18th October 2005 - Day 15

Today, I got my passport back from the Akademisches Auslandsamt. The Aufentshalterlaubnis is finally done! And I thought I would have to wait till the 9th next month for my appointment. So I went to the Deutsche Postbank to open my bank account. They said I should get my bank account number latest by this Thursday.

I also found out that I will need to pay a Gebühr of 15€€ if I were to bank in my demand draft. If I knew that earlier, I might as well withdraw the money from the ATMs here. So much more convenient too. Not like I've a big sum of money to transfer over.

Then I went to walk around the town again, and found myself at Penny Markt at Mathystraße, where I bought some stuffs for my dinner/breakfast.

At Durlacher Tor I had to wait another 20mins for the bus to come, so I decided to walk back to the hostel.

For dinner, I had instant noodles. It was particularly tasty probably because of the cold weather. After that, I went to find Sergio to complete the Referat, which will be due tomorrow.

Right now, the mexican guy has a problem. He recieved a DAAD Stipendium and went for a 2 months language course in Mannheim. Every month for his year-long stay here, he'll get 260€. However, he realised that he has another scholarship award, the Baden-Württemberg Stipendium administered by the university. Under this scholarship, he'll get 400€ every month. But the problem is, it is stated that if he is recieving the Baden-Württemberg Stipendium, he's not allowed to have another scholarship.

But he decided that he'll continue taking the DAAD Stipendium instead of breaking it to get another. Stupid, some may say. But he's honest enough (Ok, you can say that he wants his reputation).

Oh yes, we were supposed to be doing the Referat. I made some admendments to his powerpoint slides and he added some other slides. I wrote out the Thesenpapier. Everything's done quite quickly.

I was back in hostel in less than an hour's time. I did some practise on my part and some german homework.

By the way, I checked my mailbox and found my Fricard inside.

The FriCard without the photograph of the bearer

Just know that it functions like a matric card. It's also a chipcard with which I can use to pay for food in the Mensa. With this card, I guess that means most of the administration stuffs with the university is done.

So, back to rehearsing for tomorrow's Referat.