Die Orientierung--FUBiS

Last night, I stayed in and went to bed about 12:30 AM, slept until 11:45, rolled out of bed after a couple of "Snooze"s, and got ready for the Freie Universität Berlin im Sommer (FUBiS) representative to meet our group at 1 PM.

Orientation

Well, it's official! I've got my student information pack, I've signed the housing contract, I've got my student ID, etc., etc., and tomorrow morning at 9:45 Berlin time, I've got my language placement interview. So nervous. Please pray this goes well! So, so nervous.

After a circuitous bus trip through the 'burbs, we found our way to the Freie Uni, where there was an hour-long check-in process, followed by an hour-long orientation presentation, followed by a delicious buffet. All of us were a bit disappointed, I think, because to us, of course, "buffet" automatically triggers the phrase, "all-you-can-eat." In this situation, the American buffet mentality just didn't seem appropriate, so we went through the food line once and only once. Everything here is soooo gooood, though!

Because I, along with several of my group-mates, will be taking only one course--an intensive German language class, level TBD following the interview tomorrow in conjunction with the online placement tests taken two weeks ago--after we finished eating, we were free to leave FUB, and so we did. We came back to the apartments, changed, napped, whatever, for half-an-hour, then went out to the Karneval der Kulturen to check out the closing festivities.

We got there, shoved our way through the crowds, and got different sorts of food. I had to get another Döner Kebab, my second one, but one of many more still to come, the others got African smoked chicken kebabs, and we all snacked on these large, cork-screw-shaped Hungarian sweet bread cakes that are unbelievably good. All we did was eat and meander, then eat some more, then meander back to the U-Bahn station and back to the apartments, but we had a good time, and I think it helped me to calm my nerves a bit about tomorrow's interview.

I'm just so nervous because I'm able to understand more German now than at any other point in my life, but I know that my spoken German has suffered, actually. Up until this point, we've been in our little American bubble, so I haven't gotten to use my German as much as I had hoped to in this first week. Also, having been out of class for three weeks hasn't helped. My class this semester was taught by a native Berliner, a grad student named Oliver (with whom I'll actually get to meet up with next Sunday--can't wait!), and met daily, so he was constantly challenging our verbal usage of the language. I definitely feel rusty in that sense, and because I'm a language person, I consider it my business to be sharp and to perform well in an interview. Anyway, enough talk about that, lest I get feeling worse about the whole thing. I'm off to sit in bed, review some grammar, and then go to sleep.

Gute Nacht, oder Guten Morgen!

-Monika