Scylla and Charybdis, and Studies

For the second weekend in a row, I've been practicing amateur journalism skills by going to protests about the Israel-Hamas war. It's been challenging to keep my own feelings in check, also as in Germany this war has brought up longstanding stereotypes about Middle Eastern neighbours that I personally find deeply offensive and unfair. The German press coverage also makes my amateur journalism far more uncomfortable: pro-Palestinian protestors have no empirical reason to trust me; as a result, I have not conducted any interviews or photographed many people's faces. But I figure that having more opinions about the war is not going to help anyone, so it's not hurting anyone if I shut up about mine; and at least I personally feel quite safe at the protests. So I just vent freely to my siblings and my mother, and attempt to be outwardly neutral.

What's going much better is the next university semester. While I still haven't received a final response to whether I am accepted for full-time study or not, I like the Plan B that I've implemented: i.e. another semester of guest-auditing modern Greek. This year, the fellow students are native German speakers who don't insist on speaking Greek 100% of the time. So, regardless of how class compositions may look in future semesters, it gives me a chance to wholly follow what's being taught and discussed, and to steadily acquire enough knowledge to handle Greek-language classrooms in future.

That said, a fellow student has a Palestinian parent, and she hasn't been showing up to classes in the last week. I didn't fully understand what was discussed, but it sounds like she's distressed by the university's public stance on the war. As she's the only fully enrolled student in the Greek programme for our year, this means that missing classes will really be a disadvantage to her university career, although our professor is flexible and sympathetic.

As for the weather, the transition to fall has been abrupt, and 'suddenly' there have been a lot of gloomy days. The Tiergarten had dramatic yellow foliage yesterday, interspersed with rust red from the chestnuts or horse chestnuts, and temperatures have dipped near the freezing point repeatedly. Last night the switch from daylight saving time happened. While I felt remarkably early-birdy for waking up at around 8:15 a.m. this Sunday morning, I figure that soon I'll backslide.

On my schedule today are three protests, plus hanging out with my family. Potentially at a restaurant, to celebrate my sister's well-deserved acquisition of a Bachelor's degree, after fulfilling the last formal requirements.