Wahooooooo! I
just wrapped up midterms week (though I have another one on Tuesday, I’ll try
not to think about it for a few days) and I’m currently en route to Munich.
Midterms went
exceptionally well considering the level of preparedness I felt going in.
Admittedly, school has not been my top priority this semester. Not that I have
neglected all of my work, and I still think it is true that I work considerably
more than my classmates, only that the amount of time I am actually working is
less than I have in the past.
One thing I
really love about CIEE is how many classes they offer and in various
institutions. As a student in CIEE, I am able to take classes at our own little
school house at Vysehrad, but also Charles University and at FAMU. When I
started looking at the program, I thought for sure that I would take classes at
FAMU, since when else would I have the opportunity to take classes at a film
school? Though I didn’t end up taking a photography class as I had originally
planned, I found Cinema Dance, which I already talked about here
and am quite excited about still. I ultimately
decided against a class at Charles University because I didn’t want to deal
with the commute (probably wasn’t my smartest decision, but oh well).
So why am I
rehashing all of this? I don’t know. It seems like midterms are a good time to
evaluate where you are and how it’s going so far. As I mentioned, I may do less
work here, but I am learning a surprising amount. I find myself speaking
intelligently (or at least I think I sound intelligent) on a variety of
subjects related to the history of the Czech lands, the EU and the economies in
Europe. It is almost as if I’m absorbing the information rather than learning
it. Bombarded constantly, I am unable to do anything but internalize it, as if
learning is a subconscious activity. I’m sure there are plenty of psychological
studies on the subject, but the first thing that comes to my mind is A Brave New World and the conditioning
of the children while they sleep (it is in A
Brave New World where this occurs right? I’m not mixing up stories am I?).
Of course,
knowledge constituted of internalized information may have gaps in it and may
lack some necessary details, but I suppose I’ll find out if those gaps were
noticeable when I am returned my midterms next week (A- on my Czech seems to
indicate I’m doing okay).
Ramble, ramble,
ramble.
Where I was
trying to go with my comments about how I love CIEE and the fact that I didn’t
end up enrolling in any courses at Charles University is that while I thought I
may have limited my interaction with foreigners (which is probably true), CIEE
tried to compensate by allowing a few Erasmus students to enroll in our
classes. So, I now have three foreign students in my classes, two in economics
and one in transatlantic relations.
It’s a funny
thing, when you live in a foreign culture, cultural differences that you might
not otherwise have time to see, are made visible, whether it’s simply a function
of time or that as time goes on, you are in more situations in which
differences can arise. On Monday, I got a first hand look at how schooling is
different on both sides of the pond. We all have our stereotypes of education
for: Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Russians, and Indians, just to name a few.
They vary from motivated to distracted, hardworking to lazy, math and science
orientated to humanities types, etc. Well, one that never crossed my mind was
ambivalence toward ownership of work. I live in one of the most individualistic
societies in the world, without a doubt, but while that is often said with
scorn or disdain, it has some interesting consequences. When you have
independent people, it seems they are more likely to take ownership of their
own work and not to share with others – probably why we have a bagel company
and pizzeria in Florida suing and counter-suing over brooklynized
water. Anyway, things are a little different over here in the Czech
Republic. With communal sentiments still running high, “collaboration” on all
manners of work are seen as relatively normal, even exams. This was the case on
Monday when our professor had to remind our Erasmus students three times to “try
not to cooperate” on the exam. After the test, our professor even passed around
a sheet detailing cultural differences and one of them was the difference in
how cheating is perceived as an egregious offense in America and not so in the
Czech Republic.
I think the fact
that they didn’t seem phased by the professor’s multiple warnings was the most
jarring component of the entire episode. Every American in the room was amazed
that they kept discussing after the first warning and even more so after the
second, though to our credit, we kept our focus for the most part and I didn’t
see anyone else trying to collaborate with their neighbors.
Moving on… This
weekend is our fall break (though really, the only reason I don’t have school
is because tomorrow, Oct. 28, is the Czech Republic’s independence day and we
never have school on Friday) so I’m travelling. As mentioned above, I’m going
to Munich this weekend (and at this point am sitting in my hostel typing
this).
I’ve only been
in town for three hours, and really only seen my hostel and gone out to dinner,
but I’m loving it already. I’m traveling all alone, so I’m a little intimidated
and don’t know how to engage people in conversations so I asked the
receptionist where I could go to dinner and not stick out as all alone. Pointed
in the direction of a traditional Bavarian beer hall, I started walking. I took
a few photos on the way, but pretty much just focused finding food, something which
I had too little of throughout the day to this point.
The beer hall
was packed! I ended up asking a half full table if they would mind if I joined
them. They didn’t understand me at first, but acquiesced in the end, though at
least initially, they kind of left me to myself. I think they thought I had a
friend coming. When it became clear that I didn’t and I finally built up enough
courage to talk to them, they proved very friendly (what a relief!). A couple
of them were native to Munich and so I asked them where I should absolutely go
and see. It’s a difficult question, but they performed admirably and offered
tons suggestions, many of which I intend to follow up on during my few days
here.
After I got a
little more comfortable and some of my German started to return to me (after
escaping me in the train station only to be replaced by Czech – talk about
frustrating!), we talked about all sorts of things. It turns out I had stumbled
upon a group of police officers who were relaxing after a long day. How awesome
is that? I felt like I was intruding on a scene from The Wire, only instead of
Irish cops, I had German ones. I even asked to see badge of the officer across –
disappointing to say the least, as they are simply green identification cards.
Interestingly though, Ulrich is only a year older than my brother. Crazy.
The food at the
beer hall was exactly what I needed.
In all, I had hall of a chicken, potatoes, traditional apple strudel with a
warm vanilla dressing, and two beers. The beers were good, the chicken great,
but the apple strudel was freaking amazing. In Hungary, my tour guide, Adam,
had tried to tell me that Hungarians made better strudel because it had more
fruit than the German variant. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that
Adam was sorely mistaken. More fruit or not, the vanilla dressing was
practically cheating. I’m salivating just thinking about it. I’m definitely
going to have to compare it to other apple strudels all weekend to try and
build a consensus. I’d feel foolish if I left Munich talking about how
wonderful the strudel is if it is only at this one beer hall! I have a sneaking
suspicion though that this will not be the case.
I’ll be updating
this post as I go (hopefully) so check back. But for now, bed. Zzzzzz.
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