12th January 2006 - Day 87

Today, I made the decision to stop going for one of the lectures. I decided that my time should be better spent instead of falling asleep during the lesson .

I paid the secretary of the department a visit. I managed to get 5 gelbe Zettel for the 5 modules I am doing here. The process was not as painful as the regular students described it to be, only because I'm an exchange student.

The fact that one of the lab modules I want to take will not be graded means that I might have problems transferring the credits for this module back.

Problems never seem to run out. They are irritating, but necessary at times.

It's quite amusing to think that I went through so much trouble to find this module, make sure it fits in and everything, and finally assuming (wrongly) that it'll be graded.

It was a coincidence that I met Autumn and Nan at the Mensa for lunch today. They were quite surprised to see me too.

The rest of the day was spent holed up in the hostel, trying to devise some foolproof "understand-German-lecture-notes-immediately" method. I believe the first step goes something like this:

"I am so good in German that there's nothing in German that I cannot understand."

Say that as many times as necessary to convince yourself that it is true. That's right. Go on. Say it!

If this step should fail you (i.e. you still cannot understand German lecture notes properly after saying it for the 100th time), consider trying the alternative (which is equally effective):

"I am so good in German that there's nothing in German that I cannot understand with the help of a good English- German dictionary."

That should do the trick, though it takes a bit more time.

So, pick up a set of German lecture notes and start reading!