All posts tagged: campus

The Promise

Published by Sula H.

I remember well last year. And the year before. When they faithfully promised us we would be able to move come the next term. Of course, me never wanting to move I was always glad that whatever promises they made weren’t actually about to be fulfilled.   And now, guess what: The other day, we just got another promise. That the patio/playground would be completed within this month. Well, this is how it looks right now:   And now I’m curious about the promise, and about how long it will actually take for them to actually fulfill that promise. And so, the waiting begins …  

That Age Old Struggle

Published by Sula H.

They’re back. The students that is. How I can tell? Because of the internet. You see, we’ve just had a good long winter holiday. And during this good long winter holiday, all the students are gone. Gone home. Gone to visit family and friends. Gone traveling. Etc. Just gone. A whole lot of “gones” in fact. The kind of “gones” I like, because for the few of us staying behind on campus that finally means, we get to do the fun stuff online. We get to open a webpage, and it will actually open. Or we get to watch a video clip, and we can actually see the picture moving. Or, like me, you sit down to blog, and you can actually access your blog – how fun is that?! Now, however, things have suddenly changed again, and we’re back to the same old struggle. It makes me kind of wish for student-less campuses. But then, of course, what with our jobs and all, right? So, I’ll have to get my muscles back in shape …

Back to Business

Published by Sula H.

It’s back to business again, and that means work is waiting for us. Work as in, planning, teaching, but also studying and the likes. And while I’m happy to get among people again, I also really enjoyed my weeks of quiet, and having time for the things you don’t usually have time for. Now it looks like time is going to become a rare commodity for me again … Welcome to the spring semester!  

The Big Return

Published by Sula H.

  After weeks of campus being pretty much dead, I made a discovery today. Life has returned. In various, ways of course. Now, you can see two-legged creatures crawling around again, and then there are those four-wheeled creatures, too. It also means that work is about to begin again, and that soon our campus will be buzzing like a busy bee-hive again. Soon, as in tomorrow! Not sure, which way I actually prefer …

Bread At Last!

Published by Sula H.

  You may remember how our bread supply this winter has been kept on a leash; and how we’ve been frequently given pancakes (and waffles) for a substitution of bread (not that I actually enjoy the plain white bread they’ve served for a while now, but it’s better than all the sweet breads you can get in the local bakeries). Yes, to the locals bread means sweet! But now, we’ve been finally served bread again, and I am happy, because I can have my chocolate spread back – a weakness most other Germans will share with me!  

Schedule Excitements

Published by Sula H.

  Finding out your schedule always is a source of great excitement. Not because it will, in fact, vastly influence the way you spend this next semester, but simply due to the fact that you usually don’t find out when you will teach your first class until pretty much the last minute. Really. There have been (times in the past) when teachers didn’t know they had to be in class Monday morning until late Sunday night. Fortunately for me, I have the right connections within the school’s mechanics, so I am lucky to be one of the first to know my schedule, and this year, it was rather early … on a Thursday, indeed!

A Little Book Issue

Published by Sula H.

Did you know I had a book I didn’t have? Sounds complicated? Well, it’s actually not that complicated unless you choose to make it complicated. So, here’s the issue: A couple of months ago, I found a textbook in my mailbox. No idea who it belonged to or where it came from so I left it sitting in my mailbox, probably wishing it would just go away on its own. Of course it didn’t, since no one’s allowed to take anything from our mailboxes. So, after months of carefully watching the textbook, I decided to face the problem, and I took the book with me. But then I ended up having to books. So what do you do with a duplicate version of a textbook? I thought I’d better get rid of one of them. Then the other day, I get an email telling me, someone had found my textbook (mine, because they are all nicely numbered, a fact that had quite slipped my mind when I first took the mailbox textbook). So I quickly …

A Week of Meetings

Published by Sula H.

Work is about to begin, and for us that means we have to sit through a week full of meetings – not as much fun, if you’ve heard most of everything five times already, but then – what’s life without its little trials, right? And what about the positive side of it? At least you get to see your colleagues whom you have been separated from for a whole long winter holiday – more than you ever get to see them anytime else. Happy everyday, dear colleagues!  

Of Lunches and Other Evils

Published by Sula H.

The story goes as this: In our existence as foreign faculty, we get to enjoy a couple of blessings. One of these blessings is that we get our meals served for free, three times a day, buffet style. (Though others might consider it a curse, especially those who don’t like the food being served, which – generally speaking – are a lot of people.) Well, the thing is that during the winter break, things change quite a bit. For one, instead of three meals, we only get two meals at considerably odd hours (mid morning and late afternoon). What’s even more tricky is when evil forces try to interrupt this delicate cycle of meals. As it happened just this morning. A blackout was the evil force that tried to meddle with our meal times. A blackout which was caused by a villain called “broken-pipe-in-the-kitchen” who had caused serious damage and a river to run through one of the big kitchens (literally). So, with the intentions of repairing the damage, other forces had set out to …

Deserted Campus

Published by Sula H.

Many of my colleagues dread the winter break, because it seems that this town turns into a ghost town, especially right around Spring Festival. As soon as they can, they flee this campus and our town, touring through Asia, and trying to get as far away from here as they can. I actually don’t mind a deserted campus, because it seems to me that this is the only time of the year, when this place isn’t actually overcrowded. You see, our school is growing in terms of people, but hardly growing in terms of space, which means that every year, the campus gets more populated and quiet corners more rare. Except for the winter break. Now quiet corners are everywhere, and to me that’s a rather pleasant sight!