HALLO UNI.

Hallo Uni.

I just finished the first week of school. Sitting in the library and I wish I could just simply jam the books literally into my brain.

Monday:

The best day ever. The moment I was looking up to see where my lecture was, I realized that my Monday seminar actually starts on the 19 of Oct. So I crawled back to bed.

Tuesday:

I woke up with two pieces of chocolate -- it is my first day school and I was given sweets for that! Aw... I should just hop away to school:-)

The first class was "Time and the Lyric". We watched a short film about the best domino setting in the past 30 years and were told to pick up our reading assignment for the semester in the library print-out room. "It is not a lot," our professor said to us, "just the minimum for this semester. And the good news is: you can chose to write a Hausarbeit at the end of the semester or 3 essays through out the semester plus a short statement over a specific theme." I picked up the reading material the next day-- it is a 400-page double sited, in small print, A4-size band.

Oh yes, since I am taking 6 classes this semester, I've got 6 of those.

The next class made me want to hide myself under the desk. The professor spoke so fast that I wondered if she had just had coke. I wanted to use my cellphone to record part of her speech but I though it was rude to do so. She spoke with tons of philosophical terms, randomly threw in French, Greek, Latin, Italian, English (and other languages I wasn't able to recognize what they were) and sudden pause. "Is there anyone here who doesn't have the basic philosophy?"

I raised my hand, I was the only one.

"Ok, that is not the end of the world. Just ask if you don't understand any terms we use. For next Tuesday, please read the first assignment. I think Plato is a good start for us. (EXCUSE ME?) Is there anyone would like to read the text in Greek?"

(Haha, that is funny)

One or two raised their hands.

Oh...Is it not a joke? Never mind.

"I will bring the Greek copy as well. See you next week. And by the way, for these two books on French philosophy, there is no good translation yet in German. If you are having troubles reading French, that is just bad luck. I hope you can figure something out. Any questions?"

(Would you fancy me asking you questions in Latin?)

My last class for Tuesday ended at 6pm. Being able to speak a few languages is NOTHING. I am sitting in the classroom with people who are doing their second PHD, speak 20 languages perfectly, citing Tynjanov in Russian and Kierkegaard in Danish.

Wednesday:

Shakespeare day. I sat in the back, hoping the professor wouldn't ask if any of us hadn't read all of his books. -- But what a relief: not only the prof. didn't ask the question on my mind, we don't have to read all the assigned books in German!

Thursday:

For the entire week, I had been having classes with more or less the same people, how come I know no one for the Proust class?

Oh... this is a so-called second semester class. The others have already read the first Volume of his work in the previous semester. We are to work on the second Volume in the following 3 months.

"Anyone here who isn't familiar with Proust?"

I was going to raise my hand, but she caught my attempt gesture and realized that I'd be the only one.

Fuck.

"You can do your work in German or French," she said, "but I'd prefer you all to read in French because there are things which cannot be translated accurately. And please read the commentaries on the list, especially the third one from Daria Galateria."

That one is written in Italian.

There are two classes in this Module and I have to choose one of them. Now I realize why the rest of the crew didn't come. The other class is Goethe.

Moments like this made me want to cry. I guess years of slacking finally caught up with me. It is a good thing I work in a supermarket, at least I don't have to talk to customers in ancient Greek.

This July

After a huge breakfast / brunch, I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can take a walk. My first German job at a dry cleaning place lasted only a week. They refused to tell me how much I would be making and told me that the work contract in dry cleaning business didn't exist. The owners look old, but not as old as the time when people needed no work contract to work legally in a store. So, that dry cleaning place is only dry, but not clean. Now when I think of it, the only phrases I remember were :" Don't think, just take that shit and put it on the machine. Faster, faster, faster."

Even though I was still in an unofficial position in the store, they were supposed to pay me. But they didn't, which resulted a trail between us just for less than 100 euros.

Thus, I am back to the looking-for-a-job status again.

As an atheist, I hardly believe in destiny. We had been looking for an apartment for ages, and either the flats were too small, too expensive, or in the wrong quarter. We bought a real estate magazine which comes out every Thursday, when we called on Friday afternoon, all the good apartments had been taken. At the verge of despair, through a friend of ours, we accidentally found an offer. This apartment is on the third floor and in a park. As our appointment was confirmed, we went to see the place. The owner showed us the heavenly apartment and at the end, he said:" Well, the only thing is, sometimes in the winter garden, birds can be loud." (Dear sir, do you have any idea where we live right now? I think we can handle the birds' chirping.) The owner told us that they had put the offer for almost 2 months, and we were the only applicants. As if the place had always been reserved for us.

Looking forward to start another new chapter.

Got a letter from uni. My documents have gone through for my Master's program. Now all I need to do is to pass a German text, then, say re-hello to uni. life! But if I failed it, I would have to wait for another year to reapply. I suppose psychologically I can't afford to push my luck for my German exam this time around.

July, I browse through my old writings from last year. Last July, I felt the change in the air, I wrote about the changes in such an odd month. And here I am again, repeating the hope, but with sobriety.