HI

[feuervogel]

I went to DragonCon and even got most of my homework done before I went, so I didn't have to spend half the con in my room studying. I still mostly just hung out with friends and looked at costumes, but it was worthwhile, because I got to see people I hadn't seen in a year.

Grad school continues apace. I'm still enjoying my 2 linguistics classes (History of German and Languages in Contact), and I think Teaching College German is going OK (thanks, Goethe course!). I'm not overly fond of the literature seminar, but I like the second book we're reading better than the first (so far; I'm only on chapter 2.) It's by Günter Grass, so it's dense and complex, sentence wise, and it looks like it's about modern right extremism, which is always interesting.

My classmates are generally nice, but I haven't really Made Friends with any of them. We spend time together at school and sometimes out of it (which reminds me, I want to ask our facebook chat if anyone wants to get dinner this week after either seminar or History of German). Part of it may be because I live a little over a mile away (and not in the same apartment complex as all the Germans apparently) but also because I'm really boring and come home and do homework at night and go to bed at 10.

Thankfully I'm busy enough with homework that I don't have time to sit around being sad about my extrovert battery draining (though dragoncon helped that a lot).

On which note, since I got groceries, cleaned the bathroom, and did some prep for the class I TA, it's time for dinner and some homework so I don't have to do ALL THE HOMEWORK tomorrow.

Comments

[anthimeria]

Glad things are going well, and that DragonCon was good. Getting Things Done! Yay! *offers fistbump*

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

How's the cut?

[feuervogel]

It healed up nicely. I got the stitches out a month ago, and there's nice scar tissue forming up. I don't know if there's any nerve damage, and I'm not even sure how to tell. My fingertips aren't super sensitive as it is.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

My social survival strategy in grad school was to quickly clump into a homework group. We'd get together a couple times a week to talk through the work that was coming due. The core of that group gradually transitioned away from homework (as our work diverged) and toward games and movies and other social activities, but the early homework excuse to get together was essential (even though it drove me nuts from time to time).

I have no idea how feasible that looks to you, given your program and your peers. (My friend Will was about 10 years older than the rest of us, but the group worked out for him, too.)

[feuervogel]

The vast majority of our homework is reading, which sadly doesn't lend itself well to group work. The one class where we have actual assignments, we're not allowed to work together on the ones we turn in, which is about half to 2/3. (It's selected worksheets from here: http://historyofgerman.net/supplemental.html )

For example, for Tuesday, we have to read pages 101-137 of History of German and turn in Ablaut 2nd practice & verbs 3rd practice. We also have to read chapter 4 in Communicative Language Teaching in Action and answer the questions on the reading guide, plus type up & turn in a faculty interview about teaching. For Wednesday, we have to read the 1st 3 chapters of Günter Grass' Im Krebsgang. For Thursday, we have to read more for pedagogy seminar and turn in the general review ch 3 into ch 4 for HOG.

We don't really have tests in any of our classes, just a take-home midterm and final (solo, for HOG); microteaching and a handful of assignments outside of class plus a final presentation for pedagogy; and a 17-20-page paper for literature seminar. (And all 3 of the final things are due within 24 hours Dec 7-8.)

The best option, really, is to poke the facebook chat periodically and see if anyone wants to get food or play pokemon, or plan a regular hang-out time. I'd host, but I don't live in Little Germany with everyone else and I have no furniture. When I asked if there was interest in a weekly or biweekly dinner together after one of our late afternoon classes, there was, so I just need to poke again and see if there's still interest.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that makes it harder. Could it still be worthwhile to get together every week or two to talk about what the reading *means*, or what the professor is hoping you'll get out of it? Or to generally sit down and take stock of current topics of focus in your various classes and how they relate to the rest of life? Or maybe this is just not a viable strategy for building a social group in a program like this.

Good luck on drumming up that dinner group!

[feuervogel]

Talking about what the literature means and what the prof wants us to get out of it would be super useful, but I don't even know how to start that conversation, because I am not a literature person (and we have 2 mandatory literature/culture classes next spring, whine whine) and everyone else doesn't seem very interested in figuring it out with me. On the same token, most of them aren't linguistics people, so they're flailing around in that like I am in the other one.

My scientific background really helps with linguistics (a science!)

I'm contemplating putting together a summary/review of chapters 2 & 3 of HOG based on what he covered in class and what's in the book if I have time tomorrow (though a lot of it is tables and charts), because it may be helpful for the midterm & final to have an organized bit of notes. (Though I may also make a poster with all the sound shifts and everything for my personal use.) I might offer to share it with them in exchange for literature help.

(Though two of them said the language in Grass was deliberately confusing to make you feel unsettled, and I was like "wat" because it's not that confusing? It's just non-linear and a braided story and frequently non-book-standard constructions that people use in talking and also a lot of references to other things. They're not native speakers. I'm not either, and I have to re-read sentences a lot because they didn't go where I was expecting, but I don't find it confusing. Just dense.)