It’s that time of the year to come out of hibernation again. I realize it, because I’m out in the classroom again. And I’m out shopping on campus again. And I’m out eating meals with students and friends again. And though I love being in hibernation mode (because it’s that welcome break from a rather busy life otherwise), I just as much love being out and about again.
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!
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!
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 …
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!
With the holidays in full swing, and the students all gone, nothing much happens around here, except in the dining hall, where most of my interaction takes place these days. So, of course, I wasn’t much surprised the other day, when all of a sudden Santa Clause strayed into the dining hall when I had just sat down for dinner. Well, granted, he was a rather small-sized version of Santa, and I did prefer to call him Sam Clause, because he usually goes by the name of Sam (if he’s not occupied trying to fill Santa’s big boots that is). Sam Clause, however, wasn’t too happy with us calling him anything related to Santa, despite the evidence of the hat he was wearing, and when I asked him why not, he said, “I’m not Santa Clause, because I’m too little!” Ah, now that, you know, is a really good argument, I have to admit. And thinking about it now, who am I to argue with a witty little six-year old, even if looks a lot …
It is a fact well-known that wedding guests are expected to bring gifts for the bride and bridegroom. What is less well-known is the fact that here in these parts of the world, it’s also expected of the bride and bridegroom to give gifts to their guests. Much like a birthday party for kids in the West. I, for one, didn’t know that part of a wedding yet, and found myself surprised at the bag full of hearts (filled with treats) I was given when I was taking leave from our hosts (the bride and bridegroom) the other day. And surprised at the huge box filled with even more expensive healthy snacks they expected me to take home with me. So, I ended up going home with a lot more than I had come (though, of course, money – the expected gift for weddings – is much easier to carry than a whole lot of snacks and a bag full of hearts)! Now, I’ve learned a new thing about weddings, and about a bunch of …
Being on winter break doesn’t at all mean I’d ever get bored. These days, for example, my studies have begun again, which means for the rest of this year, life will be extra busy as I’m trying to finish my degree. But looking at the bright side of it, I really can’t complain of being bored ever! I makes me wonder sometimes, would I try to fit in more in one day, if the days were longer?
Let me tell you more about snow, because we had more snow again. That day we went to that wedding, it snowed again. But as always, winter’s giving me a hard time, teasing me about getting up my hopes for a real snow adventure, but in the end, it’s just another layer that barely covers the ground. Oh, how I miss those snowy days from home, sigh. I’ll have to take comfort in the snow pictures my mom is sending me from home these days. I guess that is as good as it gets!
Traveling by train in China is a very peculiar thing. The first challenge you’ll have to master is obtaining a train ticket, which can get really tricky. On that part, I was lucky this time, because my friend booked our tickets online, so I didn’t have to bother about it. It was also unlucky, however, because the only train tickets he could get was tickets for an overnight train, and I never sleep well on trains. It further was unlucky, because my name doesn’t go well with the Chinese system, and however that worked out, but as soon as we’d gotten on the train, someone had figured there was something fishy about us. Because we hardly had sat down, when a train officer stopped by to check about the names on our tickets. (Now note: the average train ticket doesn’t have a name on it, and ours only did, because my friend had booked it online.) The problem was that the name on the train tickets (which were the correct names according to us) were …
