YAY!!!!!

I wrote earlier about applying for the Annette Kade Scholarship, which is an ISEP scholarship that is awarded to students that are either studying in Germany or France. They award three $2,000 scholarships and five $1,000 scholarships per semester. I received the email today and I have been awarded one of the $2,000 scholarships!!!!! I am so very excited because I really needed that money, and I am also extremely proud of myself because I put about three days of work into those essays and it totally paid off. Yay!

Tetanus Vaccine

I went to the doctor for a physical Thursday, and I did all of your typical physical stuff so I can feel medically prepared when I go abroad. This included getting blood drawn, a flu shot, and a tetanus shot (among other things). Technically, you do not need any immunizations to go the Germany, but they do recommend updating your tetanus and getting a flu shot, and I just wanted to post and say that I forgot how much tetanus shots hurt--my arm is just now starting to feel normal again :-( I think I'm just a really big wimp...

Waiting

I have not written in awhile because there is not really anything to report, and I feel like my trip is in some suspended state. I've done most of my preparations, and now I'm just constantly waiting. It is actually surprisingly distracting--I've been trying to productive because it's the week before finals and in these last two weeks I have one project, four presentations, three 10-page papers, an annotated bibliography of 25 sources, a German writing assignment, and two finals, but whenever I get started working on something I find my mind wandering to Dortmund... Tonight I am supposed to be working on a paper, but instead, I've been reading travel blogs from students that are studying in Germany. I believe it is safe to say that researching Germany has become my new favorite way to procrastinate :-) At least this research will have a positive influence on my future--not like spending my time on facebook or youtube.

Truthfully, I'm a little conflicted about this trip. I keep going back and forth from being so excited that I can't stand it and I want to go tomorrow to being terrified of leaving home, Kevin, and "the norm." I guess this is a normal reaction for someone who has never really left the country. Here are some things that have been running through my head lately:

I am very excited about the fact that I will not be attending Maryville College next semester. Don't get me wrong, I love my school, and I am glad that I chose to attend this college, but this has been a really rough semester (complete with some total breakdowns because my academic load is ridiculously heavy this semester) and I'm glad that I can leave for a semester. I feel like I will not be as burnt out on Maryville my senior year since I will be gone for awhile, and that is a good thing. Reversely, I am open to (and a little weary of) the fact that I will be very frustrated with Maryville when I get back from Germany, especially if my trip goes really well (hmmm, I should probably say when my trip goes really well, but I'm trying not to give myself any unrealistic expectations).

My biggest fear about studying in Germany is that something is going to happen to my family or Kevin, and there will be absolutely nothing I can do. I know this is a pessimistic subject, but it's a valid concern, and it really scares me. There's really not much that I can write about it (besides the annoying dialogs and hypothetical situations that keep running through my head, and I will spare you those), but I just want to go ahead and say that this fear is there and will be something that I will have to deal with quite a bit once I am gone.

It is killing me that I still have to wait so long before I leave (I leave in exactly 3 months 1 day...I arrive in 3 months and 2 days). This anticipation is exponentially increasing both my excitement and my fear--to the point that I'm starting to feel like I am going to explode! I wish I could just go so I no longer have to deal with these increasingly conflicting emotions.

I've been getting more emails from Dortmund. They are pretty informative and helpful. In my last one, I learned that bedding and cooking utensils will be provided, but I need to bring towels. That's a little unfortunate because towels take up a lot of room in luggage...I need to buy some cheap thin ones. Eww.

Here are some really important things that I still need to do:
*Go have more passport photos taken. I need to take a number of passport pictures with me for various ids and stuff--I'm glad that they will not be the same as my passport picture because that is possibly the worst picture of me in existence!
*That whole money thing. I still to convert money to Euros, and I will be doing that soon because the exchange rate is fairly decent right now (about $1.25=1€). I also need to acquire travelers checks and talk to my bank about leaving.
*Making copies of EVERYTHING. I figure I can do this at my mom's school in February since I will not have anything else to do...

Wow, this is really long considering I didn't think I had anything to say...Tschüss!

Travel Information

My dad bought my plane ticket for my flight on Thursday night, and I'm really excited about it! It's a direct flight both ways out of Atlanta on Delta Airlines (he bought the ticket with his frequent flier miles). Here's the info:
I leave Atlanta on March 4 at 4:35 pm
I arrive in Frankfurt on March 5 at 7:40 am
When I come back:
I leave Frankfurt on July 30 at 9:45 am
I arrive in Atlanta on July 30 at 1:50 pm
Once I arrive in Frankfurt I will have a 3 and a half hour ride on a train to Dortmund (which my paperwork tells me should cost about 50€). So hopefully everything will go smoothly, especially since I don't have to change flights. But you know what they say about the best laid plans...

Studentuniverse.com

I just want to throw out a quick advertisement for studentuniverse.com. This website sells airfare at a student rate, and you can get some really good deals as long as you are a student at an accredited college (I think professors can buy tickets here too, but I'm not sure). I found a round-trip flight to Frankfurt from Atlanta that was only $656 (including taxes), and this flight has direct flights both ways. That is pretty amazing.

Dortmund Brochure

Yesterday when I went home, there were two different brochures waiting for me: one for the city of Dortmund and one for Universität Dortmund. These were really informative-especially the one about the university because I have done a lot of research about Germany, but I have have not learned a whole lot about the actual school that I am going to. Here are some things that I learned:
*Universität Dortmund was found in 1968, so it is a fairly new school (at least when compared to the two colleges that I have attended thus far)
*There are about 22,000 students and about 1,500 of them are degree-seeking students from abroad, so there are a lot of international students!
*The brochure says that someone will pick me up at the station, help me move into my room, and assist me with registration. On top of this, they have a buddy program where I will meet a German student who will help me.
*During orientation, they will give me a tour of Dortmund. On bicycle. :-)
After reading these brochures, I've decided two things. 1) I need to learn a ton of stuff about football (soccer) because I don't know ANYTHING about it and it is huge in Dortmund 2) I need to start drinking beer because it is also huge in Dortmund (in fact, my adviser even told me that I should work on this because beer is such a big deal in Germany)

I have officially decided to go to the German-in-review course in March so now I will need to be in Dortmund on March 9. I also applied for my ISEP health insurance for my trip (Everyone who studies through ISEP is required to buy health insurance through them. I didn't have to buy nearly as much as everyone else because I am required by German law to have German health insurance) So I am now covered if I die in Germany and need to have my body shipped back to the States, or if I am medically evacuated. A little morbid, but also very important.

I need to have my arrival plan ready for the next study abroad meeting (11/17) so I should have my plane ticket and stuff ready by then. I'm currently waiting for an email from the study abroad coordinator at Dortmund telling me when I need to arrive in the city. I know I need to be there by March 9, but I don't know when I need to actually arrive. I'll keep you posted!

Tschüss!

Passport and Scholarship Applications

I forgot to mention in my last post, I got my passport a week ago! This is my first passport so I'm pretty excited, and I was very impressed about how fast the process was. I had heard horror stories about passports taking 6 months and people having to wait a really long time after applying, but I guess I applied during a low season or something. I applied on Thursday October 16th and it came in on Monday the 27th. That's only a week and a half! Unfortunately, mine bears what is possibly the worst picture of me EVER, but at least I have it...that means I'm one step closer to Dortmund!

I also finished my application for the ISEP Germany/France scholarship. This scholarship is for either $1,000 or $2,000, depending on which essays you write, how much money you need, etc. The hope is that I will get $2,000 because I could really use it. Studying abroad is so much more expensive than I originally thought it would be!
The essays for this scholarship were interesting. Here is the prompt to the second essay:

Considering that Mark Twain very eloquently wrote about his desperate attempts trying to learn “The Awful German Language” (1880; http://www.cs.utah.edu/~gback/awfgrmlg.html), why DID you decide to study German, especially when, according to Twain, “ a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.”

How are you supposed to respond to something like that? I found it really difficult, but I enjoyed it too because that essay by Mark Twain is HILARIOUS!!! I highly recommend that you read it, especially if you are currently learning or have learned German. I literally laughed out loud, and forced my roommate to listen to portions of it.

My Welcome Email and Choosing Classes...

I got a welcome email from Dortmund--yay! I learned some important things from this email . First, it was just nice to actually hear from a real person at Dortmund who sounded excited about my coming, and it is comforting to know that someone is on the other side of this, preparing for my arrival. I definitely feel more comfortable about writing to Dortmund and asking questions now that they have contacted me first. One thing I thought was interesting is Frau Klemm suggested that they could include me in a graduate level English class in the position of a volunteer assistant. I thought that sounded pretty cool, and it would look really good on a graduate school application. Also, if I choose to go a month a early, I can take a free intensive language course for credit. I do have to pay for room and board (approximately €250 for room and €220 for food), but this will give me the chance to adjust to Germany before my classes actually start, I can meet some of the other exchange students while learning the language with them, and I could use the extra language credits (I need 9 hours of German credit while I am in Germany). This is something I'm seriously considering, and if I decide to do it, I will need to be in Dortmund when it starts on March 9th.

Today I worked on picking out some classes to take while I am at Dortmund, and I am meeting with my adviser on Tuesday to discuss them. I basically have to get some classes pre-approved for transfer credit before I leave. These probably are not the exact classes I will be taking (especially since the summer 2009 classes have not been posted on Dortmund's course catalog yet), but I will be taking something similar. This has been interesting because the catalog is in German, which makes it a little difficult to navigate, but luckily, Dr. Schneibel helped me with it last semester and I remember most of what she showed me. Some of the German classes I am looking at are:
*Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Konversation (German as a foreign language: Conversation)
*Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Leseverstehen (German as a foreign language: Understanding what you read)
*Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Landeskunde-Literature, Kultur, und Sprache (German as a foreign language: regional studies-literature, culture, and language)
*Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Hörverstehen (German as a foreign language: understanding what you hear)
This all sounds interesting--mostly because we don't really have specified German classes like this at Maryville. I also looked at some English literature classes (these classes at Dortmund are taught in English-hooray!) and some interesting titles were:
*Utopian Fiction
*Female Role Behavior in Shakespeare
*English and Irish Short Stories
*Concepts of Reality in Postmodern Texts
*Madness in German and American Literature
*Beyond Grits and Gravy: Literature and Culture of the American South
Like I said, these aren't necessarily the classes I will be taking while I'm abroad, but these are some general ideas. I just keep getting more excited! :-D

First Study Abroad Meeting

Yesterday was our first study abroad meeting, and I feel so much better now that I've received more information about my trip and now that I know that I am not the only one who is really anxious about leaving the country (the thought of leaving the country for almost four months can be pretty terrifying!). Everyone had questions, and I was not the only who was confused about some of (or most of....) the things we need to do.

Here is some of the stuff that I learned:
*I am officially studying at the Technische Universität Dortmund
*I am supposed to arrive on April 6th and leave by July 31st
*I don't need a visa to get into Germany, but I will have to apply for a residence permit once I arrive
*Instead of a typical meal plan, I will be receiving a monthly stipend (which means I have to budget well)
*My debit card should work in Germany, but I need many different types of money with me
*There will be Maryville College students studying in Czech Republic, Chile, Germany (that's me!), Finland, France, Italy, South Africa, and Spain next semester
*You can never make too many copies of important documents
On top of this, I now have some comprehensive lists of things that I need to do before I leave the country...I had already made some lists on my own, but these are really helpful!

Although I still have so many things to do before I leave, I feel much better prepared, and I'm now beginning to honestly believe that I can do this :-)