Entry #1 -- Leaving in 1.5 Weeks
It's weird to think so much about Germany while I'm sitting here in front of my computer in Los Angeles. In less than two weeks I will be on a plane heading to London, and after a short layover there I will be continuing to Munich. I am about to undertake what is probably the craziest proposition I have ever faced -- I am going to attend the University of Augsburg law school for an entire semester as an exchange student from the United States.
I am currently a second-year law student at a well-known Southern California law school. My law school offers a summer program to take classes for 6 weeks in Augsburg, but those classes are in English. When I heard about that program, I thought, "Sounds fun, but why not stay longer and take classes in German if possible?" As a fluent German speaker, I thought I might be able to succeed at this. So I started asking around to see if this could work. I spoke to a professor from Augsburg who was visiting our law school, and then I wrote him a letter when he returned to Germany. I did my best to use big and formal German words, as well as complicated grammatical construction...all of which were basically a pathetic effort on my part to show them I wasn't a total hack when it came to speaking German. Apparently that was good enough for him and for everyone else over there, and I learned toward the end of the second semester of my first year that they'd approved my admission for the semester.
Of course, I was really excited about this, although I did have a flash of a thought at the time -- "Maybe I'm crazy and I will crash and burn so hard that they'll never let anyone else try this AND kick me out of school as well for embarrassing them." That flash came and went pretty quickly, and while it still comes back during my lowest self-esteem moments, overall I feel pretty okay about doing this. It really helped to boost my confidence that we had four fantastic students from Germany studying at our school last semester, and they managed to pass all their classes. I know that my German is probably comparable to their English, and their success made me feel that if they could do it, so could I.
Over the last few months, as all of my friends at school have returned to the standard routine of reading, class, outlining, etc., I have basically been hanging out and getting ready to go to Germany. Why? Because German universities are on a totally different timetable -- they have a Winter semester (September-January), a big writing/testing break, and then a Summer semester (April-July). So basically I have had my summer over the last few months. I did not totally waste my time, because I worked in the library on campus a few days a week, I worked on a paper that won a publication contest and will be published in a law journal next year, and I worked as a research assistant to one of the professors at school, and she had a lot of work for me to do. Since I want to become a law librarian, I don't need that summer-intern-working-in-a-big-firm experience after second year, which is a good thing since I'll still be studying in my tiny room in Augsburg until the end of July. The bad thing about this break is that I've been somewhat lazy -- naps every afternoon, hanging out with the cats, reading Jane Austen novels, etc. It's been nice to have some downtime but I hope I haven't developed bad habits and can get back into the swing of studying in a few weeks.
I have also been dealing with the bureaucracy of setting myself up as a German law student. This is a nightmare and worthy of a separate post.
Finally, I've been hanging out with my husband SP. Yep, I'm leaving my husband for 5 months to go and study in Germany. Since we got married almost 3 years ago I have done very little on my own without at least seeing him at the end of the day. That might be the hardest thing about what I'm trying to do. We'll have the phone, email, instant messaging, etc. But I know that won't replace seeing each other. Everyone says the time will pass so fast and we'll be together again before we know it. I have a few thoughts about that -- (1) I don't want it to pass fast because I want to savor my time over there; (2) I hope it flies to make the time apart seem like only a few minutes. I suppose this is normal.
So I hope that readers will enjoy this online diary of my German law adventure. I'll try to make it funny AND educational. :-)
I am currently a second-year law student at a well-known Southern California law school. My law school offers a summer program to take classes for 6 weeks in Augsburg, but those classes are in English. When I heard about that program, I thought, "Sounds fun, but why not stay longer and take classes in German if possible?" As a fluent German speaker, I thought I might be able to succeed at this. So I started asking around to see if this could work. I spoke to a professor from Augsburg who was visiting our law school, and then I wrote him a letter when he returned to Germany. I did my best to use big and formal German words, as well as complicated grammatical construction...all of which were basically a pathetic effort on my part to show them I wasn't a total hack when it came to speaking German. Apparently that was good enough for him and for everyone else over there, and I learned toward the end of the second semester of my first year that they'd approved my admission for the semester.
Of course, I was really excited about this, although I did have a flash of a thought at the time -- "Maybe I'm crazy and I will crash and burn so hard that they'll never let anyone else try this AND kick me out of school as well for embarrassing them." That flash came and went pretty quickly, and while it still comes back during my lowest self-esteem moments, overall I feel pretty okay about doing this. It really helped to boost my confidence that we had four fantastic students from Germany studying at our school last semester, and they managed to pass all their classes. I know that my German is probably comparable to their English, and their success made me feel that if they could do it, so could I.
Over the last few months, as all of my friends at school have returned to the standard routine of reading, class, outlining, etc., I have basically been hanging out and getting ready to go to Germany. Why? Because German universities are on a totally different timetable -- they have a Winter semester (September-January), a big writing/testing break, and then a Summer semester (April-July). So basically I have had my summer over the last few months. I did not totally waste my time, because I worked in the library on campus a few days a week, I worked on a paper that won a publication contest and will be published in a law journal next year, and I worked as a research assistant to one of the professors at school, and she had a lot of work for me to do. Since I want to become a law librarian, I don't need that summer-intern-working-in-a-big-firm experience after second year, which is a good thing since I'll still be studying in my tiny room in Augsburg until the end of July. The bad thing about this break is that I've been somewhat lazy -- naps every afternoon, hanging out with the cats, reading Jane Austen novels, etc. It's been nice to have some downtime but I hope I haven't developed bad habits and can get back into the swing of studying in a few weeks.
I have also been dealing with the bureaucracy of setting myself up as a German law student. This is a nightmare and worthy of a separate post.
Finally, I've been hanging out with my husband SP. Yep, I'm leaving my husband for 5 months to go and study in Germany. Since we got married almost 3 years ago I have done very little on my own without at least seeing him at the end of the day. That might be the hardest thing about what I'm trying to do. We'll have the phone, email, instant messaging, etc. But I know that won't replace seeing each other. Everyone says the time will pass so fast and we'll be together again before we know it. I have a few thoughts about that -- (1) I don't want it to pass fast because I want to savor my time over there; (2) I hope it flies to make the time apart seem like only a few minutes. I suppose this is normal.
So I hope that readers will enjoy this online diary of my German law adventure. I'll try to make it funny AND educational. :-)
posted by Jennifer at 16:58
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