A Weekend's Homework and Paperwork

Today was not yet one of the "dog days of summer," but it was quite warm. The fruit flies and regular flies are lively again, the odours that arise from the courtyard are hardly salutory, the empty water and Coke bottles in the kitchen have exponentially increased, and blankets are becoming a nuisance except during the coldest hours of the night. At least the apartment is a good, cool refuge from the heat. Yesterday was worse, and everyone felt listless and lethargic; I had headaches and the others probably did, too.

Mama is still in the Niederrhein, where she went on Friday in order to attend a high school reunion. She'll be arriving in Berlin early next morning, instead of at midnight as intended.

The weekend was moderately busy. On Saturday Papa was at one of the tables at the Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften. J. and I went to visit him in the main building of the Technische Uni, partly out of curiosity and partly to make Papa's eight hours there livelier. Our trip there was a minor odyssey, but the weather was cool enough for us to wander about without much discomfort. The event seemed to be very North American and child-orientated in approach; loud music (not particularly good music, either), food, lots of balloons, and a focus on fashionable consumer goods (cell phones, computer games, etc.) for children. There were music education sessions, too, and two ladies with resplendent white wigs and period gowns stood on guard at the entrance to an event about Händel. The whole thing reminded me of the career fairs that we went to in high school: headache-inducing, noisy, and rather mercenary events, where visitors flocked to the various booths in an irregular, rather cruelly selective way, and I tended to go to the less frequented booths if I didn't find the displays utterly incomprehensible to a layman like me. Anyway, J. and I, having found Papa, spent a good quarter hour refreshing ourselves with drinks and talking, and then went home again.

Cousin E. and uncle W. came in the evening; we had white wine, champagne, cookies, and chocolate-covered hazelnuts and raisins. And -- since Windows Media Player refused to let us watch the film 21 Grams -- we turned to YouTube and watched music clips of the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Pete something-or-other, KT Tunstall, Chuck Berry, and Norah Jones. Speaking of the Beatles, I think that the music video for "The Walrus" is very funny; we also watched "Don't Let Me Down," "Instant Karma" (which we didn't know yet), and then early songs like "Love Me Do" which formed a most amusing, naive contrast. But I also liked the other videos. Somehow I've mostly been exposed to more commercial music (Spice Girls, Shania Twain, Beyoncé, 50 Cent, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, etc.), and I wasn't as aware of the less slick, more meaningful, and more genuine contemporary music of people like KT Tunstall and Norah Jones. After we had watched the videos, we had a nice, long discussion about the different genres of music, and whether some genres are better than others.

Yesterday Gi. and Ge. had a pile of work. The first task was a joint presentation on Canada for their Geography (Erdkunde) class. So Gi. and Ge. and I delved into Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia, then I translated the notes into German, and last of all Gi. prepared a powerpoint presentation. At this point I had gone to sleep; Gi. stayed up the rest of the night and hurriedly scratched together a short lecture about daily life in Australia. Today, I might as well mention now, I also did Spanish homework with J., who has a test in the subject tomorrow. He kept at it with admirable persistence and good-humour.

Anyway, this morning I received a nice reply from the Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart, which has to process my academic record before I can apply to the Uni Heidelberg, and to which I had written for information. Tomorrow I'll go to the Rathaus Schöneberg and get official copies of documents such as my passport, and then I'll send it all off. The other task for tomorrow is to go to the bank and authorize the payment of interest onto my savings account (I don't quite understand if there is a more lucrative alternative to interest, or why the bank would assume that I don't want the interest, and would prefer that my lump of money sits around losing value as time passes and inflation gradually rises).

But, to return to university, I've looked up the current information on applying to the Humboldt Uni, and I think I'd like to go there, too. The language on the website was not too bureaucratic or long-winded, the regulations were reasonable, I liked the study programme descriptions, and there are no entry barriers ("numerus clausus") after the first semester (in the programmes that interest me). I also decided that, if all else fails, I will simply get an auditing card ("Gasthörerkarte") for the Humboldt Uni, and spend my time on the waiting list that way. As for the Freie Uni, I've looked at the updated information; I still think that there is no sense in sifting through the bureaucratically-worded application information, filling out quires of paperwork, and being aware the whole time that my chance of being accepted is fractional, and that the application of any but stellar students is seen as an unmitigated nuisance anyway. I'd probably feel like a crawling worm by the end of the process, and the subsequent rejection would be the proverbial icing on the unpalatable cake.