Elke tells me. Not surprising, when once-quiet halls are suddenly invaded by ten thousand students. Now I understand why my advisor is still in Bordeaux. And Mom tells me that it’s always like this at the beginning of a research project, regardless of whether there are classes etc. invloved as well: you’re not going to get as much research done at the beginning as you’d like. I just wish that the Chaos and accompanying lack of productivity were only for a week, rather than more llike a month…
PS: the box finally came! Well, one of them. The one with all my books in it is still lost in the mail somewhere between New Haven and here. At some point I’m going to have to go bother the Uni Postoffice about it. But at least now I have my overcoat, which is good, because it’s turned chilly again. Everything else got stashed in my advisor’s office until a more convenient time (read: one where I wasn’t already carrying three large bags home with me. I think I need a computer case frame pack.).
(1) The University of Konstanz is all one big multi-segmented building, so it makes sense for all the floors to have the same numbering system (unlike, say, Stetson at Williams). But like Stetson, it’s built on a rather steep slope, so “ground level” means rather different things depending on where you are. So even if “erster Stock” and “first floor”” meant the same thing, it still wouldn’t be accurate to say we were on the eighth floor, though it would be hard to say which we were on.
(2) Answer, once we’d paged through about a dozen university websites trying to find the damn course: M527, i.e. in the biology department. Go fig’.
(3) Please don’t ask me to go into why. The process has given me enough headaches already.
(4) One of the great things about Germany is that practically everything is recyclable. The Gelber Sack is for all the things that you only thought were exceptions.
(5) You, of course, may not describe peppermint Ritter Sport bars, Pocket Coffee, and currants as essential items, but if not, you clearly don’t live with us.
(6) I thought that taking books home from the library would increase my productivity. This was clearly a snare and a delusion, since it ignores the fact that home, unlike the library or the archive, contains abundant chocolate, Dorothy Sayers novels, and computer games.
This was reassuring to hear, as I stood in Elke Scham’s office on level 8 of building V. (1) Elke is the director, or close enough, of the International Office, and super-nice. I’d come there in desperation late on Monday morning, after I showed up at what I thought was going to be the first meeting of a medieval german class that I’m (probably) taking. I sat there for twenty minutes, and it was only after the TA got up and started writing on the board that I began to suspect that I was, in fact, about to attend a lecture in Clinical Psychology. After that, of course, I went outside and wondered what the hell to do next…eventually deciding to go see Frau Scham, pour my troubles into a sympathetic ear, and perhaps even find out where my class was ACTUALLY meeting.
I’d had plenty of troubles already that morning. I got up at a hideous hour, though later than Grace, who had a train to catch to the farm where she’s learning to milk cows this week. I caught a bus--very crowded--up to the Uni, where I was hoping to actually get a Studententausweis, and thus be able to check out books, access the campus Funk-LAN (wireless network), and ride the buses without having to produce my letter of admission. Upon arrival in the designated part of the building, I found a line. “Ah,” I thought, “clearly I’m not the only one.”
The line was very long, stretching out the door, through the lounge at the bottom of the stairs, and up to the doors of the library. After I’d been waiting there for a quarter of an hour or so, I started to reflect on the Murphy’s Law dictum that “The longer you stand in line, the greater the chances that you are standing in the wrong line.” Thoughts like this are dangerous. So it was very fortunate that at this point Grace’s friend Nadine happened by and informed that, in point of fact, I was in line to get a locker key.
I fought my way through the press (query: who decided that it would be to have lines for THREE different things in essentially the same place?), and eventually obtained the card and the necessary information to connect my computer to wireless. Unfortunately, when I attempted to do this, I got stuck while working my way through chapter 3 of the instructions. And the only help desk hours appeared to be from 6-7:30 that evening, when I planned to be a) eating and then b) attending Uni-Chor practice. Fortunately, I was taken pity on successively by a) someone in the subterranean levels of the Rechenzentrum, who told me that in fact there were regular helpdesk hours that afternoon at 2, and b) a mac support person that afternoon, who told me that said help hours were supposed to be for PCs only on Mondays, but then walked me through the process anyway. So THEN, give or take a panic attack and a fast email to my Mom for some necessary information, I installed the software and got online, to download about fifty Fulbright circulars and, after many false starts and several moments of despair, locate the registration number of my copy of Adobe and send same to my Mom. (3)
Tuesday was distinguished mainly by a total failure to get anything done. Well, aside from taking out the Gelber Sack(4) going to the Bauernmarkt and cleaning out my inbox and doing laundry and baking. And getting a few essential items at Kaufland (5). But I pottered around the house til after nine this morning, fell asleep reading about fifteenth-century testamentary practice in the afternoon (6), and spent much of the evening cooking. And then exascerbated the sutuation by writing a LiveJournal entry.
“Die erste Woche ist immer Chaos”. For everyone, or so Elke tells me. Not surprising, when once-quiet halls are suddenly invaded by ten thousand students. Now I understand why my advisor is still in Bordeaux. And Mom tells me that it’s always like this at the beginning of a research project, regardless of whether there are classes etc. invloved as well: you’re not going to get as much research done at the beginning as you’d like. I just wish that the Chaos and accompanying lack of productivity were only for a week, rather than more llike a month…
PS: the box finally came! Well, one of them. The one with all my books in it is still lost in the mail somewhere between New Haven and here. At some point I’m going to have to go bother the Uni Postoffice about it. But at least now I have my overcoat, which is good, because it’s turned chilly again. Everything else got stashed in my advisor’s office until a more convenient time (read: one where I wasn’t already carrying three large bags home with me. I think I need a computer case frame pack.).
(1) The University of Konstanz is all one big multi-segmented building, so it makes sense for all the floors to have the same numbering system (unlike, say, Stetson at Williams). But like Stetson, it’s built on a rather steep slope, so “ground level” means rather different things depending on where you are. So even if “erster Stock” and “first floor”” meant the same thing, it still wouldn’t be accurate to say we were on the eighth floor, though it would be hard to say which we were on.
(2) Answer, once we’d paged through about a dozen university websites trying to find the damn course: M527, i.e. in the biology department. Go fig’.
(3) Please don’t ask me to go into why. The process has given me enough headaches already.
(4) One of the great things about Germany is that practically everything is recyclable. The Gelber Sack is for all the things that you only thought were exceptions.
(5) You, of course, may not describe peppermint Ritter Sport bars, Pocket Coffee, and currants as essential items, but if not, you clearly don’t live with us.
(6) I thought that taking books home from the library would increase my productivity. This was clearly a snare and a delusion, since it ignores the fact that home, unlike the library or the archive, contains abundant chocolate, Dorothy Sayers novels, and computer games.
