HU

I really need to start utilizing this blog a lot more because we have now begun the phase where I have to keep an incidents journal for my James Madison requirement.  I really find it annoying that they would make you write papers or have to keep track of your experience while you're actually doing it.  What do I know, but I think it should be something that comes at the end of your field experience.  O wait, we do. We have an additional 20-25 page paper that is due at the end of our internships as well.  Enough complaining though because that's not the part everyone wants to hear about.

I've successfully completed my first week at Humboldt-Uni and I have to say that I am thoroughly satisfied with my placement.  Even though I've only been given the monotonous tasks of printing, correcting English translations, and researching a German author nobody's probably ever heard of, I have faith that things will pick up next week and the week that the students come.  Now that I know a little more about my job myself I can actually answer your question; "so what are you actually doing over there?".  For starters the department that I work in is called "Deutsch als Fremdsprache" or German as a foreign language.  My boss Frau Beatte Ramin-Getter, is the director of  HU's Summer and Winter Sessions.  There are the four classes that we offer; Intensive German Language, Art, Area Studies, and Germanistik.  There are also 3 other extremely nice interns named Xenia, Fabio, and Nina.  I think the best part of my internship is that it's so relaxed and they literally have tried to make me feel at home as much as possible.  I start work everyday at 10am and work until about 2-2:30pm in the afternoon, which isn't terrible, considering I'm an unpaid intern.  I'm excited for things to pick up though because the student will be arriving on the 16th and 17th of July.  Right now we are working on the welcoming packages and organizing all the materials for the classes.  As my friend put it the other day, basically we are RA's for all the international students coming in (which I find is a little bit ironic considering I'm one of them).  We're just a resource for when they have questions about living here or transportation tickets, etc..  I think one of the most exciting things is that I get to participate in  all of these classes or any trips/events that we have planned for the weekends.

I haven't been doing very much travelling, which is a bit disappointing but I've still been seeing a lot of Berlin.  The main reason is I really haven't found anyone who wants to travel anywhere really but we sat down and planned out a weekend to go to Hamburg and then another weekend when we'll be going to visit our friend in the Black Forest.  I'm also in the process right now of looking at flights to Dublin, Ireland for the weekend.  If you know me well enough then you'd know that I'm terrible at planning events so this has been a struggle for me, haha.  I think we'll be doing quite a bit of travelling when my Dad & brother come over here in late August so I'll need to save some money for that too.

Other than that all has been going great here in Germany.  Sorry if I haven't immediately responded to messages/email.  I don't always check those things as frequently as I ought to.  I think we're going to make attempts to grill hot dogs and hamburgers on Monday so we won't be completely missing out on the Holiday.  That is, after we all get out of work.  Hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend and God bless America!