Friday, October 5, 2007

Bist du sicher?


The title of today's post comes from one of my German teacher's favorite phrases. It literally means "Are you sure?" Of course, the last time he asked, I don't think he was expecting me to immediately answer "Nein." That was on Wednesday, the day before my final (and first...) test for the course. I shouldn't say that it was my first, since we had a practice test last week. However, I managed to fail that one with an astounding 30%. Naturally, this made me feel quite good about my German capabilities. So I studied my butt off and somewhat was finally able to learn Konjunktiv I and II (somewhat...). I by no means dominated the test yesterday, but I have the slightest hope that I did indeed manage to pass this time. Today I had another test (a University placement exam) which had the most confusing system of fill-in-the-blank ever.
For example, the test consisted of 4-5 paragraphs with words within the paragraph cut off after a word or to. For example: I went to the park an_ then to the mall. Obviously, the missing letter is "d". But there were funny rules. If the blank had one letter and then the underline, you could only use 1 letter to go with it a___ = at. However, if there were 2 letters, you could use two or one letters to complete it. Four letters before equaled 3 or 2 letters afterwards. And then, randomly, sometimes you would have to make a compound word like baumh____ = baumhaus (tree house) which you were supposed to be able to gleam from the text. Might I add that this was all explained to us in German with a crappy overhead projection. We were supposed to have taken the test on a computer, but the whole system crashed and the server is in another town. Unfortunately for those who went the hour before me, they all had to take the test again on paper as well. So, for me it really could have been worse.
This last weekend was pretty uneventful. Saturday I did some studying and Sunday as well. Sunday afternoon all the students were supposed to go bowling, but only about 8 people showed up (all English speakers except one girl from Russia). We went to a place called "The Super Bowl" which had bowling lanes, lots of pool tables, some pinball machines and a air hockey table. The bowling balls were all in pounds (which I found to be funny) and apparently most Germans don't bowl too often. Our German students had fun laughing at themselves. Surprisingly, I bowled really well and I think my top score was 136. Which is fantastic for me.
Let's see...Oh, yeah. I finally caved in and got a German cell phone yesterday. It cost me about 35 euros (15 being for minutes on it). It's nothing special, but it does have it's very own pink leather carrying case. (Oooh, ahh...) Minutes are really expensive here. From one German cell to another it is usually around 30 euro cents a minute. But it's good to have so I can know when things are going on or in cases of emergency.
Well, I think that's about it for right now. I'm more than happy to answer questions, although in some cases it might be easier to e-mail. So, you can either leave your e-mail address in the comments or send me an e-mail at my student account: stephanie.munson@und.edu.
Steph

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