This semester

So we are currently hiding in our rooms from our Stocksprecher (Austrian form of an RA) because we have a floor meeting that none of us want to go to. Basically we sit there for an hour and sort of become his audience as he enjoys explaining to us for the 5th time how to properly seperate trash among other simple things that would take a normal person 5 minutes to say or type up in a sign to post on the door. We all told him we would be at our weekly Gemeinsamenes Essen, our dinner all night and we wouldn't be able to make it. It was a true excuse but we're all back and OH now he's knocking on our door now!

...

Phew, good, he went away.

He's nice but I feel like they think we're lazy or something because we're American and tend to be almost condescending and strict to us. Like the time they told us to take out the trash on the floor a few days after me and my roommate's trash week was over because there was still some trash in the bags when the week was over. It's a trash schedule, not a rental car. I secretly retaliated by correcting the grammar on a sign they made sure to include an english translation on a sign telling us to lock the kitchen when we leave "even on day."

So maybe I'm making mountains out of molehills but we really hate going to those meetings. Anyways while I am exhiled in my room, I thought it would be a great time to give my impression of the scolarly aspect of the semester thus far.

We are 4 weeks in and already halfway through this short semester as we finally finished our midterms at the begining of this week. So here are my classes:

German: Prof. Giacomuzzi
Pretty much the same as last semester, early in the mornings three times a week. He is just about as dead and bored as us in this seemingly everlasting 1.75 h class. This semester we are reading a book and while I enjoy the fact that I can read it without having to refer to a dictionary every two seconds, I do not enjoy the fact that the book is unbelievably odd. We also have to give a 45 min long presentation on a subject having to do with our major. I did mine on the evolution of sex which sounds a lot worse than it is (my intention). I was discussing the benefits of sexual organisms vs. asexual at the genetic level.

Psycoanalysis: Prof. Kennedy
Another repeat professor, but this time the course is much more interesting both by the subject matter and by the things our prof (a priest) tells us he believes (ie his great aunt being a witch???). But he is really a fun prof and is one of the classes I probably look forward to the most. While I find it hard believing everything he says to be exactly true, such as every dream being a disguised important message from our subconscious, its still an interesting subject. We have also discovered that he's cured cancer at least once by having the patient talk to him.

Philosophy: Prof. Loeffler
Professor Loeffler is a huge intimidating man with a "I just killed a puma!" look always on his face. But after talking to the man and learning about the impossible subject he teaches, I see it more as a "I just read some 18th century Austrian philosophers and actually kind-of maybe understood what they were talking about!" kind of look. Class is humorous since the subject is extremely difficult to comprehend he will often jump back and forth between english and german so that we understand the difficult aspects of the philosophy. He often does this many times in the middle of a sentence so class is usually taught in Deunglish. His english is excellent but we spend most of class between giving ourselves anurisms in trying to comprehend what he is talking about and stifling giggles on the hilarious english phrases he comes out with ("Why do cows make moo?"). As you can tell, I really do not enjoy the subject matter and find Austrian philosophy often very pointless and unnecessary and also very self inflated. This makes this class very difficult for me. I also am really missing taking natural science courses.

Habsburg History: Prof. Guertler
So the Guert decided to don some professor pants this semester and teach us about the history of the country in which we are residing. I am also having a few problems with this course since I was never very apt at history, find the history of this family often boring (mostly marriages and treaties), and I am so used to tuning out this man when he talks since he is famous for repeating himself about 50 times that I find it difficult paying attention in class, not to mention the fact that it starts at 6pm. Class though can be hilarious since Guertler gets even more excited when talking about his favorite subject (if that was possible) and he enjoys jumping around the room, giving us bug-eyed stares as he explains the intricacies of the royal family. He also likes bringing large maps in of Europe over which he'll run to and point out countries in a very good Vana White impression, "BOEMEN!!!" I did write one of the most difficult papers I can remember writing in this class as I had to write 6 pages in german about Franz Stephan who was only famous for being married to Maria Theresia (famous emperor queen). He is mentioned briefly only a few times in any history books about the family.

Economics: Haigner and Sendelhofer
Randomly our econ class is seperated into two parts taught by two teachers, Monday is Haigner and Friday is Sendelhofer and both are teaching entirely different aspects of the subject. Haigner assumes we are grad students of economics, even Katy, our econ major walks out of class confused sometimes. Luckily the class is taught in english but a dialect I am unfamiliar with since it is filled with economic terms I have never heard before. He also enjoys putting complicated equations on the board without explaining what the variables are as well as graphs with unlabeled axies (killing me as a scientist). Sendelhofer is much lighter. He explains more the history of European economics (namely the EU) and has clear slides that he follows pretty well so that when you stop paying attention to what he is saying since you are so amused by how much he sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you can easily catch back up.

So those are my classes for the semester, nothing too too exciting but I am looking forward to taking some science classes again next year.

Not much has happened since my last post. I went skiing on Sunday (rather than study for econ) and it was really nice. I went to Stubai Glacier which is the only place still open around here (its a glacier so you can ski there year round) and everyone else in Tirol thought it was a good day to ski too so it was a bit crowded and though I was skiing on mushy moguls by the end of the day, I was still happy to be on the slopes again and I realized I am going to miss it a lot next year.

Only 44 days left and I am already missing Innsbruck.