5th October 2005 - Day 2

I woke up early in the morning at 0630, but kept going back to sleep. The language course will start at 0900. I left at around 0830 (with face washed and teeth brushed) and started walking to the Akademisches Auslandsamt.

It was a fairly quiet walk. It was not too cold. I reached AAA at around 0850. There, I went up to a room where there were other Exchange Students. Most of them are ERASMUS students as they come from the European Union. Names were called and we were separated into different classes as determined by the Sprachkurstest yesterday.

Naturally, I had no class since I didn't take the test. The lady told me that I would have to consult her again next week if I wanted to join a class, despite my earlier agreements with the AAA people.

Feeling cheated, I went to approach the associate director of the AAA. She's a nice lady and helped me sort out the problem. Did I mention that she also helped me find this place where I'm staying now? Seems to me that if you hold some higher positions, things get done faster.

The people in my language course class all sound proficient (except me, who got in by making lots of noise in front of someone's office). The class mainly taught us how the different mathematical terms are expressed in German. This should aid me in understanding the technical terms that I'll encounter in this semester.

Lunch was at Mensa. I had some salty pork chop with rice (I make it sound so chinese). It was not too bad. Maybe because I am not a choosy eater.

After lunch, I went ahead to open a bank account with the Deutsche Post (yes, you've read correctly). I met Stefan there. Stefan is this German student at Uni Karlsruhe who went to Singapore for exchange last year.

I was supposed to join the O-group at 1500. However, I couldn't make it on time and so went spazierien gegangen und einkaufen. I decided to come back early because I was feeling tired with all the walking.

So, here I am skipping my dinner and the program at 2100 to go drinking with my O group.