All posts filed under: Blog

Grading Season

Published by Sula H.

Notenzeit Grading time has come, and that means we’re stuck at our desks, working with numbers, and then more numbers, and then even more numbers. Not that easy, when you consider that behind every number is a name, and behind every name a person, and behind every person a destiny. So, you can imagine that this isn’t a time that we can can take all too lightly. Die Zeit der Notengebung ist gekommen und das heisst, wir stecken hinter unseren Schreibtischen fest und arbeiten mit Zahlen. Und dann noch mehr Zahlen. Und dann noch einmal mehr Zahlen. Das ist nicht so einfach, wenn man bedenkt, dass hinter jeder Zahl ein Name steckt. Und dass hinter jedem Namen eine Person steht. Und dass mit jeder Person ein Schicksal verbunden ist. Also könnt ihr euch vorstellen, dass wir diese Zeit nicht auf die allzu leichte Schulter nehmen können.

A Garden Party of Sorts

Published by Sula H.

Eine Art Gartenparty Speaking truthfully, we don’t have a garden here. Just the public campus which we share with thousands of students. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pretend to have a garden, esp. since there are lots of pretty little corners to hang out on campus. So the other day, in order to commemorate the birthdays of a number of people, we had our very own little garden party/picnic type deal. And it was nice to get out and hang together in a little green corner near our accommodations. Um die Wahrheit zu sagen, wir haben keinen Garten hier. Nur einen öffentlichen Campus, welchen wir mit tausenden von Studenten teilen müssen. Aber das heisst nicht, dass wir nicht so tun können als hätten wir unseren eigenen Garten, besonders weil es hier so viele hübsche Ecken auf dem Campus gibt. Und so haben wir kürzlich den Geburtstag von ein paar Freunden gefeiert und hatten dabei eine richtige kleine Gartenparty. Zumindest soweit man unser Picknick eine solche nennen kann.

Bake Sale Delights

Published by Sula H.

Backwaren Verkauf und Dergleichen Genüsse Bake Sales are one of the highlights for us each semester. And this one was no exception. As all the money goes toward support orphans in our area, it’s the one time you can indulge yourself and even have a very good excuse for it, too. After all, the more you buy (and therefore eat) the more you help others, aren’t you? Backwaren Verkäufe sind einer der Höhepunkte unseres Semesters. Und dieser Verkauf war keine Ausnahme. Und da alles Geld in die Unterstützung von Waisenkindern in unserer Umgebung wandert, ist es die Gelegenheit, mal richtig zuzuschlagen. Immerhin gibt es auch eine richtig gute Entschuldigung dafür, mal über die Strenge zu schlagen. Schließlich bedeutet es ja: Je mehr du kaufst (und isst) desto mehr hilfst du anderen. (Habe ich recht?)

Adventures at the Mountain

Published by Sula H.

Abenteuer am Berg We love that little mountain nearby where we love to go hiking and try to get the bit of nature that is available around here. Except that, over the last couple of years, “improvements” have been made to our little resort, meaning that roads have been paved, temples and buildings added, and stairs have been built where once there was just a little nature trail. Whether that really is an improvement when nature and wilderness are the things we desire, I leave for you to decide. But at least we still get a little adventure here and there, and lucky for us, not all trails have been turned into stairs and paved roads yet. Wir mögen den kleinen Berg in der Nähe, wo wir gerne wandern gehen und versuchen, das bisschen Natur, das es hier im Umfeld gibt, zu genießen. Allerdings muss ich euch gestehen, dass in den letzten Jahren an “unserem” Berg ein paar “Verbesserungen” vorgenommen worden sind. Im Klartext heißt das: Strassen sind geebnet worden, Tempel und andere Gebäude sind …

The Wedding Feast

Published by Sula H.

Das Hochzeitsmahl Every year, there are a couple of weddings to which I’m invited. And while I’m usually happy to oblige (as generally, I get to see some friends getting wed), the wedding meal isn’t something that I particularly look forward to. Aside from the fact that food is brought on in such abundance that there’s no way to even get close to finish what’s being placed in front of you, the food isn’t usually the kind I favor. Generally, it’s meat in all kinds of fashion, with maybe a few other side dishes of breads and a few vegetables making a few exceptions. Being more on the veggie side of eating, me and wedding meals, therefore, don’t often make a good combination! Jedes Jahr werde ich zu ein paar Hochzeiten eingeladen. Und während ich gewöhnlicherweise gerne zusage (immerhin sind es in den meisten Fällen Freunde von mir, die den Bund des Lebens eingehen), auf das jeweilige Hochzeitsmahl legen ich normalerweise keinen besonders großen Wert. Einmal abgesehen von der Tatsache, dass das Essen in solchem …

Blame It On the Internet

Published by Sula H.

Schuld ist halt das Internet! After a several month hiatus I’m back in business. And just so you know: Nope, I’ve not been hiding. I’ve just been battling what’s called SPIC-disease, aka Severe-Poor-Internet-Condition disease. Yup. I call it a disease because it certainly needs intensive care and treatment if there’s ever to be a cure for it (though we’ve been informed that the powers that be are trying to work on it; we’ll see about that). Fact is, that right now we share our internet connection with tens of thousands of students of whom many only have one goal as soon as class is out: crowding our limited internet space and slowing down everything. For me that means that I only have a very tiny window of when I can actually access my wordpress site (the one that allows me to create posts and then upload them to the internet). This window of opportunity begins to phase out by around 10 a.m., and once the afternoon rolls around, things have deteriorated to a state of …

Of Routers and Historic Events

Published by Sula H.

Von Routern und historischen Ereignissen Since we’ve been talking about historic events here these days, let me add another one to my list. This one, however, should be marked as a historic day in my personal bibliography. The day when my router finally got a password! Da wir in den letzten Tagen nun schon über historische Ereignisse sprechen, erlaubt mir, ein weiteres Ereignis zu der Liste hinzuzufügen. Dieses, allerdings, zählt zu den “persönlichen” historischen Ereignissen: Der Tag an dem mein Router endlich ein Passwort erhalten hat! You see, the story goes like this. Pretty much 7 years ago, I got a router to access the internet at home more easily (yap, you don’t need to tell me that it’s a pretty old router, I’m fully aware of that but hey! it still works!) So, when I got that router 7 years ago, for some reason there was a glitch with the password, and no one could figure out how solve the problem, so after a whole lot of ballyhoo the pros from the computer department …

A Historic Day

Published by Sula H.

Ein historischer Tag Aside from the blackout we had to deal with yesterday, another thing happened of almost historic dimensions. At least here on campus. Because, yesterday was the day the heaters were turned on. Yap. You got me right. And no, of course there’s been heating in some of the foreign faculty apartments. But from some of my previous posts, you may know that 1 1/2 years ago, some of us moved into a brand-new building. A building in which construction hasn’t concluded yet. And while we’ve had other means to keep us warm and comfy in our apartments, the day has finally come when we actually have radiators to do the job. Except that they do such a poor job of heating that we’ll probably have to continue using our other means … Neben dem Stromausfall gestern, gab es noch eine andere Sache, die passiert ist. Eine Angelegenheit von fast historischer Bedeutung. Zumindest hier auf dem Campus. Weil nämlich gestern der Tag war, an dem die Heizung angestellt wurde. Jap. Ihr habt richtig …

Of Unlucky News and Lucky Moments

Published by Sula H.

Von schlechten Nachrichten und glücklichen Ausgängen We’ve been lucky today. How so? you ask. Glad you asked, so I can tell you. Well, here’s what happened. A couple of days ago this notice was posted on our notice screen: Heute hatten wir mal wieder Glück. Was für ein Glück? fragst du. Ich bin froh, dass du fragst, denn so kann ich’s dir sagen. Also, die Geschichte ist folgendermassen. Vor ein paar Tagen sind wir über folgendes informiert worden: The sign said that on Wednesday, we pretty much wouldn’t have power all day! Meh! What do you do when the power’s out and you can’t do much of anything? Well, at least we got prepared for this ahead of time, and so I got prepared myself. I charged my computer, my cell phone, put some extra stuff to work with on my cell phone, etc. But then, here’s the lucky thing. Instead of being out of power all day, shortly after noon the electric devices in my home started moving again, which made me realize that …

A Tough Nut

Published by Sula H.

Eine harte Nuss So, here’s the dilemma: When I went shopping for the Christmas holidays, I discovered they were selling hazel nuts in the supermarket – something I hadn’t seen around here before (hazel nuts are a typical “snack” during the Christmas season in my family). So, of course, I had to get myself a bagful of them. Assuming, that is that my nutcracker, of which I know that I have one, must be sitting at home in one of my kitchen drawers, patiently awaiting his opportunity to be of use. But soon after I got home, I discovered, nutcracker had gone off, wandering about, and was nowhere to be found (something that’s not too infrequent here as my kitchen is pretty well equipped and people often come knocking on my door asking for this or that). So, here I am, having this wonderful collection of nuts, and no way of actually enjoying them … Hier ist mein Dilemma: Als ich kürzlich für die Weihnachtsfeiertage einkaufen war, habe ich entdeckt, dass sie im Supermarkt Haselnüsse …