Disco Pogo

It is inevitable. Apparently I cannot handle having a blog hahaha. But I have not given up yet!

...I will work backwards!!

Okay so for the past few days the internet here has just been awful. I'm not just talking like turtle slow... I'm talking like five minutes to check your email slow! Well my point of this story is, I made my Ice Breaker video a few days ago but I made it really quickly & it was just a rough draft. I wanted to make sure my idea wasn't totally out of the wazoo. Well anyway, I made a new one and added a whole bunch of stuff, but it wouldn't upload because of the internet here. :( so lame!! I hope the song Disco Pogo will win over the markers hahah. :)

I'm feeling a lot better being here now. It was hard at first... but I think I have come to terms with everything. There's no use in being upset anymore about how things worked out, so I should just try to make the best of it and seize the day. Speaking of which, I bought a flight to Sweden! I will be going to visit Lucas on April 8th, less than two weeks away! The flight round trip was only 38 euros! Really cheap!

Okay, so my bed here is like a good foam mattress, and it is on top of the bottom (obviously)... but the bottom is made out of like many wooden strips about 2 inches wide each and a few inches in-between each one... making the bed bouncy. Okay, so the other day I stepped on my bed for some reason instead of just sitting... and what do you ya know! I hear this huge snap! How embarrassing for me! One of the wooden strips broke hahaha Something like this would happen to me! hahah

So my biggest accomplishment so far since I've been here... drum roll.... get ready for it..... I completed seven seasons of Gilmore Girls!! I'm not sure whether or not I should be disgusted or proud. Seven seasons, that is 100.45 hours of tv. Next up: 10 seasons of friends! Yay!

Well this week here is Easter week, so a week of holidays!! I am going to go to Bremen, Hannover, & the North Sea I think! These are all places I can get to for free with my student card which is kind of fun! :) I might as well go if its free, right?

Also, I've been tutoring alot! I did like 7 hours last week and I think I'll have the same amount the week after this one. For Easter week most students went home! I think if I keep up these hours, Egypt will definitely be a go!! :D

Anyways thats it! if you are interested in seeing my breaker video, its on youtube called "European Breaker". Its also a sing along!!

Thank you kindly for reading!!

Susie

Note to self...

don't step fastly onto my bed.
I'll explain tomorrow.

thanks for the short read! Night!

Suze

Note to self

Professional English Speaker

So I started tutoring today! Its pretty relaxed... we just talked for an hour and a half. Its a pretty sweet deal. I'm just scared that with all these students I will eventually run out of things to talk about! The guy I met with today mostly just talked & I said: ya, okay, ooh really why is that? My usual responses :)

So I went to the international dinner tonight. It was good, met a couple of people. The event wasn't very big. I also finally got a buddy, which is a german student who lives here who helps you out with anything you need. At first I didn't have one because I am studying music... but I think because of my previous email I sent them they were concerned. Also, the rice crispy squares were a success! This one girl liked them so much she wants me to email her the recipe! haha :)

Thats its for now! I've also started to work on my video for my breaker creative skit! Skype interview is a go!

thanks for reading!

Suze

I've been lame

I have been quite lame lately in regards to posting, so heres a little update... good new & bad news

So lucas came to visit on Thursday! We had a really great time together! Drank all three nights LOL. The second night we ended up finding this huge statue and stayed there for SO long just trying to climb on top of it & mount it! Ahaha there are some pretty epic videos of us giving instructions on "how to mount a fraulline"! I almost peed myself every time I watched them. The last night we ended up hanging out in this playground for sooo long and tedor-todored for like an hour and a half... each of us with a 1.8 euro bottle of wine in hand! People must have thought we were so strange... especially because every time people would walk by we wouldn't say a word, just keep going up & down on the tedor-todor and drink our wine. It was no big deal. And at one point like 5 guys came into the park and all peed at the same time! LOL I think it should be named the pee park, I may have participated as well. :P The weekend was really fantastic with him here, next up I will go to Sweden to visit him! I'm thinking end of April or some time in May. Yes that will be grand. :)

Things are still kind of lacking in the social department. I found out that alot of international students live in the same residences, many in the same flats. I just think its so unfair. And a lot of them already know each other because many of them participated in the February language course. Its just hard sometimes not knowing many people, and the only people I have met in this "residence" are my two flat mates (one of which may I remind you is 27!). Yea soo. I actually sent an email yesterday explaining everything thats been happening so far & asked if I could switch residences. Its just so unfair to me, it sucks so much. Like I chose to live in residence to meet people... If I knew it was going to be like this I would have just rented a random room somewhere. It turns out that there are no available rooms though... but they asked me to come in and talk to them tomorrow, so hopefully things will be better for me. You'd think after three weeks of living here I would have met more than just a few people.. yea not exactly what I anticipated would happen before coming.. its kind of hard on me, but I'm hopeful that things will get better soon. Can only go up from here!

Also, I start tutoring tomorrow! Its just making conversation really with the students... but I don't even have any idea what we will talk about! hahah things could get a little turtle. And in the email the guy sent me he said "I can't wait to meet a professional like you" ... so things are definitely going to be turtle once he meets me haa. I downloaded some funny stories and some news articles so he can read to me if he wants. :) I hope it goes well!

Furthermore, there is an international students' dinner tomorrow evening which I will be attending. Every student is to bring a dish typical of their home country, so I made rice crsipy squares! (With smarties on top!). I had to go to three grocery stores to find marshmallows! And even then they only had one kind and they were imported from the states and work out to cost $3.50 per bag LOL but I bought them anywyas. And apparently Germany likes to have 1000+ types of Muesli, but only one type of rice crispies and they are chocate! ahahha oh well I think they will be a success regardless.

Anyways thats it for this evening. I'm off to bed because its midnight now. I will post tomorrow. Get back into the swing of things.

Suze

Things are going well :)

The past few days have been pretty rough on me, I was just feeling really down & missing everyone from home a lot. But yesterday was a really good day, I met some international students and I'll be seeing them again tonight I think. Also, Lucas comes today! I made him a little "Welcome to Germany" care package made of Haribo gummy bears, a mini jager meister, das Bier, and a bun from a bakery!! :) yay! I can't wait to see him!! I know I've been slacking the past little while in this blog, put I think things are going to start to pick up soon so there will be lots to report on!! Its a beautiful day here, like springs jacket weather! So I'm off to practice, then pick Luke up at the train station!!

Hope everyone had a great St. Paddys! And I hope it at one point involved phone books, pilons, and fire extinguishers!!

love!
Susie

Its been a while

Yes, yes it has been a fair while since I last posted. Well the good news is I am alive and well... although the two day hangover did tire me out quite bit. Honestly nothing much has happened here in Osnabruck. Today I had my first trumpet lesson with my new teacher and that was really great. I learnt a whole new approach to playing the trumpet that I think if I commit to could be really great! Well. As lame is it may be that is about it. Maybe its for the best though that I don't have any outrageous stories to report on. I just thought I'd check in here in the good ol' blog. :)

Good night!!!

lovelovelove from all the way over here

Susie

I should probably avoid the Discotech

Well last night I went to the Discotech!! It was a hugee club, like 4 floors, and really nice architecture from what I remember. Actually, my memory of the night is quite vague to be honest. Before going to the discotech I went to a bar first with a friend and I only had three drinks there but they just killed me! They were called Zombies, and they were like 80% alcohol, 20% really fruity juice. The walk from the bar to the discotech is even a little blury :| I did not intend to be like that ahhhh I'm not sure what time I got home... or who I walked with... the club is open until 7am but I'm pretty sure I didn't stay that long. Gosh I don't like nights like this! I woke up at noon today and like could not even move, it was such a task to bring my laptop to my bed. I then proceeded to fall back asleep with my laptop in front of my face, and sleep until 4 in the afternoon!! 4!!! Thats like the whole day gone! I got out of bed around 5, chatted with my roommate for an hour and then I had the best idea ever of going to the grocery store to get a pizza to cook for my one and only meal of the day. :) however, once I purchased the pizza I had an even better idea of going to get a kabab. Sooo all I've consumed today is like one kebab and 5 glasses a water. What a great life i lead hahaha . Omg the worst day ever! Its midnight now and I still feel awful & queezy. I should not go to anymore Discotechs! Or rather I should not have anymore Zombie drinks. Also, since I slept all day I'm not even tired! Oh! I also proceeded to do laundry last night. I realized this fact this morning (well afternoon) when I saw my detergent in my laundry bag instead of on my shelf. I was kind of impressed to be honest, how many people can say they don't remember doing laundry ahhaah. So I went downstairs to the laundry room, and what do ya know, theres my load of laundry still sitting in the washing machine. Ugh worst day ever! Hopefully this isn't a two day hangover and it will be gone tomorrow!!

Thats it for now!! Thanks for reading :) :) :)

Susie

Day 16!!*

So once again I haven't posted in the past few days... but really nothing of significance happened other than unsuccessfully attempting to use a pot like a pan, eating nutella from a spoon, and having a teacher that reminds me of my dentist. Oh! And having yet another class in German. fml! hahah but yesterday was a good day!

So yesterday I met the teacher who will be teaching me individually. He is pretty nice, seems really serious though, and very smart. Almost indimidating smart. I probably should have a prepared an idea of what I wanted to learn before meeting with him, because I looked kind of smart like s-m-r-t. ya know. But the whole time I was talking with him all I could think about was how much he reminded me of my dentist, which was a little distracting. So I'll be meeting with him for a couple of hours every Tuesday to cover the material. I'm hoping to get my credits with him: Post tonal theory, music culture & technology, and orchestration. But I also have a class for orchestration, hopefully it isn't completely in german like my previous classes.

Mmk so yesterday night there was a meeting for all english tutors. I got to meet a couple other native english speakers, which was refreshing. I think the job is going to go well. You tutor someone for 45 minutes, but get paid for the hour. Also, for every 4 hours you work, you get an extra hour of pay for preparation! We only get payed once, which will be at the end of the term and probably for 120 hours. It will be almost 1000 euros!! If everything goes well, I think it would be neat to use that money and go traveling, but not europe! What about Egypt! There is a Contiki tour that is 8 days that goes all over europe and is under 1000 euros! I think that would be the coolest thing ever. Chances are I won't be able to get a job for July and August here since I don't speak german, so the plan might be to just stick around until the first week of july when the term is all over, go on the tour, and then fly home. It all so far away though still! But Egypt would be amazing! And different than good ol' europe. :) I won't tell my mom about this though, I can only imagine what she would say!!

After the meeting I met up with the two friends who have been showing me around and we went to the bar that I was at the other night, because apparently every other Tuesday there are jazz jam sessions there. It was really cool and relaxed... whoever wanted to play just brought their instrument and jammed. Its too bad we don't have something like this in Waterloo.

I think that tomorrow I am going to the discoteck! haha it shoudld be a fun! Apparently the biggest one in Osnabruck!!

Life has been a little lame lately, but hopefully it will pick up eventually. There are no classes today through Friday because of a competition being held in the music building, they shut it down for students. I can't even practice there! Just ridiculous!!

Okay thats all! Thanks for reading!!!!! ♥♥♥

Susie

Ich verstehe das nicht!

So!!! Whoever reads this is going to think I am a total weiner!

I'll start from the beginning... okay so I get up and I go to this place to get my german visa. BUT apparently I need to have proof of 600 euros per month in my account for each month that I stay here! I don't spend nearly that much! I also don't have proof of those funds! I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do! Ah I will have to call mommy for this one haha... maybe get her to mail be something. Ooh goodness I hate all this administrative stuff! Just ridiculous.

Okay so after I failed at obtaining my visa I was going to go to my first class, which was about pop music and music videos, which I think would be quite interesting! However, I was too nervous to go to the class!! Its not going to class that makes me nervous, but the fact that I don't speak german and the class in german. The teacher would then need to translate everything just for me, and I feel really awful that everyone else in the class, its just wasting time for them. Ah! So I didn't go!! :| What a weiner! And then I was kind of mad at myself for not going, so I made myself go to my second (and last) class of the day. The prof is really nice and we talked for a bit before the other three students in the class came in. But they speak german (of course), so like the whole class was in German except for some little things he translated for me. I don't know,... it was just kind of pointless for me to go to that class. I didn't understand a thing! (Ich verstehe das nicht!) I'm looking forward to tomorrow, because I will meet the professor who will be working with me individually! Hopefully that goes much better than today! :| I might just learn the contents of the german course from him, because there is no real point in me going to lectures in German. Ugh! Hopefully tomorrow will be better! But I practiced today! I don't even remember the last time I practiced at Laurier which is completely awful!


I think this is an early night though!!! Night!!!

<3 Susie

Feeling Welcome

So the past couple of days I have been severely lacking in the blog posting! So I have a feeling this may be a biggie to make up for my temporary lack of commitment.

So anyways things are going pretty well. On Friday I met someone about the english tutoring job, and everything is a go. We will have a meeting next week and then I will have my students! Its pretty relaxed I think, and since its tutoring, I basically make the schedule because I contact the students and see when they are available to meet with me. It will be nice to have a little extra cash flow since my budget is so so strict. Maybe I'll save it up and go travelling a little at the end... or maybe save it just in case I accumulate any debt over the next few months and then its a "survival money stash". Haha knowing me I might actually need it!

Well I have my courses picked out. Right now I have six separate courses, plus lessons, plus 3 or 4 ensembles. I also have a class in english that is just for me! I will be meeting with a teacher about three times a week for a class, and its pretty open. We can study most anything I am interested in. I think I've really lucky to have this opportunity... Its not very often that you get a class just for you, where you can study whatever you wish. I have to think of some things I want to learn about! I think things will probably get quite busy as the term goes on. Classes are only 45 minutes to an hour and a half each time though, so its not really that much class time. Ensembles don't start until April, so I'll be able to ease myself into the classes before getting too overwhelmed. I will be in orchestra, which also means I get to play in an opera! I think that is so cool!! I also said I would play in the big band here, and a brass ensemble, and I think I will also do trumpet ensemble and maybe choir. Oh so exciting!! I might as well play in as many ensembles here as I possibly can and take advantage of all the opportunities here that are different from Laurier. I'm actually getting excited to start school now! It may sound strange, but I feel like it has been a long time since I've really committed myself to school work, or since I've been interested in or involved in my program. Last semester I was so busy working and second year was so busy with wlusu things.... Its a nice feeling to know that I can show my inner nerd and have school as my obligation. :) I am a little nervous to go to my two classes tomorrow however, because I have not talked to these professors about teaching in english... although they were given to me as optional courses, I'm a little worried with some disorganization that the teacher is not aware that I need to be taught in english. Eek! I think I will go a little early and maybe talk to the prof before hand to make sure we are on the same page. :) God knows I'll be stuck in a class that is only in German!! fml! hahah

As far as the social scene goes, its been picking up!!! Well I guess it could only go up considering I didn't know anybody last week! On Friday afternoon I got this call from the dean (well I found out he isn't actually the dean! He was last year, but then this year he decided to step down and is now a director... but I will still refer to him as the dean:) ) anyways, so I get this call and he asked me if I wanted to go to the musical with him, and of course I say yes. So I met him at the school and we walked over together. It was a musical written by students and run by students and I was really impressed! Even though it was komplett auf Deutsch, I still got the general gist of it and it was quite funny! Okay so soo embarassing... so at intermission the dean asked me I wanted a beer, and I said yes, and so he got me a beer. And just a side note... I never drink beer from bottles, usually only cans, so I have been unaware of any foaming out the top of the bottle that could occur. So anyways I take a sip and foam spills right out the top and all over my hands! SO embarassing! ahhaa he probably was thinking that I had never drunk beer before! And so after the show was over I was putting on my coat and things, and he was like 'oh! After the show we party! There is a party now!' I was like whaaahh?? Throughout the night he had been introducing me to a few different people, so he said to me 'oh you know people now, so you should stay!' I was like :| ooooh kayyy. But I actually knew no one!! PLUS everyone was speaking German, so its not like I could just hop in on someone's conversation. Luckily he introduced me to a girl who is really interested in studying at Laurier next term, so I was able to talk to her, and then she invited me out to a bar that all the students were going to after. So I ended up going and getting a drive and everything and meeting quite a few people! It was great! Although, I think my name has officially become "Susie from Canada" ahhaha. Oh well whatever works!

Yesterday I went for lunch with the girl who was showing me around on wednesday, and then went to practice at the school with her. While I was practicing, this other trumpet player walked in because he heard a trumpet player, and we ended up talking for quite a while. Apparently my teacher is really great! He is also apparently really strict with technique... which I guess is both good and bad! I'm excited to meet him finally. I ended up going to see the musical again with my friend and going for dinner with her and her boyfriend. However, the party after last night's show was kind of lame, so we left after a while and were going to go for a drink somewhere but ended up just going home haha. It was a good day though!!

Today as been low key, its the first day I haven't left the house! My mom finally figured out how to use skype! hahah she was so amazed!

Anyways I best be off to bed! I will pray that my classes are in German!!!
Night!!
love!
Susie.

OH! And Lucas is coming to visit next week maybe!!! YAY!! :D So excited! :)

A much better day

Let me just say, today was a much better day than yesterday. The dean called me this morning and told me he had emailed the theory professor about me. He was also really nice and said that if I was stressed to call him. I guess I wasn't very good at hiding my feelings yesterday ahaha. Anyways I ended up going to see the theory professor today because I wanted to talk to him in person, and he said that it will all work out. I gave him a list of a whole bunch of courses at Laurier that I need so I might not end up taking post tonal theory (which I'm not so sad about! :P) because allthoughthey do offer that course at the Fachhochschule, it is only in German. Even though it was a much better day, I still had my regular ridiculousness happen to me.. because god knows it wouldn't be a day in the life of suze if something didn't go wrong haha. So this morning I attempt to walk to the bus stop to take it to the school, and I ended up looking for the bus station for half an hour! I walked in this HUGE circle! And then I get on the right bus number, but its going in the wrong direction! I ended up at the zoo! It was a good like 45 minute bus ride. Just Ridiculous. But today the orientation was pretty good, and I went out to lunch with some other students who were being .."oriented"? I guess haha but ya it was good! And the student cafeteria here is SO cheap! you can get a full meal with a couple side dishes, dessert, and a drink and pay less than three euros! Its super cheap for students! Why couldn't the DH be like this?!

Well anyways this was just short and sweet. Oh! I forgot to mention that I got a job! Well... kind of. I just kind of walked into it. So today I went to the international office to ask about getting a student visa, and the guy asked if I was working while I was here and I said maybe and he said "do you want to?" haha they need native english speakers to be english tutors. Its only like 5 hours a week! Could be perfect! He asked me to come in tomorrow at 1... I'm not sure at all what I'll be doing or how long I will be there for. Exciting!

Anyways thats all for now!! Night!

lovelovelove, Suze

Quite the day

So today was very interesting! I went this morning to meet the dean, but turns out it was actually like an orientation for all first year students where like all the profs talk and everything. But the thing is, it was all in German! And then I was talking to the dean afterwards, and like it turns out that actually the courses they offered me are no longer? Well no longer in english? Of the five courses, only two are in english. So I'm going to take those two courses, along with orchestra which hopefully I will be able to figure out even though its in german. He ended up pairing me up with two students at the school who helped me out with everything and showed me around and such. I felt like kind of an idiot the whole day though... like everyone was so shocked that I didn't speak english.. and thought like what was I thinking? This is a german school? It was so frustrating.. like to find out that apparently I can only take three courses here? Ughhhh. And like I planned last term and the next two terms according the courses that I was able to take here. Like obviously I would not have come if I knew I could only take three music courses? I need a full course load to not fall behind. I am going to meet with the exchange student that was at Laurier last term to try and figure out what to do... I might end up taking some english courses offered at the Fachhochschule that aren't music... but that would be really disappointing. I came here to study music, not anything else. Ah so frustrating! Anyway, I hope it will all work out... it just came as a shock to me how disorganized everything was here. I will post again tomorrow when I find out some more news.

<3 Susie

Moved in to Residence!

Its true! I moved into residence today! I lugged my suitcase across the whole town to my building and waited for like an hour for the custodian to come (who was a half hour late! btw). Did I mention before that the hostel I was staying in here was called "Penthouse Backpackers"? Meaning it was on the top floor of a building? Meaning I had to carry my suitcase up three huge flights of stairs? Meaninggg I had to carry it down the stairs this morning and pretty much died? Ugh the worst! I'm happy to be out of that hostel, it was so boring! I had to occupy my time with things like broken umbrellas and super glue. Anyways so I'm in my apartment now, and guess what! Its a three bedroom apartment with me & 2 guys! LOL What!! I didn't even know if there would be guys on my floor, let alone me only living with them!! I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work out! I've never lived with guys before! I think I like living with girls, I think I'm a "live with girls" kind of person! I know there are girls in the apartments next to us, so hopefully I'll meet them eventually. I've only met one of my roommates so far & he's really nice and speaks perfect english. The other one apparently smokes a lot of weed and only eats pizza ahaha. I haven't met him yet, he should be here in a week or so. The apartment is cute. Clean which is good, with one washroom and a small kitchen. There's no living room though which is kind of strange. And the fridge is SO small! Like a quarter the size of a regular fridge, or like a large bar fridge. I was like "Whahh?!" ahah. And I don't think we have a microwave.. and I think I need to buy myself a pan ahha but luckily the guys are letting me use their dishes. :) My room is ginormous!! Like really big, probably almost three times the size of my green room in Waterloo. I also have a glass door as a window, and it opens like a door and then there is a little fence, like a balcony its really cute! So overall I'm impressed with the flat. I'm not sure how many people I am going to meet in this building though... even though it is a residence, many people have lived here for a few years, so its not like everyone moves every year. I might just end up meeting other exchange students or people in my classes... well hopefully anyway!

Sooo tomorrow I meet the dean! WHAT! hahah oh god! 10am! And the address he gave me is so confusing! He said a number then the street name then a number.... which apparently means room #, street, then building #. I'm actually going to go like an hour early so that I don't get lost. And this appointment is conveniently at the exact same time that the orientation for international students starts! Gotta love when these things happen! Oh and apparently the orientation is only intended for students studying in the faculty of business management or social science... they told me to ask the music faculty if they had anything prepared for international music students... but I'm pretty sure that I am one of few.. if not the only international music student here. They said I can come to their orientation if I want, but some of the information won't be relevant to me. I'm of course going to go... and of course walk in awkwardly late due to my meeting with the dean. Wow I'm just loving life right now! Hopefully tomorrow goes well.

So today I went shopping! Well.. not really but I got a cell phone! OH! Turns out I actually cant use my phone from Ireland conveniently! Because the german sim cards are not compatible with the english phones. So then I had to buy a brand new phone. It was only 30 euro, but still by the time i put 20 euro credit on it, it was like 50 euros. I also got some groceries, and I realized that I needed a pillow for my bed, and I conveniently found a 1 euro store... and guess what! I got a pillow for one euro! This again however is an example of when I am just too cheap for my own good, because the pillow is such a fail!! Its square and only fills half of my pillow case! ahaha God knows what its stuffed with, it feels like one of those airplane pillows.

Anyways I'm just getting settled in now, I will write tomorrow about the adventures of my day!!

Good night everyone!

♥Susie