Der Feuervogel aufersteht.

I'm doing pretty well in Russian class. I think I have a 98% in the class. We've just encountered the first weird thing--verbs of motion. The "weird" part for me isn't that they distinguish between going by foot or by car, or that they take the accusative after prepositions (German does both, though the former with less strictness than Russian). No, the weird part is that you distinguish between uni- and multi-directional movement. (Which my professor explains as determinate vs indeterminate, and I think that's better than in the book.) It makes sense, but it's not intuitive, so I have to think about it a lot.

I have a vocabulary quiz on Wednesday, and there's a lot of vocabulary this chapter. And a lot of verbs. Hooray for flash cards. We also have our oral midterm on Friday (or Monday; I plan to volunteer for Friday). We get *practice* in class on Thursday. I am surprised at how much hand-holding there is.

I'm driving down to UGA next week, and this time I'm actually going to see the department and campus with students in it. Which will probably make me go "argh, students, go away," like Chapel Hill does. I'm excited but also nervous. I want to be enthusiastic but not trying too hard, and that's ... a difficult balance to strike. This time I'm staying in a hotel practically on campus, so I can walk to various campus-adjacent things as well as to campus. I'll be leaving right after class on Wednesday, or as soon as the bus gets me to my car (2:40ish) and I pop into WSM for a sandwich or something to eat for dinner on the road. It's 5 hours plus stops & traffic (I'll hit Charlotte at 5, which will suck, so I may stop at a rest area and eat my sammich), so I'll get in pretty late. Well, 9 or so, which isn't *late*, but I typically prefer to arrive places around 7.

I haven't gotten any editing to speak of on the novel since the semester started, but I'd like to start setting parts of Tuesday & Saturday (or Sunday) aside for that. Weekends keep being busy with things I can't do during the week; Tuesdays I end up running errands a lot. (Tomorrow I need to get an oil change, and I have to learn so much vocabulary...)

That's my super exciting life right now.

I posted this on tumblr, so sorry if you see this multiple places.

I’m going to get this damned novel to the point where I can call it complete and send it to people (what I call a first draft). Here’s how I’m gonna do it.

For the next month, I’m going to revise, rewrite, or write at least 2 scenes a day. (A scene is the basic unit of composition in Scrivener, which is what I use. You then compile scenes into chapters. I find this much more manageable than writing in Open Office, perhaps due to the aphantasia.)

Once the semester starts and I have 4 hours of class a week, plus a good hour of travel on top of it, I’ll work for an hour before class and an hour after homework. (I’m learning Russian. There will be homework.)

I have other things on my schedule, like working out, class prep if my ad-hoc class happens, and (hopefully) making Shatterdome ATL 3 happen, so I’ll have a nice busy schedule.

If I can, and all goes well, I’ll have a finished draft by the end of the year. (90 scenes/2 scenes a day=45 days, but no guarantees on how much I can do while studying Russian.)

Today I’m rebuilding my outline (and timeline) so I can dive in tomorrow.

I drove down to Athens, Georgia, this morning to visit UGA. It took about 5:45, including 2 stops (1 for lunch & pee, 1 for pee & turning on GPS). Not a bad trip, even if Maps routed me through the least scenic way at the end.

I decided to start getting my bearings by walking from my hotel to a game store practically on campus (to drop off some flyers for Shatterdome Atlanta). It was only about a mile (each way), though it was 90 degrees, sunny, and humid. So by the end, I was really sweaty. And apparently my shoes get looser as my feet get hotter, because they started sliding enough to give me blisters on 3 toes.

Even though the place I wanted to get dinner was only half a mile away, because my feet were hurting, I drove. I went to a vegetarian restaurant called The Grit, where I had pretty good food (Grit Staple (beans, rice, cheese) with a side of falafel, grasshopper cake; local beer) for $19 including tip. Not bad. I was super full at the end of it.

I found the Target after dinner and bought some band aids, then I went to the other gaming shop, which is on the south side of town. The guy there was nicer, and there was gaming actively going on. Lots and lots of dudes, but no one was a jerk, so I'll call it a win.

I drove back by getting slightly lost on campus (the sun was in my eyes, so I couldn't see the sign and turned too early), so now I'm sitting in my hotel and relaxing. I'll probably turn in early, I dunno.

Tomorrow I'm meeting the director of the graduate program at 11, then having lunch with some faculty and meeting the department head at 2, then I'll come home. So I'll be getting home around 9 pm I guess, since I'll have to stop somewhere for dinner, though I can go to like taco bell.

I'm really glad I looked at the department website yesterday to come up with any questions I might have about the program, because either I missed or they added a requirement for a second foreign language. Which means I need to learn a second foreign language. I don't know if it can be done concomitantly with graduate work, but I can't imagine it'd be easy trying to learn a language while doing everything else. So I'm going to ask about that, and see if I can start by taking a year of Turkish at UNC, assuming they actually offer it every semester. I emailed someone in the department yesterday, but I haven't gotten a response yet. So IDK.

They do offer Turkish at UGA, but see above re ZOMGWTF. So if I only had to take one year, that might be easier? La.

So anyway, that's what I'm up to. More later, probably.

http://www.uic.edu/gcat/LAGER.shtml#d (too expensive)

http://www.gsstudies.uga.edu/programs/german-MA.html (I know a lot of people in Atlanta now)

http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/dllc/GERM/MA (Columbia isn't *that* far...)

https://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/germanic/GraduatePrograms/Overview.php (I know people in Austin now, as long as they don't move away soon)

https://sllc.umd.edu/german/graduate/maprogram (I know a LOT of people here, and they state up front that people NOT going into academe are welcome; shit, son, living inside the Beltway is expensive)

I don't want to go home :P My flatmates are nice, and I feel comfortable here. But I need to go home and see Ben and the cats. Also all 11 kg of my course materials are at home.

I've been poking around the GI website, because I'd like to take the C2 exam (the Grosse Deutsche Sprachdiplom) eventually, and I was looking for some self-study materials, etc. They have some free online, or I could buy this book. They recommend a distance learning course in grammar, which I may opt to do even if I don't take the exam. (After I finish the current study thing. Two at once is absurd.)

I don't know that getting that qualification will do anything special, other than show that, hey, I can speak German really well, so I'm not going to teach people terrible German.

Of course, afaict there are no sites in the US where it's given. Oh, no, they'll give it at the GI in DC and Boston. Getting to DC would be easier & cheaper for me, though since my sister moved back out to Maryland, I don't have a convenient downtown location to sleep for free. The one in Boston looks like it's on the red line between Arlington and Copley.

Either way, this won't be happening this year, and next year looks less unlikely, but they only offer it once or twice a year. So.

La. I think I'm going to go take off my makeup and wash my face.

I've gotten settled in here in Mannheim. The rest of the people in my WG are nice, and I made a pot of curry for dinner last night, which we shared.

I had my first day of the Hospitation today, in an A1 (first level) class. Tomorrow I'm going to an A2 class, then B1, A2, etc. I only have a day (8:30-1) in each class. Because I didn't start until about 10 am today, I need to make up about 2 hours of instruction-observation time, so I'll have a couple times when I go to an evening course, which serves a different population. Should be interesting.

The teacher today let me help out in class, which was neat. She had me go around during group work. Not everyone will, so I don't really know what I'll be doing the rest of the time, other than observing and taking notes about how the course progresses.

In school-not-related stuff, (I just started writing this sentence in German) I bought some tea that is really nice from Teekanne, Spanish orange. Kind of like Celestial Seasonings' Mandarin Orange Spice.

It is also apparently extremely difficult to find normal stick deodorant in this country, or at least in dm. They had a ton of roll-on, which counts as a liquid, which means I'd have to throw it out in 2 weeks when I leave, because it won't fit in my 1-quart zip top bag (which is already full). I found three sticks, one of which wasn't also anti-perspirant, so I picked that up for like €1.50. I can shove it in my normal toiletry kit.

Now I should get off the computer and flip through the books tomorrow's teacher uses so I have an idea of what she'll be doing.

1. I have a room in Mannheim for February, and I have plane tickets.

2. I've now had a mobile carrier called Fonic thrown into the mix; apparently they use O2's network. The rate is similar to Telekom's, so I guess it'll depend which store I find first.

3. I have three short stories out on submission right now. This is highly unusual and is a result of Viable Paradise. One story is my application piece; another is the dreaded Thursday Story.

4. I am re-reading up to where I left off in writing the novel, and I had a terrible (in the good way) idea, so I think I have to use it. But that idea kind of sets up a sequel, and *flail*.

5. I may have to reread the whole thing to make sure I didn't put any hints in that I never followed up on, but that's the thing that will happen when I get to the end of this draft (which I tend to call draft 0, because it's a glorified outline).

6. I joined SparkPeople; let me know if you want to be friends there. It's part of Operation: Fit Into The Jeans That Fit Last Winter Goddammit. Paying attention to what I eat is a pain. Also, I may be making lentil stew to freeze and have for lunches, because I need more protein, and lentils are full of protein. Added bonus: Ben won't eat them, so I don't have to worry about sharing.

So, I need to go to Germany for an internship for 2 weeks in February, and I'm not sure where the money's going to come from. Which means I'm going to beg from people on the internet, I guess.

I know people who have used indiegogo to fund an educational thing, and people who have used GoFundMe, too. There are so many crowdfunding sites out there now, I hardly know where to start.

I'm leaning toward indiegogo, because I feel like I should offer people something in return for them throwing money at me. Straight up donations makes me uncomfortable, but I don't know why.

I could offer related things, like German lessons (over Skype or in person) or postcards. But those are very specific, so I could also offer unrelated things, like quilted e-reader or phone covers.

What do you all think? What are your experiences with these sites, and how do you feel about donating vs getting something in return? Other thoughts?

Have been for several days now. I wrote a post about it here. It's entirely inadequate, though.

I've been catching up on things, doing laundry, napping, and getting over the plague (which came to us courtesy of Lynch and Bear; hey, someone's gotta be the plague bearer among the 40-odd people). All I have left is a bit of a cough, so that's nice.

Friday I'm driving to PA for my 15th college reunion and seeing old friends. Today I got my oil changed and my tires rotated (and patched up a bit where some asshole hit me while I was parked). My brakes are ok, but I need to get them changed soon, they said.

Have I mentioned how awesome our mechanics are? I trust them not to bullshit us into spending more money, and they certainly go beyond the call of duty. One of them loaned Ben his personal car (truck) for a couple weeks while Ben's Golf was having the entire steering column replaced. Wagner Tire in Hillsborough, NC. Good people.

Anyway. I'm also researching flights for my practicum in February. Leaving the US Wednesday or Thursday the 5th or 6th and coming back Monday the 24th costs the same ($1077 on Delta right now). It's just a matter of whether the inexpensive B&B is available and if I want to try the youth hostel instead (cheaper, but shared bedroom and no guaranteed desk space). Now, it'll be February, which isn't exactly prime time for tourism, so the hostel might not be too bad.

I also need to decide if I want to fly back through JFK and leave on a 1:45 pm flight, which would allow me to leave my friends in Stuttgart at a reasonable hour Monday morning or avoid JFK and potential ice by flying through Atlanta (9:45 am departure), which would necessitate an evening train to Frankfurt and a hotel. There's one at the airport that's cheap (45€/night) and has a free shuttle. Honestly, given my travel hell flying through JFK in NOT bad weather, I'm inclined toward ATL regardless.

I won't know until mid-December at the earliest when the Hertha v Stuttgart game is going to be. If it's Friday night, I won't likely be able to go. If it's either Saturday game or Sunday early, it won't be a problem. Sunday late would be less ideal but still manageable (since I'd have to get that late train to FRA for an early flight if I went through ATL). But even if I can't make it to the game (the Friday night match is 1 out of 9), I can see Joey, and he can show me around Stuttgart, where I've never been. And if I can make the game, he can get us tickets, and we can watch together.

I've also revised and submitted the UST short I was working on. If CG doesn't want it, I haven't lost much. I don't know if there's enough of a spec hook for other magazines, but I also am not allowed to reject myself from magazines; that's all the editor's decision. But I need to make sure it's not something completely off their regular list. (ie, don't send it to Analog or F&SF or Lightspeed. Which rules out a lot...) Even if I can't sell it anywhere, I've got some character backstory for the novel, which isn't a bad thing. I like writing character vignettes for backstory.

I need to revise my Thursday story and submit it; I haven't had a chance to start that yet. I read a collection of Grimm's fairytales I picked up in college to prepare for it, though. I also need to revise my application story, which I haven't had a chance to even think about yet. Except that I'm indebted to Bear for the new title of it. Which is a good one, actually. (I am rubbish at titles.)

I'd intended to take a nap this afternoon, but that hasn't happened. Oh well.

I heard back from the second GI I contacted. They asked where I live (to see if I need a work permit), and I told them I'm American. That was Monday.

I haven't heard anything from the first GI since I told them I'm from the US.

I'm starting to get worried, because I need to get this practicum sorted out ASAP. I've got a sinking feeling that I can't go over to a GI because I'm not a native German speaker and that's their thing. But I don't know how else I can meet the practicum (or 120 hours of teaching experience) requirement!

I can't get a job teaching without experience or certification, and I can't complete this certification without experience. YAY FUCKING LOVELY.

I need to have this requirement met by March 2015.

If I don't hear anything, not even a "sorry, we can't do that," within the next week (after DragonCon I guess), I'm going to write to the Middlebury Language School and ask if I can work something out there next summer.

I don't know if the Waldsee Immersion Camp has enough contact hours to get 50 or 120, but I can ask them, I guess.

But both of those basically mean I won't be home at all next summer, between family vacation in Berlin and 2-? weeks elsewhere.

Before I signed up for the class, I asked if it was OK for me as a foreigner to do a practicum at the GI, and they said yes. So if I don't get an affirmative response on scheduling a practicum soon, I'll email them back and say, "hey, I'm trying to schedule my practicum but neither of the GIs I contacted will let a non-native speaker teach, so I'm kind of fucked here." Except more politely and in German.

Wie ihr schon wisst, mache ich jetzt einen Fernstudiumkurs durch das Goethe-Institut, um DaF-Lehrerin zu werden. Ich muss ein Praktikum machen, und ich suche gerade eine Stelle. Ich habe 2 potenzielle Möglichkeiten: eine beim GI, die andere bei einer anderen privaten Sprachschule. Es gibt Rahmenbedingungen fürs Praktikum.

Hier folgen 2 Briefe, die nicht 100%ig gleich sind. Ich habe nie so einen Brief geschrieben, und ich weiss nicht genau, wie man einen auf Deutsch schreibt, die Formen usw. Zu formell, zu informell, usw. Und was benutzt man für die Anrede, wenn keinen Namen bewusst sind? (Und in eine Web-Form geschrieben wird...) Grammatik auch bitte korrigieren!

( an die Sprachschule )

Für das Praktikum beim GI muss ich mich zwischen Frankfurt und Mannheim-Tübingen entscheiden. FRA hat billigste Flugpreise; Mannheim-Tübingen ist näher einen Freund in Stuttgart. Ich könnte an die beiden schreiben, und es würde nur die Anrede anders sein. (An welche Person sollte ich schreiben?? Die erste Vier sind Betriebsführer usw.)

( ans GI )

Jo, zu kalt? Zu informell? Grammatische Fehler? Danke nochmal *küsschen*

I got my score on The Exam That Would Not End. 23.5/30, satisfactory/befriedigend (3). Passed. YAY.

I requested exam 2 in the teaching German course to start Friday, so I've been doing that for 2-3 hours every day since, about as much as I can manage before my brain leaks out my ears.

This time I'm asking a million questions about the test questions, because last time I did so poorly (barely passed), and I want to do better. You only get 3 exam retakes, see, and there are 8 modules.

I haven't written anything in about a week, but that's OK. After I've wrangled this shit in German, my brain is done.

I'm reading through this year's Hugo nominees so I can vote. I'm putting my opinions here. Right now I'm reading Throne of the Crescent Moon, and I have to say I'm not impressed. It's generic epic fantasy set in a pseudo-Muslim culture. I'm about halfway through, though I considered giving up around chapter 3, because I was just that bored. I decided to keep going so I could have a fully informed opinion. It's still not urging me to run out any buy the rest, I have to say.

Dude I know from COUP who worships Bill Gates thinks my criticisms of the XBox One are completely irrational and unfounded. Riiight. This is the guy who liked this fucking show so much that he bought a Midori hand puppet. So I'm going to go with "he's a fucking dumbshit who doesn't know what he's talking about" on this one. Also because every time I respond with actual evidence that MS is doing seriously shitty stuff, he stops responding.

So I got the result of my first test in this class back. I passed, barely: 19.5/30 (passing is 19).

I don't know why I did so badly, and the office people won't explain why because it's a Leistungsergebnis and all I can do is read the commentary on my exam, which is shit like "read this section of the book again," and I'm just "Bitch, I was fucking LOOKING at that page when I wrote my answer, why the fuck do you think reading it again is going to help me one fucking bit?"

I've gone between upset-sad and upset-pissed about this so many times, and I'm convinced I'm just too fucking stupid to figure out their vague questions and imprecise definitions. (See also: become more familiar with the terminology and principles of interactive learning... The former isn't exactly well-defined (I had to go to fucking WIKIPEDIA for some shit), and the latter wasn't exactly in the book. So leck mich.))

I feel like I've wasted two thousand fucking dollars.

I need to do a practicum (in Germany, because I don't know of any sites here that meet their criteria), which means another thousand+ dollars for airfare, plus living expenses, plus any fucking fee the site charges.

And I can't learn the way they expect me to. I don't have the ability to guess what they're getting at, I've never taken a linguistics course, the way I learned grammar 20 years ago bears no resemblance to the things I'm reading in this text, and most vitally, I need much more precise, clear explanations of material.

Seriously. I read something, I understand it as far as what's in the text goes, and yay. Apparently I'm supposed to ~reflect~ on everything when I read it so I can teach myself? I don't fucking know.

I'm too fucking stupid to take this class. I can retake up to 3 of the exams (8 total). I'm not terribly hopeful that I can pass at least 4/7.

Fuck all this.

Our forsythia is starting to flower. The rosemary is flowering, but that doesn't mean anything. The rosemary flowers in December. I need to cut away last year's mum so this year's has space to grow, but I want to wait until it stops freezing overnight. I need to prune the rosemary and many of the other giant herbs in the side garden, but I am an indifferent gardener at best.

We've had sun, lots of sun, lately. It was a cloudy, rainy winter this year, unusually so.

My birthday was fun. I had a party Saturday with a bunch of friends, and I made muhammara (awesome), what I am dubbing the Rage Torte, because it didn't work right (tasted good anyway), and chocolate chip cookie cupcakes with cookie dough frosting and a cookie on top. Yeah, it was awesome. We stayed up way too late, especially because it was spring forward, so I spent Sunday all zombiefied and feeling hungover, even if I wasn't.

Ben's parents are coming here this weekend. His mom is giving a talk at NC A&T in Greensboro tomorrow (she's flying out today), then his dad is flying out tomorrow, and we're spending the weekend doing Family Bonding Time, including a birthday dinner at Panciuto (where we pretty much only go when his parents are buying). We have a con staff meeting tomorrow evening, but I told Ben we're leaving by 8 pm because of other obligations (it's scheduled to start at 6:30, probably won't actually start until 7, and will likely run until 9. Half the people leave by 8 anyway, because of other obligations.)

His mom likes gardens and things, but with the colder winter, she is resigned to there not being much out yet, so we'll just go hiking or something Saturday, and Sunday maybe indoors stuff (since it's supposed to be cooler and have a higher chance of rain.) Dunno. Stuff.

I got the box of study materials from the Goethe Institute on Monday. The box weighed 11 kg (24.2 lbs.) I had to rearrange the shelves so I could put them on the more stable one. Which means I had to move all the old pharmacy school texts that were there, and now they're in the newly cleaned space in the 4th room, which means I should just get another bookshelf to put in here. Recycling a book I paid $100 for is ... painful.

Though I found a pair of really nice Minami Ozaki prints that I could ebay.