august: cleveland county

Did you know that you can get a refund on some beverage containers in 10 states + Guam? Oklahoma, why can't we be next?

In case you are wondering, PONS and Leo are my go-to online German dictionaries. (Some people prefer this one from TU-Chemnitz (Karl-Marx-Stadt, whatup?!), but I haven't used it.)

I went to German Club again last week and had a good time chatting with some people. Then I went home, where I was awakened by the sound of a new roof being put on our house. It looks the same as the old one, but it should work much better! Mom & I went to see The Maze Runner as well. It had a really diverse cast, but they were all guys, besides the one girl who made Bella Swan look like personality of the year. It was also mildly terrifying, but that may be because I can't remember the last time I saw an intense movie in the theater. (Maybe The Hunger Games? Or Paranoia? Was that even a movie?)

Finally, I thought this video from the Heute Show (the German version of The Daily Show) was hilarious.

Earlier tonight President Obama spoke to the American people about the situation in Iraq and Syria and about how the United States is going to deal with it. A few weeks ago, I would've been confused and thought "Okay. That seems like a good plan." Now, after a scant four weeks of graduate education, I know far too much about the situation in that area!

The president really didn't say anything in his speech - he said we must support the opposition. Which opposition? There're about 4 major groups that are in opposition to the Syrian government. One of them is ISIS...so maybe we won't choose to support that one. I assume we're going to be supporting the Free Syrian Army (which may or may not actually be a cohesive organization), but we could also be supporting the Islamic Front or al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda! What fun!

Why are we choosing to intervene in this situation? Is it because of the executed journalists? As my professor pointed out today, people die in shady ways in foreign countries all the time, and this would be a dangerous precedent to set.

Then the president just kinda said 'MURICA! for five minutes. (I was counting. I needed to get to the public library before it closed at 9...which I did.)

Also, I would like to say that Bob Schieffer's tie was excellent.

AHHHHHH! I GOT ALLEGIANT FROM THE LIBRARY!!!!!

There was a lunch for all the Master's Degree students and faculty from my department. We ate Panera and all had to introduce ourselves. It was pretty nice - I got to see the Diplomat in Residence, which is a State Department program that puts former diplomats at universities for a year. There's going to be a reception to welcome him tomorrow, which I'm planning on attending as well.

This week has been pretty nice since I only had one class! Fear not, loyal readers, this did not prevent me from having a boatload of reading concerning the Syrian conflict and spending almost all day Thursday in the library as well as a half day on Friday.

I'm excited because I went to talk to a professor about a class and he suggested that I research the German perspective on the situation for one of my short papers. I think this will finally be a way for me to feel less like a novice about the Middle East! I also got another book to read about Syria from him so I can better understand the situation.

The most exciting this this week was trying to set up our internet. Brettlyn and I battled our various modems and routers (this involved 3 trips to Wal-Mart and the returns guy remembering us since we returned two different things in an hour) before finally giving up and going to the Cox store, where they sold us an extremely overpriced modem/router combination. Then after buying the cord that connects that to the wall (which wasn't included), we thought we were in business. But of course, nothing is that easy when you're setting up your internet, so I tried calling Cox support. Our situation baffled the nice lady on the other end, so they're sending a guy out to help us. On Tuesday. So our internetless existence continues, and I'm at the library despite the dreary downpour in order to check my email and post my homework on our discussion page. I look forward to one day writing this blog from the comfort of my own room, but that seems like a pipe dream at this point....

(Can we take a moment to think about how I'm fine typing up my random thoughts and publishing them on the internet for anyone to read, but I'm terrified about putting my short reading response up on a course website for the other 6 people + the professor to read? It's odd.)

This is old, but still interesting - and in English!

Hello again, friends.

My first week of graduate school went off fairly well. I was a good student and did all my reading. (No sarcasm. Cox can't get us internet for another few days, so I have nothing better to do. I've also read 7 or 8 books for fun since moving to Norman 12 days ago. It's pretty nerdy, even for me.)

My main adventure has been trying to scan chapters from books for professors that will be assigned reading for their classes. (It sounds a bit odd, but it's legal.) The problem is that the downstairs scanner/copier/printer isn't up and running just yet, so we're all using the upstairs one, which means it's quite busy! I'm hoping that the printer closer to me will be fixed this week so I can get to work.

The most exciting thing this week was going to see Les Miserables in Tulsa. I drove myself there and met Emily, Brettlyn, and Kristen, who the other two knew from Cabaret. It was quite fun, although it mostly reminded me of the time we watched that movie at Melody's apartment in Zwickau and the time that the others tried to do a sing-along of "One Day More" on the tram in Plauen. This production was pretty good - my main complaint is the same as it is in the movie - too much Cosette and Fantine. They are the worst.

Wait. That isn't true. If you're seen the musical or movie, then you know that without a doubt the worst character is Marius. Not only does he skip out on his (dead) friends and their crusade to start a revolution in France, he does this to marry a girl from the upper classes. Didn't the students hate the rich? Talk about selling out...

Of course, I started thinking about the musical in the context of the Arab Spring since I'm studying that in class. The one line of reading that really stuck with me is that although many people say that income inequality was a reason for the revolts, income inequality is much higher in the United States than in any of the Arab states. (1) (I'm not going down for plagiarism on my personal blog, but I don't remember the page number. Please be kind, plagiarism gods!)

I'm looking forward to a short week this week - with Labor Day coming up, I'm thinking that I'll go home on Thursday evening and come back on Tuesday! Here's to just having classes 2 days a week!

(1) Mark Haas and David Lesch, ed. The Arab Spring: Change and Resistance in the Middle East, Westview Press 2003.

Hello, loyal readers! Although my time in Germany is over, my love of over-sharing my life on the internet instead of simply calling my extended family is not! So here is a blog that I'm going to be dedicating to my life as a graduate student.

So far, being here has not been the most exciting. I had 2 days of training for my job as a graduate assistant that was largely geared towards people who are going to be teaching their own classes. Since I'm just going to be holding office hours and assisting a professor with research, it didn't directly pertain to my job, but it was still interesting. (Did you know that syllabus day [giving your students a syllabus then leaving] is officially frowned upon? I didn't, although that makes sense. It sets up a bad precedent for the class.) On Thursday I went to the orientation session for my college, which was pretty interesting. Most of my classmates did their undergrad here, but a lot of them had other majors as undergraduates so many of them didn't know each other. ("Many of them" - the entire class is 15-20 people.)

I've mostly been reading a lot and getting lost in Norman. I joined the public library, which was a great idea! I've also been getting a head start on my reading for one class since I don't have internet at my apartment, but I've been going to the library a lot to use the internet!. (I've been watching a lot of videos by essiebutton as well as the news and creeping on my favorite German kids' show.) It turns out I get a lot done when I don't have internet at my apartment. I also made cookies - I was shocked by how much groceries cost in the United States! In Europe I spent less than 20 Euros a week and only very expensive items cost more than 1.75. It's nice to have flour that doesn't smell like pepper again! (My German flour always smelled a bit like pepper. It tasted fine...but that smell was unnerving.)

I'm missing Germany a bit, although it's nice to be able to text my family and friends and know that I can go home to see my parents whenever I want. I also found it pleasant that my year in Germany beat some of my shyness out of me - when I was going to my orientation last Monday I was far less nervous than I would've been before I lived there.

Classes start tomorrow - I've got one class to attend and two to visit so the students can see who their TA will be. Bis dann!